25 - Eternal State

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26 - The Constitution of Man, Part 1

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Well, welcome to the

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Striving for Eternity Academy. This is our last class in our introduction to the major western religions.

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This is part of our School of World Religions, the specific class that we're taking right now is an introduction to the world religion, western religions, and this lesson will be on the eternal state.

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Lesson 12, this is the last, hopefully, we'll see if we can get it all done in one class, the last class we're giving a

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Christian response to what the different religions believe as we've been going through their theology and looking at that, we've been giving a response.

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So, this is a ministry of striving for eternity. If you have a syllabus, I would encourage you to take one out now.

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If you don't have a syllabus, I'd encourage you to go to store .strivingforeternity .org

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and pick one up. That would be a good thing to do. You can also pick up my book,

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What Do They Believe? That is also at that website where you can get that along with other things that are out there at the store.

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Striving for Eternity is a ministry that is designed or dedicated to discipleship and discipling others to disciple others.

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And that's why we provide these classes so that you can learn and then you can take it to your church and you can help others grow in their faith.

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As it says in the Great Commission that we are commissioned to go and teach others everything that Christ has taught us.

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Well, my goal as the instructor of this class, my name is Andrew Rappaport, if I haven't said it by now, sorry, my goal is to instruct you so that you can go and instruct others.

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I am to teach you all things Christ taught me. You take that which I have now taught you and you teach it to others.

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That's the way discipleship happens. So this being our last class, this is actually kind of tying to touch what we are going to get into in our next school.

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We are going to actually, after this, if you have been watching, you know that we have kind of taken the systematic theology school, we have been doing an introduction, there are already over 60 classes there and we are going to wrap that up after this and we are going to go into, well we are going to look at end times which is what we are looking at today.

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So think of this as kind of, if you are watching classes live, then this is kind of a primer for what we are going to talk about in much more detail in the weeks to come.

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But the eternal state is the conscious state in which man will live both body and soul for all of eternity.

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That's what the eternal state is, according to the Bible, we are going to make that case. The aspects that Christians need to address are the death, the immediate state, and then the final eternal state because there is much confusion in these areas.

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And so we want to break them out into these three kind of time periods, our death, what happens between death and that final eternal state, that would be the intermediate state, and then the eternal state where we will actually be because as you are going to see, we sometimes use language to refer to the intermediate state as if it's the eternal state.

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So not to confuse you, let's start with death. Wow, that didn't come out well. That just sounded bad.

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Let's start with death. No, we don't want to, yeah, okay, there's no recovery from that, it didn't sound good.

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But let's start with that point. I'm not going to recover from that so I'll just move on. Alright, death.

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The concept of death is separation, that's your blank there, separation. Let's think about that.

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Death is a result of sin. We agree on that. I think all the major religions kind of agree on that.

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Some like Hinduism, Buddhism would not. You're going to see with them, you're going to see a little bit of a different thing with them because Hinduism, Buddhism, you're going to see this notion that they have of just a kind of a good and evil at odds with one another and because of that, you don't really see this concept or have this concept that we would talk about of sin entering the world.

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So let's put that aside for a second and just say that there's, I want to deal with three types of death.

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There's three types of death. There's physical death, which is the one when we talk about death, that's what we most often think of. When we talk about death, it's physical.

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We're going to talk about that. But there's also spiritual death and eternal death. So three types of death, physical, spiritual, and eternal.

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If you look in your syllabus there, physical death is the separation of the soul from the body.

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Those blanks there are soul from the body. So this is physical death is when your soul or your spirit technically, that would be a better word there, would be spirit to be technical because the soul can refer to body and spirit.

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So when you have that immaterial part of you separating from the material part of you, that is death, physical death.

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Now there are some, as we saw like Jehovah Witnesses, that they will say that there's this separation but then that immaterial part of you is going to burn up if you're not one of the elect.

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Your body is going to burn up, or sorry, your immaterial part of you is going to burn up and just go out of existence.

