What Happens When We Die

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Open your Bibles with me and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and we're going to be in verse 35, and we're going to read to verse 44.
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1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 35, the title of today is, What Happens When We Die? What happens when we die? Verse 35, but someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
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And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
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But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
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For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
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There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind and the glory of the earthly is of another.
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There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for the star differs from star and glory.
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So it is with the resurrection of the dead.
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What is sown is perishable.
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What is raised is imperishable.
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It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body.
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It is raised a spiritual body.
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If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
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May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word.
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Let us bow our heads and ask Him to be with us as we study.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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Lord, this is such a tremendous passage and Lord, one that is very weighty on our hearts as it deals with a subject that is often not discussed in polite company, the subject of death.
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And yet our death, Father, is not left to a hopeless, eternal darkness, but Lord, we have hope in a resurrection and life eternal.
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So Father, as we look at this subject of death today, I pray that You would give us a sense of sobriety, that You would keep me from error as is my constant plea when I teach.
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Father, that You would open the hearts of all of us to the truth of this Word.
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Holy Spirit, have Your way, speak through me and implant this Word in the ear, through the mind and down into the heart of all that are Yours.
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And Father, for those who have not come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, may it be that today be a day of reckoning for their soul.
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May they be confronted with the reality of their own mortality and with the reality that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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And I pray all this in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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What happens when we die? Death is a subject that no one really likes to discuss.
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And yet, it is a subject that we all ponder.
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When we ponder death, our minds are filled with questions.
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What will it be like? When will it happen? Is there any escape? And we know the answer to the last one is no, and yet we still ask.
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Death is the one sure and certain reality in life.
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It's not one you have to convince people is going to happen.
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We see it happening every day, and we know ultimately it will happen to us.
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According to ecology.com, 151,600 people will die today.
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That equates to 6,316 people every hour.
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That equates to 105 people a minute and about 2 people every second.
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We'll die all around the world.
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Death is, as I have said before, the greatest of statistics.
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Ten out of every ten people will die.
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Death is indiscriminate.
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It comes to the rich and to the poor.
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It reaches the highest of penthouses and the lowest of dungeons.
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Royal doors cannot block its entrance.
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Wealth cannot bribe it away.
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Youth is no protector from it.
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Death knows no bounds.
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Even the Bible reminds us of this in the ninth chapter of the book of Hebrews when it tells us that it is appointed for man once to die.
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And after this is judgment.
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Every man has an appointment that is known only to God for which he will arrive neither one minute too early or one minute too late.
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Young people, you hearing me? You have an appointment.
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You may live another 60 years and yet you will not miss this appointment.
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Within theology there is a doctrine called eschatology.
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You guys are probably familiar with that term.
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Maybe you've used it.
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Maybe you've heard it.
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The term eschatology is the doctrine of last things.
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Eschaton simply means last.
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It's the Greek word for the last or last things.
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And most people who study eschatology concern them things like the rapture or the return of Christ, interpretation of Revelation or just which one of those millennial positions are you going to hold.
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That's usually what people are talking about when they talk about eschatology.
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But a huge part of Christian eschatology actually deals with our understanding of death and resurrection.
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Each of us has our own individual end that is coming.
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In fact, people ask me sometimes, Do you think we're living in the end times? I say sure we are.
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Within a hundred years every one of us will be gone.
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It might not be the end times for the world but it's the end time for you.
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Within a hundred years no one in this room will be alive.
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Unless some miracle of genetics happens and you maybe lived 120 years.
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You're in your own end times.
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I think that's why people get so fascinated with eschatology.
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They figure it's my end time, might as well be the end of the world.
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If it's the end for me, it might as well be the end for everyone else.
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But the reality is it is the end times for you.
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We all have a personal, individual eschaton to look forward to.
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By the way, don't look so grim.
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Everybody looks down right now.
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And you're like, well you're telling us we're all going to die.
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You didn't come here knowing that this morning? Is that a surprise? Am I telling you anything you didn't know? Maybe the statistics about how many people died since I started talking.
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I figure I usually preach for just a little under an hour.
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6,000 people are going to die by the time I get done with this sermon.
