71 - Death and the Intermediate State, Part 1

Striving for Eternity Videos

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

72 - Death and the Intermediate State, Part 2 | Striving For Eternity | Andrew Rappaport

00:14

Welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy.

00:31

This is a ministry of striving for eternity. We're glad to have you with us. This is a class that we are taking on our

00:40

School of Systematic Theology. We are in our introductory class, book number four, which is

00:45

God's program for the ages, the doctrines of the church and the doctrine of last things.

00:52

Today's lesson will be lesson number six. It will be Death and the Intermediate State.

00:58

We encourage you to go to the website at striving4eternity .org. Find out more about the ministry. You can also pick up a syllabus there.

01:06

It is where you can get all the notes, follow along, take your own notes. It is a helpful tool to have with you.

01:14

It is also a way of helping to provide for these classes to continue. As we go through this, we're really at the kind of the tail end of our systematic theology.

01:24

When we do systematic theology, we go through different areas that we are going to focus in on and this is the last one.

01:34

This is the lessons focused on the future things, that which is to come.

01:41

And so, as we look at this, we want to look today at the doctrine of death. Primarily today, we're going to look at death and next class we'll look at the intermediate state.

01:51

But when we discuss things like death and the intermediate state, and we look at most religions who are trying to give and provide answers for the questions of what happens after death and what happens in the state between death and the judgment, we see that there's differing views.

02:11

We see, for example, that Jehovah's Witnesses, they believe, for example, in something called soul sleep.

02:18

It is the idea that there is an after death and an unconsciousness. We are unconscious.

02:24

We don't have an awareness of what's happening. And in that, they would claim in this soul sleep, in this period that we go into a state of being unconscious until the judgment, then we wake up and we are judged.

02:37

This, for example, is a reason that they reject some of the biblical views of heaven and hell.

02:46

That's your blanks there, heaven and hell. When Jehovah's Witnesses talk about heaven and hell, it's different than the

02:52

Bible's definition of heaven and hell. Their view of hell is a non -existence, that someone who is judged gets judged, and they wake up from the soul sleep, they're judged, and they go into non -existence.

03:05

That's their definition of hell, very different than what the Bible describes as an eternal contempt and a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

03:13

Now, the other is that heaven, because they have a differing view of heaven, because heaven is a place where it's actually earth.

03:20

I mean, there's only 144 ,000 that they would say go to heaven. The rest are in earth. The Roman Catholics also have some differing teachings.

03:28

They would teach that there is an intermediate state between heaven and hell called purgatory.

03:34

That's your blank there, purgatory. Purgatory is a place where people have to work off their sins, those things that they have done on earth that still require a little bit of help, still need a little bit more working to do, and that is called purgatory.

03:51

They believe that you die and you go into purgatory, and purgatory is a place where you work off the rest of your sins.

03:59

That's a problem, isn't it? I mean, don't you immediately see a problem? That's works -based. What happens, they say they're not works -based, but even after you have faith, you die, you go to purgatory to work off the rest of the consequence of your sin.

04:15

And you stay there for as long as necessary, but don't worry, your family members can pay money and that reduces your time.

04:24

It doesn't sound like it's by faith, but by moolah. Moolah is by works.

04:30

It's by different things that earn you less time in purgatory. That's what we're going to see. That's very different than what

04:36

Jesus said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. There was no soul sleep.

04:42

It was immediate. In fact, as we also see in scripture, it is appointed unto man once to die and then a judgment.

04:49

So, once we die, we immediately face a judgment. There is no second chances.

04:55

There isn't as, you know, LDS would teach, Latter -day Saints. There is no chance of going to a purgatory.

05:04

It is heaven or hell. That's what it have. What the Bible teaches about death in the intermediate state of the soul will be the emphasis of this lesson.

05:18

Now, when we look at this, let's keep in mind that we're going to talk about death. That's today's lesson.

05:26

I know, not a fun topic. Now, when we talk, you see the Bible will talk about sleep and people say, well, that's where soul sleep comes from.

05:34

Talking of death in the mode of saying that it's sleep is no different than when we say someone passed away.

05:41

By saying they passed away, it's a polite way of speaking of just saying, they're not with us anymore.

05:46

They've died. We don't want to often say death. Death has a finality to it.

05:52

And so often when someone's died, we want to soften that by saying they are asleep or they are passed away or they're not with us any longer.

