Foundational Teachings, Part 3 – Hebrews 6:1-3

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“The Apostates, Part 4” – Hebrews 6:4-6

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And that's all I have. So turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter five. Been a couple weeks since we were in the warning passage in Hebrews five, so we'll read together the entire warning passage, five verse 11 through six verse 12 together.

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Hebrews five verse 11. Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.

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For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God.

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And you've come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

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But solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

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Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

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And this we will do if God permits. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the

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Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucify to themselves the son of God and put him to open shame.

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For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled receives a blessing from God.

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But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and it ends up being burned.

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But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.

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For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.

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And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end so that you will not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

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Will you stand with me as we pray? Smile our heads.

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Father, you are our gracious and merciful God who is slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, abounding in grace to the most needy among us.

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We thank you that you rule all things, the nations and all peoples under your sovereignty and your providence. We thank you that you are carrying all of creation along toward its predetermined end and that we can rest in your sovereign and powerful control of all things.

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We thank you that in your mercy and in your grace that you have not cast us off, that you have welcomed us to Jesus Christ and called us to your son, that we may have eternal life and that we may come to know him.

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We thank you for opening our eyes, for opening our hearts, for changing our hearts, for granting us repentance and faith, for the gifts of your grace and your mercy.

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We thank you for all of these benefits and blessings. You are worthy of our praise. You are worthy of our worship and our honor and we pray that as we seek to do that this morning, that you would help us and enable us and strengthen us to serve you, to praise you, to worship you as you are worthy.

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Keep our minds and hearts focused upon Christ and upon his glory and then upon your word that you may be exalted and glorified amongst your people and in your church both now and forever, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

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And we'll read together again, verses one through three, Hebrews six. Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the

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Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

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And this we will do if God permits. Let's pray together before we begin. Father, it is your great mercy that has given us your word and your provision for us in all things we have in the pages of scripture, everything that we need for life and for godliness.

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And so we pray that you would cast our confidence and our assurance and our hope upon your word, help us to see in it the

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Lord Jesus Christ who is so clearly revealed in the pages of scripture. Help us, we pray, to see your eternal purposes for all things and to rest solely in Christ and Christ alone for our salvation.

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Thank you for the mercy of your word and the mercy of eternal life. And we pray that you would help us to understand as we read and study and think your thoughts after you today.

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We pray this in the name of and for the glory of Christ our Lord, amen. Well, we have two more of these foundational teachings in Hebrews chapter six.

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We were looking at this list of six of them in the first three verses, which are in the middle of this warning passage in the middle of Hebrews, the third warning passage.

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And it's been a few weeks or a couple of weeks since we were here. So I'll just remind you and recap a little bit of what we've been covering thus far.

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The author's concern at the end of chapter five is for the spiritual maturity of his listeners. He's concerned that they have come to need milk again instead of solid food.

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And his answer to them is to press on to maturity, to dive deeper into Christian doctrine and Christian truth.

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And he wants them to be marked by discernment, the ability to discern between good and evil.

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And that ability to discern and that mark of discernment is something that belongs to the mature. And you cannot become mature if the only thing you are ever taught and ever exposed to is a repetition of foundational

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Christian doctrines and you have the foundation laid for you over and over and over again. If you never get beyond those elements, if you never move on from them and press on to something deeper and better and more profound, then you will be stuck in a position of immaturity.

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And if you are able as a Christian to mature at all, it will only be in spite of your environment and in spite of your instruction and never because of it.

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So the author is concerned that his hearers have not pressed on into that maturity, do not have the ability to discern between good and evil and right and wrong and true and false, and he wants them to be mature.

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So he says to them at the beginning of chapter six that he wants them to leave the elementary teaching. And then he gives to them this list of six that we've been working our way through two at a time because I suggested several weeks ago that this list of six can really be divided up into three groups of two.

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The first two, repentance and faith, go together. Obviously, those are two sides of the same coin.

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They have to do with our response to the gospel and the proper response to the gospel, which is not asking

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Jesus into your heart or praying a prayer, but turning from sin to the living and true God.

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That is to abandon the old you, the old self, your sin and wickedness and immorality and idolatry, and to turn and trust in God as he has revealed in the person of Christ.

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So repentance and faith go together. That next two go together. This is the more difficult one to interpret.

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I explained that last time, the instructions about washing and laying on of hands, and I suggest that the washings is a reference there to baptism.

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These Jews who had come out of Judaism and were familiar with all of the Old Testament ceremonial washings of the

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Old Covenant and had been exposed to the baptism of John, which was a baptism of repentance, they would need some instruction regarding washings or baptisms is the word.

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They would need to understand the role and the distinctiveness and the purpose of Christian baptism and the symbolism and how that relates to the

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Old Testament ceremonial cleansings and the baptism of John the Baptist, which was a baptism of repentance.

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So they would need some instructions in those things, and then they would need some instructions about the laying on of hands, and I suggested last time that I think that that refers to commissioning the

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Christian service or the bestowal or the recognition of spiritual gift and giftedness within the body. And of course,

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Jews who came out of an Old Covenant testamental system where the priest did all of the work for you to come into the church and to be told that the

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Spirit of God dwells in you, and now you have a responsibility to serve others, because now we're all priests of God, so we're all involved in Christian service in some way.

