So on this sermon, Dead Men See God,
the first point of application is this.
Death is separation from the body to be
present with Christ for believers.
I've seen people face with death coming on
quickly.
We're talking weeks.
And I've seen people who knew the Lord
and those who didn't know the Lord.
And it's frightening because those who know the
Lord, yeah, who's not a little bit afraid
of death?
Many of us are, because we don't know
what's on the other side.
I'd like to get my kids raised first,
you know?
But there's peace there because they know that
they're going to spend time with the Creator.
And those who don't know the Lord, you'll
see either extreme anger and lashing out and
cursing or screaming, or now when the Bible
says gnashing of teeth, you know exactly what
it's talking about.
If you've seen somebody getting ready to die
who doesn't know where they're going, there's a
big difference.
So that's the point of application.
Death is separation from the body to be
present with Christ for an unbeliever.
So what happens at death?
Now this could take a whole hour or
two, right, or three.
But we are body, soul, and spirit.
And nobody knows exactly the makeup of that,
but you live in a body, you have
a soul, your emotions, your intellect, who you
are, but you are spirit, you are eternal.
Now the Bible often interchangeably will use the
word soul.
Rachel, I remember in Genesis, Rachel, her soul
was departing as she was bringing in her
son Benjamin.
So the Bible uses soul departing.
There's a side of us, this body, it's
very interesting, is just the vessel.
It's just this earthen vessel that God, that
we move in, we minister in.
But once we die, the body stays and
the spirit goes eternally, either to be with
God or to be eternally separated from him.
So that's what happens at death.
So that's why at memorial services for Christians,
we call it a celebration sometimes.
My mom has already told me, she's getting
older, let it be a celebration if she
goes before I do, or not this morning,
but the celebration of life because she's passing
from death to spiritual life, to eternity.
Now on that spectrum of death and separation,
on this side of the pendulum is a
group that would believe in that there's no
resurrection.
The resurrection occurs when you die.
And then on this end of Christianity, my
microphone sounds different, right?
Everywhere I move, that's why it's gotta stay
in the middle.
Believes in, have you heard of soul sleep?
Anybody heard of soul sleep, just me?
This is where the soul is just sleeping,
long nap until it's time to be resurrected.
Well, both of those, I believe are incorrect.
The Bible, Paul says to be absent in
this body is to be present with Christ.
Now within that though, there is, and I
don't know how it works, but there's a
resurrection that we will have, like Jesus had
a body, he could pass through a wall
and he still wanted to eat food and
he could be in certain places.
This resurrected body is glorified, it hasn't been
corrupted, the DNA of Adam is gone.
So when we die and our body stays
here, it dies, it goes back into the
earth, that DNA of Adam, that Adamic nature,
that sin nature cannot inherit the kingdom of
God.
So the resurrection, the spirit goes and is
with the Lord.
And there comes a time when the bodies
will be resurrected.
And maybe I should do a whole study
on this because people are kind of confused,
it looks like.
And walk through all the scriptures on the
resurrection.
And our bodies will be resurrected and we'll
get a new body.
And that's how we will live from that
point forward.
But what happens in the interim?
What happens with that?
We're present with Christ, we know that we
are present with him.
So again, back to 1 Corinthians.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither
does corruption inherit incorruption.
So 1 Corinthians, let me read before this,
1535, the NIV, I'm switching over to the
NIV.
But someone will ask, how are the dead
raised?
With what kind of body will they come?
Paul says, how foolish, what you sow does
not come to life unless it dies.
And you might say, why is Paul saying
how foolish?
Well, the verse before this one says, Paul
says, sober up as you ought and stop
sinning.
For some of you are ignorant of God,
I say this to your shame.
So he's saying, sober up, stop sinning.
Some of you, I'm saying this to your
shame, that you need to sober up.
What we talked about, live in the word
of God.
What you sow does not come to life
unless it dies.
When you sow, you do not plant the
body that will be, but just the seed,
perhaps of wheat or of something else.
But God gives it a body as he
has determined, and to each kind of seed
he gives to his own body.
So in a nutshell, what you sow does
not come to life unless it dies.
Do you know that a seed actually dies?
When you plant the seed, it dies to
give life.
You don't plant a broccoli bush, you plant
a seed, and that seed dies, and then
you don't really know what it is until
it begins to come forth and bring that
life.
So again, 1 Corinthians 15, I'll keep reading.
Paul continues, not all flesh is the same.
People have one kind of flesh, animals have
another, birds another, and fish another.