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There are some, even within, shall we say Christian circles, that are conditionalists.

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In other words, they seem to believe that our soul does not separate. There are some who believe that when we die our physical part dies and if we're redeemed then we have an immortal spirit and we live on forever.

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But there are some who will try to argue, some religions will try to argue that once we die our physical body is gone and they don't make a distinction between the material and immaterial part of mankind.

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So when they don't do that they're going to have an issue. We're going to look at death being a separation of the spirit from the body.

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Where does the spirit go? Where does the body go? Well the body goes in the ground. Where does the spirit go?

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That's what we're going to talk about in the next section on the eternal, not the eternal, the intermediate state.

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The soul does not cease to exist. This is important because if the spirit ceases then you could argue for conditionalism or annihilationism.

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But if you and I are made with a spirit that's immortal, in other words it had a starting time, a start point and goes on forever, then we will live in a conscious state forever.

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And that's what really the issue is when we talk about some of these end time issues with false religions is what is the makeup of man?

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Is man immortal? The spirit. So the soul does not cease to exist but is released from the body.

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The remedy for the physical death is the resurrection. When the body will be rejoined to the spirit.

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Here comes the issue. How is that going to happen? If someone's body is burned or it's decayed how can it be reformed and reunited with their spirit?

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Excuse me, did God create an entire universe out of nothing and you think he can't recreate your body?

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Hello? I mean really. It shows when people make that argument how little they think of God.

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God created your body the first time. You think he can't do it a second time? He created

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Adam and Eve out of dust. He could create, I mean he created

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Adam out of dust, actually Eve out of a rib I guess. But the point being is he created a universe out of nothing.

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Recreating our body is not a difficult task for him. He can do that. Will it be exactly the same body?

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I don't know. Will it be a body and it's at 21? I don't know. Reality, we're not going to be so vain when we're in a glorified state to worry about how we look.

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I mean if I'm old and fat and white hair, I won't care.

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I won't be vain anymore. I won't care about looks. I mean that's the point. So people get into focusing on the wrong things when it comes to death and the resurrection.

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Okay, the second type of death is spiritual death. Spiritual death is the separation of man from a relationship with God.

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That's your blank. A relationship with God. So you have the separation. Now this is what

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I believe really happened at the garden and we'll get to that in a moment. But this spiritual separation is what we see in Ephesians 2, 1 -3.

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Ephesians 2, 1 -3 says, there we go.

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Okay, I can see it. Sorry, I didn't have it up on my screen for a second. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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You see in verse 1 there, we were dead. What's that death? That's spiritual death. And he went on to explain what this spiritual death looked like.

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It's the natural state when we're born. We're born into that. Okay, it is the spiritual death that was the consequence of Adam's sin of eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

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When we look at Genesis 2 -17, it says, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it.

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For the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Now what ends up happening there is that people say, well, if we're surely going to die, well then they didn't die the moment they ate of it.

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And so some people say, well, the death process started. No, they died immediately.

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The moment they ate of that fruit, they died spiritually. You and I tend to think physically because when we hear death, we think of physical death.

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When God speaks, he's speaking of spiritual. So it was, they died immediately. Did the death process occur?

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Yes, because sin entered the world and the curse of sin, they started the dying process.

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Their body was not going to live forever. But they did immediately die.

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The moment Adam partook of that fruit, they recognized they were naked. They knew it was wrong.

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They experienced the spiritual death. And all humans, because of what

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Adam did, are born in that state. The remedy for spiritual death is salvation or regeneration.

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We must be regenerate. That's the remedy for spiritual death. Now notice, again,

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I said death is separation. Physical death, separation from spirit and body.

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Spiritual death, what Adam and Eve experienced immediately, and we all are born into, is a separation from that relationship with God.

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As soon as Adam and Eve partook of that, boom. They knew there was a difference. Why did

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Adam hide? Because that relationship immediately changed. And then there is eternal death, the last type.

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This is called sometimes the second death, Revelation 2 .11 and others. Eternal death is the permanent, that's your blank there, permanent separation of man from a relationship with God.