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We all are exercising those gifts that the Spirit of God has given to us, so we don't rest upon the priest to do all of our work for God on our behalf.

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Instead, now we all do it ourselves, and so that would be the laying on of hands. So the first two, repentance and faith, go together.

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Instructions about washings and laying on of hands kind of go together, and now we come to this third group of two, the resurrection, the doctrine of resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, and so these are the two that we're gonna be looking at today.

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We'll deal with them, they go together, and they obviously seem to go together because they both have to do with the end of our lives.

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The doctrine of resurrection, particularly looking forward to Christian bodily resurrection on the last day, and the doctrine of eternal judgment, which deals with the abode of the unrepentant wicked on the last day that they go to hell.

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And so those are the two doctrines that are addressed here, and those two doctrines obviously go together since they belong to the eschaton, the final, the last day, the end of time.

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Those are yet future for all of us. Now in some sense, there is an eternal life that exists for those who die in Christ now, and there is punishment for those who die without Christ now, but the author is here looking forward to the final expression and the culmination of those two things, so these kind of go together.

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We'll deal with them separately, and then when we're done, we'll see how they kind of go together when we handle them both.

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We'll see how they kind of fit together at the very end. Okay, so the first, the doctrine of resurrection. Now this is not exclusively a reference to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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When I became a believer, I thought and I was told that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead in his body, and I placed my faith in a risen

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Christ. I understand that's what I need. I need a savior who cannot die. If he's gonna give me eternal life, he has to be living and be alive, and so my faith was in a resurrected

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Christ. But when I first became a believer, I thought that my eventual destiny in heaven was going to be to float around on a cloud in some spirit disembodied form.

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That was my idea of what heaven was. Why did I think that? Well, because I had seen all the cartoons and the pictures, and it's what happens.

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When people go to heaven, they float up into the clouds, and they sit there, and they float around forever. That was not particularly appealing to me in the least, to spend eternity that way.

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I wanted, if I could spend, if I had my druthers, I would spend eternity on a planet in a physical world with my physical body in an environment where I could never get sick and never die, and hang out with my friends, and do what

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I want without any danger to my life or my health forever. That's what I wanted.

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I didn't want heaven. I wanted that. It was later on in my Christian life that I found out that is what heaven is.

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What I desired for eternal life is the very thing that Scripture promises. It's not floating around in a disembodied state on a cloud.

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I found out later on there is a doctrine of bodily resurrection in Scripture that promises that all of the righteous will be raised in their bodies and put into a new heavens and a new earth, a resurrected creation, and there we shall dwell with each other and with God forever and everlastingly.

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That's what the Bible talks about. So it's not just the resurrection of Christ that is addressed here. The resurrection of Christ is just a part, a small part, a very significant part, but it's a small part of this doctrine of bodily resurrection that's woven all the way through the

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Old and the New Testaments. The resurrection of Christ really is the firstfruits or the prototype of that resurrection in which we will all share.

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Now this resurrection is bigger than just the resurrection of believers because the Bible teaches that even the wicked unbelievers will be resurrected as well, but unbelievers will not be resurrected to enjoy bliss and eternity and joy and grace and mercy for everlasting in heaven with God and his people.

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Unbelievers will be resurrected in bodies that will be fit for their destiny, which is the eternal hell spoken of in verse three.

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So there is this doctrine in Scripture of resurrection, and we see in the Old Testament a number of physical resurrections, and I wanna distinguish between those resurrections and the resurrection that we're talking about.

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There are resurrections in the Old Testament, most notably around the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, both of those prophets of God in the books of 1

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Kings and 2 Kings, and then there are resurrections found in the New Testament. Jesus raised a number of people from the dead.

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One of the things that he indicated was an evidence of his own, the proof of his own messianic credentials was his ability to raise the dead.

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The most notable and memorable example of Jesus raising someone from the dead is John chapter 11 with Lazarus, and we'll return to that here in just a moment, and then we find that in keeping with the ability of the apostles to perform signs and wonders, that both

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Peter and Paul raised someone from the dead, Peter in Acts chapter nine, Paul in Acts chapter 20, and just in case you think that people are being raised from the dead all over the world today by faith healers and charlatans and hucksters, they're not.

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They're not being raised from the dead. Just recently there was a video, I don't know if you saw it, it was posted all over the internet.

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It kind of went viral of a supposed resurrection. They had a casket in the funeral, and a guy dressed in white, and he was laying in there, and it was a cheesy video, real grainy, but you could see the guy who was in the casket actually breathing, and he had a cell phone in his pocket inside, you could see that in the video.

