Can A Christian Have Joy Knowing That Death Is Certain? (Part 3)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Christ-Centered Ministry and Preaching Jesus

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. That�s what we�re after. I used to pretty much make the show about exposing compromisers so that we don�t compromise and we can see those that do.

A discernment ministry. Maybe not, but some of it was that. Some of it was with Steve, and we dealt with church issues, and of course Monday, the sermons. But after time went on, of course, I�m thankful for maturation in Christ.

Even pastors and radio hosts mature, hopefully. Everything turned more into talking about the one who never compromised, the Lord Jesus. I always do the things pleasing to the Father. That�s what He said.

That�s what Jesus said. Pretty amazing. If I am known for anything these days, and the thrust of the ministry is basically this, preaching Christ, a Christ-centered ministry, Christ for pardon, Christ for power, Christ for justification, Christ for sanctification, monergistic justification, sanctification, glorification, etc.

So, preaching Christ, to Christians even, that�s a novel concept, and encouraging them as they behold their God. Secondly, and this is no, maybe it�s in order, I don�t know, law gospel, understanding law, do, gospel, done, in Christ Jesus, strictly speaking, and that the law is from either the judge or from the hand of Christ, our friend and advocate.

It either condemns us as unbelievers or it guides us as believers. So understanding law gospel and making sure that when we preach to people, the motivation is never law. Law just guides. It�s like a GPS.

It doesn�t do anything. The engine or the horsepower behind the motivations to obey are all about the God who loved us and gave His Son for us. So that�s Christ-centered law gospel. Sanctification, I like to talk about that a lot because I want you with energy to pursue holy living.

I want you to exercise, wrestle, fight, pray, watch, obey, but all for the right reasons. God is working in you. God is enabling. God is renewing. God is sanctifying. Romans 6, 1 and following, and we take that by faith.

That's really the first response. That's the response of God sanctifying work is we believe it. We don't know it's true in the sense that I can't feel Jesus praying for me. I know He does. I believe that by faith.

Chapter 6, verse 11, I reckon, I count, I think these things. I take them by faith that this has all happened. I�ve died with Christ, I�m raised with Christ, et cetera, and I�m united with Christ and He is enabling me to mortify and to live a righteous life.

And then what else? Covenant of Redemption, Covenant of Works, Covenant of Grace, those type of things. And I'll put that all together. I'm working on a book for that very thing. You can go to Heidelblog.

I encourage you to go there. All kinds of great resources, R. Scott Clark. And you can find the article I wrote, From Lordship to Law Gospel. And I just was on a podcast the other day, and they were asking me a little bit about that.

Something to the effect, I won't even get into it now. You'll have to go listen to that. I'm going to talk about something else today. Anyway, that's what I want to be known for. Pastor Mike talked a lot about Jesus.

Yeah, he had a lot of problems. But that's, by the way, one more reason why I want to talk about Jesus, because I have so many problems. I'm not the focus. I'm not the Mark Driscoll of this operation, right?

Or who runs, is it Brian Houston? Did he run the whole Hillsong deal? I mean, can you imagine Hillsong basically started off because of one song? I know that's not true, but it seemed like to me, shout to the Lord, it just started a whole industry.

I'm just one song away of an entire empire. Oh, brother, if you got the right music, right, and the right machine to promote it, a lot of things can change. You can manipulate a lot of people with the right music, right?

Anyway, on the radio show, we do a lot of different things, mainly talk about Jesus. And sometimes I come in and talk on Saturdays about what I'm going to preach on Sundays. I don't talk on Sundays. I preach on Sundays.

I mean, I talk outside the pulpit, but when I'm in the pulpit, I'm preaching. I'm not lecturing. I'm not giving homilies. I'm not sharing. I'm not broken and wounded. I'm a proclaimer and I would walk 500 miles, isn't that the name?

