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August 7, 2020 2:00 am
Many people wonder about and have theories about what will happen when they die. In the message "The Ultimate Journey," Skip shows you what the Bible says about death and the afterlife.
This teaching is from the series From the Edge of Eternity.
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To be countless prizes in heaven. This is where I believe it's can happen.
Let's say you were the children died today, God forbid if you were to take your last breath.
I have a hunch that you first draft an eternity. I don't think you see I read about that. I knew that was coming. I think it would be to really see it inherent in experience amazing what happens when life is over. Where do we go when we die we all ponder these questions, philosophers, and scientists have struggled to find answers to what today on connect with skintight Skip pulls back the veil on the mystery of death is the glorious future waiting for us in Christ.
But before we begin want to let you know about a resource that takes you on an interesting journey and gives you insight into Middle East affairs here Skip with Joel Rosenberg to talk about this month's offer Joel's book the Jerusalem assassin Joel Rosenberg releases a new book.
I can't wait to read it never disappoints. Recently, I was able to talk with Joel about this book from his home in Jerusalem is about an American president who's about to roll out his Middle East peace plan Joel Rosenberg's novels are dramatic stories from the reality of today's headlines have a Saudi Israeli peace plan would be huge. That will be historic. Let's do it. Let's do a summit in Jerusalem Jerusalem assassin.
What's amazing about that is this is a plausible scenario. Jerusalem assassin by Joel Rosenberg is our special offer. This month your hardcover copy of the Jerusalem assassin is our thank you gift you give $35 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach would Skip so call now to get your copy 800-922-1888. Give online securely connectwithskip.com/offer.
I hope you will order your copy of the Jerusalem assassin by Joel Rosenberg to get a behind-the-scenes look at global events and you will be supporting our medium that's 809 two 288 online securely connectwithskip.com/offer. We didn't tour study with skip-if you know the gist of the book you know that every activity that Solomon searched out got involved with an experience left him tasteless. The wasn't enough. It wasn't satisfying these on a quest is on a journey. Life is disappointing for him very, even despairing as he looks under the sun, and all is vanity a repeated theme throughout this book so that all of life's experiences. If you keep doing them. They don't satisfy Paul even mentioned in first Corinthians chapter 15. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable interesting Mark Twain, the American author was having a conversation with a gentleman and the guy was telling Mark Twain about heaven being cynical as Twain was twined Sedlock you keep your heaven. I'd rather go to Bermuda. Why would why we say that maybe it's because of all the ways he's heard Christians talk about heaven. Maybe they haven't come up with any suitable answers as to really what eternity is going to be like maybe a lot of Christians gave him the idea that heaven is one long church service where you sing one song after another song after another song and not gotta tell you that doesn't sound all that exciting, and know when we hear that that's what it's going to be like. We think that's boring, but we don't want to voice that because we are to be in spiritual. If we do, but were thinking in the back of our heads could I bring a computer and do some else like text message my friend from my iPhone some else besides that you take heaven odd rather go to Bermuda but back here in time framed by all of these activities spoken by Solomon were not satisfied. It's not enough. Why is that for the next couple of verses tell us why though we are facing and bound by our own mortality.
We haven't been made so that we were made for eternity. Verse 10 I have seen the God given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Notice the next part.
Also, or besides this, besides these activities in time.
Also, he has put eternity in their hearts stop right there for mama pauses for a moment he has put eternity in their hearts. Now here's the truth that is uniquely about the human being. No other creature on earth. No, no other species has this characteristic. God is put eternity in their hearts.
You have maybe a dog at home or a cat at home or a goldfish or a pet iguana. I don't know but dear pets ever come to you and ask you the meaning of life seem pondering over the corner like what happens to me after I die and I have a dog and you give him a meal and you walk among today and life's good. He didn't really care about much beyond that. But humans have this unique dissatisfaction. This search is gotta be something beyond that were restless. There's a whole field of study that is come really out of this truth call fan otology whether you're a nursing student or go to a modern college you'll find a course on fan otology.
The study of death.
What happens to the dying person and what did they think will happen to them after death fan otology from the Greek word Thanatos, which means death. And why is that why that interest because God put eternity in our hearts.
That's why it's the same reason your children ask you, daddy, what's happened like what will we do all day long and sometimes when our kids assess the core those questions. We don't have really great answers really like those questions like little Cliff who asked his parents up there in heaven. Does Jesus have to keep his room neat, like I do four-year-old Jenny asked her mom does heaven have a floor. How would you answer that does heaven have a floor while her mom is quite clever and insert a step back from the question so will will Jenny what you think heavens like and Jenny was very pragmatic. She looked up and saw the sky and the clouds was well look like it has a floor so I guess people are up there on coat hangers. She said one parent told their nine-year-old daughter Heather one day will have glorified bodies. Imagine what that sounds like to a nine-year-old when they will have glorified bodies in the nine-year-old responded. Does that mean we'll all look like Barbie that's the mind of a nine-year-old that people are the creatures that are fascinated with what happens after death and verse 11 of Ecclesiastes 3 explains why God planted that seed within us.
