The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: I truly believe that your loved one has his or her eye right on you and knows exactly what's going on in your life right now.

Guest (Male): Death is the one experience every person will eventually face. Yet most people avoid talking about it and many live in fear of it. Today on the Healing Word, Pastor Jack Morris is here to begin a powerful series called Life After Death with a message titled When a Person Dies. Through scripture, we'll discover that death is not the end for those who know Christ, but the doorway into eternal life.

Pastor Jack Morris: There are several reasons we're looking at death. And I think the very main reason is that we might be better prepared to live. For only the people who understand death can truly live. I really truly believe that. People who ignore death, who are afraid of death, are not truly living the abundant life. Death teaches us how to live now, and the subject taken to heart will help us to know that we're going to live forever with Christ.

Death does not always wait until a person is 90 years old. Death sometimes comes so quickly and so unexpectedly. And it's an illusion to think that, "Oh I'm young, I'm not going to die." No, we know too many people who have left us long before they were old. And death doesn't ask for permission, it just comes.

I think of death as that which is absolutely inevitable, inescapable. It's an experience that is common to all people, for all people are going to die. That's something that every one of us is going to experience. I don't know whether every living human being has experienced what is called the common cold. Maybe they have, I don't know. Has everybody ever had a cold sometime or other in your life? Well you may not, but one thing we're all going to experience, and that is death.

I've never preached a more relevant subject that's touching every life than what I'm talking about here today. Young people may forget that funerals are after weddings and after baby showers. We prepare for things and we major in it. We put so much time in it and getting ready for that wedding or that baby shower. But they don't talk about death. I don't want to talk about subjects like that. It's in learning about it that we are freed from our anxieties and worries about it. It's the knowledge of it that comes to us that helps us to put our trust in the Lord and be prepared for it when it comes.

I don't know that there's a family here today that hasn't sometime or other in your life experienced death. A friend died, a family member died, a loved one, an acquaintance. And our hearts are still heavy even after the passing of many years. My dad died when he was only 49 years old, and it seems as though I miss him maybe even more so today than I did many, many years ago when he died. I missed him then, I still miss him, but maybe I even miss him more so.

My sister died when she was only 26, such a young girl. And I think of her a lot now. My wife's dad died when he was only 42 years old. And Corinne is a twin, an identical twin, and her sister died only after a month of living and she was never brought home from the hospital. So death has come into all of our homes and touched all of our lives, and we sorrow about that. I look out over this congregation and I see people everywhere that experienced death.

It's coming to every home, every family, and every individual. And then we'll step back, and I know the feeling, "Why me? And why my home?" It's every home, every life, including your life and my life. We're all going to die. Even Jesus died. You don't become a human without dying, and no one knows. It doesn't ask for permission, it just comes. And we miss them and we sorrow for them. But we don't sorrow like those who have no hope. Thank God there is another day after this day, a day in which we're going to see and meet our loved ones again.

And maybe instead of thinking so much about how we miss them now, maybe we ought to start thinking how we're going to see them again. And then remember who made it possible for us to see them again and to begin to give thanks. Thank God for Jesus Christ who makes it possible that we might live forever and ever, Him who is the resurrection and the life.

I want to talk today about the history and the reign of death. And then next Sunday morning I'm going to talk about that intermediate state. Those who have died, where are they? Are they in oblivion? Or are they in a dark silent abyss, in a grave? Are they silent forever, or are they active? We're going to look at that from the Bible, from a biblical standpoint. And I want you to know friends, the Bible is the only book in the world that actually addresses this subject in any detail at all.

There is no other religion, no other religion that goes into the detail and describes life and life after life or life after death. Heaven, the existence, what we're going to be doing, how we can be prepared. God wants us to know. No one else. There's not a scientist, a philosopher, no one that can tell us about what happens when the brainwaves stop and the heart stops. What happens? Well we don't know.

This is the book of the ages, this is the wisdom of the ages. God wants us to know so we can be prepared and so that we can face it without fear and face it in confidence. We are indeed blessed of God. Now I'd like for you to turn to Genesis chapter two in your Bible. We're going to do a Bible study today. Genesis chapter two. And we're going to see how God created man and what brought about man's physical and spiritual death.

It says in Genesis chapter two beginning at verse seven, "The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." Here we know right now that man is a Trinity. He has body, he has soul, and he has spirit. It says that the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground. That's this body that you can see now. But there is something that you cannot see, and that is the spirit and soul, the invisible part of him.

And we read he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. So here is this visible and invisible part all done in this one act of God. The invisible part, the soul, we think of that as our five senses: touch, smell, see, hearing, tasting. All our consciousness, our ability to relate to our environment. The spirit is that higher part that causes us to relate to the heavenly environment, the God consciousness. That's the part that only humans have. No other part of creation.