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Did you guys see that? How many saw that? No, okay, one, two, three of us, great. Yeah, there was a few of us, and then the huckster did his little ba -da -bing, ba -da -boom, and did his thing over him, and then he got up and came out of the casket, and everybody praised

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God as if it was a resurrection. Caught on video, of course it wasn't a resurrection, the whole thing was a sham. It's not going on today, because people are not doing those miracles as evidence of the

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New Testament claims anymore. But those resurrections in the Old Testament and the New Testament, they are singularly and uniquely different than the resurrection of Jesus Christ because in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his resurrection is unique in that he has been raised to never die again.

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Those in the Old Testament, and Lazarus in the New Testament, and Acts chapter nine, and Acts chapter 20, all of those who were raised in scripture prior to Christ, all of them have been raised to die again because death still has dominion over them, but not so with Christ.

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He's been raised in a glorified body, a brand new body, an eternal body, raised in power and glory from the grave.

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He's the prototype, the first fruits of what we call the first resurrection. So let me give you an example of this teaching of resurrection from the

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Old Testament. Now when you look at the Old Testament, I'm gonna give you a bunch of scripture for both the doctrine of resurrection and the doctrine of eternal judgment.

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We're gonna look at the Old Testament and the New Testament with each of these, but here's something to keep in mind. In both cases, when we look at what the

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Old Testament teaches regarding the doctrine of resurrection and eternal judgment, the teaching in the Old Testament is not as clear and robust and prolific as the teaching in the

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New Testament. There's a reason for that. There are allusions to the doctrine of resurrection and references to the doctrine of resurrection in the

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Old Testament, but it is not until the judge comes and dwells among us and walks among us and teaches, it's not until the agent of resurrection takes his stand here and is incarnated in human flesh and begins teaching that we have such a full and robust teaching on the doctrine of resurrection in the

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New Testament. So in the Old Testament, it's kind of in seed form, and I'll give you a couple examples of that. First, the book of Job.

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Job is what is regarded as the oldest of our Old Testament books. It's probably the first book of the

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Old Testament that was written, and a lot of commentators, most people date the book of Job somewhere around the time of Abraham, maybe even before Abraham's time, and here is what

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Job said. Now, given how old the book of Job is, how ancient that is, before any other scripture on this subject, it is striking how much

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Job understood about the doctrine of resurrection. Job chapter 19, verses 25 through 27.

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As for me, Job says, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last, he will take his stand on the earth.

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Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh

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I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see, and not another.

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My heart faints within me, Job said. Now, did you hear that? Job understood that his

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God was a living God. Job understood that the body in which he then dwelt would die, that it would be consumed by worms, it would perish, but Job was confident that he would see with his eyes, with his own very eyes, and not the eyes of another,

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Job said, that in his body, with his eyes, he would see his Redeemer take his stand on the earth.

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Now, that is a robust understanding of the doctrine of resurrection, because Job had to understand that his

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Redeemer, that he would see God with his own eyes, and he would see his God stand on the earth in some physical form, and that even after his body perished and was consumed by worms,

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Job was confident that he would see with his very own eyes his God standing on the earth.

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That is just fantastic. There's another reference in the book of Isaiah, chapter 26, verse 19.

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Your dead will live, their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust awake and shout for joy, for your due is as the due of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

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Now, Isaiah holds out the promise of resurrection as the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises to his people.

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In other words, in the midst of judgment, facing judgment and possible extinction in the days of Isaiah, Isaiah says, you can look to your

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God, because here is the promise, that though you may die, the earth will give birth to the departed spirits, and there will be a resurrection.

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Then in Daniel, chapter 12, verse two, Daniel says, many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

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Now, Daniel says there is a resurrection for some to everlasting life, and for others to everlasting contempt.

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So here, Daniel combines both the doctrine of resurrection with the doctrine of eternal judgment, and Daniel mentions both of them.

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There is a resurrection, Daniel says, when the earth will give birth to its departed spirits, the bodies will rise from the dust of the ground, and some will rise to everlasting joy and life and bliss, and others will rise to everlasting disgrace and contempt.

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Now, those are the two destinies into which all of mankind will fall. There is no third option. So even in the

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Old Testament, you see this reference to judgment and resurrection, and though it is in seed form, it's very vague, it's very unclear, there's mentions of it, the

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Old Testament saints had an understanding that this was true, that this was reality. In fact, in the days of Jesus, and now we'll swing over to the

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New Testament teaching on this, which, as I said, is far more robust, in the days of Jesus, the Jews had a very orthodox understanding of the doctrine of resurrection.

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The Jews expected that because God had promised that they would see a kingdom in which the

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Son of David, the greater Son of David, would reign, the Jews had this belief that when the Messiah came, he would establish that kingdom, and he would resurrect all the

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Old Testament saints so that they could enter into that kingdom and enjoy and see the fulfillment of God's promise to them, which was that they would dwell, as Job said, they would dwell on earth and see their

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Redeemer take a stand on the earth, and they would live and dwell with him in a kingdom of righteousness. That was their hope.

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That's what they were looking forward to. Why were they looking forward to that, you ask? Because that was what God had promised in the

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Old Testament, and so the Jews believed that. So they were anticipating that on the final day, there would be a resurrection, and you see this reference in John chapter 11 when

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Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus, and he said to Martha, your brother will rise again, and here's what

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Martha said to him. I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. See, that was their hope.

