OPEN: A woman once told of driving with her two young boys to a funeral. She said: “I tried to prepare them by talking about burial and what we believe happens after death. The boys behaved well during the service. But at the gravesite, I discovered my explanations weren’t as thorough as I’d thought.
In a loud voice, my 4 year old asked, “Mom?”
She whispered back: “Yes,”.
In a voice filled with curiosity he said “What’s in the box?”
(Ginny Richards, Readers Digest 9/08 p. 86)
APPLY: What’s in the box?
Death can be mysterious… and somewhat scary for many people because they just don’t quite know “what’s in the box”.
Predicting the future is a popular activity for many people (especially around New Year). But throughout the year people still enjoy hearing what the future holds for them.
Folks love to read their horoscopes, play with the ouija board.
ILLUS: I recently had a young boy in my home and I overheard him as he was playing something he called “Spirit”, where he laid playing cards out on a table and used them to read “the future” of the other kids around him. I told him to put the cards away. I explained that we didn’t do things like that in our home.
Now he probably was very innocent in what he was doing.
In fact, most people who read their horoscopes don’t intend to do anything wrong.
And those who play with ouija boards just think of it as “playing a game”.
But God has ALWAYS hated and condemned those kind of practices.
And one of the reasons that God condemns it is because those inquiries about our future can eventually lead to people asking the question: “When am I going to die!”
ILLUS: My dad once consulted a psychic who was accurate in many of predictions about his future. But amongst her predictions was the declaration that he would die on such and such a date. Dad never shared that date with anyone else… but that prediction lay in back of his mind until long after the date had come and gone… and he hadn’t.
The supposed day he was going to die hung in the back of his mind for years. And though he would never say he was afraid of it that prediction influenced/controlled how he viewed his life.
I believe the knowledge of what MIGHT have been his death date was a scary thing for dad.
God doesn’t want us to be afraid of death, and so He doesn’t want us to dwell on WHEN we might die. But God DOES want us to understand that that day will come when we will die
So, this morning I’m going to predict your future.
You’re going to die!
Unless Jesus comes beforehand – one day - you and I will die.
Psalm 49:10-14 tells us:
“… all can see that wise men die; the foolish and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others. Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations, though they had named lands after themselves. But man, despite his riches, does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish. This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings.
Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions.”
It doesn’t matter how clever you are
It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are
It doesn’t matter how many important people you know… everybody dies.
ILLUS: One man told of hitchhiking one day and a hearse stopped to pick him up. He looked in at the driver and said, ‘No thanks – I’m not going that far.’”
But he is… and so are you and I.
It’s a constant theme in Scripture:
· Ps. 89:48 “What man can live and not see death, or save himself from the power of the grave?”
· Job talks to God and says: “I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.” Job 30:23
· Ecclesiastes warns us - “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” Ecclesiastes 9:10
God reminds us repeatedly in Scripture that we’re going to die. (PAUSE)
But now why – if God doesn’t want us to dwell on the date of our death - why would God be so determined to remind us that we are GOING to die? Well, I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and I’ve come up with three reasons. They might not be the only reasons but they made sense to me.
1st – God wants us to know that we’re going to die so that we’ll learn to live our lives Wisely
Ecclesiastes 7:2 says “Better to go to the house of mourning (the place of death) than to go to the house of feasting, For that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart.” (NKJV)
Psalm 90:12 says it more plainly “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (NIV)
The knowledge that you can die can be a major wake up call for people who just drift thru life. Most people wake up in the morning, brush their death, have breakfast and go through their day until its time to go to bed again. They do this day after day after day. It’s routine. And because life is “routine” for them they often fail to realize what a great gift their life has been for them.
ILLUS: Sometime in the late 1800s, a Swedish chemist named Alfred awoke one morning to read his own obituary in the local newspaper: It described him as “…the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be killed in a war than ever before, and he died a very rich man.”
Of course, that wasn’t true - it was his older brother who had died a newspaper reporter had somehow gotten it wrong. But regardless of how it happened, the account had a profound effect on Alfred. He decided he wanted to be known for something other than developing the means to kill people efficiently and amassing a fortune in the process. So he initiated a Peace Prize. And named it after himself – Alfred Nobel. It’s called “The Nobel Peace and it offers awards for scientists and writers who foster peace.
