Dying / Death (topical page)

Introduction: The Intrusive Reality of Death and Sermon Goals

0:01 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, March 28, 1993, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, from the announcements which immediately preceded this service of worship, and from the various emphases and comments in our worship itself, it has been abundantly clear, I trust, to every man, woman, boy, or girl in this place that death has once again made what can only be called its harsh and grievous intrusion into the ranks of this congregation. And while the scriptures assert in Psalm 116 and verse 15 that preciousness,

0:55 in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints, and while they state in Revelation 14, 13 that blessed or blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, yet death is still, in many ways, an intruder that wrenches away a wife, a husband, a mother, a brother, a sister. A loved one, or a friend. And it is in this sense that in the scriptures, it is also designated in 1 Corinthians 15, 26, as the last enemy, the very last enemy that the exalted Christ will destroy at his coming in power and glory at the end of the age. Now, given the various circumstances, surrounding the death of our sister Sally Champion, as I have prayerfully sought to know the wisest and most helpful course of direction to take in the ministry of the Word of God today,

2:12 I have chosen, I trust, with the help of God, in answer to your prayers and mine, to speak this morning, and again this evening, on this very basic subject, of death. Of the biblical answers to the most basic questions concerning death. The biblical answers to the most basic questions concerning death. And I have chosen this direction in the preaching of the Word with three distinct goals in view.

2:55 First, in order to impart instruction to all who are present, to the end that we ourselves may be prepared to die. This is my first and fundamental goal. To impart instruction to all who are present, not to satisfy our speculations, not to give us a sense of intellectual satisfaction that we understand what the Bible teaches on the crucial questions concerning death. I have a far more vital goal in view, and it is that the instruction to those who are present may lead to our own preparation to die. The subject of death is introduced way back in Genesis 2 and verse 17, when the Lord God spoke to Adam and said, when the Lord God spoke to Adam and said, with reference to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day that thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die. And from the introduction of death in that threat of God to Adam in innocence,

4:17 its universal influence is oppressively affirmed in Genesis chapter 5, where it is said of one man, after another, he lived so many years, and he died. He lived so many years, and he died. And he lived so many years, and he died. The record of death fills the Bible itself, until we come way into the last book of the Bible, the second last chapter.

5:00 And only there does death disappear from the scene, when we are told in Revelation 21, 4, death shall be no more. Hence, in the light of Hebrews 9, 27, where we are told it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment, it is a matter that is inevitable and irreversible, and we care not, we cannot, we dare not, indulge the curse of ignorance or the folly of unpreparedness for death. So that's my first goal in the ministry of the Word this morning, and God willing again this evening. But then I have a second goal, and it is to impart instruction, that those who are prepared to die, may use in answering the questions raised by their children. To impart instruction to those who are prepared to die, that instruction which may be used in answering the questions of our children. When death intrudes into distant circles, rarely do our children know why our children ask pointed and pressing

6:29 and sometimes embarrassing questions. But when death intrudes into a congregation with so many children, children who had living, personal, real interaction with our sister who has been taken from us, the questions will come. Now, subsequent to the funeral, to the funeral service, and the subsequent interment, the questions will come. The children will want to know where Sally has gone, what happens to her body after it is placed in the earth. And my purpose is to outfit you adults with a working acquaintance with those portions of the Word of God, which will equip you for this vital and privileged element of parental influence, that which is underscored in Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7, where God says to His people that they are to lay up His words in their own hearts and they are to impart them to their children. And since one of my tasks as one of your pastors is to equip you

7:55 for the work of ministry or service, Ephesians 4, 12, then surely this must be a clearly defined goal in my own mind and heart, not only to bring instruction that you may be prepared to die, but that you who are prepared to die may have the kind of instruction that will equip you to answer authoritatively and clearly from the Bible the questions raised by your children. But then I have a third goal, and it is this. My goal is to impart that kind of instruction which may be used of God in ministering to the most intensely bereaved and to all of God's people in general. It is that the instruction would be owned of God to minister comfort to those most intensely bereaved and consolation to the people of God in general. For in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 to 18, the apostle Paul does this very thing. He is answering some basic questions

9:21 with respect to death. The paragraph begins with the words, We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep, that is, concerning those who die as Christians. We do not want you to be ignorant. And after he gives a block of instruction, he concludes with these words in verse 18, Wherefore, comfort, exhort one another with these words.