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She thought Jesus was just trying to comfort her with the thought that, look, there's coming a time, the distant future, on the last day, when your brother will rise again, the death is not permanent, we're gonna resurrect him then, and Martha says, yeah,

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I understand, the last day, the resurrection, we understand that that is the hope, that's what all Jews believed. This is the same hope that the

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Pharisees had, though not the Sadducees, because the Sadducees denied bodily resurrection, but the Pharisees, of which

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Paul was one, he had a belief, an affirmed belief, in the Old Testament promise of a resurrection.

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So when Paul was standing trial before the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 23, do you remember that scene? It was quite a crafty thing that Paul did in this gathering of people.

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There was the Sadducees and Pharisees, and Paul was a Pharisee, and Paul was on trial because he had preached the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and so Paul looked at this group of people standing around him in that judgment hall, and he perceived that some of them were

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Sadducees and denied the resurrection, some of them were Pharisees and affirmed the resurrection, and so what did Paul say?

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Paul said in Acts 23, verse six, brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees, I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead, and do you remember what happened?

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The whole thing was split, and the Pharisees suddenly sided with Paul. We can't persecute this guy, he believes with us, and the

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Sadducees said, yeah, off with his head, we wanna tear him limb from limb, and there was such a disturbance there that the whole trial got shut down, and they ushered

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Paul out, but what was Paul saying? This whole trial, what I am on trial for, is the hope that we have the resurrection of the dead.

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It was a distinctly Jewish hope, and he understood it, and he believed it from the Old Testament, and then in Acts chapter 24, he said on trial before Felix, 24, verse 14 and 15, but this

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I admit to you, that according to the way which they call a sect, I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the law and the prophets, and all that is written in the prophets, having a hope in God, this is the word hope again, having a hope in God which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

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Yeah, what is this hope? There will be a resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. Paul was so clever, so wise in how he handled that.

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Standing before Jewish accusers who affirmed the very same doctrine that he affirmed, he said,

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I am on trial for teaching and preaching what these men teach and preach. What does his accuser say in that situation?

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What did they believe? There will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. Where would they get that?

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They make that up out of whole cloth? That had been the hope of the Jewish nation for years, for centuries.

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Where did they get it? Daniel chapter two, everlasting life, everlasting contempt. Isaiah chapter 26, the earth will give birth to its departed spirits.

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They believed in a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. Paul taught it and mentions it in Philippians chapter three, our citizenship is from heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory, by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself.

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Then there was that longest chapter in all of scripture regarding the doctrine of resurrection in first Corinthians 15, where Paul describes the bodies with which we will come forth from the grave.

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Not speaking so much of the bodies that the unbelieving wicked will receive, but the bodies of the righteous.

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Power and glory and manifest glory of the sons of God will have.

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Beautiful doctrine. First Thessalonians chapter four, Paul says, we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, in other words, those who have already died, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

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What is our hope? This is our hope, he describes it. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

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For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the

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Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first.

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Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the

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Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. That's the doctrine of resurrection. The dead in Christ will rise and we who are alive at that moment, well we will be changed, 1

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Corinthians 15, transformed in the blink of twinkling of an eye at that trumpet and we shall be caught up together to meet the

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Lord in the air. That's the doctrine of Christian resurrection. In Romans chapter eight, Paul speaks of the redemption of our body.

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This is woven all the way through the New Testament. Almost every book makes reference to, alludes to or promises some hope future for the believer in a resurrected state.

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And it all comes to a culmination at the end in Revelation chapter 20, where the author John distinguishes between two resurrections, the first resurrection and the second resurrection.

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The first resurrection which takes place in Revelation 20 verse four, prior to the 1 ,000 year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, that resurrection is the resurrection of the just.

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It is the first resurrection and the text says that the rest did not come to life until the end of the 1 ,000 years was complete.

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At the end of that 1 ,000 years, John describes the second resurrection. Now blessed and holy are those who take part in the first resurrection, the text says, because what is the first resurrection?

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It's the resurrection of the just. So Christ is the first fruits of that and then we who are alive when the

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Lord returns, we get the next phase of that resurrection. And then there is a resurrection just prior to that millennial promised kingdom of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, when all the Old Testament saints are raised in fulfillment to the promises of the Old Testament to those saints.

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And then there was a second resurrection that's the end of that 1 ,000 years. And here's what John writes, Revelation 20 verse 11, then

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I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them.

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And I saw the dead, the great and the small standing before the throne. And books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life.

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And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead, that's resurrection.

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The sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every one of them according to their deeds.

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Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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Then Revelation chapter 21 and chapter 22 describes the resurrection of all of creation, new heavens and a new earth. After everything is burned up with a fire that melts the elements with a fervent heat, this entire cosmos is undone.

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The distant stars in the galaxies all melt and are completely undone. And then the Lord creates a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and no sin will ever enter into it.