06:02

Things like this to soften that harshness of the reality of the finality of death.

06:11

And so as we see things like souls or we see things like sleep, just be aware that this is not saying that we are in a soul sleep, but that we are in a state that's called death and we politely call it sleep.

06:25

So let's take a look at physical death. The biblical concept of death we see in three passages that we're going to have here.

06:31

First is going to be Genesis 18, sorry, Genesis 35 verse 18.

06:37

Genesis 35 and verse 18. And as we look at this, it says, and her soul was departing for she was dying.

06:49

She called his name Ben -Ioni, but his father called him Benjamin. So here you have a case where you see her soul was departing for she was dying.

07:01

Now, let me just deal with one technical issue here. The word soul. There are some people that will view that we have three parts, two parts, whether we're body and soul or body, spirit, soul, different ways of viewing it.

07:16

So let me give you my view and how I understand this. There's a material part of man, of humans, that is the body.

07:25

The material part of the human makeup, the human being is always referred to as the body.

07:33

The immaterial part of man is always referred to as the spirit. And then we have this term soul, which can refer to either.

07:42

It can refer to just the immaterial part of man, or it could refer to both parts, to the full being.

07:49

And so I often think that when we look at this, body refers to the material part, spirit refers to the immaterial part, soul can refer to the whole being.

07:59

Sometimes it refers just to the immaterial part. Okay. So as we look at the verse again, we see you got to be kidding.

08:11

Did it freeze? No, it didn't freeze. Okay. It's just my screen. All right. So what we have here is when we look at Genesis 35, 18, we see here that her soul was departing.

08:27

Now, when you see there is the idea that there is this notion that she is her soul or her spirit, it is departing.

08:41

It's leaving. What's it leaving? It's leaving the physical body. Why? Because she's dying. We're going to see this in each of these.

08:49

The notion that when we talk of physical death, we're speaking in the sense that the body and spirit separate.

08:58

And so that's what you have here. Her soul or spirit, that immaterial part of her was dying. It was departing from the physical part of her because she was dying.

09:06

In Luke 23 and verse 46, we said, Jesus called out with a loud voice and said,

09:12

Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. And he said this and breathed his last.

09:17

This is him in dying. What's he saying? That his spirit will continue on. His body is going to be put in a tomb for three days and then bodily raised from the dead.

09:28

But what you see here is as he comes to physical death, we end up seeing that his spirit separates from the body.

09:37

We also see this with Stephen in Acts 7, Acts 7, 59. And it says,

09:44

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

09:51

So you see there with each one of these that you see this idea of the separating of the material from the immaterial part of man.

09:59

You see the separation that occurs at the death process from spirit and body.

10:09

That's important because when we talk about death, there's three types of death.

10:15

There's a physical death, a spiritual death, and an eternal death. So let's take a look at each one of these in turn.

10:23

First, we'll start with physical death. This is that the soul, that spirit, that immaterial part of us does not cease from existing.

10:34

Okay, the spirit does not cease from existence, but it does release.

10:41

And that's your blank there. It does release from the body. That's the idea of physical death. That it is a release of the spirit or immaterial part of man from the body or material part of mankind.

10:54

And so physical death is the separating of immaterial from material. The separating from the spirit from the body.

11:03

Okay, right now, as long as we're alive, we are jointed in one soul that is both body and spirit.

11:09

But a time will come at physical death that our spirit will live on, but our body will die, decay, and go into a grave.

11:18

The physical body returns to death. Okay, that is what's true in physical death.

11:27

The remedy for physical death is the resurrection. That's your blank there, the resurrection.

11:33

That's the remedy. There is a day coming that just like Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead, so you and I will one day bodily raise from the dead.

11:44

We look forward to that resurrection in newness of life and say, well, this is the remedy to physical death.

11:52

Now, one of the things is that I remember that the Catholic Church so hated certain people like John Wycliffe because they had this belief that they would be bodily resurrected.

12:02

That what they actually did was dig up his body and burn it as if God can't figure out how to put the body back together again.

12:10

If you leave a body in the grave, the body is going to decay. That is the natural state.

12:17

It's going to decay. I believe God is capable, the God who created the universe out of nothing is capable of recreating our body.

12:28

Will it be my 24 -year -old version of my body? I don't know. I don't care.

12:34

You won't care whether you have white hair or black hair. Those vain things won't matter.

