Death From Gods Perspective

“Death From God’s Perspective”

Illustration:

• Ask if anyone is familiar with D.L. Moody (Northfield Ma. An evangelist of the 19th century)

• Thursday, December 21, 1899, after cutting short a Kansas City preaching engagement and returning home in ill health, D. L. Moody told his family, "I’m not discouraged. I want to live as long as I am useful, but when my work is done I want to be up and off."

• The next day Moody awakened after a restless night. In careful, measured words he said, "Earth recedes, Heaven opens before me!" His son, Will, concluded his father was dreaming. "No, this is no dream, Will. It is beautiful. It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet. There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go."

Introduction:

• Ecclesiastes: 3:1-15 “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to weep, and a time to laugh, A time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

• Although there is a time to mourn, if we understand death from God’s perspective then we will find that a time will come when we can dance again.

Proposition:

• In today’s sermon I am going to propose to you that from God’s perspective Death does not extinguish the lights of our lives; it puts out the lamp because the dawn has come!

Transition:

Right now this very moment, open your hearts and allow God to show you death from His perspective.

I. Dying was never the plan:

Illustration:

• As I stood over my grandmothers deathbed, I can remember thinking “We were not designed for this, there is nothing natural about death”.

• Have you ever heard someone at a wake say “They look so natural”? That’s ridiculous! What they mean is they almost look alive which would be natural.

• Death was not part of God’s plan from the beginning!

Scripture Verse:

• Genesis 2:16-17 “ The Lord God commanded the man, “you are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die”.

• The origin of death was not part of God’s plan but rather the penalty of man’s rebellion.

Scripture Verse:

• John 11:35 “Jesus Wept”

o Jesus did not weep for Lazarus because He knew He shortly would raise Lazarus from the dead

o Jesus wept because we have to deal with death and dying at all.

Scripture Verse: (Paul)

• Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

• Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

o This is where the good news begins; the rest of the Bible is God reaching out to us!

Application:

To have a desire presupposes that fulfillment of that desire exists:

• If we thirst that would presuppose that there is water to quench that thirst

• If we hunger that would presuppose that there is food somewhere to fill our stomachs.

• CS Lewis once stated, because each and every person longs to live eternally, it presupposes its existence.

• That is exactly what God has done for us; He has given us the Hope of eternal life.

• The first thing we need to understand when considering death from God’s perspective is:

• God never wanted us to die; it was not part of the plan;

• From God’s perspective Death is a deliverance from a world of death / dying! Not an ending, but a beginning.

• A putting behind us, the penalty of our sin and moving into a life of true freedom.

Death does not extinguish the lights of our lives; it puts out the lamp because the dawn has come!

Transition:

• But not only was death from God’s perspective not part of the plan it is the…

II. Victory at the end a long, hard race:

Illustration:

• Often times I hear people say they wish they could go back in time and do it all over again. They say “The good old days”.

• Yet memory is simply a reconstruction (we forget about the bad and remember the good) and I believe that most of us when we say this have forgotten how hard it was to get where we are in the first place.

• It was once said by a great preacher “If I had my whole life to live over again, I don’t think I’d have the strength.”

• Life is a long, argeous race; it is not a dash but rather a marathon and the reason we always seem to look backward is because we see death from a strictly human perspective and not a divine one.