The Supernatural Series

INTRODUCTION

- If you want someone's ears to perk up, start talking to them about what we call the supernatural.

- People are fascinated with the supernatural; even some Christians will ditch the rest of the Bible for prophecy, the end times, and the book of Revelation.

- Today, as we continue our Bottom Line series in Core 52, I will take you to a passage I alluded to last week.

- The passage is found in Matthew 25.

- Here is some context for the passage.

- Jesus gives a couple of parables, the Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Parable of the Talents.

- In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus continues the solemn declaration of the uncertainty of the time of His return and of the necessity of being ready for such an event, the Jesus added this parable of The Talents as a needful complement to that of The Virgins.

- In The Virgins, He revealed the necessity of attending to inward character, but in The Talents, He combined that necessity with a strong enforcement of outward exertion. Herbert Lockyer, All the Parables of the Bible, The All Series (Zondervan, 2013), 242.

- Then, Jesus shifts to the subject of the final judgment, where He is no longer telling a parable but moves to share straight up how the time of the final judgment will go down.

- I said last week verses 31-46 should cause us to do a double take at the passage, and it should challenge us to make sure, as in the parables Jesus shared earlier in the chapter, that we are prepared internally and externally and are ready to go when the time goes.

- Typically, when I dive into this chapter, I would take you through a message on the final judgment and encourage and warn you to be ready.

- Today, however, we will focus on something given to us in our passage in verse 41.

- As a Christian, I have glossed over what we will see today because what Jesus says is something most all of us assume, yet our focus and our life choices may reveal that we don't give the things Jesus shares with us much thought.

- In verse 4, Jesus shares some realities we need to embrace.

- Here is our passage.

Matthew 25:41 (NET 2nd ed.)

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!

- Now, we want to hit the pause button right here and talk about this for a moment this morning.

- Our big idea, our theme for this morning, isn't really about the final judgment or this teaching specifically, but it is the reality and the importance of grasping the existence of the supernatural or the spiritual realm.

- I believe many people would acknowledge there is a physical and a spiritual world or realm.

- SLIDE OF THE NATURAL WORLD AND SPIRITUAL WORLD OVERLAP.

- I believe that people tend to see the spiritual and natural or physical world as the graphic from my friend Dan Raymond represents.

- We acknowledge the existence of both a physical and spiritual world, but we only see a slight overlap of the two worlds; we see the supernatural (Spirit world) as something far away that has little or no impact or influence over my life in the physical world.

- The second graphic represents the reality that we MUST apprehend.

- SLIDE OF SPIRITUAL ENGULFING THE PHYSICAL.

- The truth is that the spiritual, supernatural world all around us, the physical world, is engulfed by the spiritual!

- Everything about the Christian life involves the supernatural.

1 Corinthians 15:40–44 (NET 2nd ed.)

40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly body is one sort and the earthly another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.

43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

- I want to take you back to verses 31-34 for our first observation.

Matthew 25:31–34 (NET 2nd ed.)

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

32 All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.