You have been made in the very image of God so that you have a spirit that can relate to God, can communicate with God, and will someday through Christ forever live with God. And that should make every one of us greatly happy in Jesus Christ today. It really should. I pray that it will. Notice it said breath of life and living being. Obviously God wants us to live. Death was never part of the human experience originally. It was never part of God's plan that any of us should die.

We can never blame this on God. Never. God created man a living being, the breath of life, to live forever. And so death came externally from the outside and was later on introduced. Look at verse eight: "Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east of Eden and there he put the man he had formed and the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

What God did was that he just made everything wonderful, made everything beautiful, and made everything for man to enjoy. He wants enjoyment in all of our lives. Not sorrow, not death, not tears. He's in the process now of turning it all away and taking it back, and someday it will all be turned around, death will be no more and he'll wipe away all tears. But man has brought this calamity upon himself and we inherited that. Here's what happened. Here's this man, body, soul, and spirit. Here are these two trees.

God put the trees there, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because man had been so programmed only to serve God. God looked around and said, "Everything man does is okay. There's not a thing, all of these trees, all of this fruit and everything is just for him to enjoy. There's not one thing that he can do that'll displease me. That means he has to serve me. I at least need to give him one thing that will displease me." God had so programmed Adam like you program a computer. It just everything is okay.

And so God said, "But love doesn't work that way. Love is a choice." And God says, "I want man to love me because he chooses to love me, so I'll give him this one law, one thing. Don't eat of that tree, because when you eat of that tree you'll die." And you know what man did. Eve looked at the tree, the serpent talked to her, the devil told her that God's withholding something from you because if you eat of that tree you'll become like God, you'll know good from evil, you'll be divine.

And that's why some people, I think, I've heard people say, "Well I don't want to go to church, I don't want to become a Christian because then I'll have to give up so much and God'll withhold all of that." Withhold? Yeah. God only wants us to enjoy him and be blessed by him forever and ever. He's not withholding anything, he's giving only that which is good. And so he put these two trees in the garden. Man ate of the tree and was driven out of the garden by his own choice. He made a choice.

Look at verses 15 and 16: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it and the Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any of the tree of the garden, but you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will" what? "Surely die." Listen friend, God tells it like it is. And by closing the book and never reading it or making our ears deaf to the truth doesn't change the truth at all.

Lack of knowledge is no excuse. God says, "You will surely die." And he told him plainly what was going to happen. And when he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he died. First a spiritual death. Death is always separation. There's the spiritual death when the man was separated from God. And when we die physically, our bodies, the visible part, separates from the invisible part. That's what death is. It's a separation of the Trinity that we are presently now existing.

And when man did that, he not only sinned but he now projects all his sin on the race that was to follow him. All of posterity, all of his sons and daughters. We've all come from Adam. Every one of us, every one of us came from the loins of Adam, and we inherited the sin of Adam. Now I don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden, this young couple living together indeterminable amount of time. But we know that they sinned and brought upon death before the first child was born because the first child inherited the tendency to sin.

We all have sinned because we have all come from Adam and because we all have that inclination. Every one of us have that inclination to sin and we all sin at that time. I wish I had brought a little acorn to church with me today but in that little acorn, if I were to hold up the acorn I would say in that acorn there are an unlimited forest of trees resident in that acorn. It's like somebody says you can count the seeds in an apple but you can't count the apples in a seed.

All of those many trees come from that one acorn. All of the human race came from the loins of Adam. Adam rebelled against God and as soon as you and I are old enough and have an opportunity, we rebel against God. How many have kids who have never rebelled against you? Anybody have a child that never rebelled? No. That tendency is there. We are all sons and daughters of Adam. Meaning that in Adam we have rebelled against God and we're all going to die a physical death.

The scripture says in Hebrews 9:27, "Man is destined to die." In the King James it says, "It is appointed unto man once to die." We all have an appointment with death. There's some appointments I've missed, some appointments I've been late for, but here's one that we're not going to miss. We're all going to face it sometime or other in our lifetime. But death is not the end. I want you to turn with me to second Corinthians chapter five. Going to really work you today.

Second Corinthians chapter five. Here the Apostle Paul is talking about the tent taken down. It's like our physical body. Paul says, "Now we know that if the earthly tent," that's our physical body we live in, "is destroyed we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling because when we are clothed we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent we groan and our burden because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

And it goes on Paul tells in the remainder of this chapter how he longs for that day when he'll stand in the presence of God. He was so conscious and so aware that his heart belonged to God. Do you know if you were to die today, do you know beyond any doubt that you'd go into the presence of God and go to heaven? Do you really know that? You can in Jesus. Paul knew that if he were to die today, and he said, "I long for that time when I will be in the presence of God."

You see heaven and that afterlife became very real to him. And Paul is saying, "I'm looking because of Christ of being in his presence someday. There's a life to come, a better life. Some of these days all of this sorrow's going to be swallowed up and I'm going to be in the presence of God. I'm going to heaven someday. This isn't all there is to it. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and one long eternal farewell. Not at all. Jesus, Jesus, because of Jesus! Say because of Jesus! Because of Jesus! The way the truth and the life."