There are also heavenly bodies and there are
earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly
bodies is one kind, and the splendor of
earthly bodies is another.
So when you sow, you plant the seed,
not the plant.
Just like I said, the sin nature, the
DNA of Adam goes into the earth, our
body, our corruption, our corrupted body goes into
the dirt, and we are no more.
And our spirit goes up to be with
the Lord.
And then now, here's where it comes about
the rapture.
If you have your Bibles, you can turn
to 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Thessalonians 4, and
we'll talk about the rapture, verse 13.
Let me see if my battery's going low,
if that's what it is, Peyton, because it's
fading in and out a lot, quite a
bit.
I don't know why.
Maybe the devil doesn't like this message.
He's trying to distract us.
1 Thessalonians 4, 13, brothers and sisters, we
do not want you to be uninformed about
those who sleep in death.
So he's saying, we don't want you to
be uninformed about those who sleep in death,
so that you do not grieve like the
rest of mankind who have no hope.
See, that's why people grieve, is they have
no hope at all.
Do I need to grab a different mic,
or is this one okay?
It's okay?
Okay, just mine, it's going in and out,
and in and out, and up and down.
As long as you can hear it, that's
fine.
So I don't want you to be uninformed
about those who sleep in death, so that
you grieve like the rest of mankind.
So he's informing the people.
They thought when somebody died that they were
not gonna see the Lord.
They're like, oh no, Jesus is coming back,
and they died before he came back.
Oh, that would be sad, wouldn't it?
You think they lost out, but Paul's just
saying, no, no, no, I don't want you
to be uninformed.
Those who have died, they don't have to
grieve, just like the rest of mankind who
have no hope.
For we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, and so we believe that God will
bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep
in him.
And I wanna stop for a minute right
here.
Paul says, we believe that Jesus died and
rose again, and I just wanna throw it
out there.
Do you?
Because that's why we're here, and I've talked
to so many people who have no relationship
with God, and they'll say, yes, Shane, I
believe in Jesus.
They don't believe in Jesus.
What they're saying is I heard the story
about Jesus when I was little, and I
think there might be something out there.
I believe.
No, that's not belief.
That's actually an agnostic.
Belief comes from the word, I believe it's
pistouho.
I can't pronounce it exactly, pistouho.
It means to put complete trust into.
To believe means I'm putting my complete trust
into Jesus Christ.
Come hell or high water, he is my
Lord and my Savior.
I don't care what happens tomorrow.
I'm putting my complete trust into him.
He's my Lord, he's my Savior.
I believe in him unconditionally.
That's belief.
Your whole life is given.
You can't say, I believe in Jesus because
I heard a story when I was little,
and I go to church, but I don't
live for him at all.
That's not believing in Jesus.
That's having a concept of God that you
might consider some day as you get older.
But that's not belief.
So he said, for those of us who
believe in Jesus and that he rose again,
we will see him again.
Verse 15, according to the Lord's word, we
tell you that we who are still alive,
who are left until the coming of the
Lord will certainly not precede those who have
fallen asleep.
So this is important.
I'm getting to the point of the rapture
here that a lot of people believe in,
which I do if you're, according to scripture.
So he's saying, Paul's saying this, those who
are still alive and who are left, when
the Lord comes, they're not gonna go before
those who have died.
They're not gonna go before those who have
died.
For the Lord himself will come down from
heaven with a loud command, with the voice
of the archangel and with the trumpet call
of God and the dead in Christ, which
are dead in Christ, which have died before,
the believers, those of us still living, those
who have died many, many years ago, they
will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive and
are left will be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord.
There's your rapture verse right there.
Caught up, catching away.
And as we talked about before, the word
rapture is not there.
And the word rapture comes from Jerome who
is translating the Vulgate, it's called the Latin
Vulgate, the Bible into Latin.
He used this word, I believe it's rapturo
in the Latin.
It's where we get our word rapture from.
So it all means the same thing, a
catching up, a catching away, a caught up,
a rapture, this something going up to meet
the Lord in the air.
And so we will be with the Lord
forever.
Therefore, encourage one another with these words.
So it's actually very encouraging because he's saying
that those who are dead will rise up
when Jesus Christ comes again, those who are
living and those who are dead will rise
up and meet the Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
Now, not everybody believes in the rapture.
Have you ever heard of a man named
N.T. Wright?
He's very well known in England.
Some things I don't agree with him on
justification, different areas of salvation.
But he said this, Paul's mixed metaphor of
trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into
heaven to meet the Lord are not to
be understood as literal truth as the Left
Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and
biblical description of the great transformation of the
present world of which we now speak or
which he speaks elsewhere.