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Well as part of our introduction this morning I want to talk about the Christian understanding of death.
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Because there's actually two areas that we need to understand to really understand the sermon today.
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We need to understand what happens at death.
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And we need to understand what happens at the final resurrection.
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So let me just clear this up right now.
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When we talk about what happens when we die, we're actually talking about two distinct things.
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What happens immediately when we die.
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And what is going to happen at the end of the age when Christ returns.
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And there is that great resurrection day.
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It used to be an old southern phrase.
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I don't remember if it was a song or if it was a poem.
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But it was called the great getting up morning.
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The great getting up morning.
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And it was the idea that one day there's going to be a day that Christ returns.
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And everybody is going to get up.
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It's the great getting up morning.
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It's the great resurrection.
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But we need to make a distinction between what happens if you were to die today.
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What's going to happen today versus then.
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I want to tell you the passage we're dealing with is not talking about what happens when you die immediately.
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The passage we're in today talks about the great getting up morning.
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It's talking about the resurrection.
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You understand the difference? Because there is confusion within people's eschatology or people's understanding of death and resurrection.
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There is confusion among a lot of Christians because a lot of people do not have a biblical eschatology.
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They have an eschatology based on experience or based on things they've heard.
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A lot of people think when you die you become an angel.
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That's not true.
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You've heard people say, well, this person gained their wings today.
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It's not true.
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You're not the same type of being as an angel.
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You don't get to become an angel when you die.
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It's just not biblical.
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There are other people who believe that when you die that's the last state of being.
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That you're going to translate into a spiritual, mystical, ethereal being.
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And you're going to remain that way forever.
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That's not right either.
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So we need to understand a theology of eschatology when it regards our death and our resurrection.
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That's why I say eschatology really deals mainly with the resurrection.
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More than millenniums and revelations and tribulations and raptures.
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The most important thing is what's going to happen when you die and what's going to happen when you rise from the dead.
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Are you with me so far? Okay.
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Because we're going to talk first about what happens when you die.
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This is not the point of Paul's passage.
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I feel like it's necessary to talk about.
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Only because it distinguishes what Paul's saying from what I'm sure people get confused.
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Because there are people who believe in something called soul sleep.
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They believe that when you die, your soul dies.
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There's a fancy word, it's called psychopenicia.
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Basically it means this.
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That your soul, that's the psyche in Greek.
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Your soul is so intricately connected to your body.
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That when your body dies, your soul also sleeps or dies.
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Everything goes into the ground.
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And you're basically going to be asleep until the time of the resurrection.
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And at the time of the resurrection, you're going to wake back up.
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And for you, it'll be instant though.
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Because just like when you fall asleep, you know, if you fall asleep at 9 o'clock at night, you wake up at 6 in the morning, there's like no time passed.
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So the idea for those who believe in soul sleep, they believe you're going to die and you're going to wake right up.
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Because for you, it'll be as if no time has passed.
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Here's the issue with that.
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That has never been the position of Christian orthodoxy.
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In fact, it's only been held by groups that we would consider that would be at least on the fringe of orthodoxy, some even outside of orthodoxy.
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It's held by the Seventh-day Adventists.
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It's held by the Jehovah Witnesses.
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It's held by a few Protestant groups.
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But it has never been the consistent testimony of the orthodox Christian church.
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So if you believe in soul sleep, just know that you're...
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I wouldn't necessarily say it's heresy.
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I just don't think it's biblical.
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I wouldn't say you're going to go to hell for believing...
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It's not like denying the Trinity or something like that.
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It's not a damnable heresy.
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But I do think it's important that you understand that it's not something that the church has held.
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It's not something that's biblical.
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It's certainly not supported by the Scripture.
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Because what we would say is supported by Scripture is what we would call continued consciousness of the soul.
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Rather than soul sleep, we would say that when you die, your soul is still very much conscious.
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And it is conscious until the time of the resurrection when your body and soul are brought back together and you are changed into your new final body.
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And that's what Paul's talking about in our text today.
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He's talking about the new changed body.
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We're going to get there in just a second.
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But just for a moment, if you'll indulge me.