Is it the proclaimers? I don't even know, but I proclaim, what do I proclaim? Christ Jesus, verse by verse, every one of the 66 Christian books that are in the canon. And we're in Ecclesiastes now, the preacher, he has a message to his congregation and he's a son of David.

Many think Solomon. Some good scholars actually don't think it was Solomon. It doesn't really matter to me. It seems like Solomon fits in terms of his resources and his background and the 700 wives and the 300 porcupines.

I don't know, every time I read concubines, that's what I think of. I mean, how do you describe a concubine to a kid? Daddy, what's the difference between a wife and a concubine? A combine in Nebraska is what you see out there in the farm.

A concubine is going to give you a lot of problems anyway. That's left to you, dad. That's the good news is. That's the good news for me. I do it the way I want to do with my kids. You do it the way you want to do.

I'd say you could even tell your children, well, that's a good question. When you're older, we'll talk about it. That's all they need to know. You could say that if you wanted to, or you could say, it's like a girlfriend, or you could say, it's a man who's married to a woman, but he's got a girlfriend too.

Isn't that wrong, children? That would be so wrong, et cetera. Ecclesiastes 3, he's dealing with the subject of death. Death is coming. Deathbeds are coming, coming for you and for me. Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling.

That's right where it comes from, that hymn. And how do we live? Can we have any joy knowing that we're going to die? I mean, from our perspective, if you didn't know of anything else, if eternal verities did not exist, you bury a dog, you bury a person.

I mean, actually, some people act like animals, and so they probably should have the same end of animals. What do we do? That's really question five found in verse 22 of chapter three. What should we do in light of our impending death?

There's a day, I mean, let's just say how many days you've got left to live can kind of hover over your head, and you could see it in the mirror or other people could see it. Some of you, I mean, I just was at the hospital earlier today, and a man with terminal cancer, maybe he's got 60 over his head.

I don't know. I'm gone this summer. I said, I hope to see you when I get back. Maybe, maybe not. What if mine says 300? 3 ,000? I mean, I don't know. There's a number though. You say yes, but if Jesus comes back, then everybody's got the same number.

That is true. How many days we have left on earth? We'll all have the same number. Do you know one is the loneliest number? Oh, that's Ecclesiastes chapter four. Boy, that's a bear of a chapter to preach, just at first look.

Wow. We'll get there soon enough. Maybe we won't. Maybe my number's 30, so I don't know. What do I do knowing that I'm going to die? I mean, just some people, then let's get on with it. Right? And they take matters into their own hands.

That would be foolish and sinful. Here's what he says. Verse 22. So I saw that there's nothing better than a man should rejoice in his work for that is his lot, for who can bring him to see what will be after him?

If you are a child of God because of sovereign grace alone, God has given you faith to trust the Lord Jesus as your sin bear and victorious savior, conquering sin, death, Satan, hell, and the grave. How do you live?

What do you do? What do you do knowing you're going to die? What's Solomon say? Rejoice in your work. Work and have some joy as you work. That's interesting. Hmm. That's a lot different than Ernest Hemingway, the unbeliever.

Life is just a dirty trick from nothingness to nothingness. Or John Updike. I have time at last to consider my life. This its stubby, stale end. Remember Ephesians, I mean, Ecclesiastes? There's a time for everything.

Time, time, time, time, 30 times the first few, you know, the first 10 verses or 11 verses the word time is used. There's another time for judgment expected. Well, now there's a time for what? Well, know we're going to die.

There's a time for what? There's a time to rejoice in your work. That's the response. Rejoicing. He didn't say it's a time to curse God. It's a time to cry, panic attack, paralyzed with fear, can't do anything.

Matter of fact, I'm going to write that down, paralyzed with fear. That's going to the sermon tomorrow, allegedly. You have some work, you do a good job, you rejoice in it. I've done certain things in my life, kind of half-baked, no fun in that, but if you'd done a job well, of course, by the grace of God, but you've done a job well, and there's some pride in that.