9:55 In other words, he gives this instruction concerning those who die as Christians that Christians who live may comfort one another and that the people of God, by speaking the authoritative words of God, may be instruments of conveying the consolations of God to their brothers and sisters. So then, in the time remaining this morning and then again in the ministry of the word this evening, we address the subject, the biblical answers to the basic questions concerning death. And we do so with these three goals before us and I will be coming back to them again and again lest we get off track in our thinking to impart instruction to the end that we ourselves may be prepared to die, to impart instruction to the end that we may give clear and solid authoritative answers to the questions raised by our children, and to impart instruction to the end that we may minister comfort and exhortation one to another. Now, keeping these goals before us

Question 1: How Did Death Enter the World?

11:21 and resisting all speculation, deliberately eschewing all florid rhetoric or imaginative embellishments, let us begin to address our subject, the Bible's answer to the most basic questions concerning death. We'll take two of those questions this morning and, God willing, three this evening. The first and most fundamental question concerning death to any thoughtful child or adult is this. How did death enter the world and become a universal part of the human experience?

12:04 How did death enter the world and become a universal part of the human experience? When we open our Bibles to the very first page, in Genesis, we are told that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And as Moses, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us these sweeping strokes of God's almighty creative activity, we find that when we come to the end of that creative activity or the apex of it, in verses 26 and 27 of Genesis 1, the account of the creation of man. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created he him.

13:25 Male and female created he them. And as God completed all his works of creation, we read in verse 31, And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. God beholds all that he had made and he regards it as very good. We know from that account that in that original created order, when God had finished his work, stood back as it were and beheld it and pronounced it very good, there was no debilitating disease, no aging process leading to the grave, no hint of anticipated widowhood, fatherless or motherless children, bloodshed, agony, torment, torture, murder, and all the woes that they bring. Over everything he had made, God says it is very good. Well, how then, did death enter this very good world

14:53 and become now a universal part of the human experience so that the writer to Hebrews, as we've already indicated, is bold to assert it is appointed unto men once to die. A part of all human experience. How did it enter? Well, the answer lies in two crucial passages of the word of God.

15:25 The first is in Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2. For here in Genesis chapter 2, God as it were takes the zoom lens and zooms in upon the details of how he created the man and the woman and the immediate circumstances in which he placed them in that special place called the Garden of Eden. In the broad stroke account in Genesis 1, you would gain the impression that the man and the woman were made simultaneously, were blessed of God simultaneously, and were given their general tasks as delineated in the latter part of Genesis 1. But when we come to Genesis 2, we have not a contradictory account of creation, but a complementary account that is not broad-stroked, but an account in which God gives us greater details of precisely how he created the man, how and when he created the woman and brought her to the man, and the circumstances in which God ordered his own relationship to the man

16:53 and to the woman. And it is then in that expanded account of creation that we read in verses 16 and 17 these very, very helpful words as we wrestle with the question how did death enter the world and become a universal part of human experience. This text is the foundational building block of the Bible's answer. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt should, thou shalt surely die. The first introduction of the concept of death is in conjunction with this clear word from God with respect to Adam's responsibility. Death entered the world because man refused to live by the revealed will of God.

18:21 For in this passage God is saying in essence to Adam, so long as you are prepared to order your life by the revelation of my will as expressed in my word, all of the blessedness that you now experience, all of the blessedness that you will yet experience as I create a helper answering to your need. And the following paragraph gives us the account of the creation of the woman and God bringing her to the man. All of that blessedness hinges, Adam, on your willingness to live life according to my word. The moment you step aside from strict adherence to my word with reference to the totality of life, even with reference to how you will gratify appetites, that I have given, the appreciation for the taste and sight of the different fruits among the trees of the garden, if you deviate in this area, dying you will surely die. So that the concept of death is introduced in the Bible in conjunction with man's willingness or unwillingness

19:48 to live his life ordered by the clear word of his God. Sadly when we read on into chapter 3 we have the details of how the man and the woman ate of the forbidden fruit and the indications of a spiritual death resulting in separation or alienation from God immediately breaks into their experience and how God comes and deals with them and says that this will eventually lead to Adam going back to the dust from which he was made. And you can read those details at your leisure. But we must add to this text, Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17, the second pivotal text which answers the question how did death enter the world and become a universal part of the human experience. And that text is found in the book of Romans. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12.

