Living with Hope | Dr. Conrad Vine

[Music] for [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] God [Music] [Music] love [Music] okay everybody we'll um come in for our next meeting we'll start with hymn number I don't know what it is I surrender all so um there we go H number 309 thank you last night I forgot to thank Lisa up here Lisa I when did we first meet that's a number of years ago and I couldn't see her face it was an island church it's a choir and we've taken that into the prisons and Le has been a Pianist for that Prison Ministry for all up until this year yeah this year and and she's an amazing pianist so we want her here because she's plays so well and I can I hope I don't make a fool of myself but I really want the music to be part of Cam it's so important it's part of Cam and so that's why I just want to be here to enthuse you all so let's stand and sing I Surrender will but before you do when you sing these words you better mean it let's stand and sing sing like you mean it [Music] All to Jesus I surrender all to him my free I will ever love and trust him in his presence may he live I surrender all I surrender all all to the My preious Savior I [Music] surrender all to Jesus I Surrender humbly as his feet I worldly pleasures all forsen take me Jesus take me now I surrender [Music] all I surr [Music] all to thee my blessed [Music] savior surrender all key change All to Jesus I Surrender now I feel the sa flame oh the joy of Salvation glor to his name glor to his name I surrender all I surrender [Music] Al to the my BL savior I [Music] Surrender just remain standing we're going to have our theme song again you should be getting good at it give it all you've got it will be worth it all of time our Tri had to Bear where to compl to turn and despair my Liv soon who C is right away all tear forever in God's Eternal day it will be worth it all when we see Jesus life STS s when [Music] one all his face oh s the will race so greatly love the bra till we see you're doing [Music] well sometimes with not our R of we TOs and D on the human ins there in who our Let Jesus solve your problem just him and pray it will be worth it all when we see Jesus [Music] when and of his all srow will so greatly r on the r till we see chist life be all for will cross the great to GL sa at last we share the CH of I have home the ground the will be down remember will be wor Lord when we see Jesus life shall see is for when we see chist one cl out his def face for sorrow will eras sh greatly run the race till we s cross [Music] sit down Damon said don't don't do that and I thought well now that you got used to it let's do it come on there's got to be some good singers here there has to be um just before Conrad comes up and I want to welcome him back um you've heard all three speakers now are you Blown Away you're going to go away different than when you came and part of that is the speakers yes of which we greatly appreciate but part of that's too is the prayers of the faithful Saints to expel the forces of evil to allow heaven to become in here unhindered and Conrad we I know you're Dr Conrad Vin and pastor but to us you're our brother and we greatly appreciate it's more of an affectionate dress than it is an official but there's just something about the British of course you'll know that we're settled by the British here but there's something about even just your sense of humor we just get it like that so when we meet English or Brits we just seem to have that connection that's no reflection on any other Nation but it's just something that bonds because I guess for myself I'm Heritage English Heritage withough fifth generation kiwi but just before you come up we have a project that we want to share with you Damon I'll leave it to you thank you yeah some of you have already learned a little bit about the blue Bible project who's seen it before they came to camp in newsletter okay some of you read your newsletter well done so what we got contacted it would have been over a year ago of some folk in Aussie and they wanted to get lots of Bibles cheap the whole Autumn Leaves idea just get lots and scatter them everywhere and you know some of them end up of Top Value to people and the worst that happens they'll end up as compost to help somebody else grow so sometimes the idea of just bulk works well and so they they've been working with us for over a year and it's finally come to fruition and they're aiming ultimately I think to print a million copies and at the moment I'm not sure exactly how many are printed but we've got one container I just arrived a couple of weeks ago into the country three containers have gone into Australia and so this Bible is a complete King James Bible and in the back it's got a set of 32 studies plus a bunch of other helps in there it's um blue Bible Blue Ribbon blue Words of Christ and it's all reflection of the law and there's a page in here talking about that now it's got over hundred Spirit of Prophecy quotes in it in relevant places as well and a Bible like this would normally sell between $30 and $60 depending on its features we're doing these for $11 each and then if you buy them in bulk they come down to as low as $450 and so what we're doing is we're aiming to subsidize these as much as possible so that you can get them and scatter them because what B book could you put into somebody's hand now if you don't have the ability you think to give these away well guess what you can help fund it for those who can give them away and so we're aiming to raise $50,000 to be able to subsidize these so far we've got about 20 so we're a long there already and we've gone out in faith and already selling them at the subsidized price so that people can get them there have a look at them we've um we can't do any more box Lots from here the Box lots have gone but we want to make sure these individual copies get one have a look at it realize the value and then what we're going to do we're probably going to end up bring a bulk lot up to the North Island 115,000 in the South Islanders a bunch of them are going to need to be up here if you're interested in getting some um for your church for your group or just for yourself as an individual um Let Us St or myself know we'll jot your name down we'll be in touch and see what quantities you want where you need them and how we can help get them to you because while we've got a container load them we can't get them all out ourselves that's where we need you to help and like I said it's the best book you could put in anyone's hands and who can't afford $5 to share the best book with somebody else so we look forward to talking with you on big plans so that you can get there's more container can come into the country as well thank you Conrad we'll leave it in your hands I paid for [Music] it all right let's just make sure work all right uh good morning everybody so um I had a nice sleep last night so I got up at 2:30 this morning and I had a nice long Zoom call for 3 hours out in the entrance hall there and they have great Wi-Fi here at that time in the morning it's really strong I can tell you and so um if I fall asleep in this sermon just try and wake me up all right I'm talking about Soul sleep today in the state of the dead but um so it's kind of appropriate and I appreciate what uh R Doug say said about sense of humor uh I used to call my mother-in-law gitler at home that means that's the Russian for Hitler and and she once asked me she say what' you call me when I'm not around and um I hummed and hard about this and eventually I told her and she didn't see the humor in this at all so there is certainly a cross-cultural difference uh going on certainly sometimes when I'm preach in America I will say something and the audience just goes deadly quiet and I can see there thinking is that a joke is that not a joke then I say yes that was a joke then they then they have permission to laugh you see um but in all seriousness I I joke about my mother-in-law because lets everybody know I'm married all right it's a very very deliberate thing I do and uh you need to do that these days as a preacher who travels around so when I joke about my mother-in-law um that's that's why I do that although you know the penalty of having more than one mother-in-law more than one wife you should get more than one mother-in-law and that's a built-in self-correcting mechanism so um we're going to I'm going to talk this this uh this evening I'm talking about the relationship between Napoleon and typhus and sin so you guys in the room you like to hear what I'm talking about tonight um this this this morning though I want to talk about a place called hope because we as Adventists we we talk about the doctrine of the state of the Dead does that Inspire anybody the phrase the states of the dead I just think what what a terrible title for a Doctrine I prefer it to be called alive in Christ and you're going to see why I prefer that kind of terminology as we go through through here this morning so before we begin I invite you to Bow your heads with me and we're going to off ask the presence of the Holy Spirit our heavenly father we come before you today we're grateful for the freedom the privilege we have of gathering like this here in your in New Zealand Our Father we thank you for the freedom of speech we have the freedom to worship you according to our conscience and father we're going to discuss today the oldest lie ever told and father whether we're gathered here in this hall or whether we're watching this program online Lord I know that that oldest lie has run throughout human history and has led countless Millions away from the Savior and so father as I speak this morning I pray that your spirit will speak through me and for me that my words will will touch the lives of those present here and those who will watch this online and I pray father that be through the through the words that are shared this morning people will be found on