Can A Christian Have Joy Knowing That Death Is Certain? (Part 2)

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

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

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Mike Abendroth here. What do we have for news? We have American Gospel sanctification episodes recorded, should be out later this summer or fall maybe. American Gospel, the movie, number three, hopefully out later in the fall.

The assurance book that I compiled, Gospel Assurance, I think is what we�re calling it right now, and that should be out probably within the next month, maybe by the time you hear this radio show. Pastor Steve, I think, is going to record a few shows by himself while I�m gone in California.

I will probably see my friend Steve Meister in California. Pastor Bo and Pastor Drew is out of town, so I might have to preach for him up in Santa Cruz. Anyway, that�s that. Write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com Israel Trip.

If you want the registration online and the brochure, you can go ahead and email me or if you typed in, probably in your Google search, Pilgrim Tours, Bethlehem Bible Church, 2023, something like that, 2023.

Death, Judgment, and the Dying Process

We�re talking about Ecclesiastes and kind of working through, let�s make sure we understand death rightly. How do we look at this, and can you have any joy knowing that you�re going to die? That�s kind of the section here in Ecclesiastes.

It's certainly no fun in terms to think about death itself, the dying, I mean, what happens after death, �to live is Christ and to die is what Gain. That�s worth talking about as well, but that�s not our passage at hand.

I mean, the hardest part about dying is the dying part, right? When we finally exhale and our spirit leaves and goes to be with the Lord, that part�s not going to be bad. That�s going to be really good.

But somebody�s texting me. Just have to delete that text. If you text me while I�m on the show, I have to delete it, and it gets me all messed up on where I am and what I�m doing, and why am I doing it?

All right. Well, forget all that. Let�s just get right into the text. Ecclesiastes 3 .18, �I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

Talking about not what happens after we die, but the dying process, how can we have any joy in the middle of that? We see here that God is testing. There�s a final judgment, Ecclesiastes� author knows that, but there�s a testing right now.

He�s winnowing. He�s sifting. And what does he see? He sees people, without Christ, they act like animals. That�s the point. He�s comparing them to animals because that�s how they act. That�s how we acted.

It was a case of depravity. You know, as man passed the test, we could kind of put this more to a covenant of works type of test. Right? Do this and live. Right? Do people pass this test? What�s the greatest commandment, teacher?

Jesus said, �You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the great first commandment. And a second is like it. �You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

Failed the test. Rich young ruler, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What do I do? Well, if you want a due question, I�ll give you a due answer. You know the commandments. Don�t commit adultery.

Don�t murder. Don�t steal. Don�t bear a false witness. Honor your father and mother. And he said, here�s what the rich young ruler should have said. I don�t. I stand condemned. The law accuses, condemns, reveals, convicts.

I don�t have a leg to stand on. I wish it weren�t true, but it is true. And I�m probably more of a sinner than I even want to admit. I�ve heard that you�re merciful, Jesus. I heard that you give mercy to people.

Do you think you could give me mercy? Have mercy on me? I mean, isn�t that what�s happening even earlier in Luke chapter 18? As a matter of fact, before I just kind of run my mouth, I want to make sure I�ve got it right as I turn my Bible open to that very passage.

I mean, there�s the Pharisee and the tax collector right there before this passage. You�ve got the children, of course. They offer nothing to the family in terms of income or any of that, right? They�re just dependent for their parents to take care of them, and that�s similar to that, �To such belongs the kingdom of God.

Receiving it like a child, right? No contribution. Even faith is a gift. But earlier, Jesus said, �I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. Well, why would Jesus say that?

Well, this tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying, �God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That�s what the rich young ruler should have said.

He�s failed the test. You�ve failed the test. I failed the test. If you�re a person here today and you�re not a Christian, you�re just checking this all out, God put you on this earth, there�s a test.