12:39

You won't care if you have a big belly or small belly or no belly. These vain things about our appearance will not be an issue in the eternal state.

12:48

We won't care. So, we will have a resurrected body one day.

12:54

That is the remedy for physical death. So, physical death, again, it's the separating of the material from the immaterial, from the spirit is separated from the body.

13:06

Okay? Spiritual death. This is the separation of the inner man from a relationship to God.

13:14

In other words, it's a separation of our spirit from God. We see this, you can look in Ephesians 2, 1 -3.

13:22

Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 -3, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

13:34

Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now is at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

13:59

So, what he's saying here, if you look in the beginning, it says you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

14:06

The idea there is there is a death. Now, this is not physical death, but spiritual death.

14:15

This is the spiritual death that occurred in Genesis 3, we'll look at it in a moment, but at Genesis 3, when physical death, when spiritual death occurred immediately upon eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

14:29

So, what you see as we look at this is we end up seeing that it mentions death, and we often want to think of physical death, but it's not always physical death.

14:43

There's different usages of the term death, and in this case in Ephesians 2, it's referring to a spiritual death.

14:52

This separation that we have between our spirit and God, that we are born in a state of separation spiritually from God.

15:03

So, we are born alive physically, and one day we will die physically.

15:11

That's true for all people, except some, there's a few that have not suffered death, but what we see is that we will have a physical death one day, but spiritual death is a condition we're born into.

15:30

We're born spiritually dead. We're born in this state, and being born in a state of separation from God, in our relationship to God, we see that this was primarily the punishment assigned unto

15:42

Adam. That's your blank there. This is the primary penalty assigned to Adam in Genesis chapter 2,

15:50

Genesis chapter 2 verse 17, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

16:04

Now, you notice it says we'll surely die on that day, Adam. Well, on that day,

16:09

Adam did die. He didn't die physically. He died spiritually.

16:16

Now, I know some people say, well, the death process began. On the day he ate of that, the physical decay of the body occurred.

16:23

Well, there is that notion where there is a death that started at that point, but he says here that we will die on that day, and I think that death is a spiritual death.

16:33

Immediately, Adam knew he was separated from God. That's why he tries to hide when he hears

16:39

God's voice in the garden, and so what you see is he immediately knew there was a separation between he and God, and so when we see that, that occurred immediately.

16:51

Did physical death eventually occur? Yes, okay? It did, and so as we look at this passage, we see that this was a punishment to Adam, and we see that this was something that Adam did partake of the fruit, and he did die immediately.

17:07

Now, all mankind except Christ, that's your blank there, except Christ experienced spiritual death.

17:15

Jesus Christ did not have a human father. Therefore, he did not experience the sin nature.

17:21

He did not experience the separation from God the Father and himself. This is important.

17:28

This is one of the things we talked about in Roman Catholicism, and they would argue that Mary had to be born sinless to give birth to a sinless being such as God that presents a problem because then

17:37

Mary's mother had to be born sinless to give birth to Mary. The reality is

17:42

Romans 5, 12 to 21 speaks of the fact that sin is passed on from Adam to his children.

17:49

From father to child, the sin nature is passed on. This spiritual death is passed on from Adam, and therefore, since Jesus Christ did not have a human father, he did not have that sin nature and did not have the separation from his spirit to God, so he didn't have spiritual death.

18:11

Now, the remedy, like I said, the remedy for the physical death is resurrection. The remedy for spiritual death is salvation or regeneration.

18:20

When we are regenerated, we become a new creation. We have entered from death to life, from spiritual death to eternal life.

18:30

Now, when we are in a state, we're born in a state of spiritual death. When we die physically in a state of spiritual death, we suffer eternal death, and that's the next one, eternal death.

18:43

Eternal death is the spiritual death made permanent by rejecting Christ and suffering that eternal state.

18:53

That is what becomes eternal. It makes it eternal. We see this in Revelation 20, 14 to 15.

19:02

We see this in Revelation 21 to 8, where all liars will have their place in a lake of fire which burns with brimstone, which is called the second death.

19:10

That is a death forever. This is a death that there is no remedy for.

19:17

That's your blank there. There is no remedy for eternal death. This is something that's permanent.

19:23

We are all born in a state of spiritual death, and one day we will suffer the state of physical death.

19:33

And if we remain in spiritual death at the time of our physical death, that will make permanent that eternal death.