that sea of glass so father may your spirit reign supreme in this next hour in Jesus name I pray amen amen all right so um the essence of adventism I've noticed um in missionary work that as you go around the world most of the major religions if they have one thing in common is the idea that life does not end when you die um you for instance within within Christianity is the broadest description say within the Catholic faith when you die you either go to hell or you go to Purgatory or you go straight to heaven yes and so there and so therefore the wages of sin are not death because you you're either going to burn forever in Hell or you're going to be roasted for a period of time in Heen in purgatory before you go to heaven or you live forever in in heaven so in in Catholic theology the wages of sin are definitely not dead and therefore the Bible is lying when it says to you that the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus his son so that's the the first thing if you look at say Hinduism and Buddhism both of those religions teach that when you die you come back in in reincarnation and you go through millions and millions and millions of cycles of life and death and life and death and life and death and it may sound nice that you can live through millions of cycles of life and death but really it isn't that great an option after all life is precious precisely because it is finite and if you believe that uh you're going to live and die and live and die and live and die that's not such great news because generally speaking the average human being the first say 16 to 18 years you're on the up physically then from the age of 20 on which you're on the down physically that's just the way it is men pass their Peak at by the age of 16 from that on it's all down and so I'm not sure about ladies I better not say anything about that had I today so anyway um and and if you live and die millions and millions of times that means that you have no you have no nobody remembers their birthing process but people they they die of cancer they die of heart disease they die of stroke they die of diabetes you're condemning yourself to millions of cycles of painful death and if in Hinduism and Buddhism you you achieve um your karma positive Karma out wage your negative Karma one day you achieve something called Nirvana which is like putting a drop of a drop of water into the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean and you kind of merge with the global Consciousness and there is no conscious reality so if you're good and good and good and good for millions of cycles of life and your works out weigh your Deeds one day you can become nothing now that's not a particularly Pleasant Doctrine to live with um there was one country I was in where there it was a natural disaster I was there with Adra and children were killing themselves because they believed in reincarnation they lost their parents in these tragedies they killed themselves so they can come back with a new set of parents it makes logical sense within that religious worldview to do that because you can start over again and So within Hinduism and Buddhism there is the lie that you will not die within Catholicism there is the lie you will not die most Protestants today believe the lie that you shall not die if you go to say a Lutheran or an Evangelical or an funeral in the funeral in the sermon the preacher preaches them into heaven above and by the gravide we're awaiting the resurrection of Christ and you kind of Wonder so where are they exactly are they in heaven or are they waiting for the resurrection and you notice this in in many funerals um among Protestants and then within Islam you don't die you go to paradise or you go to um hell and hellfire is eternal and Paradise is eternal and so when you look at the major world religions all of of them propagate the fundamental idea that the wages of sin is not die because you're never going to die and if you're not going to die from sin because the wages of sin is not death then you don't need a savior from sin do you and if you don't need a savior then the life death and resurrection of Christ is is really of no meaning to you so when you start thinking about the implications of this original lie it is very serious now um as Adventists uh we go back let's say to the first century not just to the 1840s but if you go back to the 1840s um there's something on the screen there it's called an atony have you heard of an acronym that's a name that is suited to their their owners so in the Mr Men series any of you remember the Mr Men series you've got Mr Big Mr Grumpy you've got a D Barber called dandruff and in Pilgrims Progress you have Mr tative okay who talks all the time these are acronyms which means it's a name that fits the bearer of the name uh in acronyms are names that are not suited to their owners so there was an Archbishop of Manila in the 1800s called Archbishop sin an unfortunate name for an Archbishop um to be called Archbishop sin and so that's an inaty so then the question is as I drove here yesterday I noticed there were a few um cemeteries as as we're driving here you see them by churches and you see them coule them in in Oakland and you're kind of interesting um if you ever walk through a cemetery and read what's on the headstones it's really fascinating you see all kinds of messages there you see what people hoped for you see what they were afraid of um you see anguish um you know I was raised in Yorkshire and people in Yorkshire speak with a certain accent yes so there was a lady whose husband died and she said to the um the makers of the um the the the the funeral Stone Funeral headstone she said I want you to write he was thine on the head The Headstone there so it comes back a few weeks later as he was thin and and she calls up the owner the the Mason she says you missed out the E I didn't want he was thin he says okay I'll fix it so he goes and fixes it and out reads e he was thin and so that's um that's kind of a Yorkshire accent there but um as Adventists we go back to the early uh the apostolic church and people were buried in cemeteries and the word Cemetery means a place where people sleep that's what it literally means it's not a place where people die forever and never come back again it's cemetery is like a dormitory a dormitory from the dormier the French P verb is a place where people sleep and a cemetery is a place where people sleep so the in in Maine there's a Mory called hope Mortuary hope it's in the city of hope so would you think that that's an aptronym or an inap arony depends what religion you're in yes yeah yeah so I mean if it's a Mory presumably that they're slicing and dicing you at that stage and so as an Adventist we' say that hope Mory is an acronym but if you're a Buddhist a Hindu a Muslim or a Catholic Hope Mory is an inap because in death there is very little hope um whatsoever in those religions so whether you think hope morer is an acronym or an inaty it all depends on your understanding of the nature of death so I want to talk about death today uh just for this this top this time here because um every body has their ideas about what happens when you die and in the pandemic at least I saw people who had no hope in the resurrection they grieved as if their own lives had pass had died when when when parents said goodbye to a child The Grieving wasn't just grieving but it was despair I will never see my little angel again and you saw it time and again and um those who those who grieve without hope grieve with with Despair and life just comes to a shuddering Halt and there's no way they're going to get that precious loved one back um into their arms again and so your understanding of death has a big impact on how you get through the crisis of life so during the pandemic I I traveled more extensive than ever before in my life in the pandemic I mean it was amazing just traveled all over the world somehow with an Irish passport an American or British that always kind of loopholes around the world so I just traveled traveled traveled and um only got Co once I preached a sermon called the appeal of tamis nobility some of you heard that one and I went home and I went down with Co my wife says you better not die of Co after preaching a sermon like that and so um thankfully I didn't die from Co at that moment but um if if you have hope in the resurrection you can look the challenges of life in the face and a pandemic is not the end of the story because if you die there is the promise of eternal life and we're going to die anyway so what matters is not how you die but how you live and if you live with the hope the resurrection you live with hope and the fact that you have hope gives you the gives you like the the the altitude in a plane to cross the mountains and so our understanding of scripture of what happens when you die is really important so I want to talk today about the four stages of life and you've heard the doctrine of the states of the Dead in different ways I I'm calling this um the four stages of life there are four stages of Life there is before life there is Mortal life there is death and then there's Resurrection so hopefully most of us in at least one of those four stages here today yes hopefully we're in in this one here mortal life um I feel a bit like this right now with my jet lag but most of us are in this stage right here many of us uh maybe we we've we' we've uh we've had children many of us have experienced that with maybe parents or children and many of us carry that hope within our hearts the Blessed hope and so there are four stages of life that we find in the scripture and we're going to go through those four stages now um this may be kind of um old news to you but it's actually the best news for Humanity that there is more to life than just the grave and for those of who are watching online you may not be an Adventist this may be the first time you hear this I want you to know