Death Can Never Seperate Us From The Presence & Love Of God

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ

Ro 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Ro 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Ro 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

Ro 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

One of the sisters of a person who was murdered asked me

“Having lived for nearly 80 years - We know that she had to go one day” “But why did she have to go like this?”

• That’s our difficulty

• Can any one give an answer? NO

• Why she had to go like this we will never be able to find an answer

But those who belive in Jesus could face dangers ( in Romans 8:35,38,39) in life with an assurance that inspite of these we will never be separated from God’s love

The people who do not know Christ - tragic deaths bring them to the point that makes them feel SWOLLOWED UP OR SNATCHED AWAY BY DEATH

But for those who know Christ it has been overturned

SWOLLOWED UP

1 Corinthians 15: 54 – 57 “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

1Co 15:55 “Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?”

1Co 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

1Co 15:57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

• Death (no matter how it happens) cannot separate because it is ‘swallowed up in victory’

SNATCHED AWAY

John 10: 14,15,29

Jn 10:14, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—

Jn 10:15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep……..

Jn 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

• Those who love Christ can be killed & snatched away from us but never snatched away from the love of Christ

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (v.37).

• That is, we win the supreme victory through Christ, who loved us. By saying "loved us,"

• Paul does not intend to restrict Christ’s love to the past; he rather is emphasizing the historic demonstration of this love that gives assurance of its continuance under all circumstances.

• "Death" cannot separate the believer from that love (cf. 2Co 5:8; Php 1:21), nor can "life," with all its allurements and dangers and trials.

So those who have been snatched away from us where are they now?

Rev 6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.

Rev 6:10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

Rev 6:11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

• They are under the Altar of God crying for justice upon those who killed them

• Who are these martyrs ?

o Revelation 13:15 “all who refused to worship the image of the beast (were) killed”

o Revelation 20:4 “those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received the mark of the beast on their foreheads or their hands”

o They may or may not have been killed literally, but they have identified themselves (like John - Revelation 1:2,9) with the “slain lamb” – they had already offered up their lives “because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained”

• “souls of those who had been slain”.

o Actual persons, instead of disembodied souls, are found under the altar

o They are able to speak as living persons though they had been killed

o They are given white robes (to wear) – evidence of their righteousness & victory before God

• What a comforting assurance! Though snatched away from us, thouse who believe in Christ are never snatched away from the love and presence of God. To be under the altar of God means to be safe in His presence!