Put eternity in our hearts. This is of course the same reason the people are interested in the near death experience of favorite topic that over the last 30 years has come out of all sorts of different books as in the stories basically the same. A person goes into the hospital, and dies. That is, the experience clinical though not biological, death, and during that period they get out of their bodies and their hovering over the emergency room table or the operating table in there watching the doctors and hearing the conversation and then they get revived they go back in their bodies, but during that time they are experiencing certain things that they see in the come back and they write about what are we to make of that near-death experience will talk more about that later, but it's enough to say why are we so interested in those things because for the same reason God put that seed of eternity in our hearts. Some people get annoyed with us even talking about have in fact they would say well you know I have a problem with people who don't think about the here and now. I mean here and now we have responsibility on this earth I want to work around somebody's always thinking about heaven. They're knocking to be focus on what's important that old favorite saying of some people. You can be so heavenly minded you're no earthly good. I would contend those who are the most earthly good of those who are the most heavenly minded because once you have eternity settled you'll have between now and death lived very confidently. CS Lewis responded to that sentiment by saying if you read history you will find the Christians who did most of the present world were those who thought most of the next it is.
Since Christians have largely ceased to think about the other world that they become so ineffective in this one aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in aim at earth and you'll get neither. Solomon would say it all add to that we were meant to aim at heaven, something God put within us some years back I went to a baseball game.
Your isotope game. I love going to baseball things.
I just love the whole environment baseball but right in front of me were a couple guys drink beer after beer after beer and not know what they were seeing in the game we were losing were down and even though we were down and the wind kicked up and was quite Sandy and Wendy like it's been the last couple days. This one guy holding a Budweiser turned to his friend as it doesn't get any better than this and I thought and that's sad baseball game in Albuquerque New Mexico were losing it. Sandy and Wendy and it doesn't get any better than this.
For some people it doesn't get any better now, but most human beings want there to be more to it than this wonder if there's something more to it than this, and for the believer, it gets all a lot better than this will how better how good, how can we know brings us to the next point here, though, were bound by mortality were made for eternity and therefore we long for certainty. We want to know what happens after we die.
There's a few questions that Solomon asks in this chapter really all summed them up by saying there are two big questions that he asks question number one, where do we go where are we going after we die. Question number two what we gain, where we going and what we gain here and now for the hereafter personal were we going. He really asked that go all the way down to verse 21 to question who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward and the spirit of the beast which goes down to the earth. He begins the chapter by saying this is what I've observed there's a time to be born, and there's a time to die. Now he's saying where we go when we die. He wants certainty, then look at verse nine. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors that the first question is what we go. The second question is what are we gain no follow me here in verses one through eight keys makes observations about predictable patterns.
The balance of life you're born, you die you scatter you gather you tear you so 28 different activities 14 matched up with 14 might say 14 positive and 14 negative, and for every positive activity it's canceled out by a negative activity which leads him to the bewilderment.
What is the gain of all that simple math 14-14 equal zero.
Vanity is his word, emptiness, what's the point what's the gain of all this activity, here's a guy longing for certainty and the bulk of this book is that quest for certainty, by the way he gets to the right answer. At the end of the book. Now if I had the opportunity to counsel Solomon at this period of his life, and I know he's wise, and God gave me great wisdom but at this juncture of his life are nothing was in a midlife crisis or what, but if I was there and had the opportunity to counsel Solomon. I might put my arm around him and say do I couldn't call him Dutra.King Sir Solomon.
You can know you can know the answers to these questions, they are available but not simply by observation Solomon. It takes Revelation for you to understand the answers to these questions because here's the problem.
Solomon I've been reading your stuff lately and I noticed that you are asking these questions, and you're looking at life by observation and experience only and it's not enough never really get the full answer by just making observations and just by your own experience. You need something else and that something else is God's revelation, but you can know answers to your questions and I would say that to anybody today everybody wants certainty for the future you can know the answers. The Bible is filled with those answers. Somebody will object and say will. How can you really know for sure what happens after you die like I guess you listen to somebody who's been in eternity a long time and is revealed to us. That's where the Bible comes in but you know all have people and I've heard it.
I bet you have two people quote this verse and I want to bring it up, they'll say will the Christian can't really know for certain what happens after death.
Because the Bible says no quote first Corinthians chapter 2 verse nine Lenny Lenny quarter to eye has not seen nor has here heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love and this is where they stop and no interpretive icing. See, it's so amazing there's no way to even describe it. Why bother trying. That's what the Bible they say doesn't say anything about heaven because I hasn't seen her as an heard and even into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those 11, my answer is always the same. It's this. Why stop there, why not read the very next verse element limited to the whole context. Eye has not seen.
There is not heard nor is it entered into the things of the heart of man the things God has prepared for those 11 but God has revealed them to us by his Spirit to see it says the very opposite of what some people will cite that verse to mean that we can know it.