that there is a hope beyond the grave and so the first stage of life we're going to look at is before life and there is actually life before life and we find that in Jeremiah 1:5 so I'm going to this this series this sermon is going to be a series of questions and answers questions and answers from the scriptures and so the first question is this was the prophet Jeremiah's life simply a random occurrence or did God plan for his existence it's a great question because that applies to us all is your life the product is you are you just a random collection of chemicals thrown together in your mother's womb herself is a random collection of chemicals living on a on a planet that is a random collection of chemicals in a random meaningless pointless universe is that all your life is because if that is all your life is why do You Weep when someone Close to You dies the fact that you are Weeping tells you there is significance to that person's life and Jeremiah 1:5 it's God says this to Jeremiah he says before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you were born I set you apart I appointed you as a prophet to the Nations and so In this passage here uh we we see that before we are formed in our mother's womb that is before the moments of conception God already knows us and you say well how is that possible well you know we view time as linear but God as well as outside of time and when we on on Sabbath we're going to talk about different understandings of time linear time circular time salvation time prophetic time um and end time and how we fit into all those different understandings of time but God does not dwell in time he dwells outside of time in Genesis 1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth tells you that God is outside of time space and matter which is Einstein's theory of relativity time space and matter are are bound up to each other we think there is time then somehow there was a big bang and the universe came into existence then then then time um time space mat move on Einstein showed us that actually there is nothing then there is something happens and you have time space and matter together and they cannot exist without one another so Genesis 1:1 is one of the most profound statements in the scripture and modern mathematics fully supports it but this tells us here that before we were formed in our mother's wombs God knew us so we were alive to God we may not have realized we were alive to God but we were alive to God and in God's wisdom and in God's Providence um we are alive in 2025 as the world winds up somehow God's he's put a vote of confidence in you to be alive in this time of Earth's history he hasn't placed Abraham Isaac or Jacob here he didn't Place Esther or Mary or Rebecca here he placed you in this time of Earth's history that's a vote of confidence you may feel broken and empty but God's giv you a vote of confidence before you were alive he knew you and he formed you in your mother's womb and he knit you together as handiwork and God's if you're God's handiwork God does not make mistakes you're not a mass-produced forge you're a handcrafted Lamborghini okay so your life our life is not random it does have a purpose there is a Creator and we are alive to our creator from eternity to Eternity long before we came into physical existence so next question is did God also have plans for us before we were born absolutely Ephesians 2:10 says this for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should work walk in them so God has ordained God has um it is God's wish that we do the good works that God has created us to do now you may say what are those good works and in the context of Ephesians chapter 2 is when the church is built up together in Christ and we are living stones in the temple of Christ and therefore you know every wall every brick in a wall is necessary doesn't matter how big or small the bricks are every Brick in the Wall is necessary and every brick is necessary to support a greater purpose which is the building of a cathedral and so God's purpose for us the good works that God gives for us is that we are a blessing to those around us that we build up the body of Christ we build build up the kingdom of God and we are a blessing to our brothers and sisters and those who have yet to enter the body of Christ and so God had plans for us before we born so God knew us before we were born he handcrafted us in our he put us together in our mother's wombs um he had purposes for us before we were born and he has designed us to be capable and our F our P purpose is to be created in Christ Jesus to good works and that's before we were even born so we are alive to God long before we are born on our birth certificate now then comes the moment of birth does anybody here remember their birthing process no you know I um I remember my my two kids when they got B when they were born both were born on a Sabbath morning it's really inconvenient um I was doing an Evangelistic Series in London my boy was my wife um has she has very she's very very calm emotionally she doesn't have any emotional equal um up and downs which is really grateful you know in my mind um and so um I I don't like emotional oscillation she what do I do with this emotion you know so anyway um she was having the baby well I wasn't and she she it was about 6:00 in the morning and she cor she said uh we need to go to the hospital I said what do you mean I'm about to go and get showered and shaved and go to church she says the baby's coming I said well how do you know it's coming she says well you know I've got what do you call them contractions I said well what does that mean like my attitude in life is stay away from anything medical cuz it just costs you money is painful so I've heard of contractions but I'm not sure what exactly they're for she says the contractions coming and she says that means the baby's coming I said well how quickly are they coming she said it's about every 30 seconds I said well what does that mean she says the baby's coming so I said well you know I got a sermon to get to like can't you hang on for this like we'll come back at noon to this problem this is obviously a guy speaking yes so I went and got shaved and showered got into my Sabbath suit and we drove to the hospital and my wife kind of sank into my arms at the door to the night unit so I was holding my wife in my arms and I pressed the button on the night camera night button and this nurse said what do you want I thought what do you think I want I said said I'm holding a lady outside a birthing unit at 7:00 in the morning you know I want to discuss you know the weather with you what do you think so I was I was let in and my wife laid down on a gurnie out pop the baby and it's like that was it so I could go and preach and it was very it was a very well-timed birth and the second girl barely got into the hospital but anyway um life so I remember the birth of my two children and I remember thinking at the time like what's the big deal about watching children being born because they come out like looking like like squashed prunes they they just look awful and it's only after about 3 months they they look semi-human to you like the Chic start to fill out and all the rest of it but I remember the B the birth of my children but for many people when they hold that newborn baby something like magical happens doesn't it that you're overcome with the Wonder of New Life uh the the intricacy of those little fingers and that little nose that's like smaller than like your little nail here and it's amazing how these little things come out well um when you're born something happens and what does what does a living human being consist of we find in Genesis 2 and verse 7 there's the text what are the two components used to create Adam as a living being the text says this and the Lord God formed man of the Dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Man became the Hebrew is nephesh Kim the King James translated as a living Soul now it's interesting the Bible does not say that man has a living Soul it says that man became a living soul and so the the Divine equation is the Breath of Life from God and the dust of the ground when you bring those together you become a a living Soul or a living being and in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 that applies to Adam and Eve and in Genesis 6 when the animals go into the ark all of the animals are also described as being living beings it's the same Hebrew word nees so if you argue that human beings have souls then you must also argue that chickens have souls and cows have souls and mosquitoes have souls and most people aren't going to go down that path but anyway uh so God created us we are put together there are two components the Breath of Life the dust of the ground ground and Adam became Adam and Eve became living souls or living beings now um the then comes the first lie and in the womb God had created us with conditional immortality that is we could eat of the tree of life and thus we're Immortal however if we sinned we be driven away from the Tree of Life and therefore we would become mortal so we were given conditionally immortality in the Garden of Eden and Satan comes in to kind of um wreck God's work and the first lie that was ever told was in Genesis 3 3-4 and uh the Satan the serpent says to the woman he says but of the fruits of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said You shall not eat of it oh God hath said You shall not eat of it neither shall you touch it lest you die and the serpent said unto the woman you shall not surely die so the first thing that Satan does to lead Humanity away from God is to say that this is not the word of God that you don't need to listen to what God has said and that's why you know like sense giving Bibles to people is one of the most important things you can do whether it's know Gideon's Bibles in hotels whether it's carrying a pocket Bible or just