The Last Day and the Afterlife
Praise Jesus
today, brothers and sisters in the Lord. We can be encouraged and take great
courage in the fact that when we are absent from this body, we are present from
the Lord granted we walked our life in the truth of Jesus Christ. We daily have
to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus to the very end of our
life. What I wanted to speak about today is a couple deceptions that are in the
Christian church that make some people sad or make people feel good about a
lie, and that is the reality of both heaven and hell. We know that hell is
real. It's a place that Jesus talked about frequently where the worm does not
die and the fire is not quenched. We know that it is eternal. Jesus spoke about
it in such manner. And he even said to Judas that it would be better that that
man was never born. So obviously, if annihilation were true and you just cease
to exist, that would be 1 in the same thing as Judas never being born.
But the fact is
after Judas committed suicide, he went to the lake that burns with fire that
Jesus spoke of because he rejected God, and the last act that he did was
suicide. He killed himself. Jesus clearly said it would be better for him that
he was never born. Not just because he was the one who turned him in, but
because of the torment he would experience in the afterlife ever after that.
Likewise, heaven is real.
It's a place where
we go when we endure with Jesus to the very end. And also, for those of us that
belong to our father in heaven, when we die, we will immediately go to the
place where God resides, that he has made for us. There is not a waiting place.
There is not this, purgatory idea, and it's not, soul sleep where we just sleep
in the ground for a 1000 years. Now there are some churches and some Christians
that believe in soul sleep, and they believe that you just stay in the ground
for a 1000 years, or a 1000000 years, or however long until Jesus returns, and
that all Christians for all time, from the beginning of time up until now if
you die, will lay dead in the dirt until the great judgment throne of God when
he resurrects everyone on the final day.
Interestingly, if
we look what the final day is, the final day is not the final day of the world
or the earth, but the final day actually represents our final day, our final
breath. So when Jesus is saying endure to the end, he's not saying to you,
endure to the end of the world or the end of the universe until the day that
the whole world disappears and disintegrates, but he's speaking, endure to the
end of your life. Whatever your life is, you must endure with Jesus and
overcome to the very end of it. And when you endure to that day, on that day
that you physically die, then if you have overcome in the name of Jesus, you
will inherit everlasting life. This is a really cool thing, guys, because this
gives us hope that our God is the God of the living and that we will
immediately be with him in everlasting life if we believe. We don't have to
soul sleep or wait 10 years, or a 1000 years, or however many years it is for
the Lord to return as the Christians understand it. Because Jesus will return
for you as soon as you complete your own life, as soon as your life ends. Now a
couple things that were coming to my memory today, one was that when Jesus was
at the transfiguration, he saw a couple people that had died, Elijah, Moses,
and those people were not soul sleeping. But he saw them in the spiritual
realm, and they were alive with his father in heaven. No soul sleep.
And later, when
Jesus talks to the Sadducees, and we know that the Sadducees did not believe in
the resurrection of the dead. He said that God, his father, is the God of the
living, not the God of the dead. If it were true that we sleep after we die and
that our soul sleeps in the earth until the last day, meaning the last day of
the universe or the last day of the earth, then it would have to be said that
God is the God of the dead until the last day when he resurrects, and then God
can be considered the God of the living only after he has resurrected those
dead bodies. But that is not the truth. The truth is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
all the patriarchs, all the disciples who put their faith in Jesus are living
today in the Kingdom of God in eternity, making God the God of the living and
not the God of the dead, and that is how it's to be interpreted.
That's clearly
what Jesus said and clearly how everyone who has eyes to see will see it. God
is the God of the living, not the God of dead people. Therefore Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, Jonah the prophet, all these other guys who serve God in their
lifetime and overcame all the trials in this life. They're not dead sleeping in
their grave waiting for the final Bemessie or the final judgment throne of God.
Their judgment has already come, and God has already judged in their favor, and
they're already in an everlasting life with our father in heaven.
So we can take
great joy and encouragement in the fact that God, our father, is the God of the
living. And if you are living in Jesus Christ, and if you endure to the end,
you can also have this hope that you will immediately be with the Lord in
everlasting life. You will not have to wait. Interestingly, throughout the
years, Jews that were both Pharisees, Sadducees, had this kind of idea that the
last day meant the last day of the world and that no one would be resurrected
from the dead until the last day, meaning the last day of all people on the
earth. And one example of this was when Jesus's friend Lazarus dies, remember
he was dead for 4 days, Jesus tarried in this town and it took Jesus a while to
come into the town and Mary and Martha are saying to him how his body is
already stinking in the grave and how if Jesus was there, Lazarus wouldn't have
died yet, but Jesus then says that it's to their advantage that he didn't come
because, you know, they're gonna see the glory of God now that he has come and is
there.
