I want to talk for a few minutes about something no one wants to think about, much less talk about. That is… death. In particular your own death.
Death comes at some point to all living things be it plant or animal. One day, I will die. One day you will die. It is a door which every single person, regardless of wealth, or status, or power absolutely must walk through. Death does not care if you are rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, a star athlete or a fan in the stands. It doesn’t care if you are black, white or brown. It doesn’t care if you are from America, Ethiopia, Vietnam or Bora Bora. Death is truly the “Great Equalizer.” Life has a 100% mortality rate. We can delay death with medicine and machines, we can ignore the thought of it in our daily lives. But what we absolutely cannot do is avoid it, unless the Lord comes before we die a physical death. The book of Ecclesiastes tells us this-
“5 For the living know that they will die…”
Ecclesiastes 2:5
For all living things it has been that way for roughly 8000 years (give or take a millenia or so). Since Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the Garden of Eden it has been so.
Most human beings have an innate fear of death. But the thing is, we shouldn’t have that fear. I like how it is put in the scriptures:
“6b…we are always CONFIDENT and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord…
8 We are CONFIDENT, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
II Corinthians 5:6,8
I’m going to tell you something about death that you possibly know already in the back of your mind but never really put it into this perspective. Are you ready? Here it is… YOU are immortal. All mankind is immortal.
No, I’ve not been watching too many “Highlander” movies, and if you don’t know that reference you can look it up on the internet later.
On that day when your body breathes its last breath, when your body’s eyes glimpse the sun and sky for the very last time, when your heart thumps out its very last beat – your body will die, it will cease to be alive – we all know this, no surprises there.
But the thing is you are not your body. YOU are a spirit. We get our first clue to this in the first very first book of the Bible.
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them…”
Genesis 1:27
God created us in HIS image. What is God? He is spirit. How do we know this? Well, Jesus tells us this. In the gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus is talking with the Samaritan woman at the well and in verse 24 he flatly states it –
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:24
Let me say that first part again… “God is SPIRIT.” So, we can draw the conclusion that when God created man in His image, and we know from the book of John that God is Spirit, we can draw the conclusion that we are created in the likeness of Jehovah’s Spirit. He created man to be a spirit, and he created a flesh and blood body to house that spirit.
You see, who you are is not your flesh and blood and bones and tissue. Who you are is not the body you see in the mirror. Our body is a vessel, that is all. And what does a vessel do? It carries things, it transports things, it protects things. But the body is actually more than a mere vessel that houses our spirit, our body is a vessel that requires us as spiritual beings to maintain and control our vessel
“4 – That each of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor.”
I Thessalonians 4:4
But why should we treat our bodies with such honor? We are told the answer to that question in I Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 19 and 20 –
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? YOU are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
So, you and I must treat our bodies as a Holy Temple, a place worthy of the God most high and the Holy Spirit. And you, that is the spirit that is YOU… when your vessel expires, when your body dies, your spirit will continue to live on. YOU are therefore immortal.
Now what happens to you, your spirit when you die, well, the exact order of events is a topic for another time and to be honest I am not totally clear on that myself, but I can tell you it is unimportant because number one, I will have no control over what happens to me once I breath my last, and number two, I don’t need to care or worry about it because I know what awaits me after that breath will be glorious because I trust in Jesus and God’s plan.
What I want to impress upon you however is this… when you are separated from your body when your body dies, your future is determined and you can do absolutely nothing about it. That is what LIFE is for – so you can do those things that YOU need to do, that Ineed to do, to prepare for that moment.
The recent plane crash in Louisville is a good example. Those pilots, I assume were all good men and qualified to do the things they were trained to do. When they woke up than morning I imagine it was a regular morning to them. They probably got out of bed and had their coffee before getting showered and dressed for their job that day. They likely gave their wives a kiss goodbye, not realizing there wouldn’t be another. They probably got in their car and drove to the airport and went through whatever process a pilot has to go through before they even board the plane. Finally, they got on that plane and prepared to take off, not realizing they would not be alive after the next few minutes. Then when they suddenly plummeted to the ground they likely didn’t even have time to think about all the things they were going to do but will never get the time to do them. Their deaths came so fast it is quite probable they didn’t even have time to pray to God. You see, the death which comes to us all, doesn’t always come slowly after many decades of life as we lie in a bed surrounded by loved ones. Sometimes it comes very quickly, with no chance to seek salvation.
We don’t always have the luxury to wait to do the things we want to do or that needs doing.
There won’t be any do-overs, there won’t be an opportunity to undo some wrong you’ve done, there won’t be an opportunity to help another soul, an opportunity to tell and teach someone about Jesus and salvation.
We see this finality in God’s Word.
“27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgement.”
Hebrews 9:27
(Beat)
There is a line in the Clint Eastwood western “Unforgiven” that comes to mind as we consider deaths finality, and it made an enormous impact on me the first time I saw the movie years ago. Eastwood’s character Bill Munny is talking with his young outlaw protégé The Schofield Kid who has just killed a man. It dawns on him after the adrenaline of the event, that he has just taken a life, and he says to Bill Munny- “It don’t seem real… how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever… how he’s dead…” moments later Eastwood as Munny replies “It’s a heck of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”
Think about that for a moment in relation to YOUR death and what death means for your spirit, your soul… death will take away every physical thing you have in this life, it will take away everything you might ever have had, had you kept on living. Now in the movie of course they’re talking about worldly things, worldly possessions, but it is also true of spiritual matters. Death will take away any opportunity for you to set a Christian example for your children, for your children’s friends. I remember growing up and at times when we had friends over, usually kids from church but sometimes, during the week, neighborhood kids too. Mom would make us all lunch and talk to us and she made sure before we ever took one bite that a prayer was said for the food. Now it didn’t dawn on me then, but it did later in life. Mom was teaching us by example, and not just for my brother and I, but for all the kids that came through our door, and some of those kids had likely never said or heard a prayer at all at home, much less a prayer for their food. But mom made sure we did it and in so doing taught by her example. Death will also take away any opportunity to buy a meal for that stranger down on his or her luck. It will take away any opportunity to talk to your neighbor about Jesus, to talk to your co-worker about salvation, it will take away any opportunity to ask God for forgiveness, to ask God for help, to pray to God on behalf of others. All these things and more will be gone forever. But YOU will still be alive. YOU, meaning your spirit. Only you won’t have an opportunity to change your destination. You will either be headed for Hell or Heaven in that very moment of your physical death.
