Death: The Fear of Dying

Message Description:

Does the fear of death keep you from truly living? Knowing that God awaits us at the end of our earthly lives can give us unmatched peace and comfort – not only in death, but for our lifetime. Today, Dr. David Jeremiah looks at what the Bible says about death.

• Death is a shadow
• Dr. Jeremiah’s message – “Death: The Fear of Dying”
• Next Time on Turning Point

Donald Gray Barnhouse, one of the great teachers of another generation, was driving home from the funeral of his first wife and he had his children with him, and they were overwhelmed with grief.
As he sought some way to comfort his children, as they were standing at the corner, a huge moving van passed them, and its shadow swept over where they were standing.
Doctor. Barnhouse said, Children, would you rather be run over by a truck or by its shadow?
And of course, they said, the shadow, it’s harmless.
He said, let me tell you something, kids, 2000 years ago, the truck ran over Jesus Christ in order that only the shadow would have to run over us at Isn’t that a great thought?
The truck ran over Jesus Christ.
He suffered the death so that only the shadow has to run over us.
The Bible says death is a shadow, not a reality no longer is it true that we have to be afraid?
For Jesus said, and I quoted again, I am the resurrection and the life He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
You might be interested to know that on all of the major lists of what people are afraid of, and I think this is probably not thought through very carefully by most people.
The number one thing on almost every list, guess this, is public speaking.
Now, that that would say that people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of disease.
I don’t know that I believe that.
But at least in the moment, when they fill out their little questionnaire, they believe it, probably because they’ve been asked to do it, and it strikes terror into their heart.
But second or third on almost every list that I’ve seen during this time of research is the fear of dying or the fear of death.
And that’s because nobody nobody knows what to think about If they don’t know the word of god, if they don’t know what the Bible says, death is this big mystery to them.
I remember reading that Woody Allen once said, it’s not that I’m afraid of dying.
I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
he had apparently given some thought to this because he went on to contribute this encouraging line.
He said, I do not want to achieve immortality through my work.
I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen, I would rather live on in my apartment.
and he probably expresses these sentiments of a lot of folks.
It’s interesting to me how we treat the subject of death differently than we treat any other subject.
It is the ultimate obscene word for many people.
rather than simply saying he died, think of the endless supply of euphemisms we plug in.
we say he passed on. He went to a better place. He was called home.
He went to sleep. He departed this life, or if Shakespeare is your thing, he shuffled off this mortal coil.
Did you know there’s an internet page you can look up that has over 200 ways of saying death without saying the word?
the poet John Beechaman wanted to know why do people waste their breath inventing deity names for death?
And we do it, don’t we? We all do it.
Joseph Bailey tells us how foolish it is.
For you see death plays no favorites and cuts no deals.
Dairy Farmer And Sales Executive Live In Death shadow with noble prize winner and prostitute, mother, infant teen, old man.
The hearst stands waiting for the surgeon who transplants a heart as well as the hopeful recipient for the funeral director, as well as the corpse he manipulates, death spares nobody.
What if I promised you that we could change forever the way that you look at death?
perhaps move it out of the fear category altogether.
What if we would take on this subject for a few moments from the Bible and pull death out of the terrifying darkness once and for all.
If you will stay focused, I think I can do that because the Bible does that.
Before we go any further, we need to discuss what we mean when we talk about death, the faces of death, in the Bible, there are 3 different uh, descriptions of death.
Let me give you the key word for all 3 of them. It’s the word separation. Say that with me.
Separation. In every three instances where death is mentioned in the Bible, it always involves separation.
Let’s begin, first of all, with physical death. What is physical death?
Physical death is the separation of the soul and the spirit from the body.
What happens when a person dies?
Their body stays here, but their body without a swollen spirit is not functioning any longer, so the body is buried, but the soul and spirit go to be either with god or apart from god.
And so physical death is 1st and foremost the separation of the soul and spirit from the body.
It is a time of separation. If you study the Bible, you will see this come up several places.
For instance, James 2 26 says, the body without the spirit is dead.
When Rachel, the wife of the Old Testament Patriot Jacob died, while giving birth to their son, the scripture says, and so it was as her soul was departing.
that she called his name Benomi. When Rachel died, what happened? Her soul departed.
Solomon describes the separation this way.
He says, and the spirit will return to god who gave it.
When you die physically, it is a time of separation.
the separation of your soul and your spirit from your body.