Nobel said, “Every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in midstream and write a new one.”
People who face the truth of their own mortality often change how they live their lives.
When someone is faced with the realization that this life doesn’t last forever they tend to rearrange their priorities.
When the wise go the house of mourning… they take it to heart.
When the wise learn to number their days… and gain wisdom from that.
So, first – God wants us to know that death WILL HAPPEN - so we will become wise. The certainty of death will lead us to make good use of the time we have.
But God wanted to teach us something more.
God wanted us to not only realize death is certain - He wanted us to realize that death not normal. Death is not the “natural order of things”. Our dying was not how God designed things to be from the beginning.
The second reason God stressed the fact that we will die is because - dying is the result of sin.
You’re going to die, and I’m going to die.
And the reason we’re going to die is because of sin.
In 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."
God said don’t eat or you’ll die. But Adam did eat and… he did eventually die!
And Romans tells us: “… sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” Romans 5:12
As Romans 6:23 tells us “The wages of sin --- is death.
ILLUS: James Dobson once noted - that in Romans 7:24 - Paul wrote “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this BODY OF DEATH?”
“This term Paul uses is descriptive of a horrible execution that was employed by the Romans. A cadaver would be fastened to the condemned person so that he could not be released from the corpse Every move he made was accompanied by the deceased. The rotting flesh of this cadaver would spawn disease and infection upon the condemned individual. Eventually, the condemned man would die a painful and emotionally horrifying death.”
(James Dobson, "When God Doesn’t Make Sense")
Every person has been attached to the decaying carcass of sin.
And ultimately that corpse of sin results is our spiritual death.
But God has provided a way for us to cut ourselves loose from that decaying dead body of sin.
That’s what God was teaching us in Romans 6:23
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God wants us to realize that
· our sins are not just “mistakes”
· they’re not just shortcomings
· they’re not just failing to measure up
They are deadly behaviors with deadly consequences
Our sins aren’t things we should be joking about, overlooking, excusing or explaining away.
Our sins need to be dealt with.
And God provides that way of cutting ourselves loose from our sins through His Son Jesus Christ. We do that when we
· believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God (John 3:16)
· acknowledge our sin and repent of it (Acts 3:19)
· Confess Jesus as our Lord and Master of our lives (Romans 10:9-10)
· Are buried in the waters of Christian baptism and risen up to a new life (Romans 6:1-5)
· And decide to live our lives for Him. (Galatians 2:19)
Once we become Christians though, we may find ourselves reattaching that body of death to our lives by our sins. When that happens, God tells us that – as His children - we need to ask forgiveness of those sins. We need to confess what we’ve done, recognize that we’ve hurt him (I John 1:9) and then we need to do what we can to stop those behaviors from happening again.
Because sin… brings death!
The 3rd reason God wants us to realize we’re going to die is found in Romans 6:23
It tells us that sin brings death… but Jesus brings us eternal life.
Ps 49:15 says it this way: “God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself.”
To redeem something… means that it has been “bought back”
There’s a purchase price to paid to obtain our resurrection, but that purchase price had NOT YET been made when the writer of Psalm 49 wrote his words. He said “God WILL redeem my life from the grave.”
Hebrews 11 is the famous chapter of the New Testament that lists the heroes/heroines of Faith.
· It talks about that faith of Abel, and Enoch and Noah
· Of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
· Moses and Rahab and Gideon and David and Samuel and others
· It describes the price that many of these faithful people of God had to pay
And then the Hebrews 11 ends with this curious statement:
“The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, YET NONE OF THEM RECEIVED what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that ONLY together with us would they be made perfect.” Hebrews 11:38-40
They hadn’t received what was promised?