And Jesus says to
her, I'm gonna read John chapter 11 starting in 23, Jesus sayeth unto her, thy
brother shall rise again. So Martha said unto him, I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day. And see, you have to understand when
Christians and also Jews think of the last day, they're not thinking of the
last day of someone's physical life. They're thinking of the last day of the
world after everything has come to completion, all the prophecies have been
fulfilled, sometime a 1000000 days in the future. And upon that day, God will
then resurrect those that are worthy, and the rest he will leave in the dirt to
then spend their judgment in hell.
So that is how the
Jews saw it, that's obviously how Martha saw it, and it's how many Christians
see it today. They they think that their soul sleep or that you won't get your,
your heavenly body until years years in the future. And this day will come someday
in the future after a rapture and all this stuff that the church has taught.
But let's see what Jesus does. So Martha said into him, I know that he shall
rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
Jesus said unto
her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever live and believe in me shall never
die, believest thou this?' She said unto him, 'Yea, Lord, I believe that thou
art the Christ, the son of God, which should come into the world.' And when she
had so said, she went her way and called Mary her sister secretly saying, the
master has come and calleth for thee. As we know, guys, Jesus calls Lazarus out
of the dead. And even after 4 days when he would start rotting in the tomb,
Lazarus hears Jesus's voice, he comes out fully with the grave clothes, and all
people are frightened.
They are amazed.
Those that believe in Jesus are completely astonished. They put their faith in
Jesus right there, as would you I. But those who are enemies of Jesus are so
appalled that he did this. They immediately try to contrive a way that they
will kill Jesus because they go out saying everyone is gonna believe in this
prophet.
He can open the
eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf. He can raise the dead after 4
days. How are we gonna stop people from believing in a guy that does this in
plain daylight? And they even said, we're gonna lose our kingdom here on earth
if people believe in this Jesus and then the Romans are just gonna take it all
from us. So they try to secure their boundaries and they try to figure out a
way how to silence Jesus and kill him.
Crazy. Crazy that
there are people out there that don't care that Jesus can save them and do a
miracle, that he can raise the dead, he can give them life. That is crazy to me
that people don't see, that they don't they just have nothing to lose. I have known
people even on their death beds, their old age. They have nothing to lose,
guys.
And still they're
unwilling to put their faith in Jesus. They're not willing to give up, the
absolutely nothing of a life that they have. You know, it it may make sense in
the world when you're young that you have something to live for other than
Jesus. Maybe you're living for money, you're living for pleasure, you're living
for women. But it's crazy to me that people will live their whole life making
excuses.
And then even when
they're 80, 90 years old, and on their deathbed, some of these people are still
rejecting their only hope in Jesus. It's very sad. It's very sad that the
Pharisees and that the modern day Christians today literally just hope that
there's no resurrection of the dead. They will tell you there's no hell. They
will say don't worry about it.
The afterlife
probably doesn't exist anyway. And they don't care that Jesus is the risen
Messiah, that he can resurrect people from the dead, give them hope and life.
But for those of us that see these miracles, Jesus becomes our Lord. We worship
him. We don't care that other people are saying, oh, you can't worship Jesus.
He's just the son
of God. He's not worthy to be worshiped. We don't believe any of that rubbish.
We worship Jesus. We praise his holy name just as all the angels have done
forever and ever.
This is our King
who was and who is and who will be forevermore. The kingdom is his forever and
ever, and every tongue, every nation, every person will confess even if they
hate Him that He is Lord and God. Jesus is Emmanuel, He is God with us. He's
the one that resurrects people from the dead and gives us life. And if we put
our faith in him, today we will have life.
We will be
resurrected spiritually from the dead. It doesn't matter how we interpret the
words of the Apostle Paul, it doesn't matter all the doctrines in the church,
Jesus will resurrect you today, he will give you life today. You don't have to
wait. And if you endure with Jesus each day of your life putting your faith in
him, denying yourself, putting to death the old man of the flesh and letting
that new man be built up by the Holy Spirit, then Jesus will live in you. The
return of Jesus Christ will be today for you, not a 1000 years in the future.