a new testament and Psalms new back pocket to give away to somebody but just carrying a Bible is so important being able to give it to somebody you see I don't have all the answers but I know the answers are in here and God will lead you to them it's very non-threatening way of sharing a blessing from God but in this passage here we find that um the first lie that was told was that you shall not die Satan suggested to Adam and Eve that our immortality is not un is not conditional but it is unconditional we have absolute immortality a gift from God and we're not going to die Satan suggested that life is not a gift from God but it's something we intrinsically possess and if we intrinsically possess life we have no need or regard for a creator or for a savior or to worry about sin because if the wages of sin are not death you don't need to worry about Sin and if the wages of sin are not death you don't need a savior to save you from death and it's the same logic that applies to theistic Evolution the idea that that God set this process of evolution under process and after billions of years of life and death and life and death and life and death and life and death you have the story of Adam and Eve and it's in the story of Adam and Eve that all of a sudden the wages of sin is death and therefore you need a Creator but if you've had billions of years of life and death and life and death and life and death in God orchestrated Evolution before Adam and Eve come on the scene that means um sin existed and death exists in the world before Adam and Eve sinned and therefore you don't need a savior again because it's not dependent upon the reality of sin so uh this is the first lie that Satan said to woman you shall not surely die as we saw earlier this lie runs through almost every major religion out there today it's everywhere Hindu Buddhist Muslim Catholic um not so much in Judaism animism is certainly there if you go to a Thai restaurant you notice they have little like um Spirit table at the the entrance to the restaurant they have a statue of Buddha there a bowl of rice maybe a jar of Coca-Cola or tea or something and that's not there for decorative purposes they are appeasing the spirits of the ancestors they're trying to buy themselves good luck in their business for that particular day and so Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death death but if we believed Satan and beli that we will not die if we are disobedient to God then the wages of sin is not death sin is nothing to worry about and if we do not if we do not believe that sin or its wages are a problem then we don't need a savior well after Adam and Eve they ate of the fruit of the tree they were driven from the Garden of Eden and they were driven from access to the tree of life and our conditional immortality was lost through Disobedience Ezekiel 18:20 discusses then the nature of guilt and uh this passage here says the soul that sinth it shall what it shall die it's not going to live forever you're not going to go to Purgatory you're not going to go to heaven you're not going to go to hell you are going to die says the son that shall not bear the iniquity of the father neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him and so In this passage here we see that every human being that die that lives shall shall die and uh the soul that sinth it shall die so souls are not Immortal Souls are not just going to detach themselves from our mortal bodies and Float off to heaven with the angels we're going to die and because we are sinners but the good news in this passage here is that you do not bear the collective guilt of your fathers or your forefathers and modern day the ideologies that our children are being force fed in our schools critical race Theory critical gender Theory queer Theory postcolonial Theory all of that says that if you are white you are guilty of all the sins of the white people to all the nonwhites if you're straight you're guilty of all the historical oppression to all the to all the non-straight people if you're a cisgender you're guilty of all the oppression of all the non cisgender people etc etc and we're loading our children with a burden of existential guilt that is simply not true and so this passage here that the the the son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father the father is a direct rebuke to all the ideologies that are floating around our public schools now amen and those ideologies are driving our young people to despair amen so if you're a white teenage girl in America now and you're taught that because you're hetero that means you're guilty of all the homophobia of history and because you're white you're guilty of all the colonial colonialism and racism and history and if you're a cisgender it means you're guilty of all the transphobia in history etc etc etc what do you do to escape that guilt you become transgender because then you go from the most oppressor to the most oppressed class you go go from being a social somebody on the wall to becoming a social celebrity um suddenly everybody's excited about you as previously they were kind of ignoring you and many girls do that because it's easier to be a teenage boy than a teenage girl these days nobody cares what teenage boys look like they smell they smell a body ododa they don't brush their teeth they don't change their clothes very often girls can't get away with that these days nobody cares what boys look like they care what girls look like and so this passage here speaks of some of the lies is that are still running in our society today the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father and then the next passage in this the stage of life is this in what way do we grow when we come to realize that life is short well the King James says so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts into wisdom and the other version here says teach us to realize the brevity of life so that we may grow in wisdom so when you're young you tend to think you're Immortal yes you think you're Immortal you're invincible life's going to go on forever and you're going to have no physical problems or other problems in life but as you go through life and you get a few gray hairs and Barnacles under yourself you start to realize that life is really short like it just seems like yesterday that my boy was born now he's 22 and starting his own business I think you know what happens last 22 years and the next 22 years after that I'll die like wow that was quick you know that's quick when David was 14 he said dad he says we have three more family vacation that I'm leaving home when you put it in in that sense you how how brief your time is with your children if you're blessed with children but this passage here tells us that um when we realize that life is short it's an invitation from God to grow in Heavenly wisdom that when we are young we think about toys and boyish things but the older we get it is natural for us to our minds to move to questions of Eternal significance and the more we bury people the more we say goodbye to people the more concerned we become about do I have the promise of eternal life and so the Assurance of Salvation goes up in importance generally the older we become just because we realize life really is just a blink of an eye and there must be moral life than what we're living through today many younger people make unwise choices because when they're young they feel Invincible they feel Immortal but as they grow older and they realize how short life really is their thoughts turn to matters of more significance um the the natural process of maturing leads us to a Fascination not just with the Physical Realm of life but the spiritual realm of life and we start to focus not on questions such as is this the better rugby team or that the better rugby team but there more important questions such as who am I where have I come from where am I going and what is truly important in life and as we go through life and we go through the Pains of Life pain has a habit of rearranging our priorities and reveals to us what is truly important and what is just dross and much of what we listen to much of the way we live our lives in the west is nothing but dross it doesn't matter if Liverpool or Manchester United are top of the English Premier League it really doesn't matter it's irrelevant it's just a bunch of random chemicals playing against a bunch of random chemicals pushing a b kicking a bunch of random chemicals you really think this is important not at all so that's the second stage of life and and as we go as we get older in life we realize how life really is and so God invites us to ponder questions of Eternal significance I invite you to do that today you know it's it's easy particularly for guys to get caught up in the toys of life but to start thinking about the Eternal questions of Life who are who am I where have I come from where am I going and what's my footprint and when they write my obituary what are they going to say have I left a positive footprint for others to follow have I been a pillar of stress other people who may be weaker in a certain stage of life that they can lean on and be blessed by what's going to be said about us when we get to the third stage of life which is death so when we come to the third stage of life which is death um you know death is a um we tend to avoid talking about death too much um it's kind of like an irrevocable condition for most people but death is um it's not something to be feared from the Christian Perspective if we die before Jesus comes again we have the promise of the Resurrection so it's just like going to sleep we may fear the manner of our death that's what people more afraid of than the actual death itself and for many people death comes as a blessed release it's a blessed release so what are some of the key verses in the Bible that tell us about death so what happens when we die well what happens when we die is