21:04 There is no more crucial text in all of the New Testament. We may be bold enough to say in all of the Bible in answering this burning question concerning death, how did it enter and become part of universal human experience. Romans 5 and verse 12. Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin and so death passed unto all men for that all sin. It is here that the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul gives us the full significance of what is recorded historically in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. There we have the prohibition given to Adam of all the trees you may freely eat but of that tree you may not eat of it in the day you eat you'll die. Genesis 3 gives the account of how Eve ate and Adam ate.

22:24 And how God came to them in judgment and in mercy. But the full significance of what transpired awaits this text. And notice the three things that are clearly affirmed in this text in answer to our burning basic question. How did death get into this world that originally was all very good?

22:53 The first thing that is affirmed in this text is this. It is through one man that sin entered into the world. Therefore as through one man sin entered into the cosmos into the world and we know that that one man was the man Adam. Second thing it is through sin that death has entered.

23:31 Look at the text. As through one man sin entered into the world and death through there been no sin there would be no death. It is through sin that death has entered into the world. Sin was no part of the original creation.

24:00 Therefore death as a human experience would never have been a part of this creation. The entrance of death awaited the entrance of sin. It is through sin that death has entered. Were there no doors through which could have entered into the human experience.

24:31 And then there is a third thing affirmed in this text and it is this. Death is now the universal experience of all men because all sin. And so death having once entered that death is now the universal experience of all men because definitively the all sin. Even little babies who do not come to the place where they consciously willfully choose a course of sin. Paul goes on to say they too die and where there is no sin there is no death. The presence of death is the indication of the presence of sin.

25:52 Well the best commentary on this part of the verse is 1 Corinthians 15 21 and 22 where we read from the same apostle these words 1 Corinthians 15 21 and 22 For since man came death by man the resurrection of the dead for age in Corinthians something that is not explicitly stated in Genesis 2 or even in Genesis 3 this strongly and that is Adam as the representative head of all infer the one hand that had Adam in his integrity and framed by the word of God and not sinned that eventually Adam in all his posterity would have been confirmed in a state of integrity and holiness and over everything God would still it is all very good though that can only be inferred what is

27:21 explicit in scripture is this Adam did not stand in his integrity Adam did disobey God and what is also clear from the word of God and what is also clearly confirmed in human experience is that once Adam and with sin death came so death is now universal human experience and there can be no death where there is no sin to the conclusion if death is universal human experience it must be because sin is the universal human moral condition that is the teaching of this passage that when our friend not only for himself but representatively he stood for us and we sinned in him and with him and this is the clear teaching of the bible it causes man to gnash their teeth it causes so called in their intellectual pride to reject it and seek to explain it away to the world but let God be true and every man a liar

28:48 enter into and become part of the universal human experience here is the answer of the word of God it was through the one man that sin entered into the world and death enters through sin and death passes upon all for that all and there is no other answer that fits the facts there is no as one or another is swept away into the grave the universal reality of death points us to the universal fact of sin and the universal fact of sin points us back to the reality of the garden of Eden and the prohibition placed upon Adam and Adam's disobedience and God's constituting of Adam as our representative head so that we fell into him in that first transgression let this answer to the question be mocked

30:17 denied please turn this cassette over to continue the message let this answer to the question be mocked denied scoffed and explained away let it appear to be drowned in American theories of evolution but still stands through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin and so death passed unto all for that all the only question concerning death is this so did death enter the human race and become part of the human experience and the answer of the bible is only clear with the entrance and we are marked because we are marked as sinners and the wages of sin is death but then we have time to take up the second basic question concerning death and it is this

Question 2: What Precisely Happens in Death?