People are often, uh, confused about what happens at death because they hear people say, well, when you die, you go to be with Jesus, but then they go to a funeral, and they watch the casket come, and then they take it to the funeral, uh, cemetery bury it, and they said, well, he didn’t go to Jesus.
He, he went into the cemetery.
Well, his body went into the cemetery, but his soul and the spirit, which is who he really is, goes to heaven.
Physical death is the separation of the soul and the spirit from the body.
And let me tell you something, friends. I’ve been studying this very carefully. There are no exceptions.
The statistics regarding physical death are 100%.
except perhaps for Christians who will be alive at the rapture.
But that hasn’t happened yet, so I can say with authority that death is 100%.
Someone has rightly made this observation that death is the number one killer in America.
Physical death.
So know this is kind of a serious subject, but we don’t have to be so serious about it.
Let’s just kind of, I’ll tell you this little story to lighten it up a little bit.
I heard a doctor who went to see a young man.
He says I I’ve just examined, I’ve examined your your reports, and I have bad news and worse news.
He says, Well, what, what do you mean?
He says, Well, I have bad news, and I have worse news. What news would you like to have first?
And he said, give me the bad news.
He said, well, He said, we’ve looked at your test, and you have, you have, uh, 48 hours to live.
He says, Well, what could be worse than that?
What’s the, what’s the worst He said we’ve been looking for you since yesterday.
So, I mean Alright, I’m I’m glad to hear you laugh.
So physical death is the separation of the soul and spirit from the body.
Now, The other kind of death the Bible speaks about is spiritual death.
This may surprise you, because it almost sounds like a disconnect, but look up here for a moment.
Let me tell you something that’s true of every one of us. We were all born dead.
Did you know that? We were all born spiritually dead.
because spiritual death is the separation of the soul from god.
And when you are born you do not have a relationship with god, except for the protective custody of those who are under the age of accountability.
We know about that. But spiritual death is simply your soul being separated from god.
You don’t have any relationship with him. You don’t have fellowship with him.
We are separated from him because of sin. And the Bible says the wages of sin are death.
When sin entered the world through Adam, it’s spread to everyone so that every unregenerate man and woman is dead spiritually separated from god.
So physical death is the separation of your soul from your body.
Spiritual death is the separation of your soul from god.
And then there’s a third kind of death that’s mentioned in the Bible. And let me tell you something.
This is the one you don’t want to mess with.
You don’t want to experience this of all the other things I’ve said so far please make sure you don’t get on this list.
This is called the 2nd death. Even though it’s the 3rd on our list, it’s called the 2nd
death, and we read about
it in the book of Revelation.
So follow on the screen as I read from my from my copy of the scripture.
And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them and they were judged each according to his works.
Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire This is the second death, and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
The last form of death, second death is the final banishment from god and the final misery of the wicked in hell following the great, white throne judgment.
In other words, Physical death is the separation of your soul from your body.
Spiritual death is the separation of your soul from god.
The second death is the separation of your soul from god forever and ever and ever with no hope of it ever being changed.
I have often tried to bring understanding to this subject by using a little mathematic formula.
So if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to teach you a little math this morning.
If you have been born only once, you will have to die twice.
But if you have been born twice, you will only have to die once, and you may even escape that if the lord Jesus comes back before your physical death.
You say, Pastor Jeremiah, what do you mean by those numbers? What I mean is this.
All of us have been born once, so we wouldn’t be here.
But if we are not born again through the spirit and the word of god, we will die twice we will die physically when our soul is separated from our body, and then we will die spiritually when our soul is separated from god.
But if we but we will never ever die spiritually.
In other words, if you are born again, you will never die spiritually, you will never ever be separated from god.
John 11 25 puts it this way. I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me, though he may die physically, he shall live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never, never die.
So if you want to live forever in the presence of god, you have to have 2 birthdays.
You have to have your physical birthday, and you have to have a spiritual birthday.
If you are only born once, you will have to die twice.
But if you are born twice, you will only ever have to think about dying once.
That’s the fact of death and the faces of death.
Let me talk most of all today about the fear of death.
I want to share with you some reasons this morning why if you’re a Christian, you should never really have to be tormented by future, no matter what it is, you can face the future by faith, or you can face the future in fear.
And if you know the word of god, you will not have to be afraid.
And there are several reasons why you won’t have to be afraid of death that are presented clearly in the word of god.
And let me give them to you kind of one at a time, and let’s unpack them together.
Number 1, you don’t have to be afraid of death because the prince of death has been defeated.