And I read that 10 times now.
I'm like, not quite following there.
Sometimes, just remember sometimes, I hope we don't
use this one on our website.
We'll use tomorrow's.
So I can say this.
But just because someone's smarter than you doesn't
mean they're always right.
Because this guy is smart.
And he's a theologian.
Okay, I'm not up there in that class.
But when you read, the Lord himself will
come down from heaven with a loud command
and the voice of the archangel with the
trumpet call of God and the dead in
Christ will rise first.
And after that, those who are still alive
and are left will be caught up together.
I would have to take that literally.
I understand allegory where you're telling stories.
I understand figurative language.
But this seems pretty literal that Paul's explaining
how it's going to work.
So being caught up.
So is this gonna happen before all the
bad stuff happens?
Is this gonna happen after all the bad
stuff happens?
And there's differing opinions on that.
Again, you could read this.
It has all the different views.
But the whole point is, are you ready?
Are you ready for Christ's return?
Personally, I prefer just going like this and
avoiding death, of course.
But that's where this whole point of the
rapture comes from.
And then what people try to do is
they pull in Revelation.
They're pulling other passages.
They'll take Matthew 24.
And then they'll try to pinpoint when this
rapture is.
And I can't do that.
I've looked at all sides.
I know Christ is coming.
I know we need to be prepared.
I know we need to be ready.
Those who are living are going to meet
with those.
And I can't tell you when exactly that's
gonna happen.
I don't think we're supposed to know.
I think it's gonna get difficult.
And persecution is going to come, as we
see.
It's not going to get easier.
It's gonna get more difficult, and more difficult,
and more difficult.
But it's also gonna open up the gospel
in many different ways.
I think there's some stories out now about
Bruce Jenner.
He wants to go back to being a
guy.
Because he's learning that going against God's standard
is not bringing the joy, the peace, and
fulfillment.
I mean, don't quote me on that.
But there's a lot of different sources.
My point is, look at where, 50 years
ago, this stuff would have, what even, what
even talked about?
But now, how far we've drifted in such
a short amount of time.
And people say, well, Shane, that's progress.
No, that's called digression.
That's not progression.
That's digression.
Anytime you're diverting away from the word of
God, you are in digression away from the
word of God.
You're calling evil good and good evil.
So the church has to be prepared.
And one of my concerns about the teaching
that we're all out of here before it
gets tough is what about if it gets
tough?
Because if you don't live for him today,
you will not die for him tomorrow.
The only way you're prepared to go through
persecution is living in God's word.
And what they're persecuting is the light they
see in you and the light they see
in me.
They don't like that light.
They're gonna persecute it.
They're gonna go after it.
So I wish I had a more definite
stance for you on the rapture, harpazo, to
snatch away.
Oh, that's what, I'm sorry.
In the Greek, it's harpazo.
And in the Latin, it was rapturo.
That's, it's going, something's going to happen.
And there's great faith in that, knowing that
whether I'm a dead or alive, whether you're
dead or alive, you will see Christ again.
That we can take those promises to the
bank.
So that's the facts.
We'll have a new body.
You need to be prepared, not caught off
guard.
Be ready in case he comes sooner than
expected.
We're gonna get into the 10 virgins in
the weeks to come too, and also different
things he's talking about.
We always think way, way, way.
The whole point of a lot of this,
Jesus saying, wait, be careful.
You don't know the day or the hour.
So when people say, well, look, we've got,
I mean, another 50 years.
No, we don't, five days, five hours.
We just, we don't know.
You always wanna be living for Christ.
And that will actually change the way you
live.
Before you click that next website, you might
say, is he coming?
I wanna be ready for my king.
Our attitudes, anger, bitterness, holding all those things
in, we wanna be ready for him.
But it does beg the question, why are
most people terrified about death?
Well, the honest answer is because they're not
ready.
Those people I've known over my life that
are very close to God, very close to
God, as they're going, getting close to death
and know it, they're not afraid to die.
There's seasons, you know, I wish I could
spend time with my grandkids.
I never did this, but they're ready.
That's why most people are terrified about death
because they're not ready.
Death is separation from the body, again, to
be joined with Christ for the believer.
That's why dead men see God.
The only way we're gonna see God is
when we die.
Dead men see God or with the rapture.
So that's the first point of application.
The second point is very simple.
I won't take long.
Death in the Bible is also separation from
the world.
And I think this point is actually gonna
help a lot of people that are struggling.