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And I'm sorry to spend all this time on introduction.
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But if you'll indulge me for a moment, I want to show you why we should believe that the soul at death is still alive.
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I'll give you a few passages.
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If you want to write these down, you may.
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Or you can just put them in your mental memory banks.
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The first one is the words of Jesus Christ on the cross.
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Jesus is on the cross.
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He is surrounded by two men.
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One who believes in Him, one who does not.
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The man who believes in Him says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
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And Jesus says in Luke 23, 43, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
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Not at the end of the age.
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Today you will be with me.
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Now those who believe in soul sleep have a very creative way to get around this.
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They say, well, the comma is in the wrong place.
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They say, what do you mean? Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise.
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They say, no, no, no.
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He said, I say to you today, as in I'm saying it today, comma, you will be with me in paradise eventually.
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So they're messing with the grammar a little bit.
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It doesn't work grammatically, but they try to force feed it because it denies what they're teaching.
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And so when a passage denies what they're teaching, you've got to manipulate the passage.
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By the way, Greek in the first century did not have commas.
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It did not have that type of writing.
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So to say that it's the comma that's the problem, there's no comma to begin with.
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So it's sort of a goofy little abstraction there to even argue it.
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But I think Jesus is making a point.
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Today, you're going to be with me in paradise.
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Not tomorrow, not the next day, not a year from now, not 50 years from now, not 2000 years from now, but today.
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Another passage is when Stephen is being stoned.
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Acts chapter 7 and verse 59.
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Remember what happened when Stephen was being stoned? He looked up and he saw the Lord standing and he said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
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Receive my spirit.
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Now you say, well, maybe Stephen was just wishful thinking.
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I don't think he's wishful thinking.
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I think he knew what was about to happen.
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I think he knew this body was about to be stoned to death and his spirit was going to be present with the Lord.
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One of the passages that really encouraged me in this understanding is Revelation chapter 6 verses 9 and 10.
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Now I understand Revelation is a difficult book to interpret.
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It is written in symbols.
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It's written in types.
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And so we have to understand that.
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But there are certain passages that seem to be just very straightforward.
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And this is one of them.
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Revelation chapter 6 verse 9.
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When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness that they had borne.
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They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Notice this about the souls.
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One, they were martyred.
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Two, they knew it.
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And three, they're crying out for justice, which means the final judgment had not yet come.
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So this precedes the return of Christ.
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And yet they're conscious.
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They know who they were.
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They know who they are.
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And they are fully aware that the earth is still in existence and has yet to be judged.
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So it tells us a lot about these people in that position.
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Now there's another passage a lot of people like to quote, and you might have thought I'd have went here first, but I like to build a case, and I've been building the case.
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But this is another passage that is very important, and many of you probably know it.
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2 Corinthians 5.8.
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The apostle Paul says, We are confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
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Now again, some people argue, Well, that's just Paul's wishful thinking.
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That's not the way it is.
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That's just the way Paul wanted it to be.
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Absent from the body and present with the Lord.
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I don't think so.
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I think Paul is giving us a very clear reality here.
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When you die and your body is dead, your spirit is not dead.
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It's with the Lord.
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In fact, James 2.26.
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This is one a lot of people don't think about.
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James 2.26 is actually talking about faith and works.
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But listen to what he says.
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For as the body, apart from the spirit, is dead, so also is faith, apart from works, dead.
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Notice the illustration James is using.
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The body that doesn't have the spirit is dead.
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What makes a man dead? The spirit leaving the body.
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In fact, have you ever thought about the fact that our death is one of the most unreasonable things in all of nature? Because when we die, there's no coming back.
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In the sense of, if your car dies, let's say the carburetor goes out.
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Fuel injector, you don't have carburetors anymore.
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Whatever, I don't know anything about cars.
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I know this.
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Some of you do.
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And you know that if something dies in your car, you take that out and put a new one in, and it starts right back up.
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Now, our bodies are amazing in that if my heart were to start having trouble, it's possible to take my heart out and put a new one in before I die.
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But after I die, you can put all the new parts in me you want.