Obey. How are you doing? James 2 .10. You break one law, it�s like you break them all, because it�s against the law, �Giver. That�s the issue. We need a Savior. We need a Redeemer. We�re slaves to sin.

The lie of morality, just be good, we�re not good enough. And that why would God send the Son if we could be good enough to get ourselves to heaven? I mean, we ought to realize that until Jesus intercepted us, there was no fear of God before our eyes.

And the law had to be given to us so our mouths would be stopped and we would be held accountable to God. Romans 3, it says in verse 20, �For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

You don�t get to heaven by keeping the law now because it�s impossible. If you could theoretically, fine, but it�s impossible now because of Adam�s sin. And so, we hear the law, we can�t do it. We realize we�re law breakers and we�re not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

That�s Galatians 2 .16. And Galatians 2 .21, �I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Why send Jesus to die if we could get to heaven on our own?

I�ve said it once, I�ve said it twice, I�ll say it again. Why would the Son, Philippians 2, become obedient, obedient to the point of death, even on a cross? Why would He go through all that if He didn�t have to?

There�s another way. I think probably when He�s praying in the garden, the Father would have said, �Yeah, there is another way. I didn�t even need to send you. Of course, that�s all just nonsense, poppycock.

I�ve never said poppycock on the radio show, never will I say it again. Two times, that�s all you get. Question three that follows question two, �Has man passed the test Question one from last week was, �Is man any better than an animal

Question three, �Is death inevitable I believe that we are to eagerly anticipate the Lord�s return, Philippians. I believe that with earnest expectation, we should say, �Yes, He�s coming back soon.

Second Peter 3. This is not a world where everything is just the same and nothing else happens. There are supernatural things that happen and we�re waiting for a very supernatural event to take place.

Short of that, we�re all going to die. And you can see exceptions here, there, you think, �Oh, all right, Enoch didn�t die. Elijah didn�t die. Well, maybe to make up for that, we have some people that died twice.

Lazarus, the widow�s son that was raised from the dead, et cetera. How do you crack your neck on the radio show? I don�t know. Death is inevitable. The wages of sin is what? Death. Listen to verse 19 of chapter 3 in Ecclesiastes, �For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same.

As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. People die, animals die, it�s the same. Right? That�s Genesis 5. There was sin, and he died, and he died, and he died.

Satan said, �You surely won�t die if you eat the fruit. And he died, and he died, and he died. It�s appointed for man once to die and then the judgment. The wages of sin is death. That�s exactly right.

Obviously, we have souls. Obviously, we�re better than animals. Psalm 8, I understand all that. His perspective, Solomon�s perspective is simple. In terms of morality, no. In terms of mortality, we�re mortals.

We die. Animals, we die. Both died. And, some commentators think, �Well, especially since people are acting like animals, it doesn�t make much difference, because they will both die. I mean, animals die.

That�s their destiny. If you act like an animal, what�s your destiny? Maybe there�s a little bit of that in here. There�s differences. There are differences, rather, between men and women, between men slash women and animals.

There are differences between men and women, too. That�s certainly true. The days I don�t remember that, the days I don�t theoretically recall that, then they are not hypothetically fleshed out in life.

It�s more than that. Death equalizes things. Men, animals. There are consequences to sin. There was a curse put on Adam for his disobedience. So I could ask it this way. Are you better off dead? Hmm. I was reading a Philip Rikens commentary.

He said, �One of the Trappist monks, one order of Trappist monks, digs a grave together. Every day they go to the gravesite, peer over the edge, and ponder their mortality. When one of them dies, they lower his body into the grave and cover him with dirt.

Then they dig a new grave and start the ritual all over again, never knowing who will be the next to die. One day, for all of us, short of the Lord�s return, are we going to live again? Do we have souls?

Is there hope beyond heaven Verse 20, �If you skip down there, all go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust they shall return. I just did a graveside committal two weeks ago. Commit the body back.