Naturally, by observation, but you can know by revelation God is revealed. What will be like and there's a lot of scriptures for that then others will point to Paul's own words in second Corinthians chapter 12 member Paul describes a man who was caught up in the paradise of third heaven, he said he heard inexpressible words unlawful for a man to utter or as Eugene Peterson puts it, it was forbidden to tell what he heard, so they will say like Paul didn't even talk about heaven because God said she don't tell anybody unlawful to even write this stuff down, don't. Don't even talk about well, that's one instance, one guy, but what about John who had a prolonged visit to heaven and God said John write this down and reveal it to people. It's a whole book of Revelation or about that.
What about the words of Isaiah the prophet, or Ezekiel, all giving us glimpses into heaven in different stages of the future and there's a lot of words spoken by Paul that indicate our glorious body. The resurrected body, the incorruptible body and what happens after death was just one instance. So God has in his word explained to us what heaven is like.
And yet, he hasn't done it in an exhaustive form. It's not completely totally revealed we still see through a glass darkly. I'll admit that fact look back at our text in verse 11, he has made everything beautiful in its time.
Also, he has put eternity in their hearts except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. See, I think that is much as God has revealed and will see what that is. In the next several weeks.
There's a lot of truth that are on disclosed that he will disclose in the future so it has to be that way. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2 verse seven that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. I think there's going to be countless surprises in heaven. This is why I believe this can happen.
Let's say you were to keel over and die today, God forbid if you were to take your last breath on earth today. I have a hunch that your first breath and eternity would be some like this how I do think you got the I read about that.
I knew that was coming. I think you would be to really see it inherent and experience to be amazing. It's gonna take God. According to Paul in Ephesians 2 all of eternity to reveal all of his great truth and grace and love is kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. And I think that gas will be followed by a whole bunch of other ones for on and on and on and on. Marco Polo was a famous 13th-century Explorer and he told people that he travel to China and all sorts of places they didn't believe that he actually went to somebody's place when he was on his deathbed.
People who attended that urged him to take back and recant all of those fanciful stories that he told them about these fanciful places he had visited Marco Polo responded and said I haven't told you that half of what I saw. And so, though we will peek into the portals of heaven and get a glimpse of the eternal state. The new Jerusalem, the intermediate state.
The resurrected body.
I don't think it's all disclosed and were in for some great surprises, but suffice it to say.
Enclosed with this morning that we ought to live our lives now in the light of what we find out about this journey were to go on and we want to get as much information about the journey were going to take and read about it in advance and get a grip on it as much as we can and doing that ought to change the way we live now. I've always loved that great quote by a Scottish cleric named Duncan Matheson who said, Lord, stampede 10 annuity on my eyes stop me. 10 annuity on my eyes and imagine if we were to live with an eternal perspective, it would probably change choices about where we live. What job we do, who we marry.
Etc. etc. etc. stamp eternity in my eyes. It certainly ought to make us happier people.
Charles Spurgeon not only my favorite quotable preacher from Victorian England, but he taught a pastor school every week attached to his church called the pastor's college and he told his young students. This when you speak of heaven. Let your faces light up and radiate with a heavenly gleam. Let your eyes shine with reflected glory and when you speak of hell will then your everyday face will do an essay by being around some Christians. You make that they were speaking of hell every day. What about heaven. What about the future. What about the glories words that excitement shown in their lives. Well, the only thing that satisfies us in this time prison that were in his eternal stuff material stuff will never satisfy activities will never totally's satisfy because we were made for it. We were made for eternity and being eternal creatures. We need eternal things. That's why Jesus said to every person born on this earth, you must be born again or you will never enter the kingdom of heaven as to be a spiritual life that takes place inside of you. The whole reason people experience boredom met someone to be. I'm just bored with life as you weren't meant for this life you were meant for another sort about the journey go back to the opening illustration it for one cent you could travel a thousand miles, meaning you could take a trip around the world for $0.25 for $2.38 you can make it to the moon for 930 bucks you can go to the sun for $260 million. If you got that line around you get to the nearest neighboring star.
I wonder what it would cost to get from earth to heaven. Whatever cost. The price is been paid. The price is been paid is the only way to get from earth to heaven is by millions and millions of dollars are lots of good works and well-intentioned ideas but it's only by the death of God's perfect holy son that washes away our sin, so that anybody anywhere can say I believe in that I believe in him, got us a great.
I made it easy by me paying the ultimate price so that you can take the ultimate Journal to have forever. That's were we begin wraps of SKU high six message from the series from the edge of eternity here.
Skip to tell you how you can help these teachings coming your way to help connect others to the good news of Jesus. Did you know that Christianity is all about redemption, God redeemed us. He brought us out of slavery. He took us from our sins, and he sent Jesus to pay for those sins on the cross.
That's good news. We want to share that with as many people as possible and you can be a part of letting others know about this abounding love of God. Here's how you can give today to reach others with the gospel call 800-922-1888 to give. That's 800-922-1888. You can also give online@connectwithskip.com/donate. That's connectwithskip.com/donate. As always, thank you for your partnership is an exciting biblical resource available right at your fingertips through your mobile device Skip has several vital plans available version Bible simply search in the interest to remind watch connect with Skip Heitzig on the Hill song channel on Saturdays at 4 PM on check your local listings sure to come back, Skip continues to biblical answers to common questions about death. Yesterday so Skip presentation of connection communications, never changing truth ever-changing time