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In fact, you could, Frankenstein monster, you could put new arms on, new legs on, you could put new internal organs in, you could shock me with a bolt of lightning, and you know what I'm going to be? A hot corpse is what I'm going to be.
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Because it's just not going to bring me to life.
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Because the body without the spirit is dead.
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Have I proved my point? Can I move on? Well, let me just mention one other passage.
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I like to build a case.
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And let me tell you this.
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Luke 16 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture.
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Because it talks about two men at death.
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One was a poor man who was righteous.
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One was a rich man who was wicked.
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And it says the poor man, when he died, I want to read the passage.
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Luke 16, verse 22.
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It says the poor man died, and he was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.
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The rich man also died and was buried.
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Notice it didn't say the poor man was buried.
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He probably died.
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He probably wasn't even given a proper burial.
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But he was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.
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That's paradise.
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That's what Jesus was talking about.
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But the rich man died.
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He got his proper burial.
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Verse 23.
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And in hell, and Hades in the Greek, in hell, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off.
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The poor righteous man dies.
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He is carried by the angels.
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He is greeted at death.
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I'm going to be teaching on angels.
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And one of the great things I love to teach about angels is that this passage shows us that at death, God provides for his people a comfort.
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The wicked rich man had no comfort.
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He closes his eyes and he opens them in hell.
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But it's an immediate, conscious reality.
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Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you understand how serious this is? When you die, you will be awake.
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If you die unconscious, you're going to wake right up.
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You will either be with the Lord awaiting your resurrection or you will be in a place of torment awaiting a lake of fire.
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This is why sometimes it's called a state of waiting.
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Those people under the altar in Revelation chapter 6 are waiting.
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So too will we be waiting on the last day.
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Because it's not the end.
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It's a place of waiting.
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It's not purgatory.
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Don't let the Catholics fool you.
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Because they believe in purgatory, which means you die in your sins and you have to keep being purged of your sins.
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And purgatory is like purging fire.
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That is not biblical.
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That is not biblical.
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You're either with the Lord comforted until the final return or you are in hell not comforted and you're just waiting for it to get worse.
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There's only two places.
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So as I said, this isn't what Paul's addressing.
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You say, well, you're supposed to stick with the text.
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Yes, but you've got to understand the context.
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Paul is dealing with people who are thinking about the resurrection, not necessarily what happens at death.
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But I know a lot of us don't know how to distinguish between the two.
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So today it was important for me that you understand how to distinguish between what happens at death and what happens at the resurrection.
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Now that we've made that distinction, let's look at what Paul says about the resurrection.
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Everybody understand now? We're no longer talking about what happens right after you die.
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We're talking about what happens when Christ splits that eastern sky.
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And I'm looking forward, in a couple of weeks I'm going to be preaching about that moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
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That's coming up.
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And boy, I'm excited.
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That's an exciting reality.
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That's what Paul's talking about right here.
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Verse 35.
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Let's now begin working our way through the text.
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We're going to look at first the questions.
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Verse 35, it says, "...someone will ask." Who? Who's asking? Well, Paul has been dealing with questions this whole chapter.
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Back in verse 12, he was dealing with the question of whether or not the resurrection was even something that was true.
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Some people didn't believe in the resurrection.
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Now, he's answering the question of someone who might believe in the resurrection, but they have some questions.
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Let me ask you this.
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Do you have questions about the resurrection? Thank you, Jerry.
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If you sat in a circle with ten Christians, do you think you might come up with a few questions? What if you die old? Are you going to stay old? That's a question.
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What if somebody dies with a missing limb or a deformed feature? Are they going to have that in eternity? I mean, these are real questions people have.
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It's not bad to have a question.
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It's not ungodly to ask, you know, if my body has scars.
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Do I have scars there? What if I'm disintegrated? What if I get exploded? Is that the right way to say that? What happens if I'm sunk to the bottom of the ocean and my body gets picked apart by carnivorous fish? Is God going to be able to put all that back together? What about cremation versus burial? That's a huge question people ask.
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Some people believe it's a sin to be cremated.
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I don't believe so, by the way, in case you're wondering.
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It's not the typical historic Christian method of burial.
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But that's really a conversation for another time.