He's like, hey, I even like mowing the lawn in that sense, when I'm done, I take a look at it and go, what would it look like before? What did it look like after? Hmm. Good. Done. Finished. Rejoice. Got it done.

My to-do list, now that Kim's in California and I'm on my way, I have like a little sheet, eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper, kind of cut in half, and every day at the top it says, Saturday and today on that, it just has the list of all the things I'm supposed to do.

A couple of times I don't get them done. I have to switch and cut and paste, or I have to add certain things. But if I get through that list today, and I think, okay, I needed to go visit that dying man in the hospital.

Okay. I did that. I'm going to need to record three NOCO radio shows. Do that. We have a member of our church, he's getting married and he's moving to Iowa. He's getting married today at 2 .30, Francis.

Some of you maybe know Francis. He was my preaching class. And Francis is 41. It's his first marriage. It's Manuela's first marriage, and they're going to get married online at 2 .30. I'm going to watch that.

Then I'm going to work a little bit on the assurance book. Then I'm going to do a little bit of stuff around the house, water my wife's blueberry plants and roses, check, check, check, check, get all that done.

Make sure I've got my clothes set out for tomorrow and preaching. Do this, that, and the other. Do things with the car, start the generator, put some stable in it. I have this whole list and when I'm done, I look back and I think, got it done.

I'm done. Look what I've accomplished. I mean, when I write a book, I haven't written a book for a long time, this next one, the seventh one, it's going to be delivered to the house pretty soon, a little test run.

And after I get all that corrected and then send it, and then I'd say to Amazon, send me 20 books and they're going to arrive and I'm going to go, what a great sense of accomplishment. This particular one, I didn't even really write.

I mean, I just wrote a chapter, but still put it together, start to finish concept, a final product. Maybe the Lord could use it in the hands of people. Maybe there's one book my family will finally read of mine.

They say, dad, we don't read the books. You're the book. We wait till you die, then we read your books. Deal. Okay. I'll take it. What's he say? So rejoice in your work. He didn't say party on. You can rejoice.

You can be proud of it. You can take pride in your work. If you're a fireman or a fire lady, do a good job putting out fires. If you're a baker or a cobbler, work on the internet. That's what you do. Say, okay, I'm going to trust God.

I've got to get some things done. It's like Luther, write this down, second coming. Plant a tree. If I know Jesus is coming back tomorrow, I'm going to plant a tree today. That's exactly this. We're mortal, so we rejoice in what we can see, what we can do.

God has given us this work. That's all. Our mortality should make us work under the Lord. And now we could talk about rewards and how God's honored when we work, what's he want us to do. Yes, it's difficult work.

It's sweat work. There are weeds, et cetera, fallen world. But we can work. Isn't that good? So, I mean, I'm not saying work is always fun, but when you do a good job and you see the product and you go, all right, got it done.

Mission accomplished. Check that off. They're going to give me a new thing to work on tomorrow. Hey, I didn't write this. It says rejoice in your work. Are you? Sure got quieter all of a sudden, didn't it?

By the way, I'm not saying moms don't work. I'd always say to people, I'd get up and go to work when the kids were younger. Kim got up at work, right? She slept at work because she got up to work with the kids.

That's a lot of work. And it's redundant work. Is it not? Diaper after diaper, after diaper, after diaper, after diaper. Can you go get more diapers? Can you throw away these diapers? I mean, it just go get the decedent, go get the baby formula, which doesn't exist anymore.

Go get the food, go get this, that, and the other. I mean, it just never ends. And so, ladies too, you're home with your children, you're working there at home, raising your children, guess what? Should rejoice in that.

Should rejoice. Of course, you know this, but I can say it now as an older grandpa kind of guy, 62 years old. To quote Trace Atkins, you're going to miss this. How was that in my mind? I'm not even really a big country music fan.

I like Hank Williams Sr. I like Charlie Crockett. I like some George Jones. That's about it. You're going to miss this. You're going to wish these days were back. You're going to wish these days were here.