The prince of death has been defeated.
Listen to the words of Hebrews chapter 2 versus 14 15, listen carefully to every word.
In as much then, as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, that is us.
Jesus himself likewise shared in the same. In other words, he became flesh and blood.
That through death, He might destroy him who had the power of death.
That is the devil, and release those who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
The author of the book of Hebrews declares that Jesus has conquered death by death and has freed us from the fear of death.
He says in the book of Hebrews that there are some people who live their whole lives in bondage because of their fear of death.
Have you ever known anybody like that? people who are just paranoid and freak out over the thought of dying.
I had a friend back in Fort Wayne when I was a pastor back there who was a very successful man He ran his business out of the basement of his home.
He manipulated stocks and bonds, and he was very good at it.
But this man was living in the bondage of death.
And, uh, I went to visit him one time, and he showed me around.
And I noticed every room that I walked into, there was an oxygen tank in every room.
There was an oxygen tank in the bathroom. And then he took me to see his boat.
There were oxygen tanks all over his yacht.
He didn’t have any place with it, and he had one in his car, one in the trunk of his car, one in the back seat of his car.
And so I said, what’s that for? He says, well, you know, I just had this thing death.
And I think maybe if, if I have
a heart attack or something and I have
an oxygen tank, I’ll escape it. And I wanted to tell him how foolish that was.
But he’s an illustration of a lot of folks not listening.
The Bible says there’s something that Jesus did when he died on the cross that delivers you from that.
The Bible says that in his death and resurrection, the son of god played the devil’s own trump card.
just as David took the sword of Goliath and cut off his head with it, Jesus took the weapon of Satan and defeated him with that very weapon.
The cross must have seemed like the ultimate victory for Satan, but it was precisely the opposite when Christ by his own death paid the penalty for our sin, he took the sting out of the devil’s condemnation.
And when Jesus stepped out from the open tomb on resurrection Sunday, Satan’s defeat was absolutely certain.
His weapon of death had been destroyed.
He is still alive and active, but his failure is a foregone conclusion, he has to settle for winning the little battles because the war he started has already been lost to him forever.
When Jesus came out of the grave victorious over death, he took death out of Satan’s weaponry.
and he can’t hurt us with it anymore.
I remember a story about a couple named Stephen Ann Campbell who live in Hampton, Tennessee.
They were sitting at their breakfast room one morning, and they had a little dog named Gigi.
I never heard of a dog like this. It was a Maltepoo. a maltese and a poodle.
And this little dog was asleep on the bench in the bay window, and suddenly a jolt rocked the room and topple Gigi from the bench.
And nothing was hurt, but the little dog’s pride.
And the couple wondered what had caused all the commotion.
They couldn’t find any clue until they spotted a large hawk outside, lying beneath the bay window.
The bird had swooped down with its talons out for Gigi, with no regard for the protective paint of glass.
And a few minutes later, the hawk shook off its stupor and vanished into the sky, minus its 9 lunch.
And that’s exactly what happened at the cross.
the devil wants to get his talons into us.
The power of the resurrection provides a pain of protection that cannot be broken Satan may knock himself out trying, but he can’t hurt us because Christ died, we have lives that are forgiven.
And because he came out of the grave, we have lives that are forever.
The prince of death has been defeated.
Number 2, the power of death has been destroyed 1st Corinthians 15 says it this way.
Oh, death, where is your sting? Uhades, where is your victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law thanks be to god who gives us the victory through our lord Jesus Christ.
In the book of Revelation, we are told that death has no part of any future that belongs to any believer.
In fact, the Bible says when we get to heaven, god will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall be no more death, not even physical death.
the power of death has been destroyed. Here’s the third one.
The process of death has been described.
Everywhere you go today, people wanna know gonna happen after a person dies, and all these wonderful books have been written by people who’ve come back from the grave.
I don’t know what to think about most of those. I’m sure you don’t either.
Some of them I believe some of them, I think, have been for good book sales, but I don’t have to read some modern book to know what happens when you die because the Bible tells me.
And I want to tell you a little story here that will help you understand what I mean.
Jesus told this story in the 16th chapter of the book of Luke, and it offers a penetrating view of what happens after death.
In fact, it may tell us more about life after death than any passage in the scripture.
Here’s the story. It’s a parable Jesus told concerning 2 men, 1 rich and 1 poor, Now, the poor man’s name, we know it was Lazarus.