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It doesn't make it wrong.
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It's just not the traditional method.
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All you're really doing is expediting the process of becoming dust.
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And you're going to be dust anyway.
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We're going to talk about that in a minute.
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So I don't think it's necessarily wrong.
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It's just not typical.
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It's becoming more typical.
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Why? Because it's less expensive.
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That's why.
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Just be real.
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It's become more typical because it's difficult to go through the process of burial.
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But again, these are all questions people have.
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What about babies? If a baby dies, is it going to be grown up in heaven? That's a question people...
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Are we going to see our baby as a baby? You know, these are questions people have.
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So Paul is dealing with someone who has a question.
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We don't know who this person is.
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I think it's a generic someone.
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He said, someone will ask.
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He's...
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Paul is like an investigator.
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He's always assuming the question.
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Someone's going to ask, what kind of body do they come? Excuse me.
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How are the dead raised and what kind of body are they going to come with? Ultimately, the question is this.
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How is it possible they're going to be raised? What's it going to be like? Because honestly, the issue at hand is it's incomprehensible.
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Resurrection is a difficult thing for us to comprehend because we've all seen what happens to the body when it dies.
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In very short order, it begins to decay.
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It falls to destruction and it ends in deterioration.
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Death lays claim to the whole body.
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We try all we can to preserve it, man.
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We use chemicals.
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We use caskets.
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We use vaults.
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Yet, despite our best efforts, death overwhelms and overcomes the body and it ultimately becomes dust.
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How in the world is that going to be remedied? That's the question.
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You understand the heart of the person asking the question now and the heart of the question Paul's anticipating? Somebody says, okay, we agree there's a resurrection, but how in the world is that possible? Look at what happens to the body.
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How do you get something from dust? Well, God's pretty good at making things out of dust.
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That's how He made us the first time.
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So the response from the Apostle Paul, verse 36, you foolish person.
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Paul's so nice.
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Wouldn't it feel good if you came into my office and asked me a theological question and I said, you foolish person.
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Probably wouldn't be friends too long.
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And some people might think Paul is being a real mean person here.
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Now, I don't think he's trying to be overtly mean.
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I think what he's saying is this question is an unwise question.
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That's what foolish means.
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You say, well, why is it an unwise question? Well, it's an unwise question because of God's abilities.
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Why would we say how is this going to be when we're talking about the God who spoke everything into existence? Why would we have issue with God being able to raise the dead when God was the one who gave us life in the first place? Why would we have issue with God raising the dead when God made Adam out of dust and made Eve out of a rib? And He made all of us out of them.
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You see, the question is, he's not calling him a fool in a hurtful sense.
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He's saying, guys, this is not wise.
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And then he gives three illustrations.
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And I kind of want to go through these relatively briefly only because we could spend all day looking at how deep he gets with this.
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But really, he gives three illustrations.
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Agricultural, carnal, and celestial.
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Let's look first at the agricultural.
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He says, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
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And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel perhaps of wheat or some other grain.
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But God gives it a body as He has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body.
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Now, you understand, a seed doesn't function unless it's planted.
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If you leave a seed on a table, it's just going to dry up and it's not going to do anything.
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You have to put a seed in the ground.
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Once the seed goes into the ground, it breaks up.
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It draws in nutrients and it produces something new.
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It produces a plant and it undergoes a radical change.
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Keep that in mind because that's Paul's point.
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Your body is going in the ground, but something new is coming out.
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Just like a seed goes into the ground and doesn't produce another seed, it goes into the ground and produces a plant.
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It's a different thing that comes out than what goes in.
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It's the same, but different.
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That's a very key point to this.
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It's the same, but it's different.
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It's the same seed producing something new.
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Okay.
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Acorn produces the oak, right? That's a massive change.
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That's the picture Paul's giving us here.
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Then he uses a carnal example.
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He says, not all flesh is the same.
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This is verse 39.
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Not all flesh is the same, but there's one kind for animals, another for humans, another for bird, another for fish.
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Aren't you glad, men, that when you reach over and you rub the back of your wife's neck that you don't feel scales? Or, you know, aren't you glad, ladies, that your husband's hands don't feel like alligator paws? Maybe some of them do.