And the reason I think this generation struggles
more so than a lot of past generations
is because we are inundated with the world.
I mean, I remember growing up, a cell
phone?
You know, you would get home later in
the day to see if you have a
message on the answering machine.
Internet, I mean, it was just not that
much.
And now, what's gonna be later?
I mean, where you were, watch, it has
everything.
I mean, we're inundated with the word of
God, with the world, not the word of
God.
So death in the Bible is separation often
from the world.
When Jesus says, die to self, what does
that mean?
You're separating yourself from the world, Romans 6
.11. So you also must consider yourself dead
to sin and alive to God.
You're alive to God in Christ Jesus.
So if I could go around, I would
tell everybody this.
Consider yourself dead to sin.
All of you, consider yourself dead to sin.
You might be going, Shane, amen, but I'm
not.
I'm not dead to sin.
That stuff is ready to rise up as
soon as I walk out this building.
I'm ready to eat too much and drink
too much and watch too much.
This doesn't make any sense.
The problem is that we don't feel dead
to sin.
And I came across an analogy this week
from James McDonald.
I don't know if you heard him on
the radio at all.
A great preacher.
Wonderful analogy that really brings this point home.
So when Paul says, consider yourself dead to
sin and alive in Christ, Paul's saying this.
You're dead to sin, you don't need to
keep sinning.
And we say, I'm dead to sin, thank
God, I believe the Bible, but what is
going on in here?
Because it's still alive in me.
So here's what's happening.
It means that because Christ died in our
place, we are dead to the power of
sin.
And I can say that with the authority
of God's word.
Sin has no more power over you at
all.
You're dead to it unless you open the
door.
And that's what he goes on to say.
It's as if we used to live in
an apartment with an awful landlord who would
burst in whenever he wanted.
But now we've moved to a new apartment
with a new landlord, that being Jesus Christ.
We have new locks, we owe the former
landlord nothing.
He can't get into our new apartment unless
we open the door and invite him in.
So this is the dichotomy.
This is the interesting thing about sin.
Just so you know, you are dead to
the power of sin.
You can say no and walk away.
And I'm tired of people telling me, I
can't anymore, it's a disease, I'm bound.
No, as a believer, you can say no
and walk away.
That's the power of the gospel.
Here's what's happening.
You don't want to walk away.
It has no power over me.
Sir, it looks good, though.
You have no power, what?
What was that?
Okay, come closer.
Right, come on, patty cake, remember?
And here, that's why it's called enticement.
So sin loses its power, but not its
enticement or its influence.
So thank God I'm dead to sin.
But boy, it's sure alive in me.
That's why the more you get into God's
word and everything I talk about, prayer, brokenness,
fasting, humility, all those things draw you away
from the sin and closer to God.
So when Paul says be separate from the
world to draw closer to Christ, and let
me make a statement.
If you only remember one thing tonight, I
hope it's this.
You are either dead to the world and
alive to the things of God, or you
are dead to the things of God and
alive to the world.
What would be that person who thinks they
can live in the middle?
I just love the world, though, Shane, but
yeah, I wanna go to church.
No, you're loving the world.
I'm gonna say that again.
You're either dead to the world and alive
to the things of God, or dead to
the things of God and alive to the
world.
Dead men see God, and the closer you
draw to God and away from the world,
the more you'll see Him.
These are the people who have one hour,
two hour, three hour prayer times and worship
times.
They're on their face before God.
They've seen, they've had dreams or visions of
Christ and seeing Him on the cross, and
they've been changed.
They have this passion, they have this overflowing,
they weep over the things that God weeps.
They're close to the Savior because they're dead
to the world.
But those who are enjoying the things of
the world and love the world and are
filled with the world, they're dead to God.
They might be going to heaven, I won't
discount that, but they're quenching and grieving the
Spirit of God to such a degree that
they've lost that relationship with the Lord.
It's not just the world, the world's mindset.
When Paul says, it's all that's in the
world, the lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eye, the pride of life, that
word world is cosmos.
It's not just the world, it's the world's
mindset, the way the world thinks.
So if I am thinking like the world,
and I see so many, I coach baseball
this year and I'm so glad the season's
over because I think we're gonna be in
last place.
And talk about humility, I said, Lord, I'm
already humble enough, right?
He goes, no, no, no, no, no.
Because you go in there thinking you're gonna
do really good and then you're last place
and yeah, everybody's ready to give up.
So where I was going with that, obviously
there's a lot of people that are involved
that are Christians, but everything's about ESPN and
the next big league, and the next player
and travel ball.