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You will see this in Revelation chapter 20. Oh, it's with the others.

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There's Revelation 2 .11. But let's look at Revelation 20, verse 6.

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Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power.

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The second death is what I'm referring to as eternal death. It has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign for him with a thousand years.

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You also see it there in Revelation 20 .14. And you'll see again, we're going to come back to Revelation 20 .14,

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but you'll see the second death mentioned and then Revelation 21, verse 8.

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So what you end up seeing there is that eternal death is the permanent situation.

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This is a permanent condition. This is a permanent result of someone's spiritual death when they experience physical death.

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So their rejection of God's saving grace throughout their life and now they experience physical death, still in a state of spiritual death, they now experience eternal death.

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It now becomes a permanent state. So with angels, we've talked about this in previous classes in theology where angels are different than man because angels had one time where they were secured, where their death, shall we say, is solidified or permanent.

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That was once in time. Well, we have a choice of repenting up until that time we die.

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At the point that we die, that rebellion against God becomes a permanent state and that's eternal death.

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There is no remedy. That's your blank there. There is no remedy for eternal death.

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Why does this become important? Because there is no second chance after physical death.

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This is where Mormonism has it wrong, where they say you can have a second chance. There are others who argue that somehow

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God has to be just as if He hasn't given you enough evidence in this world to know the truth.

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He's given you a knowledge of truth, yet you reject it and somehow the only way

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God could be fair is to let you experience physical death and then know.

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We've had all this our life to repent and then somehow God is unfair if He doesn't give us a second chance.

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He's given us way more than second chances. Just think about every time you sin, that's another chance to repent.

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You and I have a multitude of opportunities to turn to Christ and live.

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But those who refuse to can't argue that they need a second chance as some religions will argue.

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No, that's not what we end up seeing in the Bible. It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.

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That's immediate. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. Immediate.

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That's what we're going to talk about now. Let's talk about the immediate state. What is the immediate state?

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The immediate state is the conscious existence of the personality of both the godly and ungodly or believing and unbelieving or saved and unsaved, whichever words you want to put there, between the time of physical death and the resurrection at the

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Great White Throne Judgment. Let's go over some of these things. We die physically.

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If we're in a state where we've been regenerated, then we're going to be conscious of where we're going.

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Not mentioning where we're going yet. We're going to be in a state, it's just going to be our spirit, that immaterial part of us, and we're going to be in a place, we're going to get to where that is, well, it's called heaven.

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We'll get to the details of that in a moment. But we will be there. But the important thing of this is that those who do not believe in God, those who die physically in a state of spiritual death, will still be conscious.

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And they will stay in a different place called hell until this Great White Throne Judgment where all of us, both the regenerate and the unregenerate, those that are in heaven and those that are in hell, will all face that Great White Throne Judgment where we will have our bodies reunited with us.

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That's the second resurrection. Our bodies are reunited with us, and then we get into the eternal state.

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We'll get to that in a moment. So, physical death involves the loss of our immaterial...

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Sorry, missing one word can be a big problem. The word no. Physical death involves no loss of our immaterial consciousness.

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Let's take a look at Revelation 6, 9 -11. There we go.

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When he opened the fifth seal, I saw the altar. The souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they bore.

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They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on earth.

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Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

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So, what you see with this is that they are conscious. They're aware of what's happening, even though they're dead, physically.

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So, the idea... Now, some will argue, oh, but that's only for those who are regenerate get to be conscious.

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Those who are not regenerate are in what the

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Jehovah Witnesses would call a soul sleep. So, this whole immediate state for the unregenerate, the

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Jehovah Witnesses will just say this whole state doesn't exist for them.

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We would have it and then they would end up experiencing just a sleep, a non -consciousness until this final white throne judgment, which then they're just poof out of existence or burned up.

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They might suffer some punishment, which whenever you have them suffering a punishment until their works are burned up, that's the proof that it's a works -based system because the works have to be burned up.