Commit to dust to dust, ashes to ashes. I recall God saying, �By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Of course, that�s God saying to Adam after the fall. I have another question. Can we know what happens after we die? That�s the question. Can we know? Can anybody know? Solomon asked a question, verse 21, �Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth

Today on No Compromise Radio, I�m drinking not the official drink of the radio show. Somebody wanted to know if we would sponsor their particular product. It was a beverage. I gave them the information and never heard back from them.

I guess that�s a no. So this is just a free one. I am drinking something that�s flavored key lime pie today. Zero calories. You know what I�m drinking? Natural flavors. You know they make natural flavors in that factory in New Jersey because it can be made out of artificial things, but if it tastes like lemon, of course, or in this case, lime, it�s a natural flavor.

It says supercreatine. It says potent brain and body fuel. It says vitamin C, vitamin B6, magnesium, calcium, potassium, niacin, vitamin B12. It says all that. And it says ultra-COQ10, what am I drinking?

I�m drinking a bang. That�s exactly what I�m drinking. My friend Ray Johnson died a few months ago, and for those of you that didn�t know Ray, Ray was a member here at Bethlehem Bible Church, and he was in the steel business and real estate business, and he began to drive up to this church an hour each way.

He�d come on Thursday nights for the Bible Institute class, Sunday morning, Sunday night, fired up about stuff. Well, he loved radio, and he basically paid for everything for No Compromise Radio. So I needed to have all the setup, all the gear here.

He bought it all. I needed, I didn�t need, but he offered to put me on the radio station here locally for four or five years. I don�t know what it was, 15 grand a year, something like that. He basically said, �Mike, I never want you to ask for money on the radio show.

You need something? You�ll let me know. And I said, �Well, I need a case of bangs. I�m just kidding. Sometimes we go out for lunch. Not very many times I would do this, but sometimes I would just pay, a quick go pay just because he always paid for everything.

Anyway, Ray was very generous, not just to me, but many people. And when he was dying, we had good discussions about the Lord and how he was hoping in the Lord and promise of the resurrection and hope of eternal life, and I miss Ray.

Think about him a lot. Lots of times I think, �Oh, I want to call Ray and tell him about this, or I need help with this financial advice or whatever. All that to say, I don�t think he liked it when I said, you know, �You can give to NoCo on Patreon.

I think we have 11 people giving. It�s $180 a month. So we�re thankful for that. What does this have to do with anything? Oh, I know, the drink of choice. Anyway, Ray said to me one time, �I�m going to get you a Christmas gift, and it�s two pounds of Pete�s Coffee every month for a year.

I said, �Man, that is a great gift. Thank you. And I actually got him to start drinking Pete�s Coffee. This was years ago here in Dunkin Donuts, you know, crazy land. Everything here is Dunkin Donuts, Double D, Dunkies, as my daughter calls it.

Well, the 13th month, I got two more pounds of Pete�s Coffee. You know, this fresh whole bean, nice and oily, dark roast, Major Dickinson blend. And I said, �Hey, you might want to cancel that because this subscription should be over instead of a year�s gift.

He said, �Would you keep drinking it if I keep sending it I said, �Yes. Eight years later, I regularly told him, �Yeah, if you need to cancel it, fine. Eight years later, it ended. And it only ended because he died, and otherwise he�d still be giving me that.

I thought, �You know what? I love Pete�s Coffee, and I can just start buying my own. And then some sweet listeners sent me a couple things of Pete�s Coffee. They gave me a gift certificate. Somebody else sent me some.

And so I still, because of No Compromise Radio, I�ve hardly bought any Pete�s Coffee in the last eight years, ten years. And now I�m drinking �bang. I had to give up Pete�s Coffee for a while when all my GI problems were happening.

I didn�t know what was going on, and so I figured it out that it wasn�t coffee. I just don�t have creamer in the morning. I have to have some kind of sweet, creamy almond thing or something like that.