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Maybe he's a hard-working man.
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But you understand that the flesh is different.
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You touch a fish, you touch an alligator, you touch a human cheek, you'll feel the immediate difference.
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They're different on a genetic level.
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God has infused this world with diversity that exposes His genius.
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You say, well, what's the point? What's the point Paul's making? Paul's talking about resurrection.
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And he's saying what's going to be raised is new and different from what we have now.
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If God can make animals with different kinds of flesh, and fish with different kinds of flesh, and birds with different kinds of flesh, and us with different kinds of flesh, what's the problem with making a new type of body? That's the point.
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How hard is it for God? God has unlimited creativity.
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In fact, I think that's why we keep finding out the universe is so big.
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Just to prove that God's that much bigger.
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God has unlimited creativity.
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What goes into the grave is going to be different than what comes out of the grave, but it's going to be the same body, just changed.
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Again, keep hearing that.
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It's important.
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Because now he goes into celestial bodies.
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Verse 40, he starts talking about...
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He said there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one kind, the glory of the earthly is another kind.
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There's one glory of the sun, one glory of the moon, another glory of the stars.
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For star differs from star in glory.
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Again, God's creative genius is on display when we look up into the sky.
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The heavens declare the glory of God.
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And there are different kinds of bodies in the sky, and all of them have different kinds of glory.
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You say, what has that got to do with anything? In the world, the way we are right now, we are built for this world.
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When we die and we are raised, we're going to be built for a new world.
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The glory that we have now...
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The Bible says man is the glory of God.
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God created him to glorify him.
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The glory that we have now is going to change to a new type of glory, a different type of glory, a new type of body.
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And that's Paul's point.
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He said, if there's different glories in heaven, why couldn't there be different glories in how you're going to be now versus how you're going to be then? You understand the point? The now and the then are going to be different, but the same body changed.
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Now, he goes into verse 42, and he begins to talk about the differences and the sameness, the same and the difference between what we have now and what we're going to have.
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And I want to give you a principle.
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Again, if you're taking notes, this might be something you want to write down.
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The principle is called the principle of continuity versus discontinuity.
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The principle of continuity versus discontinuity.
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Here's the principle of continuity versus discontinuity.
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Continuity means what will continue.
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Discontinuity means what will not continue.
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This body is the body that's going to be raised.
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But this body is going to be changed.
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Think for a moment about Jesus.
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Was Jesus' body that went into the ground the same one that raised? Yes, it was.
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It was the same.
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Because it was not there anymore.
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If it was a different body, His old body would still be there.
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You get what I'm saying? It's the same body, but it changed.
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That's what I'm saying.
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I'm not saying it's the same.
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See, this is the part.
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Continuity versus discontinuity.
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We're going to have Bible study.
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Let's just go get lunch and come back.
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Because this is serious.
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This is important.
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It's the same body in the sense that if it was a different body, His old body would still be in the grave.
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The whole idea of the empty grave is that body rose.
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But that body didn't stay the same.
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So you have continuity, same body.
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Discontinuity, changed body.
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And it's not like He got all new pieces like the Frankenstein I mentioned earlier.
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He's not got new arms, new legs, new feet, new head.
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No.
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Same body, changed body.
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I told you I was going to say this a thousand times today.
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This really struck me this week as I was studying.
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This was the answer.
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The question is, how are we going to be raised? The answer, this body is going to get a makeover.
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This body is going to get changed.
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That's the answer to the question.
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How then can we be disintegrated? Because God is going to bring it all back together and make it all new.
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How then can we be cremated? Because God is going to bring it all back together.
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He's going to make it new.
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How then can we undergo all kinds of surgeries and have body parts removed and have to go through terrible, horrible things and have all of our bodies just look so awful when they go on the ground? They come out beautiful.
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You know this is where glory means beautiful.
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The glorified body is a beautiful body.
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I ain't never felt beautiful a day in my life.
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But when I come out of that ground, I'm going to be beautiful.
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I'm going to be glorious.
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That's continuity versus discontinuity.
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You understand now what I'm saying? Let's look now at verse 42 because this is what he's saying.
