S012002 What happens when we die?
2 Corinthians 12
Sermon series Sermons you would bring a friend to hear
Preached by Scotty Killingsworth to the Evergreen Church.
Beginning:
Here is how it will happen: You will be distracted for just a moment by something in the car. You will hear tires sliding, glass breaking and metal bending. You will feel a sudden and forceful change of direction followed by instant death. You may never even see what hit you.
For some you will see it coming for weeks but be able to do nothing at all to resist it. Death will creep into your body in spite of chemotherapy, radical surgery or some heroic effort by our medical best. Some will have time to say good-bye to family and friends and then slip into a drug induced sleep and never awaken from the surgery. Others will feel a sudden pain in the chest or head will be followed by unconsciousness and death. A few will die in sleep. Some will die in old age; some in utero, but all of us will die.
Death is the common denominator. It doesn’t matter how you have lived, or how rich or poor you are. Women live a few years longer than men. Europeans live a little longer than Africans. The rich have access to more medical opportunities and live longer than the poor, but all of us die.
What is death? How is death defined? Our medical culture is struggling with how to actually define death. Cold-water drowning victims who have had no heart beat for up to 20 minutes are revived and live normal lives. Human existence ceases when the brain dies. If we follow that definition to its ultimate conclusion, some people I have dealt with this week are dead and don’t know it.
There are other aspects to the subject of death
There is Spiritual death. This death is tasted when we choose to live a life separated from the grace of God. This pre-Christian existence is not so much soul death as it is never having been spiritually alive to begin with. Jesus said that he didn’t come to condemn the world. He came because the world was condemned already. He didn’t come to point out the darkness that already existed. He came to bring us light.
Eph. 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
Rom. 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men
Rom. 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The second death plays right beside this spiritual death idea. It is a death of hope. This death is a death to any chance of redemption. This second death happens at the final judgment of the non-Christian.
Rev. 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
How do you plan to meet your death?
Some people die in terrible fear and dread. Their last days and last words are panic laden and horror filled.
The passengers on the planes last September 11th met their deaths in very individual ways. I like to think I would have reacted as they did on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. That with my last breath I would have struggled to fill even my death with meaning and bless others by it.
Some of us will have time to say last things.
Conrad Hilton was born in 1887 and over the next 92 years he built a dynasty of hotels around the world, on his deathbed just before he died, Hilton was asked if he had any last words of wisdom for the world. And these were the words that Hilton went out with, "Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub."
Samuel Upham had been a professor at Drew Theological Seminary for years and as he lay dying, friends gathered about. The question arose as to whether he was still living or not. Someone advised, "Feel his feet. No one ever died with warm feet." Dr. Upham opened an eye and said, "Joan of Arc did."
Winston Churchill- on his 75th birthday -I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
My Great-grandmother Agnes Killingsworth died one week after my Great-grandfather Frank-the-judge. She said, “In my hand no price I bring. Only to Thy cross I cling.”
Death swamps us with unanswered questions:
“Why are we here?” If it is nothing more than to pass our genetics to the next generation then life is pointless. Why work, study, dream, develop relationships, and struggle through disappointment or even try if everything goes into the grave? It doesn’t make sense at all if death is the end if man.
Solomon wrestled with these questions and concluded, that life is vanity.
Life without hope of something next is vanity.
Does the Bible say why we die? Yes!
1 Cor. 15: 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
It has something to do with a guy named Adam.
#1. Who was he? He was the first human being
#2. What did he do to cause us to die? He rebelled against The Creator
#3. The nature to rebel has been passed down to us
#4. Rebellion to the will of God is sin
#5. Sin results in death
Background to the Text
Most Bible scholars believe Paul had a near-death experience. He himself says that at least on one occasion he was left for dead. As he writes he speaks of this experience and says some guy he knew had it. Writing about something that happened to an author and inventing a second person to deliver a message is a common literary practice.
Burden
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12 speaks from experience that there are events that follow our physical death. The burden of this talk is to prepare you, not for death, but for the events that occur between your dying and your final destination.
Next week we will deal with final destinations.
What does the Bible say about the experience of death and what happens next?
2 Cor. 12: 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. 3 And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows--4 was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things; things that man is not permitted to tell.
At death we expect great pain, but Jesus says there is none.
1 Cor. 15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we die we suddenly find ourselves somewhere else vs. 4
One of God’s best spokesmen said, that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. You will not stay around and “haunt” anything.
We are conscious after death vs. 2b
I want you to know that not only are we conscious after we die, we are more so! Here are some arguments from Paul as to why we are more conscious than before:
#1. He saw, heard and experienced amazing things.
#2. His mental ability was so acute that he was able to compare this new life with what he had just left.
#3. His new consciousness knew things his former one could not communicate. Something in this place of existence forbade him to tell what he saw.
We stand before God and face judgment Hebrews 9:27 says we are all "destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.
There are several judgments mentioned in the Bible. To keep this talk from taking a detour lets leave it at that. When you die, you are judged. The names of all the judgments we will leave for another time.
When you die your eternal fate is forever sealed Luke 16:19-31
In this parable told by Jesus two men died and were already in their eternal destinations. One was in a bad place and one in a good place. The one in a bad place prayed and asked God to let him leave the bad place and go to the good one. God informed him that it was impossible because a great gulf had been fixed.
Those who have placed faith in Jesus will never be away from His presence
Rom. 8:38,39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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.
What do I want you to know?
1 Cor. 15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
The 23rd Psalm The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
What do I want you to do? Never again fear death if you are a Committed Christ follower. If you are not yet a Christ follower make it so ASAP.
2 Cor. 5:1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
