A. We are in a sermon series called Eternal Questions…Biblical Answers.
1. So far in our series, we have talked about when Christ comes and when death comes.
2. Today, I would like to start with a Winnie the Pooh quote: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
3. With that statement, we are reminded that the more special a relationship is, the harder the goodbye will be.
4. And yet, how sad it would be if all our goodbyes were easy or meaningless.
B. It has been many years since we dropped off our daughters at college and even many more years than that when we first dropped them off at kindergarten.
1. But even after all these years, I can still remember how hard and emotional it was to say goodbye, even though the kindergarten goodbyes were for a few hours and the college goodbye were for a few months.
2. We just don’t like to say goodbye to those we love, whether its for four hours, or four days, or four months.
3. But what is experienced at schools in August and September is a picnic compared to what is experienced in a cemetery at the time of death.
4. It is one thing to leave loved ones in familiar surroundings, but it is something else entirely to release them into a world we do not know and cannot describe.
5. Try as we might to avoid it, and as reluctant as we are to discuss it, death is a very real part of life, and all of us must at some point release the hand of one we love into the hand of the one we have not seen.
C. Can you remember the first time death forced you to say goodbye? Most of us can.
1. For me it was in the fifth grade when my biological father died of cancer.
2. At the funeral I heard words like: departed, passed on, gone ahead.
3. These were unfamiliar terms for me and I wondered…departed to where?...passed on to what?...gone ahead for how long?
4. Of course, I’ve learned since then that I’m not the only one with questions about death.
5. We all wonder and I still have my questions.
6. What will death be like? What happens to Christians between their death and Jesus’ return?
D. Apparently the church in Thessalonica had asked such a question and the apostle Paul offered them an answer.
1. Paul wrote: “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13)
2. The members of Thessalonian church had buried their share of loved ones, and Paul wanted the members who remained to be at peace regarding the ones who had gone ahead.
3. So, as he spoke to them, he speaks to us who have stood or will stand near an open grave that is about to contain the body of our loved one.
4. Paul continued, “We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thess 4:14).
5. God transforms our hopeless grief into hope-filled grief.
6. How? By telling us that in Christ we will be with our loved ones again.
7. But until then, where are they? Are they safe and comfortable?
E. Bob Russell is a preacher who retired from full-time preaching 20 years ago, he tells of the time his father died and how the funeral was held on a cold, blustery, Pennsylvania day.
1. The snow-covered roads prevented the funeral procession from taking place, so the funeral director told Bob, “I’ll take your dad’s body to the grave.”
2. But Bob couldn’t bear the thought of missing his father’s burial, so he and his brother and their sons piled into a four-wheel drive vehicle and followed the hearse.
3. Listen to how Bob describes the event: “We plowed through ten inches of snow into the cemetery, got about fifty yards from my dad’s grave, with the wind blowing about 25 miles per hour, the six of us lugged that casket down to the gravesite…We watched the body lowered into the grave and we turned to leave. I felt something was undone, so I said, ‘I’d like for us to have a prayer.’ The six of us huddled together and I prayed, ‘Lord, this is such a cold, lonely place…’ I got too choked up to pray. I kept battling to get my composure, and I finally whispered, ‘I thank you, for we know to be absent from the body is to be safe in your warm arms.’ ”
4. Isn’t that what we want to believe? Isn’t that what we need to believe?
5. Don’t we long to know that our loved ones are safe in death?
6. We long for the reassurance that our loved ones are with God.
7. But is that what Scripture tells us?
F. In many respects, Scripture is surprisingly quiet about this phase of our lives.
1. Max Lucado wrote: When speaking about the period between the death of the body and the resurrection of the body, the Bible doesn’t shout; it just whispers.
2. Nevertheless, these are the whispers of God’s authoritative voice.
3. What God assures us of in these whispers, is that the dead in Christ are safe in the arms of God.
G. What we must realize is that the state of the dead before the final resurrection pales in comparison to what we will be and have in heaven when Christ comes.
1. In the intermediate state, we will have no body, and in that sense we will be “naked” as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5:3-4.
2. God created us to be beings comprised of body and soul.
3. In death we lose our body, but in the resurrection, we will receive the resurrected, glorified body (1 Corinthians 15)
4. As Paul said in Philippians 3:20-21, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
5. Therefore, our ultimate hope is not in the intermediate state between our death and the resurrection, but our hope is in the return of Christ, and the resurrection from the dead.
H. That being said, there is still a question about the experience of the dead before resurrection day.
1. Let’s see what the Bible has to say about this.
2. When Paul often spoke of his death, he made it sound like when he died he went immediately to be with the Lord.
a. Phil 1:21-23, “For 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.”
b. In 2 Cor 5:6-8, Paul contrasts being in the body as being away from the Lord, and being away from the body as being with the Lord. “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (vs. 8)
3. What was the promise that Jesus gave the thief on the cross?
a. The thief had asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus came into his kingdom (Lk 23:42).
b. The thief no doubt was thinking of some time in the distant future.
c. But Jesus responded, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (vs. 43).
d. When the Jews used the word paradise, it referred to eternal life or heaven.
e. In 2 Corinthians 12:3, Paul spoke of being caught up into paradise and in the previous verse called it the 3rd heaven.
f. Revelation 2:7 supports the idea that paradise means heaven – “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
4. As Stephen was being martyred in Acts 7, he saw “heaven open and the Son of Man standing at God’s right side” (Acts 7:56).
a. As Stephen was near death he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (vs. 59)
b. Though the body of Stephen died and was buried, it is safe to assume that his spirit was received by God and kept safe until the resurrection.
5. In Revelation 6:11, there is the picture of the martyred souls under the alter crying out “how long, oh Lord?’
6. In Luke 16, Jesus tells the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in which Lazarus dies and is carried directly to the bosom of Abraham.