the exact opposite happens of what happened in Genesis 2 when God when when the Lord God formed man of the Dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Man became a living being from Genesis chapter 2 when you die the formula of dust PR Breath of Life you add them together you get a living being that formula is is is deconstructed so the breath the um the Breath of Life returns to God who sent it the dust returns to the ground dust you are un to dust you shall return as the the Anglican book of prayer says and you are no longer a living being it says then the dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it that's the breath of life and you are no more there's no soul floating around there that that's looking for a home there's no soul that turns into a ghost that that that dwells within its last home and haunts it because looking for a physical body to dwell in the dust returns to the ground and the breath of life it returns to God and that spirit is ruak it is the breath of life it's the same word used in Genesis 2:7 This Is The Life principle from God that animates all living creatures whether it be human beings or whether it be animals Genesis 6:22 refers to the animals of the flood they also possess the Breath of Life in Genesis 6 and verse 22 so um this is not something that's unique to human beings the dust return your body turns to dust and the Breath of Life returns to God so how does Solomon describe what it's like to be dead we described it this way he says for the living know that they shall die is that true yes the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything neither have they any more reward for the memory of of them is forgotten and perhaps one of the greatest urges of um dictators in human history is to be remembered on this Earth if you look at many of the great monuments in history such as the pyramids or the Great Wall of China or some of the ziggurats of of the Middle East or South America um or you look at say um some of the the Easter Island with those big statues there people want to be remembered Adolf Hitler was building his Third Reich and his architect spear Albert was was designing a new version of Berlin so that it would last for a thousand years as a memorial to H Hitler's greatness and so many of the Great Men in history they don't want to be forgotten they want their name to be remembered forever more and you see glimpses of this in the scriptures so in in um Exodus chapter 1 um you have two Hebrew midwives there yes now what were their names anybody remember shua and okay she does have another name there is the second one I forget her name now but the point is nowhere in the Exodus story do get the name of Pharaoh Pharaoh is a title it means king or president and that's not his real name um he had a personal name it could have been totos the first or rames I thir who knows but the point is Moses nowhere records the name of pharaoh why because in Egyptian thinking um in order to survive into the Afterlife your name had to survive and that's why the king the Egyptian pharaohs would chisel their names all over Egypt in their monuments so that they could not be erased from the afterlife and that's why when hat chepo that famous Queen when she died um her successor who hated her chiseled out her name all across Egypt he was erasing her name so that she would she would be erased from the afterlife so this passage here says that the memory of them is going to be forgotten and throughout human history the Great Men the great women the Kings the the the Queens the princes the the the presidents and the the chancellors they do not want to be forgotten in and they build these monuments as a memorial to their greatness but the Bible says the memory of them is forgotten now it says the dead know not anything I think that's a beautiful promise that's a beautiful promise The Dead Know Nothing Like no more suffering no more pain um no more cancer diagnosis no more struggling with debts or credit card bills the dead know not anything it's a beautiful promise of complete rest from the struggles of this life there is complete peace if your mother dies and goes up to heaven and is watching you as you go through cancer treatment you think she's really in heaven absolutely not if she watches you die in a road accident or if your mother goes to heaven as some people say and she and she's watching you getting the cancer diagnosis and watches you struggle for 10 or 15 years with chemotherapy and radiotherapy and eventually die a painful death that's not going to be heaven for your mother The Dead Know Nothing the Dead the of them is forgotten and what happens in death Solomon goes on to describe it he says also concerning the dead their love their hatred their Envy is now perished neither have they anymore a portion in anything that is done under the sun now you think about that the dead have no influence over what happens on planet earth once they're dead so your aunt is not going to come back and guide you you're not going to go to a medium and call up your mother and have your mother guide you as to what the next decisions of Life are going to be that's a fallen Spirit but it's not your mother and so the dead have no portion in anything that is done under the sun that is they're gone you can't communicate with your loved ones beyond the grave it's interesting that you know um when the first wave feminism came out in the 1848 1849 one of the driving forces of first wave feminism were the fox sisters with their rappings communication with spirits and in the first and second waves of feminism um you have had what were known as trans mediums and they they were girls in the 1840s 50s and 60s and they would stand in in in a large Hall and they'd be like they'd be an an illiterate uneducated girl from the the rural areas of America and she would stand there and she'd go into a trance and people would ask them questions about the rings of Saturn and and all kinds of geography or biological questions and they would give these brilliant answers because they were filled with spirits and this was a this was a direct satanic counterfeit to the work of sister white who would also go into vision and people would see her going into vision and so you have this this satanic counterfeit to the ministry of sister white and spirit of Prophecy in these trans mediums these girls who went all across America going into transes in front of large groups of people but the Bible says that when people die they have no portion in anything that is done under the Sun so they're not going to influence us beyond the grave the dead have no further emotions they have no love they have no hate they have no Envy how did Jesus describe experience of someone who's died he says and when he has come in he saith unto them that's the the Gus's daughter 12-year-old girl who just died Jesus says to the mother and father he says why did you make this ad do and Weep the damsel is not dead but what sleepeth so Jesus describes um death not as death he describes as sleep just as of the word Cemetery used by the early Christians in the second third centuries is a place where somebody sleeps the early Christians took the words of Jesus very seriously Jesus described sleep a death as a sleep which is why some people call it a soul sleep but essentially when you die and and and you sleep do you when you go to bed tonight are you assuming you're going to get up in the morning yeah you hope so yes at least you hope so yes um so when when we go to bed we make plans for tomorrow normally we think what what's tomorrow going to be what time to have to get up at Etc we plan our days in advance and this passage here says that when we die as far as God is concerned it's nothing more than asleep which means there's something Beyond it we're going to get up for something uh the what did Jesus proposed to do with Lazarus it says Jesus spoke um these are to um Mary and Martha says these things said he and after that he saith unto them our friend Lazarus sleepeth but I go that I may what awake him out of sleep and so Jesus does for Lazarus what he's going to do for those who are waiting for him in the resurrection he is he is going on a journey he says I am going in order that I may wake him out of his sleep and so Jesus has the authority to call people out of the sleep that we call death and he does it for Lazarus and as he speaks beside the grave to Mary and Martha he affirms to them that he's not just going to do it for Lazarus he's going to do this for all who believe in him the P what how did the disciples understand this metaphor well John 11:1 12-15 says then Jesus said to his disciples then said to his disciples L sry then said his disciples Lord if he sleep he shall do well so they think that Lazarus is just asleep they don't understand Jesus using sleep as a metaphor for death how be it Jesus spoke of his death but they thought that he'd spoken of of taking of rest in sleep then said Jesus unto them plainly Lazarus is dead so Jesus uses sleep as a metaphor for death and then Jesus goes on to say and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent that you may believe nevertheless let us go unto him why does Jesus go unto Lazarus he's going to wake him out of sleep and so Jesus has the authority to wake those who are dead from the from the sleep of death back to life again it's why he says to Mary Martha I am the resurrection and the life and so it's a beautiful promise that Jesus gives to Mary and particularly to Martha by the gravide and Jesus demonstrates his ability to call people from the sleep of death by his raising of of Lazarus from the dead and I think that's wonderful news for Christians and when we say we're Adventists we're not just proclaiming the soon coming of Jesus we're proclaiming the day when the dead in Christ will rise first we're proclaiming the day when when death that the sleep of death will be no more and those who fallen asleep with faith