Friends, think of Jesus today. When you think of your dead loved one, think of Jesus and give thanks. Not because they're gone from you, but because you're going to them. And if it weren't for Jesus, you wouldn't have a ghost of a chance. You wouldn't have any hope whatsoever. Stop complaining and start thanking God. Can you say praise the Lord? Praise the Lord! We are blessed. We are blessed. Why are we blessed? Because we've given our hearts to Jesus. Because of Jesus.

Let's pray for those who don't know him because they have no hope and nothing to look forward to. They don't have any idea where their loved ones are and where they're going when they die. But you and I have great knowledge. We have the knowledge of the ages. I thought about walking into the Library of Congress with all of those racks and thousands and innumerable amount of books. I could walk in with this one book, just this one. And it tells me things, wonderful things, hopeful things that all of those books from all over the world can never tell me.

Jesus has something to say to me, to you, about life. About life and our living in him. The scripture says in Revelation chapter 14 verse 13, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Blessed. That person in that casket is a blessed person because that person died in the Lord, died with faith in the Lord, died with his or her heart in the Lord. Blessed. That word's all the way back to the Sermon on the Mount. That's the very first word that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount and he said that word blessed which is a word that means an eternal joy or an eternal state of well-being.

That brother, brother you died, but you're in an eternal state of well-being. You're in God's hands. Now you know life. Now you know eternal life. No, I heard people say, "Well we took him to the cemetery and buried him." Not at all. Why do Christians talk that way? It's not true! We just took the tent or the house that he lived in and we buried it. And God's even going to take care of it someday and bring it back.

But that person alive and conscious with memory, with intelligence, with awareness in the presence of God right now. And that's the part I'm going to be talking about. I truly believe with all my heart from the scripture, going to talk about it next week, that your loved one has his or her eye right on you and knows exactly what's going on in your life right now. I believe I can show you from scripture that they know that.

And they're looking at some of you and wondering why do you act so ridiculous? Don't you know? Don't you know where I am? Don't you know where you're going? Why are you acting like this? You act like the unsaved, like an unbeliever. You act like a child of the world not a child of tomorrow or of eternity. You see God has a wonderful promise for us and a wonderful hope. Blessed are the dead.

They're now in a state of well-being, they're in a state of eternal joy, a joy that is not contingent upon circumstances. They're beyond circumstances. They're with God, the one they love, the one who saved them, the one who took their sins on the cross of Calvary. You see when Jesus went to the cross, what was going on? God was causing the tree of life to reappear. You see Adam and Eve never ate of the tree of life, the fruit on that tree. And I don't know what the fruit on that tree was, but I do know what the fruit on the tree of Calvary was. It was the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.

And God is saying eat of this and live. And how do we eat? By believing. Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he did it his way, the carnal way, man's way, and he was driven out of paradise. On the other hand, the thief on the cross ate of the tree of life and he was welcomed into paradise. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Today you'll be with me in paradise. Today! Today you'll be with me in paradise."

This man on the cross ate of the body and the blood. He looked at Jesus and he saw something in Jesus that he didn't see in himself or in the other thief. He saw divinity, he saw patience, he saw love. He heard a prayer of forgiveness. Not one time did he complain. All he did was look to God and finally after praying for his enemies, he said, "Into your hands I give my spirit." What a way to die. Do you know when you die, can you say into your hands when this heart stops and the brainwaves stop, into your hands?

Your spirit's going out of your body someday. Your spirit's going to separate from your body someday. Can you now with full knowledge tell your spirit where it's going? Can you tell yourself where you're going when that happens? Some of you can, I see you shaking your heads. I know you can because you've given your hearts to the Lord. But some of you just aren't sure. And this is not a very pleasant subject, but you must face it, face it today and then be in victory and then know the Lord.

The scripture says himself took our sins, first Peter, in his body on the tree. There is another tree and it's the tree of life, it's the tree of Calvary. And when that thief believed, that thief was truly eating the Lord's Supper, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Everything that the body and blood of Jesus Christ was fulfilling and accomplishing for him, he believed it. And Jesus says, "Today sir, you're going to heaven. You're going to be with me in paradise."

Guest (Male): Because of Jesus Christ, death does not have the final word. Pastor Morris reminds us today that for the believer, there's hope beyond the grave and the promise of eternal life with God. To help you continue studying this important subject, visit thehealingword.com where you'll find messages, devotionals, and resources about heaven, salvation, and eternal life. You can also place your prayer request on our prayer wall. If these broadcasts are strengthening your faith, we invite you to support the Healing Word with a donation so others may hear the hope found in Christ. Next time in the Life After Death series, Pastor Morris reveals the secret of the afterlife and answers the question: what happens the moment a believer dies?