Verse 21 of Ecclesiastes 3, �Who knows whether the spirit of a man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth Who knows? Of course we know. Did Solomon somehow not know? Did he need more revelation to figure this out?

I mean, what�s going on? I think here�s what�s happening. From his perspective, that is a human perspective, does anybody have any empirical evidence? Could you monitor this? Could you put something on a person and when they die, figure this out in an empirical way?

Are there machines to monitor this? What do you do? Do you have any first-hand evidence that we could scientifically figure it out today? No. It�s a good question. It�s rhetorical. Who knows? Answer, God knows.

God knows, and of course He�s revealed it to us. Has He not said, even in chapter 12, verse 7, �And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it Of course. He knows more than he�s saying in this because he�s saying from this perspective.

Can anybody know? Who knows? Maybe you should start asking the question, who can know? �By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, and from dust you are dusted, and to dust you shall return.

I mean, what�s the point to all this? I think here�s one of the points. Every day we�re a day closer. There�s that thing called the death clock, and you can type in, do you smoke, do you have any sicknesses, a male, female, how old you are, and it�ll tell you how many days you got left on average.

What are we going to do? Should our impending death change the way we live? Is there anything ethical to a certain mortality? Now you say, well, what did Solomon know about the afterlife? Well, 1270 knows something, and also the Old Testament, just in general, teaches that there�s eternal life, eternal damnation.

Here�s the one that I go to regularly when somebody asks me the question, �Did the Old Testament teach eternal life, eternal damnation Daniel 12 .2,. �And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Isaiah 26 .19, �Your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust awake and sing for joy, for your due is a due of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. There�s resurrection.

Solomon isn�t saying, you know, there�s no resurrection, there�s no afterlife. What you can see under the sun, what can you see? Dead into the grave. That�s what you see. We die, animals die, it�s all vanity.

Of course, we know more things in the New Testament. Remember Job? Remember Job? If a man dies, shall he live again? Job 14. That�s a good question. Five chapters later, Job says, �For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He shall stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. We don�t believe in soul sleep. We don�t believe in annihilation. We don�t believe in purgatory. We believe that if you�re looking from a human perspective only, dogs die, animals die, people die.

That�s it. You say, well, what about kind of a near-death experience? What about that? People, nine million people, have reported near-death experiences in a 2011 study. Near-death stuff, hmm. I studied near-death experiences this week a little bit.

People have a sense of well-being and peace, kind of an out-of-body experience they have. Many of them have a tunnel experience, or are they�re moving up, going through a passage maybe, some type of stairwell, staircase, lots of light, beams of light, suddenly bright.

They said they have intense feelings of unconditional love and acceptance. They sometimes, they see beings that are all dressed in white. They are euphoric. They maybe have their life go before their eyes, a kind of a review of all their life.

But as my old pastor used to say, the key word in near-death experiences is near, not death. We don't need to have somebody say, I went to heaven and back. Some boy in Nebraska, and he said, you know, I went to heaven and back, and heaven is for real.

No, no, no. We know. I'm going to write that down. Heaven is real. Some kid from Nebraska. What do kids from Nebraska know? Nothing. How can God be who He is revealed in Scripture if I'm just like a dog when I die?

Good question. I think we know for certain what's going on. Do we not? Thomas Watson said, �Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset. Eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise. How do we know that?

Can we believe in the resurrection? Kind of an interesting passage that not many people go to for the resurrection. Hebrews 11 .35, �Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.

Dear Christian, Jesus abolished death and brought life to immortality and brought it to light through the gospel. That's 2 Timothy 1 .10. We know for certain. I don't want to give you too much more good news because that's for the next show where we'll talk about it a little bit more.

My name is Mike Abendroth, Ecclesiastes today, chapter 3, and we have the hope of heaven. We are trusting in the one who said, �I am the resurrection and the life. Aren't you happy? Even though we're a day closer to the actual dying process once we die.

Absent from the body, present with the Lord.

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

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.