31:46 what precisely happens in the experience of death according to the scriptures what precisely happens in the experience of death when we read in Genesis chapter 5 of Adam after living so many years and he died and then we read of Seth and he died then we read of the other patriarchs and it says he died what precisely happened when they entered the experience of death when the bible records the death of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob that beautiful picture of the ancient patriarch it says after pronouncing a blessing upon his sons gathering his feet up onto his bed and he died well what precisely happens in the experience of death when you come to die let me make it more personal when your appointment with death comes up in God's sovereignly arranged appointment book what precisely will happen to you when you die

33:14 whether suddenly in a violent crash or explosion whether gradually by a life destroying disease that takes you before your allotted three score and ten or four score years or whether inevitably by the wearing out of the vital parts and you die as my dear godly Christian grandmother died on my mother's side she was in her early nineties and she had structure to her life even to the day she died and part of that structure was to spend her morning in her ordinary chores around the house have her lunch and then go in and have her little twenty minute nap which she described with a Swedish phrase that means to let the sleep run over the eyes and that morning she had made her Swedish coffee rolls she had done her ordinary cleaning and filled up her life with her ordinary activities had her lunch with one of her daughters who is not married and was living there in the home with her went in for her twenty minute nap and just never woke up and the twenty minutes became half an hour she was so regular in that nap my aunt became suspicious and went in

34:40 and she said to her Murr Murr in the Swedish you distinguish the paternal and maternal grandparents Murr Murr is mother's mother Farz Murr is father's mother Murr Murr you didn't even have the decency to say goodbye you see people die in different ways and there she was a woman in her nineties had born fourteen children worked hard the very day she went and the bodily parts just wore out and said enough others die amidst the violence of the madness of those who plant bombs in the World Trade Center others at the end of a few moments of screech and screams as a plane plummets to the earth in a crash others amidst the agony grievous agony of debilitating disease that strangles their life away before their allotted time but however death comes what happens when a person dies we better be able to answer that question for ourselves for our children because you're going to die you better know what's going to happen

Proposition 1: Human Beings are Body and Soul

36:04 what precisely happens in the experience of death and my answer is is not going to be taken from medical terminology and current medical debate about brain dead and brain waves and respiratory death etc but from the word of the living God and I would answer the question by setting before you three simple propositional statements from scripture number one human beings are comprised of two separate entities called a body and a soul or a spirit as a human being every man woman boy or girl in this place is comprised of two fundamental separate entities called a body or a soul or a spirit and I rest the whole case on one clear text though many others could be pressed in Matthew chapter 10 truth incarnate the Lord Jesus Christ speaking says to his own disciples Matthew 10 in verse 28 be not afraid of them

37:30 that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell or Gehenna and here our Lord Jesus Christ clearly affirms this proposition that those disciples standing before him were comprised of two distinct separate entities though inseparably joined in their own personhood as we would observe it he said you have bodies and you have souls and as you go out to serve me and men oppose you there were some who may be able and in the providence of God may be permitted to take your bodies and bring them to a state of death they may kill you but Jesus is very careful to say they kill only the body they cannot kill that other entity called the soul do you see that in the text don't be afraid of them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul so the whole notion

38:57 that man like the beast when he dies that's the end of him all of him the totality of him is sheer materialism man is more than body the idea that he ceases to exist in the totality of what he is when the body is dead and is placed in the ground is a materialistic anti-christian unbiblical notion Jesus said we have bodies but we have souls and we are rather to fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body both entities are accessible to his activity called here destruction and it does not mean annihilation as we shall learn God willing in our study tonight but for our purposes this morning we state this simple proposition human beings are comprised of two separate entities called a body and a soul or a spirit second proposition is that the soul and body of every living man woman boy and girl are united

Proposition 2: Body and Soul are United in Life

40:26 throughout the span of life given to us on this earth the soul and body of every living man woman boy or girl are united throughout the span of life given to us on this earth what is born in the birthing room whether at home or in the hospital is a body soul entity there is no one listening to me here today who has ever known any other mode of existence but a body soul existence in which throughout your present span of life as a living human being your body and your soul have been inseparably joined in your consciousness and in your experience what nursed at your mother's breast was a body soul entity what ran around in the backyard and got in the mud holes and made mud pies and came in covered from mud to head from head to foot was a body soul entity what fell in love with that woman or man sitting next to you as husband or wife was a body soul entity and what you fell in love with

