Dr. Ron Sumners
October 23, 2005
As I was writing this sermon, I ran across a very interesting site on the internet. It is called "The Death Clock." All you have to do is simply type in your date of birth, mine is August 20th, 1949, and some information about yourself and it will give you your estimated day of expiration. According to this site, I will die on Friday, July 15, 2033. I have 879,496,579 seconds remaining as of August 30, 2005. The site says that it is the internet's friendly reminder that your life is slipping away.
When the subject of death is presented, people begin to shift nervously in their seats. Some of you felt that I, talking about my own death, was "creepy." We don't really talk much about death. We call it anything but death. We create euphemisms so we don't have to say that someone died. We say, "Their candle has gone out." "They flat lined." "They kicked the bucket." "They are pushing up daisies." We call it anything but death. I have heard some black brothers and sisters say, "They passed." That is a pretty good concept, but it is just another way to avoid saying that a person died.
The fear of death fuels a lot of the nation's economy. Plastic surgeons make tremendous amounts of money for lifts, liposuction, tucks, transplants, and enhancements. We gorge ourselves on vitamins and supplements and eat organically grown food. We walk the treadmill and cycle and pump iron. We are trying to beat the clock or at least slow it down. We are trying to beat the odds. We are trying to cheat this date we all have with death. This is understandable.
Life is a wonderful gift. Even Jesus did not readily leave it. "Father, let this cup pass from me." Death is universal. The statistics on death are impressive, one out of one die. Unless Jesus returns soon, everyone listening to my voice will die sooner or later. That is true whether you are ready to hear it or not.
Carl Hurley tells about a preacher who told his congregation, "Everyone in this town will soon be dead." There was a man that he did not recognize in the first row who smiled broadly at this pronouncement. The preacher repeated this dire warning, "Everyone in this town will soon be dead." Again, the man grinned. The preacher asked the man, "Brother, are you not afraid of death?" The man replied, "you said everyone in this town would soon be dead. I'm not from around here."
I am not going to waste any more time stating the obvious. We all know that death is inevitable. My time today is better spent talking about what happens the moment after we breathe our last breath in this world and take our first breath in the hereafter.
The Bible describes in detail the meeting that all of us will have. Those of you in the business world know all about meetings. You make sure you have all the contingencies covered. You want to know what is going to happen and you don't want any surprises in an important meeting. You do your homework, and you are thoroughly prepared. Amazingly, most of us are unprepared for the most important meeting in the universe, our postmortem meeting with God! The Bible tells us what to expect, but on that day, we will be unprepared because we never took the time to study God's Word or heed the advice that the Bible gives.
What is the agenda after we die? The first thing is resurrection. Acts 24:15 assures that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and unrighteous. When the candle of life goes out here, it will be ignited in the next life. This happens immediately. "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." There is not going to be a holding room or a Green Room or some limbo state or state of Purgatory. There will be resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.
Some believe that they will be reincarnated. Some think they will stay in a holding bank for a while then they will be recycled back into another body. I'd like to come back as Bill Gates' son!
When we die, our souls go to the afterlife. (I am primarily dealing with what happens the moment that we die. The Bible also teaches that someday, when Christ returns, our bodies will be resurrected and glorified, just as Christ's body was glorified after His resurrection.)
You may say, "Ron, how do you know there is life after the grave?" The obvious answer is that the Bible says so. But beyond that truth, look at the cycles of life and death in nature. A seed looks like it is dead. You bury the seed in the ground. It seems that it is all over, no hope for this dead bit of vegetation. But the seed germinates and a plant bursts forth from the ground.
Think about a caterpillar, an ugly little creature crawling on the ground. One day it surrounds itself with a cocoon, which is a tomb, and is seems that life is over for the caterpillar. Then a beautiful butterfly bursts forth from the tomb/cocoon. In nature, death gives way to life. Resurrection continually takes place.
Look at physics. Albert Einstein said, "Matter may change states but it cannot be created or destroyed." After death, we will change states, but we will not be destroyed. Philosophers agree that this life is not all there is. Emmanuel Kant said, "Since justice is not fully applied in this life, it must be applied in the afterlife by a judge who settles all accounts."
Anthropologists say that almost every culture and tribe of people has an understanding of an afterlife. Jesus spoke of a literal life after this life on earth.
The first thing we must realize is that we will all be resurrected, the just and the unjust. Our souls were designed to live forever.
We will all have a meeting with the Master. What is the purpose of that meeting? Judgment! We all have a standing appointment to be standing before the throne of God. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that every man will die and then face the judgment.