Travel ball, wherever, I just, they're gone on
weekends to play baseball.
What about church?
Oh, well, travel ball is more important.
Well, all you're teaching your kids that is
more important than God.
And what happens is a lot of these
people, it's all about their job, all about
employment, all about baseball, all about sports, all
about the latest.
I go into the sporting goods store and
it's like $300 baseball bat?
I'm going to Big Five and finding one
for $29.99. And gloves are 150 and
you get the whole, and it's like, how
do people buy this?
I mean, but they're so inundated, yet they're
Christians, but they don't know the power of
God.
They've lost that.
They've lost that because they've been drawn into
the things of the world.
So there's no nearness to God.
There's no mention of Him.
The same things, the carnality, the lust, and
the bitterness, and the anger, and the resentment,
and jockeying for a position, and putting down
people, and they look just like the world.
Why?
Because they're not dead to God.
I mean, they are dead to God.
They're not dead to the things of the
world.
So dead men see God has a second
application.
If you want to be close to God,
you've got to die to those things.
That means you're going to view different things.
You're going to read different things.
You're going to hang around with different people.
You're going to listen to different things.
You're going to conduct yourself differently because you're
dead to the world to be drawn closer
to God.
That's a biblical principle.
Seek me with all your heart, you will
find me.
You think this person's seeking God with all
their heart?
No, they're trying to squeeze them in if
it works on a Sunday morning.
Experience God, die to self.
The more I die to self, the closer
God gets.
And I wish I could just preach a
whole sermon on this because this is where
many people, many people are not walking closely
with God.
Because there's not a half-hearted approach.
And I want to clarify on this.
Nobody does it perfectly.
You can't completely die to self and perfectly
follow God.
If you are that person, I would love
to meet you.
But you can die trying.
You can give up these things.
Listen, I gave up a six-figure income
and stock options and 401K and moved back
in with my mother when I was 30.
So I know, and I'm not telling anybody
to do that because God does things differently.
But I tried to play that both ways
for a while.
But God, I love this money, can't I
just minister here?
No.
And the more I die to my own
agenda, die to my own will, die to
my own things, got rid of all the
friendships pulling me down, and just said, Lord,
I want to follow you unconditionally.
I drew closer to God.
And that's actually why I'm here today, as
a result of drawing closer to God.
Dead men see God.
You've got to die to the things of
the world.
Why do you always think I talk about
entertainment?
Why?
I know Christians right now, Christians right now
that on their Voodoo or their Netflix, they've
got such ungodly movies, and they wonder why
they're struggling with fear and depression, anxiety, and
God seems distant, and they hate church, and
they can't read their Bible.
Right, because you got 50 Shades of Garbage
on, you've got Deadpool on, you've got all
these movies on, on, on all time, and
you think you're pleasing God, and God doesn't
care.
No, sir, you are deceived.
You're filled with the things of the world,
not the things of God.
That's how it works.
Dead men and women will see God if
they're dead to the world, and you've got
to make different choices.
You've got to structure your life in such
a way that your lifestyle pleases God.
I mean, think about how can we watch
and listen to all this garbage and think
that we're close to God?
I mean, if the truth be told, the
majority of people, the majority of Christians are
not, are not close to God because the
thief has come in.
The thief has come in to steal, kill,
and destroy.
He's stealing your joy.
He's killing your relationship with God, and that's
his agenda.
So I just encourage you tonight, dead men
see God, and if you want, if you
want to draw closer to God, don't, any
of what I'm saying, take it to God
and say, Lord, what do you want me
to start removing?
But be ready, be ready, because it's those
things that are pulling us away.
That's why I talk about fasting.
People are like, oh, don't talk about that.
You know, I talked about that 100 years
ago in every book and sermon I come
across.
The Bible talks about it often, but we
don't like that, do we?
Why?
Because we don't wanna, we love feeding ourselves,
but if you starve the flesh, get into
the word of God, and begin to kill
the flesh, you'll draw closer to God.
These are the people who just have the
joy of, do you have, have you had
the joy of the Lord in your life
recently, where it just bubbles over, and you're
driving, just you feel God's presence.
You can't wait to put on worship.
You can't wait to get a good book
on and read it with a cup of
tea, or a good something on television, or
worship music, and you're so hungry for the
things of God.
You can tell where you're at right now
by telling me who you're hungry for.
Are you hungry to get home and feed
the world, or hungry to get home and
feed the things of God?
Dead men, dead women seek God, dead to
the things of this world.