in Christ will rise to everlasting life it's a beautiful promise and so announcing the second coming of Christ um you're also announcing to the demons that they're going to be destroyed and they don't like that and so they try and stop you preaching about this and uh the Spiritual Beings behind Islam and Catholicism and Hinduism and Buddhism do not like you talking about the coming of Christ because it means the death of those Spiritual Beings and it's interesting as as as Christians in general and as Adventists in particular and in our Western societies which have been influenced by the Bible we celebrate New Beginnings we celebrate birthdays and marriages because those are new beginnings whereas if you go to Thailand as a missionary um you're not the people don't so much focus on births and and um weddings they focus on what happens when you die death is the major ceremony to be celebrated because that's the transition into a new stage of life with reincarnation so the challenge as missionaries in countries that believe in reincarnation is helping people reinterpret death and changing the rituals around death because when everybody dies if you don't honor them in a certain way you're condemning them to a lower life form when they come back in reincarnation so this lie has a powerful hold in some parts of the world that that you're never going to die so then we come to the fourth stage and that is Resurrection so we've gone through before life we've gone through a few questions about life itself we looked at death then we're going to come to the fourth stage of life and this is the resurrection and this really is the best news that there is out there and we're going to start out with John 11 it says was Jesus able to bring Lazarus back to life yes he was the text says and when he had thus spoken that is Christ he cried out with a loud voice Lazarus come forth and he that was dead came forth bound hands and foot with grave clothes and his face was bound about him with a napkin Jesus saith unto them loose him and let him go and so Jesus waited until Lazarus was dead for 4 days why because the Jews believes they have this kind of this um this uh apocryphal belief that when somebody dies their their soul hovers over them for about three days and the Soul can re-enter them in those three days and they can come back to life and then they really weren't dead but if you doing it after 4 days then you know that person really was dead so Jesus waits for the fourth day before he goes to Lazarus because he wants it to be clear to everybody that Lazarus just wasn't in aoba or in a vegetative States okay he really was dead here and so Jesus has the authority to raise Lazarus from the dead I think it's amazing don't you you know we we see in in in our mission work with AFM we see about every two or three years somebody raises to the dead Rises to life again and why does that happen it happens almost exclusively in one set of circumstances when you're going into a village full of animists who are worshiping the spirits and there is a test is are they going to accept missionaries in the village and accept the proclamation of the Gospel or the spirit doctors can to say You must keep worshiping the spirits and then a crisis happens maybe somebody is born or somebody dies and then the family says call the missionaries and what happens is that person is raised to life again after prayer and then the whole village becomes Christian almost in minutes I mean it's pretty amazing really so this stuff still happens so these Miracles take take place because they they lead people to Faith but when Jesus led when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead the authorities who saw it they went back to Jerusalem and said we need to kill this guy so because the whole world is following after him so Miracles don't necessarily result in faith sometimes they confirm people in their disbelief and so a Ministry and a te the way of living as a Christian Church that is built on I must have miracles in order to believe in Jesus Christ is not a good foundation because some people respond to Miracles with faith and some people respond to Miracles through the hardening of their heart which is how Pharaoh responded and led to his eternal destruction faith comes through the hearing of the word of God that's where faith comes from it comes through the reading and the hearing of the word of God and the Holy Spirit bringing conviction to your life regardless of my physical circumstances today and if God works a miracle to save me praise the Lord and if he doesn't I choose to praise him anyway like the attitude of the three um Hebrews let let it be known unto you oh King that we Will Not Bow Down and Worship this Idol that you set up and if our God whom we is able to save saves Us Praise the Lord if he doesn't we praise the Lord anyway but we ain't bowing down and so that's the attitude we' to have as Christians so how does Paul describe the Awakening of the dead and some some hymns um use the phrase quickening you the the dead shall be quickened okay it's not that they're running races or anything the the Old English word Quicken it means to to raise to life again and so um Paul describes it this this way he says behold I show you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be what changed in a moment in the twinkling of night the last trumpet for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised Incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this Mortal must put on immortality it's a beautiful passage this Mortal body this fading body this body with diabetes or arthritis or whatever the case may be God is going to give me a new body that's never going to fade away again no more pills no more tablets no more herbs whatever we take sorry to say sister but nothing we don't need any kind of medicine when we get to heaven okay no doctors no nurses in heaven so that's also a blessing no medical bills either the the point is that when Jesus comes again the dead in Christ will be changed in a way that this world cannot explain but it's going to be an incredible change Immortal Incorruptible imperishable it's a blessed hope then the uh Act 24:15 Paul talks about two classes of people who will experience the resurrection and actually there are kind of three classes of people there's the those who are alive when Jesus comes again who are faithful to Christ they won't experience the first death they'll go straight to heaven but then you have that those who died with faith in Christ they're waiting in the grave waiting for the trumpet of God to sound and for the the call of the archangels they can be raised first to meet Christ in the air then you have the wicked and the wicked are either dead before Christ comes again or they slain by the glory of his coming and they are awaiting the second Resurrection uh at the end of the Millennium in Revelation chap 20 and Paul describes these two resurrections and he says we have hope towards God which they themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of the Dead both of the just and the the unjust so there's going to be two resurrections at the end of time they're not going to happen simultaneously we know from Revelation they are a thousand years apart but the first resurrection is going to be the resurrection of the just and some versions say of the righteous and of the unjust and that is of the unrighteous and Jesus describes the same thing in John chapter 5 and he says this Marvel not at this for the F for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation and so Paul talks about the resurrection of the just and the unjust and Paul Jesus speaks about the resurrection of the the righteous and the resurrection of damnation so there are these two resurrections and you can basically choose which Resurrection you want to be a part of you can be a resurrection of the righteous and of the just or be a resurrection of the wicked and the resurrection of damnation and the resurrection of the righteous have the promise of eternal life and the resurrection of the wicked is to ultimately to the final judgment and eternal destruction so we all must make a choice which Resurrection we're going to be a part of and there's one is a good option and the other is a really really bad option and when my girl was about three we used to read through the Bible stories every year with our kids you know the 10 volume the blue books by Maxwell and um volume 10 talks about the end of times and there's a picture in there of of the the world being destroyed in a CFI maybe some you know the whole page is like orange and black and in the middle of that little picture there's like little Antti figure which is Satan being cast into the the Sea of Fire and my little girl when she was three and four she says please Jesus she says put my brother into the sea of fire that was her prayer for her brother and and that I remember thinking like what did he do wrong to you like vicious little creature here you know um anyway but that that picture had a vivid Imaging on her mind that there's going to be a lake of fire but the good news is Satan and his demons are going to be destroyed forever and put into that into that Sea of Fire and so Jesus talks about two resurrections as does the Apostle Paul and Revelation 20: 12 speaks about not the resurrection of the righteous when Jesus comes again but the resurrection of the Wicked at the end of the Millennium in heaven and it describes it thus it says I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is The Book of Life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and so at the end of the Millennium you have the resurrection of the wicked are those who turned their back on God and um they are raised in order to stand in the final judgment and so they're not raised in order to live forever they're raised in order to participate in the final judgment and why is that necessary because Justice is not