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It's the same with purgatory. You don't see purgatory. There is no intermediate state of purgatory that is before this eternal state.

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And this is what Roman Catholicism would teach, that you're somehow in a purgatory where you have to work off those sins, what does that prove?

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That it's a works -based system. It's based on human effort because even no matter what you did on this life, you have to go into purgatory to work it off, to pay it off and then you get into this eternal state.

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We don't see that anywhere in scripture. Alright? So, physical death involves no loss of our immaterial consciousness.

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The soul of the redeemed pass immediately into the presence of the Lord. We can look at Luke 23.

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Well, a couple of passages. Luke 23, 43 says, and he said to him, truly

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I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Philippians 1, 23.

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I am hard -pressed between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ for that is far better.

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2 Corinthians 5, 8. Yes, we are of our good courage and we would rather be away from the body and home with the

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Lord. You see, each one of those are pointing to the fact that immediately, for the believer, absent from the body, present with the

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Lord. There is a separation of body and soul. So, we will be in that state with our immaterial part of us is basically.

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So, we'll be in Christ's presence immaterially. Okay? Our body won't be there, but our spirit will.

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For the redeemed, such separation will continue until the rapture. We see this in 1

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Thessalonians 4, 13 -17. We'll get into that. Which initiates the first resurrection that's mentioned in Revelation 20, verses 4 -6.

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There's some that would disagree within Christian circles on the rapture and this first resurrection.

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That's fine. The point here is this is where you're going to see some differences within Christianity, but still, having some different understandings of future things, we really want to focus in on where we're different than these false religions.

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So, don't get too hung up on the rapture, things like that. But in the first resurrection, our soul will be reunited and glorified with the

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Lord. Until that time, the souls of the redeemed in Christ remain in joyful fellowship with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Okay? And you see that in that passage, 2 Corinthians, that we looked at, 5 -8.

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So, let us start with looking at heaven. Heaven's a wonderful topic.

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It seems that everyone writes books saying they've been there. They like to describe it. It's kind of the way to make a number one bestseller, is to say you went to heaven and talk about it, even if you're five years old.

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And then it becomes a runaway bestseller. But the reality is, if you actually went to heaven, you'd be more concerned when you return about your sin and the sin of those around you and those that are unrepented around you and you'd be concerned that they repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ so that they would have eternal life.

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That would be your concern. So when people say that they've went to heaven and they don't have the view that someone like Paul had, then

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I question whether they actually went to heaven. But heaven is the righteous at death, immediately, that's your blank there, immediately enter into the presence of God, which is called heaven.

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We looked at some passages already on this. Christ told the thief on the cross next to him that he would be in paradise that very day.

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That's Luke 23, 43. This day you will be with me in paradise. That also means for the faith healers and things like that that Christ didn't spend three days in hell because that very day this thief was with Jesus in paradise, in heaven.

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But heaven is a temporary place. And this is how when we talk sometimes we speak of heaven as hell as if they're the eternal resting place and they're not.

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They are an immediate state, intermediate state. They are a temporal state.

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So they're a temporal place of rest for saints until they get to that eternal state.

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We see this in Revelation 14, verse 13. And it says in Revelation 14, 13,

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And I hear a voice from heaven saying,

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Write this, Blessed are the dead who die in the

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Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them.

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Okay, so I'm going to explain when we get to the eternal state why I say this is temporary.

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So hold on to that because we're going to see that heaven, those that are in heaven are going to enter into a different place.

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And that place is going to be called the new heaven and new earth. This is where Jehovah's Witnesses get confused.

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Remember I said for Jehovah's Witnesses they're kind of confused on this intermediate state. So they talk about a new heaven and new earth and they kind of mix that up with 144 ,000 that are going to be in the future earth, the actual earth, the one we're living on.

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And they think that only 144 ,000 will get into that new heaven. Sorry, the new earth.

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Sorry, the new heaven. And everyone else, every other Jehovah's Witness will be on the new earth.