41:54 and that which you married had a body soul and has a body soul entity soul and body in every living man woman boy or girl are united throughout the span of life given here on this earth and listen carefully so called out of the body experiences they've quote died and looked down on their lifeless body and though they are unbelieving godless people they had a wonderful sense of warmth and drawing to a white light that took away all fear of death they did not die they came under a delusive demonic spirit to deceive them about death and hell and judgment that awaits those who truly die separate from christ there was no true separation of soul and body if they're still here to write their books and tell their stories they never died they were still in the land of the living just as surely as your mind can roam into some of the strangest experiences in your dreams it's still your mind encased within your skull that had

Proposition 3: Death is the Real, Unnatural, and Temporary Separation of Body and Soul

43:22 all those scrambled dreams you may have dreamed you went to the galaxy such and such but you didn't go there i'll clue you it was all in your brain third proposition death is the real but unnatural and temporary separation of the soul and the body there's the third proposition as the bible addresses the question what precisely is the experience of death when someone is said to die what happens death is the real but unnatural and temporary separation of the soul and the body turn to james chapter two and verse twenty six there are just three or four texts of scripture to which we will look at briefly and i'm trusting that even the children can follow i've labored to be simple you remember in verse twenty-six were and the body of par from the spirit is that when spirit

44:50 leaves the body the body is declared to be dead that's the bible's definition of death spirit and body have been two very beautiful pictures of this separation and then a very frightening picture. And I want us to look at the two beautiful pictures of it. The first is in Acts chapter 7, in the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. This man whose face shone like the face of an angel, we are told in Acts 6 and verse 15. He is preaching to his fellow Jews and masterfully seeking to attack their consciences that he might persuade them that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Christ of God in their long promised Messiah. But in the hardness of their hearts, they gnash upon him with their teeth, Acts 7, 54. But he being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God in Jesus standing on the right hand

46:13 of God and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened. He was still a body, soul, entity on earth, but God gave him a sovereign sight of the realities of heaven that are normally withheld until people actually go there. I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed upon him with one accord and cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord and saying, Lord Jesus, now notice, receive my spirit. He had no hopes or expectations that he was going to be taken up, body and spirit, into heaven in a whirlwind, in a chariot of fire, as was Elijah. Or like Enoch, who was not, for God took him. He fully expected, as his death

47:23 approached, with these stones raining down upon him, pummeling him, and being the instrument of his violent death, that very soon, you see, he was not at all in doubt as to what did he do. Death was. He knew it would be the separation of his body and his spirit. And so his prayer is, as he feels his life ebbing away, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Verse 60, and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, marshalling all of his final life. And he said, Lord Jesus, now notice, receive my spirit. He had no hopes or expectations that he was going to be taken up, body and spirit, into heaven in a chariot of fire, as was Elijah. And he fell asleep. He died. And for the Christian, death is called a sleep. Never, never, with respect

48:31 to the soul or the spirit, but only with reference to the body. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And when the spirit made its way into the presence, and the body and the spirit were separated, what they saw was a dead body. God says, he's asleep. He's going to sleep till the resurrection, as we'll see tonight. But death for Stephen was the separation of soul and of body. And that's exactly what it was for the incarnate God.

49:18 In all of the mystery of that reality, when it says Christ died for our sins, was buried and raised again, what was death to our Lord Jesus? Luke chapter 23 and verse 46 answers very clearly. Luke chapter 23 and verse 46, backing up to verse 44, it was now the sixth hour and a darkness came over the whole world. The whole land until the ninth hour and the sun's light failing, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father, notice, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said this, he died. He expired. Translated in the older translations, he gave up the

50:22 ghost. But what was left? A corpse hanging on an instrument of Roman execution. And we read the account of how they came and took the body of Jesus. And the body of Jesus was placed in a borrowed tomb. But he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And his spirit was separated from his body in death. The experience of death. So in answer to this second question, what precisely, what actually happens in the experience of death? The Bible's answer is clear. Human beings are comprised of two separate entities called a body and a soul or spirit. The soul and the body are united in the entirety of this life. Death is the real.

