What's Next? What Happens After We Die Series

INTRODUCTION

Organ music background… Pall bearers bring out casket and position. Show their respects. Walk off platform. PAUSE. Dennis Enters!!!

1. Did you really think I was in this casket? I’ll often do some

things to make the point – nope, not this time! Even I have my limits…

2. Today, we begin our new teaching series – What’s Next?

• Over the next few weeks, we will be asking lots of questions and searching the Bible for the answers…

• Why would I go to the Bible for the answers about What’s Next? Because of last week’s Celebration – Jesus has Risen from the Dead.

• If Jesus has faced death, experienced death and conquered death – I want to hear what He has to say about it!

• Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at how the Bible answers questions like -- What is Heaven Like? What is Hell like? Who will be in Heaven and who will be in Hell? What will we do in Heaven? Will we ever get bored in Heaven? How do we get to Heaven?

• The question we’ll ask today to get us started, is this – What Happens When I Die?

3. What I so want to accomplish in the next weeks is this –

• I want you to know the Truth… about What’s Next. not what some think, not what a Television series thinks, not what some best selling fiction novel says, not what the movies portray

• I want this Study to -- intensify your Hope for Heaven and your Hatred of Hell.

• I want you to know the Rewards of Heaven and the Reality of Hell… To know the Comfort of Heaven and the Condemnation of Hell

• I want each of us to understand that Heaven is Awesome and Hell is Awful

• I want us to grasp that Heaven is far better and Hell is far worse than anything I could ever communicate and articulate…

4. (eg) Think with me about this question -- Where might we hear the most confusing and contradictory information about what happens when people die?

• Movie Theater? DVDs? Television? Death, the afterlife, ghosts, spiritual things are popular topics…

• Liberal Universities and Colleges – Secular and Religious?

• On Bookshelves, at the Bookstore? Again our culture is fascinated with the Beyond…

• Talk shows – Radio and Television? Internet? Music industry?

• All with an opinion about death and what happens when we die…

5. For me – where do people hear the most misleading and mistaken information about death? At funerals…

• Some of the worst Theology, False Teaching, the most Confusing and Contradicting things read, sung and spoken – happen at funerals…

• At some funerals – death is nothing like what the Bible says…

6. So what Happens When we Die? When we stop breathing, when our heart stops beating – what happens?

What Happens When I Die? At that very moment…

You Realize – You Really died!

1. We often think and we often believe and we often live with this notion -- it won’t happen to me. Death isn’t going to knock at my door. Too young! Too much to do!

• But the reality is – it WILL happen to me and it WILL happen to you.

2. The polls have been taken. The research completed. The data tabulated. The results are in – Statistically -- 1 out of every 1 person dies.

• The mortality rate of every person on this planet is 100%. 1 out of every 1 person will die.

• It’s gonna happen… Death will happen. Each one of us is terminal

• For many of us here, we understand that Jesus promised to come back and may come back while we are still living – but if not in our “lifetime”… we will die…

• We will ALL die at some point, at some time, at some place...

• Death is Certain! Inevitable. Inescapable. Absolute.

3. (eg) I’ve read that Worldwide – 3 people die every second. 180 people die every minute. 10,800 die every hour. 259,000 die every day. 1,814,400 every week.

• Each with a name. Each with a family. Each with a soul. Each with an Eternity.

4. And yet, of all the things we don’t want to discuss – it’s death.

• If we don’t talk about it then I don’t have to think about it. And if I don’t think about it then I don’t have to deal with it…

• But there’s always that nagging and gnawing question – What’s Next? It’s always there…

5. It all started back in the Garden of Eden… By God’s original design and His original desire – we were never supposed to die… Never…