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But those who have enjoyed the blessings and the first fruits of that first resurrection in Jesus Christ, the resurrected ones who are raised in eternal, beautiful, glorious, powerful bodies, never to die again, we enter into that new heavens and that new earth,

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Revelation 21 and 22. And of course the doctrine of the resurrection of all of creation is a whole nother thing that we're not gonna get into right now other than to say, and I can't resist this,

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Romans chapter eight speaks about how all of creation groans for that day when it will be released from the bondage and enjoy that resurrection that the sons of God will enjoy.

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That's Romans chapter eight. Did I say Revelation chapter eight? It's Romans chapter eight. So why is it that the

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Old Testament gave this in seed form and the New Testament is a much fuller explanation of these doctrines?

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Simply for this reason, it is not until the Lord Jesus Christ comes and dwells and is incarnated here and teaches that you have this new covenant which is about redemption and that is focused on and purchased by the death, burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ do you have this full revelation of what the doctrine of resurrection is.

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When Christ came, he is the one who is the agent of this resurrection. He is the one who is the judge of all mankind.

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And so the arrival of that agent, of that resurrected one and that judge, the arrival of him is the one that initiates all of this new information, new revelation about the doctrine of resurrection.

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In John chapter five, Jesus said this and this is just him describing his own work of resurrecting all men.

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And Jesus in John five, by the way, just describes him as the power behind resurrecting both the righteous and the wicked.

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He doesn't distinguish in the timing of those events. That's not his intention. But simply to describe himself as the agent of that resurrection.

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John chapter five, verse 25, Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the

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Son of God and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave the Son also to have life in himself and he gave him authority to execute judgment because he's the

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Son of Man. Do not marvel at this. For an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come forth.

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Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

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Jesus is teaching the same thing Paul said in Acts chapter 24. Jesus is teaching the same thing that Daniel said, that there will be a resurrection of the righteous and a resurrection of the wicked.

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Everybody gets an eternal body, everybody. Everybody gets an eternal body.

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The righteous get an eternal body that is fit for eternal glory and joy, delight and pleasure for all of eternity.

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The unrighteous, unrepentant, wicked get an eternal body that is fit to be consumed by worms but never die, to be consumed by flames but never die.

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Everybody gets an eternal body in the end. This is foundational Christian teaching.

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This is what the author of Hebrews says, this is the ABCs. Foundational stuff, elementary stuff.

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This is what we begin with. Isn't it weird that in our churches we think that this is the higher -minded stuff?

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Like this is if you go to theology class 301 sometime after you become a Christian and you have a little secret

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Sunday school class just for those people who wanna learn this high -minded doctrine and we sort of sequester them off into the corner of the building somewhere and have the old guy with the gray hair and the little glasses who used to teach seminary somewhere, he's the professor, and he's gonna go in and give them all of this high -minded doctrine about the resurrection.

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No, the author says this is the elementary things. This is the foundation. We move on from this to greater and better things.

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This is glorious truth. And this is the stuff that a Jewish person coming to Christ in the first century, they would have all kinds of questions about this.

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You know why they would have questions about this? Because what did they expect would happen when the Messiah came? Did he would resurrect all the

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Old Testament saints and establish a kingdom? Jesus didn't do that. He didn't set up an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem, run the

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Romans out, destroy all of the nations and make all of them subservient to him.

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He didn't do that. He didn't resurrect all the Old Testament saints. Abraham, David, Job, Jonah, these men weren't walking around in their midst.

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And so then along comes a Christian who says, look, Jesus is the Messiah. He died on a cross and he rose again and he went back to heaven. What do you think an

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Old Testament, what do you think a Jew who came out of that background with that understanding of resurrection, what questions would they be asking?

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If Jesus is the Messiah and he came, then why did he not resurrect the Old Testament saints?

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Because see, that's what we were expecting him to do. So their question would be, is this resurrection of the

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Old Testament saints still going to happen? What is the timing of this? What is the nature of this? What is our contribution to this?

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Are we going to share in that? Is that a different resurrection from our resurrection? They would have all of those questions because they expected when the

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Messiah came, he would resurrect the dead. But Jesus didn't resurrect the dead. He died and he rose again. And now they would want to know, well, then how does that all tie in to our understanding of the doctrine of resurrection?

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And of course, we believe that it does tie in because we believe that when he comes again, he will resurrect the dead.

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He will. He'll fulfill his word and his promise, just as he said. Let's look at the second one, eternal judgment.

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That's just the doctrine of resurrection. Let's move on to eternal judgment. Now, like the doctrine of the resurrection in the

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Old Testament, the doctrine of an eternal hell is not something that you find robustly written on every page.

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It's much more fully explained and it's prolific in the New Testament side of our book, but not so much in the

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Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Old Testament passages speak of judgments of God, but if you think back through the

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Old Testament teaching on judgments, you probably think of, what would you think is the greatest judgment of the

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Old Testament? The flood, right? Wiped out all of humanity except for eight people. The flood is the greatest judgment of the

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Old Testament. And you might think of other judgments in the Old Testament. Like when God brought his people out of the land of Egypt and all the pestilences and the plagues that were put out on the nation of Egypt and the destruction that came to them, that was a judgment.