The Believer's Hope in Death

51:24 but unnatural and only temporary separation of the soul and of the body that's the bible's answer and you see the person who's in his arrogance and pride refuses to accept the testimony of the bible says how simple my friend call it simplistic if you will but it enables every child of god to look death straight in the eye and say when you come at god's orders to do your work with me i know exactly what you can and cannot do separate my spirit to go into the presence of my savior and leave my body to the earth to sleep in union with christ till the day of resurrection and that unnatural separation death which you bring to me will be overcome when your conqueror, Jesus Christ, destroys you, the

52:40 last enemy, at his second coming, and raises my body from the sleep of death, and gives to me a body like unto his own glorious body, united to my now perfected soul or spirit. And then in the integrity of what I have made to be as a human being, a body, soul, entity, I will be reconstituted, now glorified, made like my Savior, with capacities and faculties to glorify and serve him without sin or weariness or distraction throughout the endless ages of eternity. A wonder, they said, of one group of people. And it was said by their enemies, who despised their faith in Christ, and their religion that said all of salvation is all of God and all of Christ and all of grace. Their enemies, who tried to mix the works of men and the virtues of men into the fabric and texture of salvation, said one thing we must say about these heretics, they die well. And why do they die?

53:58 Why do they die? Why do they die? Why do they die? Why did they die well?

54:01 Because they understood the Bible's answers to these questions. They had come to accept the fact that the universal experience of death among humanity was not some accident, some unwanted, unexplained mystery in some so-called brute forces of the evolutionary process. No, they understood God made man. The meaning was in man.

54:31 Man was God. The argument of wouldn't man. The closet had many things created in him. He had flashing lights.

54:39 The quanites had children. The bones stabbing him were opaque. The loving Sickles. And he said, wash your hands with blood.

Preview of Evening Sermon and Concluding Exhortation

54:46 They said their faith was again your son, in other words, the Nearly Our Father. And they knew. If Zeus and Adam,畫 was unclean in the Schloss, and materials to the original His was sinly, why would he make such a statement? the second question and its answer what actually happens at death there is a real but unnatural and only temporary separation of the soul from the body god willing tonight we'll take up the third fourth and fifth questions what follows immediately after that separation of the soul and the body and i would urge you to study luke 16 and our lord's story of the rich man and lazarus in preparation for that then the fourth question what is the ultimate fate of the body and the soul following death by human observation we know what happens to the body we can see it being placed in the ground but we're utterly dependent upon divine revelation with respect to what happens to the soul and then our final question will be you what makes the difference as to where death will take us now and where it will find us in the day

56:05 of judgment may god grant that if you're here this morning and you have shied away from these questions i don't want to think about it it's so negative it's so foreboding my friend you can't think death out of existence you're going to die look it's straight in the eye man woman boy and give yourself no rest until you can say though i know i shall one day die and i know what death will do in jesus christ i have found the great answer to the dread of death my faith in the one who died to take away my sins i know that death is but a temporary discipline in my life as i make my way to the time when body and soul glorified and perfected on the grounds of the work of christ and by the ministry of the spirit will be forever with the lord himself let us pray and ask that god will bless this basic simple study of his word to those

57:23 three goals that i set out in the opening remarks that we ourselves will be ready to die that we will be able wisely to instruct our children and that we will be able wisely to instruct our children and that we will be able wisely to instruct our children able to comfort those who sorrow let us pray our father we are indeed grateful that we have the scriptures as a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway and we thank you that its light does not stop at death and the grave but we thank you that your word shines beyond the horror of death and beyond the darkness and the grief and the pain of the grave and it illuminates the age to come with all of the glories that await those who trust in your son and all of the horrors of those who die in their sins oh god bless our study in your word today that those three goals that we have set out to pursue may be realized in each of our hearts hear our prayer may your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place may it please you to bring us together again in safety

58:49 that we might continue our study in your word this night to the prophet of our souls and to the praise of our blessed redeemer who has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel who is the resurrection and the life who has promised he that believes in me shall be the one who will never die shall never die. O Lord, hear our cry, and answer us for Jesus' sake. Amen.