19:43

There are no second chances. So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, also known as Mormons, they have it wrong when they say you will have a second chance.

19:53

That's not what the Bible says. It's appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. There will be no purgatory where we have a chance to work things off.

20:02

There is no remedy for eternal death. Let me also talk about the origin of death.

20:11

Where do we see this? Well, we already saw this in Genesis 2, 7. Man was not created mortal.

20:19

Man was not created mortal. That's your blank there. Man was created immortal.

20:24

In other words, the difference between eternal and immortal. Eternal means that something that had no beginning, had no end.

20:30

That's God. He's eternal in both directions. He has no beginning and no ending.

20:36

We were born like the angels, immortal. In other words, we had a beginning and then we live forever.

20:42

This is the natural state that we have. When we look through Genesis chapter 2, Genesis chapter 3, we see that the state that man was born into or created into was to live forever and the curse of man affected mankind in such a way that mankind suffered that they would have a physical death.

21:04

That they suffered a spiritual death immediately and that the curse would bring upon a physical death.

21:11

But man was not designed to live for a period of time and then die. Man was created by God to be immortal, to live forever.

21:19

And our spirit does live on forever. Our spirit does not die.

21:25

So, when we looked at the spiritual death and we die physically, if we see that, we're going to realize that there is a physical death that is going to separate our body, which goes into a grave, from our spiritual part of us, that immaterial part of us, that lives forever.

21:48

And that's the point. We will have a life, that spirit, that lives forever.

21:54

It doesn't die. And that's why we can see that it's appointed unto man once to die and then in judgment.

22:00

We're conscious of that. Jesus can say to the thief on the cross, Today you will be with me in paradise.

22:05

You'll be conscious of it. You will know it. Even though the body physically dies as the thief suffered that day, he would know eternal life because of the fact that he would have a knowledge because his spirit continues.

22:21

Now, the first sin brought death to mankind.

22:28

Death to mankind. That's your blank there. The first sin brought death to mankind. Genesis 5, 5.

22:34

And then Romans 5, 12. Genesis 5, 5. We see thus all the days of Adam lived were 930 years and he died.

22:45

Well, he spiritually died the day he ate of that fruit, which was sometime between, you know, nine, well, somewhere within 930 years, right?

22:56

But you see that he physically died 930 years after he was created.

23:02

Now, as you look at Romans 5, 12, it says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.

23:16

So you see here that this is the first sin brought about death unto all of mankind.

23:23

When Adam and Eve sinned and specifically Adam, when he violated God's law, he suffered to death for all of mankind.

23:32

Okay, so this is something that we're going to see as we look into the significance of death.

23:39

So let's look at the significance of death. First, the significance of death for all of humanity.

23:45

Death is inevitable. You can't avoid it. That's your blank there. Death is inevitable.

23:52

If we look at Ecclesiastes chapter 2, Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 15 and 16, it says,

24:00

Then I said in my heart, What happens to the fool will happen to me also.

24:06

Why then have I been so very wise? And I stand in my heart that this also is vanity.

24:18

For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will be long forgotten how the wise dies just like the fool.

24:37

And so you see here is that everyone is going to die. The wise, the fool, we can't avoid it.

24:43

The rich, the poor, you can't avoid it. Everybody is going to physically die one day.

24:48

Now everyone's born spiritually dead, but this is speaking of a physical death. Everybody is going to suffer a physical death.

24:55

Why? Because of the curse of Adam that was brought into mankind. So this is the thing.

25:02

Guys, sorry, but if you're married and you have children and your wife says these kids are misbehaving and it's your fault, it is.

25:12

You are the reason your children have a sin nature. It was passed on from father to child.

25:18

This is why Jesus had no physical father. He was conceived of a virgin without a human father, without a human male conception, and that is why he did not suffer spiritual death and did not have a sin nature.

25:36

So death not only is inevitable, but death is, according to Job, a deep mystery.

25:43

In Job chapter 14 and verse 14, we see here in Job 14, 14, if a man dies, shall he live again?

25:56

All the days of my service I will wait till my renewal shall come.

26:03

There is this mystery that occurs and Job is struggling with this where he ends up is what's going to happen?

26:14

We don't have all the details. And so one of the things is we know it affects all of human beings, but we don't have the clear picture of what happens afterwards as much as we would like.

