Numbers 23:10

Introduction

The truth about death is that no matter when it occurs it is always an unwelcomed guest. It has been known to dismiss the baby as well as the centenarian, the doctor and the patient, the millionaire and the pauper, the Saints as well as the Sinners. And no matter how many times we experience lost, you never get used to it.

Death.....What Is It?

We don't understand it, and to be honest, none of us like it. But do we really know what death is?

• where did death come from?

1. I heard the Bible say in Genesis that God told Adam and Eve that the day that they disobeyed and ate of the fruit that they would surely die.
2. and some have argued that Adam lived 930 years.
3. for so many years all I could think about was an angel whose job was to dismiss people out of this world.
4. but nobody ever told me who death worked for.
5. does this angel work for God?
6. it couldn't
7. does it work for the devil?
8. it couldn't
9. does it work independently of God and the devil
10. it couldn't

• and if death was an angel, wouldn't there have to be more than one?

1. because the Bible talks about the second death which would indicate more than one.
2. then I understood death not to be an angel, for it would have to be more than one....."blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power"

• but rather death is a process.

1. which is why we can rebuke it, but only for a season.
2. and for some of us the process comes to a close sooner than it does for others.
3. and the fact is that all of us will die, because after the fall in the Garden, all were born in sin and shaped in iniquity and DEATH REIGNED.

If We Are Going To Live Again, We'll Have To Be Changed.

But God had a way to bring us back into right fellowship with Him. And that way was through the sacrifice that Jesus made on Calvary. Because he came to save us and change us from what we were to what he wanted us to be. And this is what salvation is all about.

• This is God's design for our lives, that we live a life that is pleasing to God.

1. not a life of comfort and ease.
2. but rather a life that is yielded to the standards of God.
3. and this is why God allows us the priviliges of life.
4. not that we will have the time to make millions, but that we will have opportunity to get right with God.

• And now the focus is on having fun, but not living holy.

1. and so many are taking their lives for granted, as if the only reason that God allows them everyday is to play and do what they want to do.
2. but God desires that none should perish, but that all will come to repentance.
3. still there are those who want to live life their way.
4. they don't want to live for the Lord.

• THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE AND AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT!

1. for every one of us there is coming a day of reckoning, when God's going to call it in.
2. it's not the dying part that we have to really worry about, it's what happens "After This"!
3. we'll have to give an account of the deeds that are done in the body.
4. that's right, everytime you lie, cheat, steal, drink, fornicate, God is keeping the record.
5. THEREFORE, YOU'VE GOT TO START LIVING HOLY RIGHT NOW!

Salvation Is A Life. And If You Don't Live Holy You Can't Die Holy!

Salvation is more than what you say, it's how you live. And everybody saying that they are saved is not saved. How do I know? Because if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away and behold all things are become new.

• And I've come to declare that God wants all of you.....your head, your feet, and everything in the middle!

1. because the truth is that if you don't live right, you won't die right.
2. and I don't care what nobody says, there is a difference between the way the righteous die and the way sinners die.
3. sinners go out of here cussing and fighting, trying to stay here.
4. but the Children of God die with dignity and character.
5. because they know that To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
6. they know that If this earthly house of this tabernacle were dissoved, that we have an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

• So Paul comforts the Thessalonians by telling them that We which are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1. did you hear what he said?
2. He made us a promise that if we live right, that the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven.
3. after all your tears, all of your pain, all of your heartaches, the Lord is coming for you himself.