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So this is where you see breakdowns. You're also going to see what Jehovah's Witnesses hell, whoops, that's missing.

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No one likes hell. I don't either. Guess what? I don't like it.

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No one likes it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist just because it makes us uncomfortable.

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Do I have family members who will spend time in hell? Yes. Do I like that?

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No. But just because I don't like it doesn't mean I should pretend like it doesn't exist or teach that it doesn't exist just because I don't like it.

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No. Me liking it has nothing to do with the reality of it. I don't like gravity. I wish I could just float. But I don't get to make the rules.

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All right, hell. The wicked, unbelieving, at physical death immediately, that's your blank there, immediately enter into hell which is a place of restriction.

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Okay? Hell is a place of restriction. There's people that argue, hell is a place where God doesn't exist.

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Really? God is present in hell because God's omnipresent. He's everywhere.

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1 Peter 3 .19 says, Now, why is this important?

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Because Jesus is going to hell to those that are in prison there.

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First off, it's in prison. It shows the restriction. The other thing is it shows that they're conscious. They're aware.

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They're knowledgeable of what's happening there. Okay? So that's the point there.

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They're not ignorant of it. All right? Hell is a literal place where the soul consciously endures a conscious torment as a consequence of sin.

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Now, let's turn to a parable. Luke 16. Now, some take this as absolute, that this actually happened.

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I think it's a parable. I can make a case for it. I think it's a good case. But either way, the fact that this is a parable does not, in Luke 16 .19

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-31, the fact that this is a parable doesn't mean that this is not a literal hell.

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This parable makes no sense whatsoever if there was no hell, if there was no immediately entering in to the presence of God.

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If Lazarus, and so if you don't know the parable, it's Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus dies.

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Immediately, he's in a place called Abraham's bosom, which is considered heaven. And here's the rich man.

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He's immediately in a place of torment, and he's conscious of it. He's aware of it. He even is aware that he doesn't want his brothers to be there.

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And so this goes against Jehovah's Witness teaching that there is this idea that there is no hell.

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That modern Judaism teaches there is no hell. And I think a lot of times it's because they don't like the thought of it.

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Again, just because I don't like the thought of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So this parable, if Christ is actually describing an actual person named

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Lazarus, and an actual rich man, and what actually happened, then yes, that makes a stronger case for the point that I'm making.

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But even if it is Jesus who is God and knows about heaven and hell, this parable makes no sense if there isn't a real conscious place of torment after people die.

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Then this makes no sense. Okay? So, hell is, and if you look in your syllabus, there's some other passages you could look at.

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Hell is different than the lake of fire. Okay? Just keep that in mind.

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Because people that are in hell, that's temporal, they're going to be thrown into the lake of fire, and that's going to be the permanent place.

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That's the eternal resting place for the unredeemed. There are different degrees of punishment in hell, by the way, based on the amount of knowledge of the

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Word of God that people had on earth. Let's take a look at Matthew 11, 24.

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Matthew 11, 24. If you look here, you see here it says in Matthew 11, 24,

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But I tell you, it will be more tolerable on the

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Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom than you. And who are the land of Sodom?

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The land of Sodom were people who, you know, they're in hell, they're conscious of what's happening, and what you end up seeing there is that in that consciousness, they are realizing that it's going to be far better.

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Why? Because even in their case, they did not know as much information as these people who saw

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Christ, God incarnate, God made a man, God walking on earth in front of them, doing miracles, stating the very words of God, and they rejected.

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As bad as Sodom was, and Sodom is always a picture of like the most vile city, okay, in the

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Old Testament. It is always with this negative thought. So to the Jewish person to think, how could any,

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Sodom, that's horrible. Here, what Jesus is saying is there's going to be a worse place for you in hell because you had more information than those of Sodom.

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And that's the reality. When you look at this passage, you see it, and others, we don't have time to get into all of them, but when we look at these, let us realize that it is far worse based on the information that you know.

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So these people that grow up in Christian homes and want to pretend like they're atheists, they are going to unfortunately have a worse place in hell because they knew the truth.