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There were judgments in the Old Testament like when the children of Israel came into the land of Canaan and destroyed all of those other nations, that was an act of God's judgment upon pagan nations.

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Then when Babylon and Assyria came in and destroyed the land of Israel, those were judgments upon the nation of Israel. The Roman occupation of the land of Israel was a judgment.

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But those judgments in the Old Testament, they're all temporal judgments. There's not a lot in the Old Testament about the eternal future, eternal judgment of hell.

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It's mentioned, as I'm gonna give you a couple of them here, but all of the Old Testament judgments are intended to be for us a foreshadowing and a picture, a harbinger of a much greater judgment that is to come.

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Because all of the Old Testament judgments were to teach the people this, God is a holy God, God is a just God, and God punishes sin.

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In all of the temporal judgments of the Old Testament, that's what people should have learned. So there wasn't a robust teaching on the eternal state of hell because that was not the focus of the

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Old Testament covenant or the focus of Old Testament revelation. Instead, all of the judgments of God through the

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Old Testament, which were temporal judgments, were intended to picture and portray and to warn of a greater future judgment to come.

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They were to remind people that God judges sin, and so he calls upon us to repent.

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But that's not to say that the Old Testament does not mention eternal, or that the Old Testament doesn't mention eternal judgments, it does.

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Now, some people have this view of the Old Testament versus the New Testament like this, and I've mentioned this before. Some people think that the

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God of the Old Testament was a capricious God who had a temper problem, and every once in a while, he'd have a temper tantrum, and wipe out a whole bunch of people just because he couldn't contain himself.

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But then along comes Jesus in the New Testament, and he shows us a much better way. He shows us how to be loving and kind and gracious and good, and he really wants to correct our misunderstanding of the

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Old Testament God, who was kind of an ogre. Jesus is the nice guy, and the Father's really not so nice, and Jesus is really just trying to calm the

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Father down and keep him in a corner while he shows us love. Now, nothing could be more blasphemous or further than the truth than that doctrine, that belief.

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Given the nature of what Jesus says about eternal damnation, all of the temporal judgments of the

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Old Testament, the flood, Egypt, the destruction of nations, those are a

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Sunday afternoon picnic by comparison to what Jesus said he will do to unrepentant sinners.

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See, he is the judge who will cast unbelievers into an eternal hell. He is the one.

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Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven. And he tells us that God is a holy

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God and a just God, and that men are sinners, and that if there is going to be a day of judgment and there will, he is the righteous judge, and all men should fear him and flee to him for salvation, lest they be consumed on the last day.

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That's the teaching of Jesus. We'll get to that in just a second, as if that's the cheery part coming later on. We'll get to that in just a second, but first, what does the

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Old Testament teach about hell? There are three passages in the Old Testament that I would turn you to, two of them in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 66 is the last chapter in Isaiah, and this is significant because in Isaiah 66,

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Isaiah is describing the eternal state. And here's how he describes the judgment of God. Now listen, it's just, it's references to fire, it's references to the judgment of God, and it's not as full and robust as what we get in the

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New Testament, but it does describe God's judgment upon the wicked. Isaiah 66, verse 15. For behold, the

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Lord will come in fire and his chariots like the whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire.

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For the Lord will execute judgment by fire and by his sword on all flesh, and those slain by the

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Lord will be many. What does Isaiah teach? That when God judges the wicked, it will be with fire, and that God will slay or destroy or punish with fire many.

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Then we have in Isaiah chapter 66, later on in that passage, verse 22. For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which

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I make endure before me, declares the Lord, so your offspring and your name will endure, and it shall be from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will come down before me, says the

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Lord, will bow down before me, says the Lord. Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against me, for their worm will not die and the fire will not be quenched, and there will be an abhorrence to all mankind.

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So Isaiah, in describing the eternal state, says that the righteous will come and bow down before God, and in bowing down before God in worship, this is gonna be hard to hear, in bowing down before God in worship, that we, the righteous, will look on the corpses of those who have rebelled against God, that we will view their torment, and we will worship him for his display of his justice upon those who would not repent.

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And Isaiah says, God says in Isaiah, their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched.

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Does that sound like familiar language? If you've read your New Testament, that's familiar language, because that is the very, in teaching about hell, that is the very phrase that Jesus used out of Isaiah chapter 66.

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Before we get to Jesus' teaching, Daniel chapter 12, verse two, again, this is the same one that mentions the resurrection.

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Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

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And there Daniel has both the doctrine of resurrection and the doctrine of eternal judgment. He puts them both together.

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See how these are tied together? They have to be, because everybody gets an eternal body. Some to everlasting joy, others to everlasting contempt.

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And it's because they have an eternal body that they can be consumed by fire and worm and never perish or never be quenched.

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The worm will not die and the fire will not be quenched. Now, the New Testament teaching, certainly the New Testament is far more robust, far more detailed concerning the doctrine of eternal judgment.

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In fact, there's so much on it that time prohibits me just from even reading all the passages that describe the judgment of God, because it came from the lips of Jesus and the apostles, and of course, in Revelation 20, it is described.

