Introduction: There is only one certainty in life and that is the certainty of dying one day.
LIFE IS SHORT:
Abraham: Genesis 18:27
And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:
David: 1 Samuel 20:3
And David sware moreover, and said, Thy father certainly knoweth that I have found grace in thine eyes; and he saith, Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved: but truly as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death.
2 Samuel 14:14
For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.
1 Chron. 29:15
For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
Job: Job 7:7
O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.
Job 14:1
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
Psalm 89:47
Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
Psalm 90:5-6
Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. 6In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
Life is compared to :
1. a dream –Ps. 73:20
2. a sleep –Ps. 90:5
3. a Vapour-James 4:14
4. a shadow- Ecc. 6:12
5. Grass – 1 Peter 1:24
DEATH IS SURE:
Eccles. 3:2
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
Eccles. 8:8
There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.
Hebrews 9:27
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Psalm 89:48
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.
Recount Story of Rich man and Lazarus:
Note: Both the Rich & poor die
SIN IS THE CAUSE:
Original sin of disobedience: Genesis 2:17
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Romans 5:12
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Illust: A well-known athlete of Avignon, France, named Meissonnier, literally struggled with an incurable disease, and his last words were, “O Death! if you were a man, what short work I’d make of you!”
CHRIST IS THE CURE:
John 3:16-17
Angel’s message to Joseph : Matthew 1:21
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Luke 9:56
For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.
Romans 6:9
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
Rev. 1:18
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