There is the common belief that God grades on the curve. We assume that he is going to lower the standard because He loved us so much that He could not possibly send anyone to eternal separation. We have been led to believe that God will say, "You were a good person. You didn't do anything too bad, Come on into heaven!"
Jesus clearly tells us that belief is a false one. Whether I am a good guy or a good girl, whether we have paid our taxes, kept our noses clean, whether we coached little league baseball will not be a part of the judgment process. The fact that you were a Baptist, or Methodist, or Roman Catholic will not be an issue. The fact that you attended Sunday school will not be discussed. Your daddy may be Billy Graham and your aunt may be Mother Theresa but that will not be on the agenda at this cosmic meeting with God!
God will ask only one question at this meeting. He will have only one concern. He will ask what you have done about accepting His Son, Jesus the Christ, as Savior and Lord of your life. That is it! The Bible says that we become a Christian by grace through faith. It is nothing that we deserve and nothing that we merit. It is by God's unfathomable love. We come to Jesus by hearing the words of truth. Right now, you are hearing the words of truth. God is using my voice box, the voice box of a saved sinner to communicate to you the truth.
You are hearing the Gospel. My prayer every week is that some of you will hear it with your hearts as well as your ears and make a commitment to that eternal truth. I want you to know the joy of having all your sinfulness, all your guilt, all your shame, all your pain transferred onto the shoulders of Jesus and all of His love, forgiveness and righteousness transferred to you.
Jesus is the bridegroom. The church is the bride. The moment we bow our knee to Christ, He comes into our lives, and He places the Holy Spirit inside of us. One day the marriage will be consummated in heaven. The meeting you have with God after you die will deal with whether you have accepted that relationship with Jesus. At this point you don't get a mulligan or a "do over." You can't hire a team of attorneys to find a loophole. The seconds on your death clock are ticking away and you have already had many, many opportunities to get this relationship right. Today you are being given one more chance. Could it be your last chance? Only God knows. After death comes resurrection and then the judgment.
At the judgment, God will separate all of us into two camps. Matthew 25:32 says, "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and he will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Jesus will separate us in that post-mortem meeting. We will face an eternity in one of two places. We will inherit the bliss of heaven or the eternal punishment of hell.
Heaven is a place that we cannot even begin to comprehend. If you take the closest you have ever felt to God, it will pale in comparison to the communion you will have in heaven. We will have a new body and all the things that limit us here on earth will be gone in heaven.
The images we have seen of angels flying around with little wings and trumpets and halos is not heaven. Those are the images of medieval art and Negro spirituals. Heaven is going to be a place like no other place, a place of unending, unencumbered worship, unencumbered relationships, no racism, no backbiting, no wars, no rumor of wars, no tears, and no pain. Many of us will go to heaven. Others of us will go to a place called hell.
US News and World Report, in their January 31, 2000 edition, did a survey on hell, and they asked this question, "Do you believe there is a hell?" Sixty-four percent said, "Yes." Twenty-five percent said, "No." Nine percent said that they didn't know. More people believe in hell today than in the 1950's or even ten years ago.
The Bible uses several images to describe this place. One image is Darkness. I have heard people say things like, "I don't want to go to heaven with those Christians. I want to go to hell so I can raise hell with my friends." Even if your friends are in hell, you will not know it. It is a place of solitary confinement and complete isolation. In hell, you will be completely alone.
The Bible also says that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of utter remorse and regret. It will be a place where you will remember every opportunity you passed up to accept Jesus. You will remember this day and this sermon. You will have all eternity to remember the many times you rejected the offer of love that Christ gave you.
Scripture also says that in hell "the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched." Jesus taught that hell is a place of sensory torment. His story of Lazarus and the rich man confirms this. In hell, the rich man said, "Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and put it to my tongue for I am tormented by this flame!"
"Bro. Ron, how could a good God send good people to hell? How can God condemn someone to eternal damnation? My God would not do such a thing!" Are you talking about the God of the Bible or the God of your imagination? We make the choice. We send ourselves to hell. God has done everything he can do to make sure we don't go there!
When this life is over, God offers us an eternity far better than anything this world can offer. He gives us the freedom to choose.
There are only certain times that we can come to Christ. The Holy Spirit must draw us and then we must respond. One of the most chilling texts in the entire Bible tells us that one day we will knock at the door and say, "Open up," and it will be locked. How long will you test the patience of God? If the Holy Spirit is speaking to you today, please respond, He may not call again. He does not tell us when He turns and leaves the door.
If you are afraid of death, could it be because you have not settled the all-important issue of your eternal destiny? Since the beginning of our worship, your death clock has ticked down over 3600 seconds. How many more ticks do you have? Today is the day of salvation!
Comments