Rejoice. Always, and again I say, rejoice. Well, that's Ecclesiastes 3, 18 to 22. Is there another question though? I want to have one last question. It's not in the text, but it's in the sermon. Should death terrify the Christian?

Should death terrify you? You're a believer, you're trusting in Christ. I want you to know the tomb is empty. Jesus' tomb is empty. Jesus has risen just as he said. The angel said to the women in Matthew 28, do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here for he has risen as he said. That's what makes Christianity wonderful. It's the risen savior, the Lord Jesus. He's rescued, he's redeemed, he's forgiven, he's saved, he's defeated our enemy.

And he's appeared, he proved it. He appeared to Cephas. Then the 12, he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, and then he appeared to James and then the apostles, and then he also appeared to Paul.

He appeared, the literal Jesus alive. That should give us some hope. Now the dying part, I can see how you've got some concerns about that. Nobody wants that. But the actual final breath part, the final death, we don't go to eternal death, no lake of fire, no eternal judgment.

Your deaths have been paid. First Corinthians 15, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, and he is, how could some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead, like for us? If there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

So see what Paul's doing in First Corinthians 15? If there's no resurrection, Jesus isn't alive. And so if you're saying there's no resurrection for us, because there's never been a resurrection, then if there's never been a resurrection, then I guess Jesus is not alive.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. Talk about vanity of vanities. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testify about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if this is true that no one from the dead has been raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. Talk about futility, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people the most to be pitied. What they say about us is true then, if Jesus isn't alive. First Corinthians 15, 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep or died. For as by a man death came, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Without Jesus alive and raised from the dead, we are to be pitied. Jesus alive, guess what? The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for he has put all things under his feet. When he says all things put under his feet, it is evident that he put all things under him.

Sorry, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Now, when exempted? Accepted. Excepted? It's a typo here. Good thing I do this, right? Now I have to go to the real text here. That's why I review your notes, dear children, on No Compromise Radio.

I was doing a good job, I thought, until I got there. 1 Corinthians 15, 26. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him.

So it's an exception, that's what he's saying. When all things are subject to him, are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who puts all things in subjection under him that God may be all in all.

That makes it better. I'm trying to think, accepted? No, no, it's not accepted, exception, like the exception clause. You afraid of dying? Well, nobody wants a slow death or any kind of painful death.

I guess every death is painful unless it was like some nuclear bomb and it was on top of your head. You won't even have time to say ouch kind of thing. If you just shut your eyes and two seconds later wake up in heaven, that's what it's gonna be, except it's not gonna be two seconds.

It is going to be to live as Christ and to die again. Paul said, if I live in the flesh, this will mean fruit for my labor, yet what I shall choose I cannot tell for I'm hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you, Philippians 1. Whatever the best things are in your life, heaven's better. Grandkids, better. Spouse, better. Wonderful five-star meal, better.

Honeymoon night in a honeymoon suite, better. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. It doesn't matter if it's life or death or anything in between. We're victors because of Jesus, the victorious one.

He, Jesus, has abolished death and brought to light an immortality to light through the gospel. Could the Bible be more clear about this? No. Jesus said, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.

Hebrews 2, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he, Jesus himself, likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the death of the one who has the power of death, that is the devil.

God can't die, so now he, the son, assumes human flesh so that human flesh could die. And now he delivers all those who, through the fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery, slavery of being afraid to die.

That's the tool, that's the stick that Satan has. For surely it's not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore, Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation, or assuaging the wrath of God for the sins of the people.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he, Jesus, is able to help those who are being tempted, even when they, or you, or me, are tempted to somehow be afraid of death and not trust in the promises of God.

That's your savior, that's your champion. Why do you fear? Why are you afraid? Luther said, do you not know that the prince of this world has been judged? He is no Lord, no prince anymore. You have a stronger Lord, Christ, who has overcome him.

That's good news. My name's Mike Abendroth, NoCompromiseRadio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.