26:27

But one thing we do know, number three, death is an enemy. That's your blank there.

26:32

Death is an enemy. Look at what it says in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 25 and 26.

26:41

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

26:49

Death is considered to be an enemy, an enemy that God will ultimately put away.

26:56

That's speaking of physical death. Now, that's an encouragement to the heart of the believer because we look forward to that and say,

27:04

I can't wait until this death is gone. I don't have to worry about some of these things of human life.

27:11

But to the unbeliever, death is scary because death makes permanent that eternal punishment, that eternal state of death, that eternal separation from God spiritually.

27:24

Now, that is to all humanity. So every human being will suffer death. Every human being will have a mystery not known fully what's after death.

27:34

And every human being will see death as their enemy, as an enemy that they look to.

27:39

That's true for all of humanity, although things change when we become a Christian because as a Christian, we no longer fear death.

27:45

We no longer, it loses its sting. It loses its power over us because we can look forward to death by seeing that we get to be with Christ.

27:54

But before we're a Christian, it is an enemy. It is something that we look to avoid.

28:01

Now, let's look specifically at the unsaved of humanity, those that are not believers.

28:08

When we look and when they look at death, death means the loss of all that is good and desirable.

28:16

Those are your blanks there. Death is the loss of all things that are good and desirable.

28:24

We can see this in Ecclesiastes 5, verses 15 and 16.

28:30

As he came from his mother's womb, so shall he go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away from his hand.

28:44

This also is a grievous evil. Just as it came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils in the wind?

28:56

So what you see here is, you see this idea of, to an unbeliever, I know there's that gentleman who wrote the book,

29:03

Your Best Life Now, written to Christians. That's not true. You see, that's true only for unbelievers.

29:12

See, to the unbeliever, this is your best life now. To the believer, this is your worst life now.

29:19

But to the unbeliever, this is as good as life can be. And I hear these people that say,

29:25

I think this life is hell. This is the punishment. No, there is a worse punishment coming.

29:32

As bad as you think life is here on earth, if you die in a state without Christ, a worse punishment is coming.

29:41

And so, and that's not a fear tactic. That's just explaining reality. Death means to an unbeliever the loss of everything good and desirable.

29:52

For in death, they will suffer punishment and consequences for breaking God's law.

29:57

That's not good. It's not desirable. And it's not something that they should look forward to.

30:04

And that's why death is seen as an enemy. Now, I want to look at the

30:09

Old Testament saints versus New Testament saints. I want to make a distinction here. Now, the

30:15

Old Testament saints, so in other words, people who in the Old Testament times were believers, they were regenerated,

30:23

God had saved them, but they lived in the Old Testament time before Christ. Because of the

30:29

Old Testament understanding of life and death was limited, we want to take a look at this.

30:34

Death was regarded as a dreadful experience. That's your blank there, a dreadful experience.

30:41

Isaiah 33 verses 10 to 12 says, Now I will rise, says the

30:49

Lord, now I will lift myself up, now I will be exalted.

30:55

You conceive chaff, you give birth to stubble, your breath is a fire that will consume you and the people will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down that are buried in fire.

31:10

So you see, this is not something you look forward to. Even to the

31:15

Old Testament saint, Isaiah is saying, death seems to be a thing you want to avoid. We understand that physical death is something we want to avoid.

31:26

And that's kind of true for the believer as well. We want to serve God as much as we can here on earth.

31:32

But it was a dreadful thing in the Old Testament. Another thing of the Old Testament saints is that the fear, their fear of death caused bondage.

31:43

Their fear of death caused bondage. Hebrews 2, 14 and 15 says,

31:49

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he made himself likewise partake of the same thing that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

32:17

So this is the idea that this was a, to an Old Testament saint, death was seen as a bondage.

32:24

That's your blank there. So not only was it dreadful, but it was also a bondage. Now God's revelation, that's your blank for letter

32:33

C, God's revelation alleviated some of this bondage.

32:38

We see this in Job for example, Job 19 verse 25 to 27.

32:45

It says, For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last

32:52

He will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh

32:58

I shall see God, whom I see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, my heart faints within me.

33:10

You see here that God reveals something of death to alleviate the bondage, to give even the

33:17

Old Testament saint, though they didn't have the knowledge of Christ like we do, but they still saw that there was an alleviating of that bondage, an alleviating of that dread in death, and so it alleviates some of that.