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The more information, so in reality is, the more these people that want to study to try to debunk

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Christianity, the more they engage with Christians and hear the truth and reject it, the worse punishment they're going to have.

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That's the reason, by the way, for me, that I'm so motivated to share the gospel with people. These religions, false religions that go out and they study, and they study, and they look at what

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God's word actually says, and they twist it to make something that's untrue, they should have known the truth.

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My heart breaks for them because they're going to have a special place in hell that's going to be far worse.

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And I don't want to see anyone do that and suffer that. So my heart is that they would repent and come to know the truth.

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That's why I go out, and that's why I study these things, to help them understand the truth because it's only with the truth that they're going to be set free.

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The person in Africa who never, because that's the argument, what about that tribesman in Africa who never heard the gospel?

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Will he still go to hell? Yes, because he still broke God's law, but he's not going to go in the same place of hell that you might.

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You may go to a worse hell. Why? Because you knew more. So there are degrees of punishment.

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Let's look now, lastly, at the eternal state. The eternal state.

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So, the eternal state is ushered in by the great white throne judgment of Revelation 20 verses 11 and 15.

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Let's not turn there because it's a little bit long and we're a little short on time.

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I do want to try to finish this up. You can read that in Revelation 20 verses 11 to 15.

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This references great white throne judgment. There will be a bodily resurrection of all men, that's all mankind, both the saved to eternal life and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment.

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Let's look at some of these passages. The saved. Let's start with that with John 6. So, John 6.

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John 6, 39. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise them up to the last day.

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Next, Romans 8, 10 and 11. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

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If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised

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Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

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It's Romans 8, 10 and 11. Further, Romans 8, 19 to 23 says,

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For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

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For the creation was subjected to the futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from the bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

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And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

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That's right, our bodies. 2 Corinthians 4, 14. Knowing that he who raised the

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Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus to bring us into your presence.

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Well, how was Jesus raised? Jesus was raised both body and spirit. He was bodily raised from the dead.

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This is something that the Jehovah Witnesses disagree. Why? I think that they disagree that he bodily rose because they have an issue with this whole thing.

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Well, partially because they think he went back to being a spirit, an angel, and so they don't think his body rose.

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But his body is not in the tomb. He rose from the dead, and he was the first fruits.

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Just as Jesus rose both body and spirit, so you and I will eventually have, at that judgment, body and spirit.

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What about the unjust, the unsaved? They're going to be raised, at that great white throne judgment, to an everlasting punishment.

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Let's look at Daniel 12, 2. Now, this one's interesting because this one puts together both the eternal life and the eternal death in one verse.

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So, Daniel 12, 2. And as many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall wake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

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Now, the reason this is an important one is because, notice, what's going to raise from the dead? Our body.

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This is against the Jehovah Witness teaching that says that we won't live forever because this is just in the same way that our body is going to be resurrected so that we have eternal life, everlasting life.

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So, in the same way, we're going to have everlasting death or contempt. So, it's the same. So, if the everlasting in life is eternal, is forever, then so is this everlasting contempt.

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And they say, well, the contempt is that we just poof out of existence, but we can't experience that. And then what happens to our body now that it's a living and not, and in this everlasting contempt?

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Because it raises. See, that's the point there. John 5 .29

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And come out those who have done good to the resurrection of life and to those who have done evil, the resurrection of judgment.

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So, again, you see that there is going to be this period where we're going to have our body raised, some to eternal life, some to eternal contempt or the lake of fire.

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The souls of the unsaved at death are kept under punishment until that second resurrection.

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When the soul of the resurrected body will be united with the soul, then shall they, then shall,

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I can't read my own notes. They shall then appear at the great white throne judgment, and they shall be cast into the lake of fire.

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Okay? This is what's referred to in Matthew 25, verses 41 to 46. They'll be cut off from God forever, as Daniel 12 .2

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mentions. Okay? And then we're going to talk about these two states now.