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He says, So it is with the resurrection of the dead.
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What is sown is perishable.
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What is raised is imperishable.
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You realize this body's got an expiration date? You know when you go buy groceries, you buy two different kinds of groceries.
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You buy perishable and imperishable.
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And if you buy perishable, you've got to go home right then and put it in the refrigerator.
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Because you know it's got an expiration date and milk will go bad really fast.
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These bodies are perishable.
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The ones you're holding onto right now.
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And if this is what you were raised with, and that's it, you've been in a bad state.
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Because you'd just be starting the clock over again.
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Think about when Lazarus rose from the dead.
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He went from perishable back to perishable.
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He died again.
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When the widow's son at Nain died, he rose.
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He went from perishable to perishable.
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Jairus' daughter, perishable to perishable.
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Jesus, perishable to imperishable.
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That's the beauty.
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That's the difference.
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So Paul says what's sown is perishable.
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It's got a shelf life.
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But what's raised doesn't have a shelf life.
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And he goes on to say it's sown in dishonor.
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And you say, what do you mean by that? Because we don't sow bodies in dishonor.
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We put them in suits and we lay them in nice caskets and we put them in vaults.
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We honor the dead.
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Yes, but all the work we do can't keep the body from decaying.
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The very best we can do is simply put it on a little bit of a longer shelf life.
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Eventually it's going to go away.
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That's the dishonor that's being referred to here.
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Because the opposite of that is beauty or glory.
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It's raised in glory.
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It's sown in dishonor.
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It's raised in glory.
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It's sown in weakness.
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It's going to be raised in power.
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You say, what does it mean weakness? What does it mean sown in weakness? The whole reason why you die is because your body runs out of gas.
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It might happen quick because somebody harms you and your gas tank empties real quick, but it's still weakness.
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Or you're going to live a very long life and you're going to experience weakness more and more and more until it finally gives way.
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Either way, it's going to be sown in weakness, but it's going to be raised in power.
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You will never in heaven begin to die.
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But from the moment you were born, you were beginning to die.
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Your life has just been a steady process to death.
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But when you are raised, you will be raised in such a way that your new body will never start to die.
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That's the power that you're going to be raised in.
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And the key to this, I think, this passage, verse 42 and 43, is the it.
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He says it is sown in dishonor.
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It is raised in glory.
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It is sown in weakness.
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It is raised in power.
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What's the it? The body.
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It's sown.
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It's the seed.
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But that seed is going to change.
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It's going to become new.
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And what is sown is going to be raised different.
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In fact, it says in verse 44, It is sown a natural body.
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It is raised a spiritual body.
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If there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body.
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Now, some confuse this.
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And I want to clear up something.
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I asked for just a few.
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Stay with me.
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This is difficult.
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Some people think that spiritual body means a body of spirit only.
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I do not believe that's what it means.
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Most commentary writers don't believe that's what it means.
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In fact, I want to read to you from Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul on this passage.
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He says here, Paul does not have in mind a contrast between physical and non-physical, material and immaterial.
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The resurrection body is a physical body, not an intangible ghost.
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You're not being raised as a ghost.
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You're being raised as a spirit-empowered body.
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He goes on to say, The apostle has already used the words natural and spiritual to distinguish the individual who does not have the Holy Spirit and the one who does.
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The natural person belongs to the present age.
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The spiritual person belongs to the, or they are citizens of heaven.
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That's the difference.
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This body right now is a natural body.
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It's limited to all of nature's limitations.
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You've got to eat.
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You've got to sleep.
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You've got to have enough air.
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You've got to have the right temperature.
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You are limited to all kinds of things that are limited to this natural body.
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But in heaven...
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Oh, and by the way, you say, where do you get your proof from this, Pastor? Luke 24, 39.
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Jesus, when He raised, He said, See that it is myself, touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.
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And that's His resurrected body.
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That's His glorified body.
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Jesus said, I'm not just a ghost.
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And we're not going to be raised as just ghosts.
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In fact, if you want a verse to put in your mind, Philippians 3.
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We read it in our call to worship this morning.
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It's Philippians 3, 20 and 21.