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But if all that the New Testament gave us was Hebrews chapter six, verse three, where it mentions eternal judgment, if all that we had was

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Hebrews 6 .3 on the eternal state of men, what could we conclude? Two things. Number one, there's going to be a judgment, and number two, it will be everlasting and eternal.

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We conclude those two things. Just from the phrase in Hebrews 6 .3 that there is such a thing as eternal judgment.

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Let me give you a few passages from the New Testament. Here's John the Baptist's announcement of Jesus and his coming, Matthew chapter three, verse 11.

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As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I'm not fit to remove his sandals.

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He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor, and he will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

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Notice that John borrows the terminology from Isaiah, unquenchable fire. Mark chapter nine, this is

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Jesus. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than having your two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

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If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life lame than having two feet to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

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If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, for everyone will be salted with fire, close quote.

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Now, what's interesting about Jesus' teaching there is he is describing hell as a place where people with eternal bodies suffer eternal torment.

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Right? It is a bodily place. There is a bodily resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. Using the story, and not a parable, but the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke chapter 16,

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Jesus gives us a glimpse into that eternal state and the eternal condition of the righteous and the wicked. He describes a man who is lost in fiery torment forever.

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In Matthew chapter 25, verse 31, Jesus said, when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

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All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and he'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left and the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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And the passage then goes on to describe the righteous deeds of those who knew that king and served that king and got the just reward for their service and their trust in him, which was this everlasting life.

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And then the Lord says in Matthew 25, the same passage, then he will also say to those on his left, the goats, depart from me, accursed ones, into eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.

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Why is it? Why does he do that? Because they lacked the faith which was evidenced in the good works that Jesus describes in that passage.

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And at the end of that parable or at the end of that teaching, Jesus said in Matthew 25, 46, these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

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Eternal punishment and eternal life. There's something to teach that the punishment of hell is not eternal.

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If hell is not eternal, then heaven is not eternal because the same word is used to describe heaven and hell. The punishment is eternal, the life is eternal.

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That's what Jesus taught. Jesus warned of an eternal punishment following suits of the disciples.

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The apostles also spoke of this. 2 Thessalonians 1, 9, Paul says, these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the

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Lord and the glory of his power. Jude chapter, Jude verse seven, only has one chapter.

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Jude verse seven says, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, they are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

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Revelation 14, verse nine, if anyone worships the beast in his image and receives the mark in his forehead and on his hand, he'll drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the lamb.

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And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast in his image and whoever receives the mark of his name.

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Revelation 20, verse 10, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are also.

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And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20, 15, if anyone's name is not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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Revelation 21, eight, but the cowardly and the unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

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This is the second death. This is foundational basic 101

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Christian teaching. By the way, the doctrine of eternal hell is not something we should be ashamed of.

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It's not something we should cower and communicate to the unbelievers. Is this doctrine somehow a mark upon the truthfulness and the honor of God's name in any way?

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It's not. Do you understand that when we, the righteous, bow down before his throne in eternity, we will be aware of and we will look upon and we will understand the torment of those who are in hell and we will worship him because he is a just and holy and righteous

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God. And in that moment, we will have God's perspective on their sin and their impenitence.

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We will not be there weeping for unbelievers. We will be there worshiping the God whose justice is displayed in judging sin because he is righteous and he is holy.

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And we will say on that day, the God of all the earth, the Lord of all the earth, the judge of all men, has done what is right and good and we'll rejoice in it.

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Right now, the thought of that causes us great angst. It makes us anxious, it makes us weep, it makes us mourn, but on that day, it will not because we will have

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God's perspective on it. We have a completely sanctified and holy and glorious understanding of all that truth.

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We will understand and see all of it as it is in truth and it will bring us no tears at all. This is not a doctrine that we should be ashamed of.

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It's not a doctrine that we cower of fear mentioning to unbelievers. Unbelievers need to be warned that this is exactly what the

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Old and the New Testament teaches. And it's not unreasonable, it's not an unreasonable doctrine. Is it unreasonable to you that lawbreakers should be punished?

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Does that seem unreasonable to you? It's not unreasonable. It's not unreasonable that those who violate the law of God should receive the just deserts for their violation of the law of God.

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It's not unreasonable that somebody who has shaken his fist and spit in the face of the most holy and benevolent and loving and gracious sovereign of all of the universe should face his wrath when they have been given opportunity after opportunity and revelation of his righteousness and his judgment and his character, having received all of the benefits and the blessings through all of life and then to stand and to shake their fist at that God and refuse to repent and believe upon Christ who so graciously offers them salvation.

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Is it unreasonable to suggest that they should be punished in that way? It's not unreasonable at all. This is a glorious doctrine because it magnifies the justice of God.

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It demonstrates God justice in punishing sin, in punishing people for the crimes.

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It shows just how just and holy and righteous and good God is. It demonstrates that he is not perverted so as to blink or to turn his eye away from and to pervert justice.