33:32

But it wasn't as clear, and this is something we see throughout Scripture, is that as God reveals more, in that revelation we have a more better, more better, that's bad

33:47

English, that's a worse bad English. Now, we have a better understanding of certain doctrines.

33:55

Why? Because God has revealed more information. So when we look at the New Testament saints, different from the

34:01

Old Testament saints, what do we see? We see that death is no longer to be feared. Death is no longer feared.

34:09

That's your blank there, no longer feared. And we see this, we can see this in Romans chapter 8 and verse 2.

34:16

Romans 8 -2, and in Romans 8 -2 it says, For the law of the

34:24

Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

34:33

So what you see here is that the Holy Spirit sets us free in Jesus Christ from the law of sin and death.

34:41

Sin and death had a fear. It caused us to have a fear, but that fear is alleviated.

34:46

We no longer have that fear. We're free from that fear because of the redemption of Jesus Christ.

34:53

First Corinthians 15 and verses 56 -57, we see here it says,

35:00

The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is in the law.

35:08

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our

35:13

Lord Jesus Christ. So what you see here is that there's a sting unto death and the power of that is in the law.

35:20

In other words, the law brings us to the realization that we are going to suffer a consequence for breaking

35:26

God's law. That brings a fear of death, but the redemption of Jesus Christ, it removes the sting.

35:35

It removes the fear. We look forward to death because in death we get to be with Jesus Christ, the one whom we love.

35:44

And so the fear of death, the sting of death, the power of death is removed in the

35:49

New Testament believer's life. Letter B is grief. That's your blank there. Grief is still associated with death.

35:56

Though there's still the issue of death and the sting is removed, the grief is not.

36:06

John chapter 11 verses 33 -35, when Jesus saw her weeping, this is speaking of Mary, his mother, and the

36:15

Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

36:22

And he said, where have you laid him? Sorry, this was not

36:27

Mary. This is Lazarus, sorry. And he said to him, where have you laid him?

36:33

And they said to him, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. Now, Jesus knows very well in this passage that he is about to raise

36:43

Lazarus from the dead. He knows death for Lazarus has no lasting effect at this exact time.

36:51

He knows he's going to raise him from the dead. He knows Lazarus will die again. But you see, even Jesus is grieved.

36:58

We see that the widows are grieved over the death of a loved one. And to a New Testament believer, there is grief.

37:06

I don't think it appropriate to say to New Testament believers that they should have no grief in the death of a loved one who knows

37:13

Christ because that loved one is with Christ. And that's true. The loved one that knows Christ is with Christ.

37:19

But it doesn't mean that you and I don't suffer the grief while here on earth. We suffer the loss.

37:25

We suffer that grief of missing a person that we love and can't speak to again until we see them in the next life.

37:34

But that doesn't change the fact. Just because there's a grief doesn't mean that the fear is not removed.

37:41

It doesn't mean that we should be grieving in such a way that we stop living for Christ.

37:48

No, Christians do not grieve as if those who have no hope. That's your blank there.

37:54

First Thessalonians 4 .13, but we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about who are asleep that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

38:09

You see, the sleep is the idea of death. We do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are dead.

38:16

But we don't grieve like them, as if we have no hope. And that's your blank there is hope.

38:22

We have a hope. We have the hope of an eternal life. We have a hope that we will be with Christ one day.

38:30

We have a hope that for those who are believers in Christ, we will see them again for eternity in eternal life.

38:40

So we have that difference. Now you say, but what about the believer who knows that his unbelieving family or friends have died?

38:52

Can we grieve? Well, yes, of course we're going to grieve. And we might grieve in a greater way because we know that if they do not know

38:59

Christ, they will have to suffer an eternal consequence, an eternal death. And that does grieve us.

39:05

But in the book of Revelation, it says that God will wipe away every tear. I think that when we are in the next life, we will understand differently the judgment of God.

39:16

And we will understand. And though we grieve, and though we will clearly have tears, Christ will wipe them away.

39:23

And we won't have tears forever. I think we'll understand it.

39:29

Do we grieve for them? Yes. And we probably grieve in a greater way than the unbelievers would grieve for a lost one.

39:35

We have hope for our saved loved ones. And we have hope for ourself if we're saved.

39:42

But we also have a knowledge that those who die without Christ will suffer a consequence, a judgment.