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For our citizenship is in heaven, for from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform, change, our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.
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Our body's going to change to be like Christ's body.
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In fact, that's what 1 John tells us.
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1 John says, When we see Him as He is, we will be as He is.
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Not God.
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We don't get to be God.
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TBN, little God theology, that's bad.
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Bad, bad, bad.
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We're not going to be God.
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We're going to be glorified.
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And this new body is a spiritual body.
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It's not a natural body.
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It's a spiritual body fit for a spiritual kingdom.
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Our current body is a natural body fit for a natural kingdom.
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Our new body is a spiritual body fit for a spiritual kingdom.
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And that's the difference.
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In fact, Alistair Begg, one of my favorite preachers to listen to, I just love his accent, and he's such a wise man.
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He said this.
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He said, Do you ever have kids that you try to get ready for some kind of event? Maybe you're getting them dressed for going out to eat, or maybe you're getting them dressed for church, or maybe you're getting them dressed to go to some kind of event, and they come out of their room, and you say, You're not wearing that.
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You ever have that happen? Okay.
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What do you say? Go get changed.
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He said, That's the picture.
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You walk into the kingdom of heaven wearing this? You can't wear that.
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You got to be changed.
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This body ain't going to cut it there.
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This body's got to be changed.
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Can't wear that.
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Remember what Jesus talked about? There's a parable that's similar to this.
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We talked about the fact that the person came wearing clothes that weren't proper.
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Now that, of course, is the covering of the righteousness of Christ, but still the idea is the same.
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You can't get in like this.
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You got to be changed.
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In the same way that you got to be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven, you got to be risen a spiritual body to live in the kingdom of heaven.
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You got to be changed.
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One day this body's going into the ground, whether it's in turn cremated or disintegrated, it's going to be gone.
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Your spirit is at that time going to be conscious either with the Lord or it's going to be conscious in hell awaiting the final judgment.
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But when the final judgment comes, the dead, decayed seeds that are in the ground, that are in the urns, that are in the mausoleums, that are sunk to the bottom of the oceans, that are lost at sea, they're all going to be raised.
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And they will be raised either to glory or they will be raised to everlasting contempt.
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But they will all be raised on that great getting up morning.
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This is the reality that you need to consider.
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You will be raised.
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But where will you be then? You will be raised.
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But then what? Our death and death itself is a great reminder to us that this day is coming.
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In fact, David Croston, in a sermon entitled Ready to Face the Music, gave this riddle.
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I want to end with how he opened his sermon.
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I want to end mine.
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There's a preacher of the old school, but he speaks as boldly as ever.
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He's not popular, though the world is his parish, and he travels every part of the globe and speaks in every language.
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He visits the poor, calls upon the rich, preaches to people of every religion and no religion, and the subject of his sermon is always the same.
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He's an eloquent preacher, often stirring feelings which no other preacher could and bringing tears to eyes that never weep.
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His arguments none are able to refute, nor is there any heart that has remained unmoved by the force of his appeals.
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He shatters life with his message.
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Most people hate him.
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Everyone fears him.
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Every tombstone is his pulpit.
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Every newspaper prints his text, and someday every one of you will be his sermon.
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And the preacher's name is death.
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We know this is true.
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We forget it emotionally, but we know it intellectually.
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Sometimes it hits close to home and reminds us of its reality, but one day it will hit closest of all when it comes to us.
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Are you ready for your eschatology? Are you ready for your personal end times? Beloved, are you confident when the final trumpet sounds that you will be awakened to glory? Hear the sermon of the preacher whose name is death and know that one day he will come for you.
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Are you ready? May we pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the profundity of the situation and subject that we have discussed.
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And I pray, O Lord, that you would, by your mercy, please use this to challenge our whole heart.
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Rock us to the very soul, Lord.
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If there are those who do not know where they stand with Christ, may it be today that they fall to their knees in repentance and faith and that they come to him and say that there is no other name and, Lord, you are beautiful and you are Savior and I come to you and I believe in you.
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Lord, may it be that you save them today.
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And, Father, for the saved, give them comfort in knowing that there is nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of God.
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Neither death nor life nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.