And we don’t know the rich man’s name, but we do know something about his lifestyle because Jesus tells us that this rich man wears the finest clothing, he eats the finest food, he has had the best, and he has let everyone know about it, even the beggars who lie at his gates trying to get some of the crumbs that he might drop to them.
The poor man Lazarus who hopes to be thrown a few crumbs from the bountiful table is not only hungry, but the scripture tells us, and this is pretty gross, that he’s very ill covered with sores, and the town dogs licked the sores on his body.
He is one miserable creature living a miserable existence.
Now, watch Lazarus does possess one thing that no one can take away from him, and that is his love for god.
The rich man possesses one thing he can’t keep, his life.
Now in the story Jesus tells both men die And on the other side of the gate that separates this life from eternity, the beggar Lazarus is carried by heavenly angels to the bosom of Abraham.
Now, he is kissed by the angels instead of licked by the dogs.
The Bible just says that the rich man died.
Did you know that when a believer dies, the angels come and carry that believer, to god.
When any of us who are believers pass from this life to the next, almighty god dispatches angels to convey us, into his presence.
We won’t simply be beamed up to heaven.
we will be carried there by the angels.
And this passage provides one of the euphemisms we employ for death. We say the angels took him.
It may sound like a cliche from some Victorian greeting card, but it’s the biblical truth that’s applied to believers in Christ.
on the day when you wait for the curtains to be drawn on this life, god’s messengers stand ready to bear you away on life’s ultimate journey.
On that journey, Christians will experience none of the travel worries we face. You won’t get lost.
I’m very thankful for that one. You won’t miss the bus. There’s no waiting for the next plane.
God has a special angel assigned to bring you home and in the face of such assurance, why should you be afraid?
The prince of death has been defeated. The power of death has been destroyed.
The process of death has been described. And finally, the picture of death has been developed.
On December 7th, 1941, Peter Marshall, who was the chaplain of the United States Senate, was speaking to the cadets at Annapolis.
And if you remember the date, it was the day of infamy because Pearl Harbor was happening, and it now lay in the flames of an enemy attack.
The room was filled with young men who would soon give their lives sacrificially.
And, uh, he told them the story of a dying child, a little boy, with a disease who was afraid of dying, and this little boy asked his mother, what is it like to die?
does it hurt? And the mother thought for a while, and then she said, honey, do you remember when you were smaller and you played very hard, and you fell asleep on your mommy’s bed.
But the next morning, you awoke to find yourself somehow in your own bed.
your daddy had come along, and with his big, strong arms had lifted you, undressed you, put you in your pajamas as you slept.
And then she said, honey, that’s what death is like.
It’s like waking up in your own room.
Like this little boy, most of us are curious about the process of death, and there’s no verse of scripture that gives us more comforting information about it than Psalm 2034, and that’s why we love this whole Psalm.
The sheer beauty of this passage never fails to move us.
I am certain that this verse has been read at more funerals than any other verse in the Bible.
Its poetic phrases teach us several things. Here’s what the verse teaches us. 3 things.
Number 1, that death is a journey, not a destination.
The Bible says, yay, though I walk through the valley.
In the shepherd Psalm, David sees death, not as a destination, but as a journey through a place with god’s hand in ours, We go through death to a place, but death itself is not the destination.
Death is just the process through which we go.
My friend, Rob Morgan, has written a wonderful book on Psalm 23, and in the 4th verse he describes, this in this way.
He says, death does not speak of a cave or a dead end trail.
It’s a valley which means it has an opening on both ends, and the emphasis on through, which indicates a temporary state, a transition a brighter path ahead, a hopeful future for Christians problems are always temporary and blessings are always eternal as opposed to non Christians whose blessings are always temporal and whose problems are always eternal.
valleys don’t go on forever, and the road ahead is always bright for the child of god as bright as his promises.
death isn’t a place that you go to, it’s a place you go through to the other side.
That’s why Paul said, absent from the body, and present with the lord, indicating that the two conditions are 1 in the same.
One man has observed that death is an exit gate, and heaven is an entrance but the 2 are arranged so closely that one opens as the other shuts.
One person says that a dying man is lying at the gates of death.
And another says, no, he’s lying at the gate of heaven, and they’re both right.
Because death is simply a passage through to life forever with god.
Most of the time, if we were we would say, we’re not afraid of death.
We’re just afraid of dying because we’re afraid of what it’s like, what the process is.
But dying for a believer is not anything for us to fear.