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In the time we have remaining, let's talk about that. Where will we be for eternity? We said heaven and hell is temporary. So where will we be for eternity?

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Well, those that believe in Christ, those who have been regenerated, will be in the new heaven and new earth, or what's called the new

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Jerusalem. Those are the three titles that we see for it. Okay? The new heaven, the new earth, and the new

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Jerusalem. There is a literal place known as heaven where persons, both men and angels, will consciously worship

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God. That's your blank there. Will consciously worship God in the real everlasting presence.

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So this new heaven, we are going to be there in a conscious state.

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We're going to know what we're doing. The purpose of what we're going to do is worship God. It's going to be a real everlasting presence with God.

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This is a place where God is the center of all worship and the purpose for being and not for the enjoyment of man.

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This totally separates it from Mormonism and Islam. What do you have in Islam?

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You have men having all their desires satisfied. And I don't mean mankind.

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I mean men. Because all the women that are there are just to satisfy their sexual desires.

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Same for what you have with Mormonism. It's a man -made religion, not mankind.

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Man. Because what do you have in heaven? You have the wives that you took and their job is just to crank out spirit babies and you just get to have eternal sex.

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And that's really what it comes down to. What you end up with in Islam is that all the things that are here on earth, like drinking, you can drink.

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You can't drink on earth, but there's going to be a lot of drinking in heaven, in what they call paradise.

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No, that's not the goal of heaven. When we're in this new heaven, the goal, the central theme is going to be the worship of God and Him alone, not man's desires.

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There will be no marriage. I kind of don't like that part, just saying. But when

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I'm in that glorified state, I'm not going to want to be married. Again, what's the purpose?

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It's not for my satisfaction and my pleasure. It is for God's worship.

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I will want to worship God so I won't be worried about not being married. And my relationships with my family will change.

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My wife will not be my wife. My children will not be my children. I will know who they are. I'll be conscious of it. But I'm not going to have that family relationship.

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I'm going to have the same relationship with them that I'd have with everybody. And it's because our focus is going to be on the worship of Christ.

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Again, not on us. Therefore, there is a change in our human relationships that we have on earth.

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We will not continue in the same relationship structure as we had on earth.

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Although we'll see family members, the relationship will change because the focus will be on God, not man.

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And so this is why I think it's so wrong when people say, don't you want to go to heaven and see Grandma and Grandpa?

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Don't you want to be in heaven with your family? No! You want to be in heaven to be with God? God, that's it.

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God, that's the central thing. God. That's why we want to be there. Alright. Judgment is based on having your name in a book called the

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Lamb's Book of Life. You can see this in Revelation 3, 5, 13, 8, 17, 8, 20, verse 15, 21, verse 27, and 22, verse 19.

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They mention the Lamb's Book of Life. That's how we're going to be judged. I point that out only because when you look in Revelation at how the unbelievers are going to be judged, they're going to be judged by a book called the

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Book of Works. So on that Great White Throne of Judgment, there's going to be two books that are open. Lamb's Book of Life.

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If your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, it means that Jesus Christ paid for your sin. He was the punishment.

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And because of that, you enter into the new heaven and new earth. However, if your name is not in that book, then they open another book, and that book is called the

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Book of Works, and you will be condemned to the eternal lake of fire, to the everlasting lake of fire, based on your works.

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And for most people, it is their, what they call good works, that are the very things they think are going to save them from that lake of fire.

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Those are the very works that will condemn them to the lake of fire. That is why we have to go out and share with these people.

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Think about this. That Jehovah Witness that knocks on your door every week, does your heart break for that person?

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They have such zeal. They are trying to work their way to heaven and do everything they can to earn eternal life.

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And that very work that they do is what's going to condemn them. Does that not make your heart break for them?

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Do you not have a passion for them? Do you not see that they have a great need to hear the truth?

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It is not for us to feel that we are superior because God saved us, and we can just be mean to them, and be like, wow, you don't know the truth, and ridicule them.

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No, your heart should break for them. They are going to an eternal lake of fire whether they believe it exists or not.