Justice if it is not seen to be Justice and we need to know we need to know and the watching Universe needs to know that when God chooses as the ex person is saved and Y person is lost why exactly that choice was made that God is just in his decisions that all his judgments are true and just because if there is any doubt as to the fairness of God then the problem of sin is going to start all over again like a little seed of of questioning and and doubt is all that's needed to destroy a relationship you can have a perfect relationship with your spouse and somebody says to you who did I see your spouse with the other day going out of that hotel may be perfectly legitimate but that one question adds an a fraction of Doubt into that relationship and if it's not dealt with immediately it will destroy that relationship it's easy to destroy something it's it takes years to build something up but one element of doubt and the whole thing falls apart and so In this passage here we read that God is going to raise the Dead the Wicked at the end of the Millennium and he's going to have a final judgment and I would rather not be in that final judgment and I hope that you're not in that final judgment as well but it is so that everybody recognizes the justice of God and finally when that is over that every knee will bow and confess that Jesus is Lord that his sacrifice that his life that the blood and Calvary shed for this sinful world was sufficient for every man and woman to be saved but they are saved because of their they are lost because of their choices they've turned their back on the sin bearing and sooncoming savior so what happens to those people who reject the grace of God after they face that final judgment the text goes on to say and death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire this is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire and so at the end of that final judgment the wicked and Satan and death and um would say death and hell and Satan and his demons and the wicked are all CA cast into the Lake of Fire and that's called the second death because that's a death from which there is no hope of coming back it's an eternal nothingness it's not an eternal suffering it's an eternal death and uh so that's what happens to those in that final stage of life after the Resurrection The Right resurrection of righteous they go to heaven and the resurrection of the wicked they get raised again for the final judgment then they face their Eternal destruction so the The Book of Revelation goes on to describe what God is going to do after that he says and I saw a new Heaven and a new new Earth for the first Heaven and the first Earth had passed away and there was no more sea and I John saw the holy city New Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a bride adorned for a husband and I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying behold the Tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself shall be with them and be their God and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying nor shall there be any more pain for for the former things have passed away isn't that a beautiful promise I've noticed is if you study the topic of Heaven in the Bible what you notice is that whether you are a Shepherd in in Israel or whether you are a Zulu tribesman in South Africa or whether you're an Eskimo in Alaska or whether you're living here in New Zealand the description of Heaven that that the Bible portrays over the 1500 years it was written everybody of every culture and every background can say I want to be I want I want a part of that if God had said Heaven is going to be a place where everybody gets two mules 100 acres and um uh free holding of their own land that wouldn't appeal to everybody and if God has said Heaven is going to place where everybody um everybody can have um a charot and two horses I say I'm not so sure about that but the way that the heaven is described what God has prepared for his people it's described in a way that no matter who you are anywhere in human history you can look at these descriptions and say I want to be a part of that so when blessed are those who mourn says Jesus in the beattitudes for they shall be comforted uh God speaks to the most fundamental aspects of our human condition and he knows our deepest needs and our deepest needs are for the problem of sin and suffering to be removed from our existence and so when the The Book of Revelation describes what God is going to do after that final Resurrection this is something that all of us can say I want to be a part of that because everybody everybody's had tears of one kind or another in their life and when you get to like my age and above you stood by enough Graves to know I don't want this anymore enough grav sides you said goodbye to people you said goodbye to a child you said goodbye to maybe a miscarried child a stillborn child you said goodbye to your parents um whatever the case may be this promise of God that after the resurrection God is going to do something incredible for his saved children this is something worth striving for it's not something any politic on Earth can give us today we're going to talk on the Sabbath night about the promises of the last American election and the promises of God for heaven we're going to compare those two things but it's amazing when you compare how how excited people get for these presidential elections you know and if if president Trump comes to town and he's speaking in an auditorium of 30,000 people 120,000 are queued up outside to see him and he does four of these a day and so everywhere these these these rallies go you have Adventists shipping in container loads of great controversies giving them out like confetti we've given out more great controversies in the last 6 months and any other time in American history by the hundreds of thousands even in prison and just last week one of Trump's closest advisers was released from prison a guy called Steve Bannon and as he comes out of prison he's holding great controversy okay great controversy this guy is a devout Catholic and and and he comes out of prison and he's interviewed on the news and they say well what do you want say about time in prison he said well he said I was put in a cell with a violent man and he found a copy of this book i' never heard of it before he said it's a book called great controversy by a lady called Ellen G white he said and this man read this book in prison and he became the most peaceloving Christian I've ever met in my life he said this must be an amazing book I just an incredible testimony from this former felon just coming out of prison and now he' been in the new Administration but he's talking about the great controversy and so um when you see the the energy that people have the passion for four more good years how much more concerned should we be be about striving for eternity people wear their Maga hats on their heads or they wear their Cala Harris hats they have their little appels Trump or Harris here and they would they care they put the logos on their car the bun bumper stickers on the back of their cars and they Proclaim their loyalty to someone who probably has about 18 months in office before they run into problems and they get all excited about this Earthly Messiah for 4 years how much more should we be excited about the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the righteous and the gift of eternal life what a blessing God has in store for his children so will we be able to recognize each other in the earth made new well there's a special place in heaven for mothers-in-law so you don't need to worry about that but Mary Magdalene that's a joke by the way you can laugh um Mary Magdalene saw the resurrected Christ in the garden um by uh by the sight of the CR crucifixion and uh she then comes to the disciples and she says this she says Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord that is Christ that he had spoken these things unto her so Mary Magdalene recognized Christ in his resurrected body and then later Jesus appeared to his disciples to convince them that he had indeed raised from the dead and we read that passage in Luke 24 37-42 he appears to them in the upper room it says they were terrified and supposed that they'd seen a spirit and he said unto them why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts behold my hands and my feet that is that it is I myself handle me and see for a spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as you see me have and when he had thus spoken he showed them his hands and his feet and while they yet believed not for joy and wondered he said unto them have you any meat and they gave him a piece of broiled fish they gave him some fish and some honey and he ate it and then they were finally convinced but the point is is that uh Jesus was raised with a glorified body and that body in Isaiah 49 will always bear the marks of the crucifixion on it if you have your Bibles with you I didn't put this text up there but um Isaiah 49 verse 15 Isaiah 49 15 says this can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb now tell me this mothers would you ever forget your own children did somebody say yes there oh okay may I don't think a woman can ever forget her child yes and so the Isaiah says can a woman forget her child the answer is no and so the prophet goes on to say yay they may forget but yet will I not forget thee God speaks to his children I will not forget you so if a mother can remember her child that she gave birth to and it's unlikely that she ever going to forget that experience so much more is God going to remember his children goes on to say behold I have Graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually thy walls are continually before me and so In this passage here we read that in his glorified body Jesus will bear on his in his hands the marks of the crucifixion as a a tangible reminder of the the