Mankind in general is afraid of death. And they should be. Mankind, that is those who have not been baptized into Christ, they don’t have the hope which we as Christians have. They don’t have the assurance we have that physical death is not the end. How very sad that is to me and hopefully to you as well.
This reality of death though should humble us. Death is a constant reminder that our time here in this world is finite and that should give us urgency as well as meaning in the way we live our earthly lives.
The thing is, the good news is, you are still alive. Your spirit can still make decisions that will affect whether you spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. You can still repent of your sins, you can still be immersed in baptism if you haven’t been. You can still tell others the good news of Christ. You see there is hope, but like your body, hope is not forever. Hope will be gone with your last breath.
We need to realize that death is not a natural part of Jehovah’s original creation. It is a consequence and result of sin entering into the world.
“12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people…”
Romans 5:12
I’m reminded of a true story my best friend related to me once. As a matter of fact I discussed this incident with you in a previous sermon. It seems there was a family where my friend worshipped who had slowly but surely fallen away and quit coming to worship. They had put worldly pursuits before spiritual pursuits. They had a young daughter, I say young, she was in her mid to late teens I believe, and this daughter had a boyfriend who turned out to be quite violent and one night he killed their daughter. When I heard that story it just broke my heart because all I could think of was she was lost, she didn’t have an opportunity to repent, to turn her life around, to come back to God. She has left her body behind and unless there was some turn-around we aren’t aware of before her death she will spend eternity in torment.
While death is final in the physical reality of this world, for the Christian, it is not the ultimate end of our existence. This is the core of our hope.
The good news of the Gospel is that Christ has conquered death. The scriptures tell us:
54b “Death has been swallowed up in victory. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, o death is your sting?” "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
I Corinthians 15:54-55
The sting of death, which is sin, has been removed by Jesus Christ's sacrifice and glorious resurrection.
Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we have the promise of a future resurrection and eternal life. Jesus said in John 11:25-26,
"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.".
For us as Christians, physical death is merely a transition, a doorway to an eternal life, an immortal life if you will, with God. Paul expresses this joyful anticipation when he says,
"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." He had a desire "to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better"
Philippians 1:21, 23
When a Christian dies, their soul immediately goes into the conscious, state the Bible calls "paradise". We are
"absent from the body and present with the Lord"
2 Corinthians 5:8
The hope this gives us should sustain us not only daily, not only in times of grief, but in knowing our loved ones in Christ who have gone on before us are with Him.
The finality of physical death and the certainty of an eternal, immortal life in Heaven should influence us to make changes in the way we live today.
First, that knowledge should motivate us to a lifestyle of Holy living. The hope of Heaven has a purifying effect on our lives – from affecting our language and our attitudes, to our attendance at worship and talking to others to share with them the knowledge of the same message which gives us hope and will give them hope if they but follow His directives.
Second, the knowledge of an eternal life with Jehovah, Jesus and all the saved before us should give us joy and endurance through life.
18: Our present sufferings (in this life) are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.
Romans 8:18
This perspective of eternal life allows us the ability and knowledge we need to face life's trials with a deeply ingrained joy that the world just cannot understand.
Third, knowing we have eternal life as true Christians urges us to share the Gospel. We should joyously seek to fulfill the great commission of Matthew 28:19, but not only taking the Word to all nations but also as it says in verse 20,
20: “…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”
I would be remiss though, if I didn’t say something about how to attain that salvation, that immortal life in Heaven.
We as Christians know salvation comes because we have done the things Jehovah has told us to do. We’ve heard the good news of Jesus and we have believed it. We’ve turned away from our lives of sin by repenting of the sin we have committed in our lives. We confessed by mouth that we acknowledge the divinity of Jesus because he is the only son of the only living God – Jehovah, and then we have been totally immersed beneath water, dying to our previous life of sin, showing by our action of baptism both obedience to Him and acknowledgement that the Christ is our savior.
So often we have ended there. When I was growing up it was called the five steps of salvation, relegating what I would call the sixth step to being something we’ll tell the sinner about later after we’ve got them baptized. But it shouldn’t be so. Often, I think that next step is the hardest and that’s why we don’t emphasize it enough, thinking we might lose the person if we tell them after baptism they have to live the rest of their life as God would have them live it – following his Word. But the life you lead after baptism is so very important. I liken it to a fruit tree that has been planted. The seed was planted, it germinated, it continued to grow until it is at the age it can start bearing fruit, but then we cut it down before it can bear fruit. We sometimes don’t talk about having to live the remainder of our lives devoted to him, fearing if we do tell them we’ll be killing the chance of converting them and in doing so deprive them of the blessing of bearing fruit and allowing them to in turn sew the seed of the Gospel.
We absolutely must emphasize the need to live Godly lives after baptism, otherwise they will come to fear death and their immortal lives will be lived in the darkness of Hell and the absence of God.
So please, please, don’t wait around, don’t put off seeking God and salvation. You never know when that last breath will be and with it the hope of living your immortal life in heaven.
And the lesson is yours
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