Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Today we begin the last subject of the believer’s imputed temporal blessings; dying grace.
Read Romans 8:18-25
From this portion of God’s word we understand that all of nature and the earth which it is upon have been cursed to suffer due to the sinful disobedience of Adam. This sinful disobedience on the part of Adam toward God is what is known as the fall of mankind.
To understand physical death it is important to remember why life ends as it does. The penalty God put on mankind for disobedience is spiritual and physical death, Gen.2:17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
This was God’s solemn promise to Adam and Eve. He gave them everything they would ever need for human happiness and that included free will. But that happiness could only remain so long as they chose to revere God, their Creator. They were under God’s authority and to act in disobedience to that authority meant death.
Then Satan came on the scene and tested their free will as noted in Gen.3:1-6. In this passage Satan called the word of God a lie. He told Eve that if they disobeyed God’s commands that they would not die. This is the beginning of mankind’s involvement with the fallen angels. We call this involvement the angelic conflict. It is Satan’s attempt at discrediting the integrity of God, and the fairness of God in sentencing Satan to his final doom in the Lake of Fire. He despises the authority of God and he cannot stand to see us submit, either in saying yes to Christ Jesus for our salvation, and yes to the word of God as our final authority for faith and practice.
It does not take long to understand why Christians and true Christianity is constantly attacked by individuals and nations, and why it is counterfeited by false religions and cults and human good. Satan will do whatever he can to discredit Jesus Christ; from counterfeiting true Christianity into a cold ritualistic religion, to undermining the authority of the Bible as if it were out dated and unreliable. Many churches do not teach the Bible anymore, and I can assure you that this notion does not come from God.
We are all on the receiving end of these attacks in some way as believers. The stage has been set and the players are playing their parts by their own free will, but all of the players, both righteous and unrighteous will exit the stage through the door of death, one at a time at some point in their lives. Both the lost and saved do groan in their bodies. Men and women do everything they can to try and reverse the curse of an aging body, but it is impossible.
As a child of God we do groan in our bodies the older we get. Our bodies are cursed. They are aging and as they get older they are aching more.
Our mortal bodies are groaning with anticipation for the day when our immortal souls will be released from these temporary bodies. The believer who keeps his eyes fixed on the Lord will look forward with great anticipation to the day when his soul is released from his body. If the believer has grown to spiritual maturity by taking in Bible doctrine and living the Christian life according to the plan of God, then death is only the icing on the cake of life. If undeserved suffering has visited the believer and he/she has remained true to the Lord, then the believer will have an intense desire to depart and be with the Lord rather than stay and hang on just a little longer in a temporary world.
Once you have been weaned from both the legitimate and improper desires of the things of this temporal life, you then can mentally and spiritually reconcile your earthly desires to be an acceptable loss. When the promises of God’s word, and the network of all the biblical truths you have learned are crystal clear to you, then your perspective about everything in this world changes. Your perspective about life and death changes when you spiritually mature. When you have connected the doctrinal dots that lead to being with the Savior, your eternal home, and your eternal glorification, your life begins to experience what true transformation is. The word of God does more than prepare you for living life here on earth, it prepares you for living in heaven. It purifies your desire to live a righteous life in anticipation of heaven, I Jn.3:1-3.
The sooner you gain this spiritual perception the sooner you will reach spiritual maturity. And subsequently the sooner you will live your life without the fear of dying.
Paul reflected this same sentiment in Phil.3:7-9.
God can use undeserved suffering to accelerate the mental and spiritual processes which you go through in preparation for dying and in reconciling this world and all that it has to offer as being inconsequential. In comparison to what lies ahead for you in heaven with the Lord, this life is only a pilgrimage. It is not our destination. The people you love are not inconsequential to you, but when you recognize the autonomy of death you realize that it will be an experience no one can share with you. You do not remember your birth, but you will know when you are dying.
It is at this realization in your life that your heart is set on the next episode of your relationship with God and that part involves meeting God face to face.
Some of you may not want to anticipate a readiness for death as it may seem quite morbid to you. You want to wring out of this life and this world all you can get before it is too late. Let me remind you that there is no One, nor no thing that is greater than having a real and present awareness of the resurrected Christ motivating you to live for him, not yourself. When His presence is motivating you and His Spirit is motivating you I can assure you from the authority of His word that he is not at all interested in you wringing out of this life all you can get from it. His word says “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” I John 2:15-17.
So what I am presenting to you in this message is not a prophesy of doom, but a commencement speech preparing you for living the Christian life. If you and I do not learn the word of God and live the word of God, when it is our time to die we will not be ready. Who goes through high school or college without looking forward to graduation? The answer of course is no one. You look forward to a greater freedom and opportunities. Well,let me tell you that the Lord has a greater freedom and fantastic opportunities awaiting you. They start with faithfulness to Him in this life and continue after you cross over in death. Until then he has called us to learn and obey his word. He has called us to serve him with a grateful heart. His grace will be sufficient for every challenge we will meet, and it will be sufficient for dying as well.