cost of redeeming us from from the curse of sin and the curse of death it is also reminder to us that when we get to heaven we will have glorified bodies and we will recognize one another when we get toen we're not going to be disembodied Spirits floating around up there and what are we going to be doing when we get to heaven at the time of the Resurrection Revelation 22:3 says there shall be no more curse that is the curse of death for the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants Shall Serve him so what are we going to be doing when we get to heaven we serving God we're not going to be sitting around playing harps on clouds I think I mean what a terrible portrayal of Heaven be sitting for eternity playing a harp on a cloud I mean that sounds to me like a you know cruel and unusual punishment um what are we going to be doing in Daniel 9 we'll turn in your Bibles to Dan Daniel 7 and in the Book of Daniel it tells us what we're going to be doing Forever More in Daniel chapter 7 it talks about four kingdoms and um those kingdoms are going to pass away and there another kingdom is going to rise and that kingdom is going to be given to one like the son of man and it's he's he's going to have an eternal Dominion And that son of man is Jesus Christ but then if you look at Daniel 7 and verse 27 that Eternal Dominion is not just given to Christ the son of man but it's also given to the saints of God it says there and the kingdom and the Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom Under the whole Heaven that is the kingdom of Jesus Jesus Christ the Eternal kingdom of God it shall be given it says to the people of the Saints of the most high whose kingdom is Everlasting Kingdom and all dominions Shall Serve and Obey him so this passage tells us that what are we going to be doing for eternity we're going to be you might say we're going to be mid-level administrators in the global Universal Kingdom I mean I'm an administrator that sounds really good to me actually but um we're going to share in the rulership of the universe and why would that because if you're in an unfallen world you may know about Sin intellectually and you may know about Grace intellectually but You' never experienced the bitterness of sin and you never tasted the sweetness of forgiveness you never experienced it it's the redeemed from planet Earth who've tasted the bitterness of sin in all its manifestations we know what sin does and we also know what the sweetness of forgiveness tastes like so why in the Lord's Supper when the Jews had the Lord's Supper they would have bitter herbs representing slavery in Egypt and ultimately slavery to sin and then they would they would they would do away with the taste of the bitter herbs by drinking the grape juice and this the grape juice wipes away all the bitterness that goes before it and forgiveness tastes like grape juice you know uh bitterness tastes like salt water some of you know that you know bitterness tastes like but when you forgive when you experience forgiveness you you're exchanging the salt water for a glass of fresh grape juice and that washes away the taste of everything that's gone before it's not just a head knowledge it's an experience of forgiveness that God wants us to have and so what are we going to be doing when we get to heaven we should be sharing in the rulership of the universe because we know not just intellectually but experientially the truth of the character of God and as his ambassadors we are called to Faithfully represent his character and we can say I know that God is a god of love because this is what he did for me this is who I was this is how he entered my life and this is what God has done for me and I can testify to his goodness his faithfulness his Mercy in a personal experiential way in a way that the unfallen worlds can never do so we come to our conclusion here our time is up here so let's come back to Hope Cemetery in main state in the Northeast of the United States is that place Hope Cemetery is it an acronym or is it an in atony I think it's an atony is for those who died trusting in Jesus it's a place where they're merely asleep awaiting the call of Jesus to everlasting life there is a place called hope and we can live with that hope today and hope is found in the word of God is actually found in Jesus Christ and in no other and as Adventists we proclaim the soon coming of Jesus Christ not just the Blessed hope the only hope for suffering Humanity it's a hope that says that one day um all tears will be wiped away it's a hope that says death and disease and sorrow will be no more and every tear will be wiped away there a hope that says this corruptible perishable mortal body will put on incorruptibility immortality and imperishability it's a hope that says um God is going to create a new heavens and a new Earth and all things will be made new again all things so the pain of the past the abuse you may have suffered the scars of sin in your life are going to be washed away forever never more to raise their ugly heads this is God's promise for all who accept the lordship of Jesus Christ into their lives today amen it's a beautiful promise if you have hope you can get through almost anything and if you don't have hope you give up at the first Mountain you face but hope will carry you across any mountain hope will carry you through any pandemic or any economic catastrophe in your life because you know that one day all things will be made New Again Jesus put it this way that finals text for today in John 11: 25-27 Jesus says to Martha who is grieving at the tomb of her brother he said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die believest thou this Martha replied in the shadow of her brother lazarus's tomb yes Lord I believe that you are the Messiah the Son of God the one coming into the world the one coming into the world not just at his first coming but at his second coming and uh most people in the Christian world have just celebrated Christmas we we look back to the first coming of Jesus but as Adventists we look forward to the second coming of Jesus and rather than talking about Christmas I want to encourage you to be talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ and what that means for a planet of suffering and a planet of Sorrow it means that all your tears will one day be wiped away it means that death will no longer reain in our world it means no more pandemics and all the trauma that goes with it it means that as the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2 I hath not seen nor hath ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for those that love him so we cannot even imagine the Beauty and the glory and The Wonder of what God is preparing for us so contend for the faith that's been passed on to you don't walk away from it if you can get excited about this presidential candidate or another for four years how much more should we be excited and thrilled by the coming king of kings and Lord of lords and what he's going to do for his children and when you know today that you have the promise of eternal life it's not just something you're going to cash in when Jesus comes again that hope and that promise today carries you through uh across all the struggles we have in life today it's a beautiful promise it's the Blessed hope it's the only hope I invite you today to put your hope in Jesus Christ as our savior as our sin bearing savior as our sooncoming savior and as the one who will wipe away our tears who will meet us at the tree of life and is going to say to his Faithful Servants well done good and faithful servant that's uh you know the the doctrine of the state of the Dead is be called it I think it's a terrible name I really think it should be called alive in Christ I was alive to God before I was born I'm alive to God while I'm alive when I die I'm in his book of life when he comes again all who are found in the Lamb's Book of Life will be raised again so for eternity past to Eternity future I am alive to God I challenge you to be alive for God today let's bow our heads for a word of prayer heavenly father I want to thank you today for the gift of Life Lord I Thank you that we are fearfully and wonderfully made but father we also recognize that sin has reached our hearts and our homes in me in many various ways Lord I know that people are sitting here today carrying a heavy burden Lord we're coming from different homes behind every front door there's a story to tell and so father I ask today that as we bow our heads that you will carry the burdens We Carry in life that we who are weary and heavy laden will come unto you and take your yoke upon us and find rest for you are Meek and you are gentle of Soul father I pray that as we walk through life side by side with you that through your power and Through Your Grace we can actually overcome the mountains we face I pray Lord that as we walk side by side with you we know we are walking not in circles but to our Heavenly home I pray father as we walk through life with Jesus our savior we will talk with him and walk with him along life's narrow way and he will fill us with his spirit and day by day there will be less of us and more of him in our characters so father give us aesh today the Blessed hope father I pray that this hope will change how we experience life today and it will lead ultimately to eternal life so Lord if we are in your hands today by your grace and by your mercy we ask that each of our names will be in that Lamb's Book of Life I pray Lord that your spirit will convict us of sin that we may gain victory over sin that we may put away those besetting sins that hold us back in the race of life and I pray Lord that each one of us can one day say that we have fought the fight we've kept our faith and the faith and there now awaits for us a crown of righteousness when Jesus comes again so father until that day may we be found faithful in jesus' name we pray amen amen [Music] for