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Alright, I'll get off my soapbox. The lake of fire. Do you see why this should motivate us to reach these people and go out of our way to talk with these people?

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Alright, the lake of fire. There is a literal place known as hell that gets thrown into a literal place called the lake of fire, where persons, both men and angels, will be consciously punished.

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They are conscious of it, they are aware of it, and they will be punished for the works that they do.

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Okay? Both body, well, for the men, and spirit.

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Angels don't have a body. But our human bodies are going to be reunited with us, and those that don't believe in Christ and don't have regeneration, their body and spirit, both will go into the lake of fire in a real place of torment, everlasting torment.

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So, hell is a temporary place of punishment until the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20 verses 11 to 15.

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The inhabitants of hell are cast into the lake of fire for all of eternity. Let's take a look if we have

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Revelation 20 verse 14 and 21 verse 8. So let's start with Revelation 20 verse 14.

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Then death and Hades, Hades is a name for hell, and then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

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This is the second death, the lake of fire. So that second death, that eternal death that we talked about, is known as the lake of fire.

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Revelation 21 verse 8, but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is called the second death.

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Okay, so do you see that there? That's going to be their place of suffering. The judgment is based on, as I said, their works.

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Let's look at Revelation chapter 20 verse 12. This is the one you want to remember.

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So when you share with people the gospel, remember this verse. You also want to remember

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Revelation 21 verse 8 because Revelation 21 verse 8 is where it says all liars are going to have their place in this lake of fire, but Revelation 20 verse 12 says,

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And I saw the dead, great and small, that's again, great and small, those degrees, standing before the throne, and the books were opened.

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Okay, then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged by what is written in the books according to what they had done, according to what they have done.

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So there's two books opened, and you have the great and the small being judged. You have them being judged, and as they're judged, they're judged by their works, the things they have done.

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Those very deeds they think will save them will condemn them. The problem with works is that there are no good works that merit salvation.

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Isaiah 64, 4, there are good works like filthy rags in God's sight. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, that works can't save us.

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They were saved by grace through faith. It's a gift of God, not of works. Titus 3, 5 is another.

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So with that, that is, I got through it all, that is how we see the eternal state, and the importance of this then becomes the fact that we have to be aware that when we look at this and compare it to other religions, we should have our hearts burdened for them in the fact that they're going to, that lake of fire is where they're going to spend eternity.

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Let's have a compassion for them and go out and reach the lost. Alright? If you have a question about this or anything else about these classes, you can email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org,

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academyatstrivingforeternity .org. You can go to the website, and Striving for Eternity, and get all of the other products that we have.

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You can pick up my book at our store, What Do They Believe? You can also go there and sign up to look about, look at hosting a

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Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar in your area. We'd love to do one of those in your area.

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They are basically a 6 -session, 8 -hour class, weekend class.

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We come into your church and teach people how to interpret the Bible. And so also, lastly, actually before I...

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Well, I'll mention Ohio Fire. Ohio Fire is coming up, it's just a few weeks away. April 8th and 9th, 2016.

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Phil Johnson, Thomas White, myself will be speaking on the topics of the Word of God. Lastly, I do want to say there will be no class next week.

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No class next week. I'm headed out to California. I will be there all week. I will be returning.

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I don't know if I'm... Chances are I'm going to take a week off so that I can rest. We will be starting a new session, a new class, or actually returning to Systematic Theology.

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So please go to the store, strivingforeturning .org, order book 4 of the Systematic Theology book 4, that's the intro class that we have for the

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School of Systematic Theology. We're going to be going over the Doctrine of the Church and the Doctrine of End Times. So we're going to go into everything that we did in one lesson today.

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We're going to spend several lessons, I think it's 4, 5, 6 lessons, going into much more detail.

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We'll get into all the different views that Christians hold. It will be different because we're going to focus on more of the Christian view, not opposing the other world religions' views, but the different views within what the

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Bible teaches or what people see within the Bible. So, with that said, I want to encourage you to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.