What hadn’t they received??? Jesus (the Messiah hadn’t come)
And without that Messiah, without Jesus, there was no eternal life.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(What I’m going to tell you now is my “opinion”. I believe the following ideas are accurate because they appear to me to make the most sense based on the verses I’ve read on the subject. And I readily acknowledge that I can be wrong. I doubt it… but it’s possible. I say this ahead of time so that you’ll understand that I present this as my interpretation of what I see being said in Scripture.)
Back in the Old Testament all the dead went to a place called (in Hebrew) “Sheol”.
Sheol literally means “the grave”. When people in the Old Testament died… they weren’t spoken of as “going to heaven” but rather as “being gathered to their fathers” or “gathered to their people” (Judges 2:10; Genesis 25:8).
The implication is: when they died, they didn’t go to be with God.
Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus became human “…so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil”
That was the one tragic power Satan had over mankind. He held all of God’s creation in the grip of death and the grave.
Thus, the Old Testament would often say the dead were “gathered to their fathers/ their people”, but it I don’t remember seeing any Scriptures that say they were gathered into heaven/ to be God.
(PAUSE)
Many scholars believe that when Jesus told the story of the Rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 he was referring to an actual description of the afterlife at that time.
“The time came when (Lazarus) died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.” Luke 16:22-23
Now, even though Lazarus was not heaven, he was “comforted”.
He was NOT in torment as the rich man was
Jesus went on to say that the rich man cried out: “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.”
But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. Luke 16:24-25
Thus, Sheol seems to have been a place composed of “Abraham’s bosom” (a place of comfort) and Hades (a place of eternal torment). It was a place held under the dominion of Satan who held all mankind in the grip of death and the grave.
When Jesus died He told the thief who’d repented “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43.
But Paradise was apparently not in heaven, because when Jesus rose from the dead he told Mary “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” John 20:17
So, if Jesus hadn’t been in heaven those 3 days previous – where was He?
I Peter 3:18-19 tells us that when Jesus was put to death “he went and preached to the spirits in prison.” And after Jesus rose from the dead, Ephesians tells us “’When (Jesus) ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’ What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” Ephesians 4:8-9
These verses indicate to me that when Jesus died, He went down to the When Jesus rose from the dead and went into Heaven… He led “captives in His train”
Or the RSV says “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives”
There are many of us believe that when Jesus was in the grave for those 3 days (before rose) he went down into the area Luke called “Abraham’s Bosom” or Paradise… and there He preached to those who had been held captive by Satan’s power. And those were the captives Ephesians said were led out of hell into the presence of God Himself.
Now, unlike the days of the Old Testament, Christians aren’t held by the grave.
When Paul spoke of impending death, he said:
“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” Philippians 1:21-23
For the Christian, death isn’t something we have to fear.
Yes there is a box. And the box holds death. But that box cannot hold us because Jesus broke the bonds of death and hell and rose from the grave so that we would no longer be controlled by death. So that we would no longer be held in by the grip of fear.
When my dad went to that psychic and learned of supposed date of his death that psychic lie hung in the back of his mind for years. And though he would never say he was afraid of it, that prediction influenced/controlled how he viewed his life. I believe the knowledge of what MIGHT have been his death date was a scary thing for dad.
BUT God doesn’t want us controlled by fear.
He doesn’t want us controlled by anything other than Him
He doesn’t want us to be distracted by fear of death.
So God did something about it.
As Hebrews 2:14 and 15 tell us Jesus shared in our “… humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Those of us who belong to Jesus have been set free from the fear of death.
But those who aren’t Christians – death can be a scary thing because – beyond the grave there’s no hope for them. But God has told us that we will die one day so that we’ll prepare ourselves to be with Him on that day.
CLOSE: The story’s told about a sailor who was shipwrecked on a South Sea Island. He was seized by the natives, carried shoulder-high to throne, and proclaimed king. He learned that according to their custom the king ruled for a year. The idea appealed to the sailor until he wondered what had happened to all the previous kings.
Then he learned that when a king’s reign ended he was banished to a lonely island to starve to death. So, knowing he was king for the year, this sailor began issuing orders.
Carpenters were to make boats. Farmers were to go ahead to this island and plant crops. Builders were to erect a home.
When his reign finished, he was exiled, not to a barren isle, but to a paradise of plenty.