39:47

And that causes us to grieve. But because we know that God is just, our grieving is not like the unbelievers.

39:56

We do not grieve and cause it to cause us to speak out against God.

40:04

No. What it causes us to do is to realize that we should be more evangelistic.

40:11

We should share the gospel with our loved ones. Remember when we said in the previous lesson, or two actually, where we said that the study of end times should cause us to be more evangelistically minded.

40:27

We should have more of an outreach to people wanting to tell them the truth of the gospel because we know where they will spend eternity.

40:36

And this is an example of just that. We should be mindful of the fact that when we know they die without Christ, they will suffer a consequence.

40:47

For even more, for their sake, is the reason we go and we share with them the truth of God's word.

40:54

And lovingly and passionately try to explain to them that they need to repent and let

41:03

God do what God will do. Now next class what we're going to do is look into the intermediate state.

41:10

The intermediate state is the time between death, that moment we die, and that judgment when all those who ever lived die and we go to this next stage.

41:20

Now we're going to discuss that in a little bit of detail. And that will be what we will pick up with next lesson.

41:27

If you have questions about this lesson or any of them, you can feel free to email us at academy at striving for eternity dot org.

41:35

Academy at striving for eternity dot org. You can also go to our store at striving for eternity dot org.

41:43

And what you can pick up there, well one, you can pick up the syllabus for this class. Another thing you can pick up while you're there is my book,

41:50

What Do They Believe, which is a systematic theology of the major western religions. You can pick that up there and learn more about what the bible, what other religions teach and how that compares to what the bible teaches in the last lesson we talk about Christianity.

42:07

Also while you're at the website striving for eternity dot org, you can go find out about our bible interpretation made easy seminar.

42:16

You can find out about this seminar, set it up in your area, get a seminar that you would host in your church or your

42:23

Christian group. Maybe it's your group of, your homeschool group.

42:30

I know there's homeschoolers that take these classes. Well, we can teach your homeschoolers in a weekend in eight hours, six sessions, how to better interpret the word of God.

42:41

So with that, we also have opened, for those who are watching live, the registration. If you go to NorCalFire .info,

42:51

NorCalFire .info, you will see the details where you can register for the

42:56

NorCal Fire. That is an event where we fire Christians up to warn the lost of the fire to come.

43:03

As we were talking about, there is a judgment fire coming. We need to warn the lost. This is an event where we not only train people to evangelize, but we also go out and do that on Saturday night.

43:15

We have experienced evangelists that will help those who are a little bit nervous sharing the gospel.

43:21

We will have experienced people so that you can come out and just learn from experts. We also have a conference aspect to it, and we will be discussing the word of God.

43:30

We have four speakers this year at NorCal Fire. J .D. Hall from Pulpit and Pen, or I think it's now the

43:36

Polemics Report, is the podcast. He will be speaking. We also have Carl Kirby Sr.

43:43

and Carl Kirby Jr. Carl Kirby Sr. will be talking about the book of Genesis and how people are attacking that specific book and how it is important to get right an understanding of God's word.

43:56

But Carl Kirby Jr. is going to be talking about video games. You say, video games? What does that have to do with the word of God?

44:03

A lot, actually. He's going to show how people of the world are trying to indoctrinate people, indoctrinate children with what the word of God teaches through video games, of all things.

44:16

And it's not saying that all video games are bad, but it is saying that there is lessons being taught in some video games, and we need to be aware of it.

44:24

It is a jaw dropper. Carl Kirby Jr., literally when he gets done with his talks, people are in shock because they can't believe that this is what is being taught in some games.

44:36

So, I encourage you, the fourth speaker is, well, me. I will be speaking on 2

44:41

Timothy 3, 16 and 17, and I will be discussing the sufficiency of Scripture.

44:48

So, I encourage you to go to NorCalFire .info. Check that out. Learn more about the

44:55

Spreading the Fire events and where you can attend one in your area, get trained to evangelize. It's really a great time of fellowship.

45:01

It's one of the few conferences you can go to where we keep it kind of small so that you can spend time with the speakers.

45:08

You don't have to sit there and just hear the speaker up there at the stage speaking, but you can actually have lunch with them.

45:14

You can sit down and talk with them. We make it so that they make themselves available. You'll also get to see them evangelizing on the streets.

45:22

So, they participate in that as well. So, I encourage you to come out for that. Until next week, we encourage you to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.