Jesus will return
to earth right now for you. He will be in you in your heart. He will return
into you and be living in you for now and into eternity. And when you live for
him until the last day of your life, then you will be raptured so to speak or
caught up into the clouds with Jesus because you've lived with Him, you know
Him. He is your personal Lord and your personal King, and He will rapture you
at that moment, not in a 1000 years, not after a 7 year tribulation, you
already had gone through your tribulation.
So the moment you
die will be the day that you meet Jesus face to face. You will know that He is
in you and you in Him and you will know your Lord. It won't be you just meeting
a Bible or meeting some scripture verses. It will be as the Apostle Paul spoke
that you will finally meet him face to face. This world hates Jesus.
They hate God.
They hate revelation. They hate the truth. Any words of life to them are
bitter, they're hateful, they despise it, they make fun of it, they mock it,
they try to tear down anything the spirit of life is doing. But for those of us
that have our faith in Jesus Christ, we know that he offers the words of life
even if they are the difficult words, the hard words to digest.
We continue to go
back to him because only Jesus has the words of life. Jesus says, eat my flesh
and drink my blood. When Jesus said that most of all the disciples who were on
the outside, you know, those 5,000 men that followed him for food the day before,
all of them started to walk away saying, who can understand this? We're not
gonna be a cannibal. We're not gonna eat this guy's flesh.
We have a father
in heaven. Who is this Jesus? They walked away from him and Jesus turned to his
own disciples and he said, are you gonna turn away from me also? And then Peter
said, Lord, where will we go? Only you have the words of life.
That is where I
want to be. I want to be with Jesus because my hope isn't in my money, not in
my wallet, not in retirement, not in my car, not in my house, not in the
securities and structures and safety nets of this world But my security and my
refuge and my rock is in my salvation of my King, Jesus Christ. He is king of
kings. He's the God who was, the God who is, and who forever will be. Is your
faith in the rock?
Do you have his
hedge of protection around you? Or are you like those Christians in the world
who are deceived, who think that they have protection because they're in
religion? Let us not be like those who are self righteous, thinking that we're
right because we go to church, because we've said the prayer of salvation, and
think that we are once saved, always saved. But let let us be truly humble
before God, daily working out our salvation with fear and trembling, asking for
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, not seeking the counsel of men in things that
are of eternity, but the counsel of the Holy Spirit who is given to us to lead
us and to guide us into all truth and to bring into our memory the things that
he's already taught us and to teach us even things to come. So where is your
hope?
Is your hope in
Jesus, the resurrected king, who will resurrect you on the last day, who will
bring you up the day that you die in the everlasting life, or is your hope in
this world? I just hope that as a brother in the Lord, I can encourage you in
these last days to put your faith in Jesus Christ. None of us know how long we
have. We don't know if nuclear war will break out as they talk about all the
time now on the Internet. We don't know if Russia or China will start another
3rd war or start a 3rd war that that's gonna destroy everyone.
We don't know if
famine or pestilence will break out. The world is a very insecure place.
There's no security in the world. Even the kings will say, fall on us and they
will dig tunnels under the ground, and still that will not keep them from the
judgments that are coming on this world. If we want protection, it's not about
just running to the hills or running underground into underground tunnels or
having a food source saved up, nestled away safely in some storage bin.
But the true
security is in Jesus and in eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Are we
being nourished from heaven such as how the Israelites were being nourished by
manna from heaven or are we putting our identity and security in the arm of the
flesh thinking that we will be secure when everything hits the fan by our own
securities? Man, you won't be able to secure yourself enough, there's not
enough that you can do to get yourself enough that you can do to get yourself
through even a year, let alone 7 years or the rest of your life, however long
that is. You would do better to cry out to your Messiah for mercy and say,
Lord, save me. Save me from my sins.
Save me from my
enemy. Please give me hope. Let me not be discouraged or suicidal or beat down
or destroyed by the enemy, but give me hope, give me direction, give me
clarity, give me renewed strength so that I can endure to my last day, whatever
that is. And also pray that you can bear good fruit so that you can be counted
worthy in the last day to escape the judgments that are coming on the rest of
this world. Most people, including Christians, are not gonna be counted worthy
because they were just religious.
They had their
security in their church, and in their Bible, in their family, but they never
had their security in their messiah, in the savior of this world. Jesus already
made the way for us. He has already died. He is resurrected. The Christians
celebrate this every Easter.