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God will not do that. It shows that God is merciful and gracious and we think upon the justice that you deserve.

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Does it not magnify in your mind the graciousness of God that he would save you, a rebel sinner, a worm, whom he could just as easily have cast into eternal damnation, that he would condescend and send his son to die on a cross to pay for your sins so that you might be saved and that he would then graciously draw you to himself?

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Does that not woo your heart in adoration and love and praise for a God at that time of grace and mercy? The fact that he would save sinners from that justice, which is just, he's not ungood or not good, evil for pouring out his justice, but that he would save sinners from that and rescue them unto eternal life magnifies his grace and his mercy.

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And it demonstrates his righteousness that in sending his son to be the propitiation for our sins, he can demonstrate himself to be righteous by punishing sinners and pouring out his justice upon them and then also satisfying the demands of his justice by pouring out his wrath upon his son, a sin bearer in the stead of those whom he will save so that he can be righteous and righteously forgive sinners.

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He can say to certain sinners, you are acquitted, you may go free, you are righteous on the day of justice, not because of what they have done, but because of what

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Christ has done. And he can punish sinners for their rebellion demonstrating his righteousness. He can forgive sinners who receive and respond to him in faith because he is righteous so God may demonstrate grace and justice at the same time and be righteous in all of his dealings.

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His punishment of the wicked demonstrates his righteousness and it demonstrates his wisdom, magnifies the wisdom of God that he would design a way to hold men accountable for their crimes while laying upon his son the sins of all those whom he would save.

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What wisdom once devised the plan where all our sin and pride was placed upon the perfect lamb who suffered, bled, and died?

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The wisdom of a sovereign God whose greatness will be shown when those who crucified his son rejoice around his throne.

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That's wisdom. The grace of God, the mercy of God, the justice of God, the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the goodness of God, the truth of God, the wisdom of God, all of that is displayed in the doctrine of resurrection and eternal judgment.

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These are the foundational basic elements of Christian teaching. That's something we should be ashamed of, something we should gladly talk about.

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That's something we should be horrified at all. The sinner who perishes in their sin has no one to blame but themselves and if you stand here this day in rebellion to Jesus Christ, I can say that there are three things that are true of you.

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Number one, you know you have sinned. The law of God is written on your heart and your conscience bears witness, testifying to the truth of the law of God.

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But if you get justice on the day of judgment, you're gonna get exactly what you deserve and you know this. You know you've sinned.

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You know you've violated his law and you know that if there is justice, that you're in big trouble. And the second, you know that this justice is deserved by you because you sense the justice, you sense a desire for justice.

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It's part of the image of God that is stamped on you from creation, which is why you do not take delight when a judge lets a guilty criminal go free without punishing them.

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You don't like that happening. You want justice to be done. You understand that justice needs to be done. And you understand, though you may suppress the truth in your love for unrighteousness, you understand that the justice of God will be displayed upon you if you do not repent and believe.

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You know that. You know that you're a sinner. You know that you deserve justice. And there's a third thing that is true of you and that is that you can be forgiven today if you will come to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith.

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You can be reconciled to God because God is good, he is holy, he's loving, he's just, and he's kind. And you can be reconciled to him.

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Come to Christ. Believe in him. Repent and trust him. You can be reconciled to God, but you must be reconciled to God on his terms and not yours.

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You don't negotiate the terms of your surrender. He is the offended judge. He is the one who offers you clemency and forgiveness, but you must embrace that on his terms, his terms of repentance and faith.

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And so you can receive his grace or you can face his justice. Because there's a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

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Everybody gets an eternal body in which you will dwell for all of eternity. So receive his grace or face his justice.

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For those of you who are in Jesus Christ and you know Christ, you've repented of your sins and trusted in him, you are safe and secure because he has promised that he will not fail to raise you up at the last day.

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John chapter six. This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that the father has given to me, I give to them eternal life.

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And they will believe and I will give them eternal life and I will raise them up on the last day. He cannot fail.

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He will not fail. He will not fail to judge the wicked in eternal hell and he will not fail to raise the righteous unto eternal life, to dwell in a kingdom and glory with him.

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We do not serve a savior who fails to do what he has promised to do. If you don't know Christ, repent and believe upon him today.

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If you do know him, you have a blessed hope that there shall both be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked and you will partake in that first resurrection.

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Blessed and holy are you because you get to enjoy that first resurrection. Let's bow our heads.

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Father, we thank you for the clarity of your word in these things. We ask that you would give us grace to never be ashamed of these doctrines but to hold them tightly to our hearts and our minds that we may be reminded of them constantly for your answer to sin in this world is to judge it righteously and justly and your answer to sin in us is that we might die and our bodies will perish but we have this hope that we shall rise again and we shall see our

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Redeemer take his stand upon the earth and we will see him with our eyes and not another and blessed and holy will be all those who partake of that glorious grace.

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We pray that it may be many and that you today would draw sinners, if anybody's here who does not know Jesus Christ, just draw them to yourself, that the lamb, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, may receive the full reward for all his suffering and that you would be glorified through saving sinners and not executing your justice on them.