7. In none of these texts is there a discussion of the resurrection of the body.
8. Instead, these different images picture the condition of those who die in Christ before the end.
9. All of these images express a special proximity to Christ, to which those who die in the Lord before the resurrection find themselves.
10. They are “with Christ”, or “in paradise” or “at Abraham’s bosom” or “under the altar”.
11. All of these communicate a special nearness to God.
I. Paul’s favorite way to speak of the dead is that they are “asleep.”
1. Seven different times in two different epistles Paul used the word sleep to refer to death (1 Cor 11:30; 15:6, 18, 20; 1 Thess 4:13-15)
2. One could certainly deduce that the time spent between death and the return of Christ is spent sleeping and then there would be an awakening at the resurrection.
3. And certainly, from the perspective of the living, to us they are “asleep.”
4. If such is the case, who would complain? Right? We all could certainly use the rest! Amen?
5. French theologian, Oscar Cullmann, makes the observation that some find this idea of “sleep” entirely unacceptable.
a. Cullman is tempted to lay aside for a moment his exegetical proofs and ask them whether they have never experienced a dream that made them happier than other experiences even though they had only been dreaming?
6. Have you ever noticed how quickly time passes when you are sleeping?
a. Usually morning comes much too quickly. Amen!
b. Six hours can seem like 60 seconds.
J. As you probably know, some people don’t agree with these thoughts.
1. Some people have taught that in the intermediate state we are in a period of purgation.
2. They propose that purgatory is a place where we receive what our sins deserve.
3. There are at least two things that trouble me about this teaching.
a. For one, none of us can endure what our sins deserve. We would be toast!
b. For another, Jesus already has paid for what our sins deserve.
4. The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death, not purgatory (Ro 6:23).
5. The Bible also teaches that Jesus became our purgatory and took our punishment.
6. The New English Bible translates Heb. 1:3, “When he had brought about the purgation of sins, he took his seat at the right hand of Majesty on high.”
7. There is no purgatory because purgatory took place at Calvary.
8. Aren’t you thankful??? Amen!!!
K. In this lesson, we have been considering the intermediate state of the dead who die in the Lord, but what about the lost?
1. What will happen to those people who have not put their faith in Jesus and tried to follow His teachings?
2. Scripture teaches the continued existence of all people after death, including the lost and unbelieving.
3. Let’s look in more detail at Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. (Lk. 16:19-26)
a. Jesus said: “There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was lying at his gate. He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, with Lazarus at his side. ‘Father Abraham!’ he called out, ‘Have mercy 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 flame!’
“‘Son,’ Abraham said, ‘remember that during your life you received your good things, just as Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to pass over from here to you cannot; neither can those from there cross over to us.’
4. As we mentioned earlier, Lazarus died and immediately went to Abraham’s side.
a. This is an image of the heavenly banquet where Abraham has a prominent seat and Lazarus the beggar is seated right next to him and leans against him (just like the apostle John leaned against Jesus during the last supper in Jn. 13).
5. The rich man also died, but he went to Hades and was suffering.
a. Hades is not the same as hell – they are different words for different places.
b. Hades is the place of the dead and sometimes called “the grave.”
c. The rich man was suffering and could see that Lazarus was not and asked for Lazarus to bring relief, but was told that was not possible.
d. The suffering the rich man was experiencing cannot be literal bodily suffering, because this is prior to the resurrection and he has no body, so his plea for water to cool his tongue cannot be interpreted literally.
6. We might conclude that the lost, being alienated from God and having no spiritual communion with God, will suffer because they will have desires and needs but will not be comforted, whereas Jesus says that the redeemed will be comforted (Lk 16:25).
7. No matter how we interpret the scriptural statements about the condition of the unbelievers in the intermediate state, sadly and tragically, their situation will not get any better after the resurrection and the final judgment.
8. Some people suggest that this is just a parable, a story, and that may be true, but parables generally reflect God’s truth and illustrate it.
L. So, what thoughts do I hope you can leave with and cling to today?
1. First, that we need not worry about our loved ones who have died in the Lord.
a. “Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from the labor, for their deeds will follow them.’ ” (Re 14:13)
b. Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
c. Paul wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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” (Ro 8:38-39).
d. God’s children, our loved ones are safe in the arms of God.
e. They experience some kind of special nearness to God as they await the final resurrection.
2. Second, we need not fear our own death.
a. Like Paul, we should consider it far better that we can depart and be with the Lord (Phil 1:23). Paul said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).
3. Third, before we can live in death, we must die in life.
a. In John 12:24f, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant must also be.”
b. Have you died to self so that you might live?
1. Have you really given yourself to God to live a life of holiness and service?
c. Once we physically die it will be too late to get our lives right with the Lord.
1. The rich man in the parable of Jesus learned that lesson too late, and he begged for someone to go and warn his brothers.
d. Consider this your warning.
1. God’s word is full of truth, including promises and warnings.
2. Hear the Word of God today and heed it.
e. Because of what Paul knew he wrote, “So, we make it our goal to please him…For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:9-11).
1. So, are you ready to die and face the judgment?
2. Will the grace of God cover all your sins?
3. If you are in Christ and walking in the light then you have nothing to fear.
4. But if you are not in Christ, or are not walking in the light, then you should tremble.
f. God loves you and wants to save you.
1. Won’t you come into the warm and safe arms of Jesus’ salvation today?
2. And then once you come into the arms of Jesus, then won’t you stay right there as you head toward and into all eternity someday?
Resources:
When Do We Go to Heaven? Sermon by Tommy South
When Christ Comes, Max Lucado, Thomas Nelson, 1999.