But what they
should be considering is their own resurrection. How they should be crying out
to Jesus for their own resurrection because they're spiritually dead. And
anything that is spiritually dead is eventually gonna be cast out into the
fire. We wanna be spiritually resurrected. We want spiritual life that we can
endure with our Messiah who already has been resurrected from the dead, who has
already made the way.
And if we put our
faith in him, then he resurrects us. Evil falls off of us, we're purged, we're
purified and made as pure as glass and refined as those metals are spoken of,
those 12 metals in Revelation, and were made ready for the wedding supper of the
lamb. We need to prepare. Jesus is on the way for His bride, for those who are
holy and pure. And a lot of people will not be prepared.
They're wasting
time. They haven't secured themselves with Jesus. They haven't bound the strong
man as Jesus spoke prophetically. They're not making the way for the Lord in
their own hearts but they're wasting time with TV, entertainment, the pleasures
of this life, living sinful lives, gratifying the desires of their flesh,
gossiping, hating their neighbor, slandering others, living for the gospel of
demons that is polluting the way of the truth, they're scattering the brethren,
persecuting people even unto death. Instead of living holy and being separate,
they're joining themselves with the antichrist of this world.
Where will we be
in this whole war of Armageddon? And each of these small battles that come up
in our life, will we be victorious? Is Jesus Christ fighting our battles? Are
we overcoming in the name of the lamb by the word of our testimony? Do we have
a testimony?
And are we
overcoming by it and by the blood of Jesus Christ? Or have we lost sight
because the light is no longer in us? Jesus said, your eye is the light of your
body, but if it has become dark, how great is that darkness? The true light,
the light of the world, has already come. And if you receive him, he becomes
the light.
He becomes your
eye. He will come in you. He will be in your body, and you will become part of
the body of Christ. But so many Christians don't have the light of the world in
them. They're looking for a light in all these dark places.
They're looking
for joy and happiness in places that they will never find, and they're seeking
God in all the wrong spots. If you want truth, you need to go to Jesus. He is
the truth, the life, and the way. A lot of people think Christians are silly.
It will come out eventually that the only ones who had the truth are those
light bearers, those Christians that were true disciples of Jesus who had the
light inside of them in their hearts and who sought after a kingdom that did
not exist on this planet.
A kingdom that is
spiritual, that can't be achieved by human hands or the setting up of brick and
mortar churches, but truly a kingdom that is chiseled out of the rock without
human hands that comes to destroy every other kingdom in the whole universe that
brings it down from the beginning of time all the way to the end of time. And
that rock will become a kingdom that is forever and ever with a king that never
comes to an end. And that is the kingdom we wanna become a part of. It's much
better than having stock in some big company. You wanna be joined into this
kingdom.
You wanna be
accepted into it. You don't wanna be ashamed of it because if you're ashamed,
the son of man and all the holy angels and all the holy prophets that belong to
this kingdom will reject you. Those who are ashamed, the son of God will also
be ashamed of them. So put yourself in the righteousness of God. Ask him to
purge you and purify you and make you white and clean that you will be accepted
and counted worthy to overcome and escape all these things that are gonna
happen in the end times.
Put your faith in
Jesus no matter how many people think that you're silly, no matter how many
people cast you out and mock you for what they say is your silly religion. Put
your faith in Jesus because it will be known to everyone, every king, everyone
great and small that the only ones who are wise are the Christians who put
their faith in this messiah, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world. This king who came in humility to give salvation to all people who would
likewise humble themselves as a servant and serve him even unto death, denying
themselves, denying the old way, and receiving the new covenant, that is the
shedding of blood. I hope this message reaches the ears of some who can hear it
and that you would put your faith in Jesus Christ. So I pray, Lord Jesus, for
my fellow brothers and sisters who wanna hear your truth.
I don't pray for
the world or the ungodly or those who don't have an ear to hear, but I pray for
those who have an ear to hear, who you have given it to them to have salvation
and be joined into the kingdom of God and their feet set upon the rock. I pray
that you would open the ears of the deaf and open the eyes of the blind, that
they would come into true faith and that they would speak in new tongues and
have dreams and visions like the prophet Joel speaks of, and that they would
overcome and be made white and clean and purged and be made new, and that they
would be ready for the wedding supper of the lamb and the return of the lord. I
pray this in your in your name, lord Jesus. Amen.
评论
发表评论