First of all, the angels come and get us.
and it’s only a temporary moment that we walk through to the other side.
Number 2, here’s my favorite thing in this whole message. death is a shadow, not a reality.
The Bible says it this way, yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
When I was growing up, my father was the pastor of a church.
in Toledo, Ohio.
And, uh, the church was growing, and they didn’t have enough room.
And so they didn’t have any place where they could go and get a bigger church, and they didn’t have enough money to start over.
And so they found an old mansion that was for sale out in the edge of town.
It was in pretty good shape, and they went in, and they bought this mansion, which included a number of buildings, but a rather large building And then the church built sort of an auditorium on the end of it, and it became the Emmanuel Baptist Church of Toledo, Ohio.
I was a young boy then, maybe about 6 or 7 or 8.
And the mace or the parsonage, as they used to call it, was on the second floor of a 10 car garage behind the, uh, the big mansion itself.
We lived up on the 2nd floor. Underneath was this garage. this humongous ten car garage.
And my job as a young boy, my, one of my chores was I had to take out the garbage every night.
Well, there was only one little light in that garage, a little light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and it was dark as it could be.
And it was one scary spooky place.
I had to go down the stairs, carrying the garbage, and get from the front of the garage all the way to the back, and put the garbage out.
And I believe to this day that I set some world records of speed going through the garage from one end
to the other. because it was really frightening
to me. The light cast the shadows in spooky ways and it kind of would move and Uh, I still remember it.
You can tell this made quite an impression on me.
But you see the next day I would get up and I’d go down there and play sometimes, and there was there was nothing to be afraid of.
There was nothing there. It was just a shadow. Listen to this.
Donald Gray Barnhouse one of the great teachers of another generation was driving home from the funeral of his first wife and he had his children with him, and they were overwhelmed with grief.
As he sought some way to comfort his children, as they were standing at the corner, a huge moving van passed them, and its shadow swept over where they were standing.
Doctor. Barnhouse said, Children, would you rather be run over by a truck or by its shadow?
And of course, they said, the shadow, it’s harmless.
He said, let me tell you something, kids, 2000 years ago, the truck ran over Jesus Christ in order that only the shadow would have to run over us.
Isn’t that a great thought? The truck ran over Jesus Christ.
He suffered the death so that only the shadow has to run over us.
The Bible says death is a shadow, not a reality no longer is it true that we have to be afraid?
For Jesus said, and I quoted again, I am the resurrection and the life He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
3rd, from Psalm 23 4, death is a journey, not a destination.
It’s a shadow, not a reality. death is lonely, but you are never, never alone.
And let me tell you something that’s real, can I say this is really cool in this in this Psalm.
This is a little grammatical thing I want to share with you. Listen to me.
This is how this Psalm is laid out.
In the first part of the Psalm, the Shepherd’s psalmist is talking about the shepherd. He’s describing it.
Here’s how he talks. He says, He leads me. He restores me.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
And then all of a sudden, you get to the 4th verse, and very abruptly, the third person becomes the second person.
And David says, you are with me. He moves from he to you.
He quits talking about the shepherd and begins talking to him. You are with me.
It’s as if he’s been talking about god and then in the midst of the shadows, he realizes that god is right there and he begins to talk directly to him.
An essay becomes an intimate conversation.
It all makes beautiful sense if you’ve ever walked through the valley with anyone.
You think about god and suddenly you find your self caught up in a conversation with him.
His presence suddenly changes your whole line of thought over the years I’ve spoken to many, many people who were traveling their darkest road, and they’ve often told me that they were never more aware of the presence of god than when walking through that shadow.
We don’t have to be afraid because we might feel lonely, but we are not alone.
I’ve counselled with many people as they have sat in death’s waiting room, and experience has proven to me that god makes his presence known as they walk through the valley.
He reaches for their hand. He whispers words of comfort into their ears.
And it’s not limited to just the dying, but it’s all so for those who are grieving over the dying, they too walk through this valley and god reaches out to them as well.
And the Bible is so filled with comfort for those who might be experiencing grief.
Psalm 46, 1 through 2, says god is our refuge in strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear. Hebrews 135 says he himself has said, I will never leave you, nor force take you, we must realize that when we experience death, either ourselves or with others that we love, we never walk that road alone.
There’s a wonderful story that I want to share with you as we close today that puts everything that I’ve said kind of in the context where I want it to be when we’re finished.
This story took place back in 1800, a man by the name of John Todd saw the significance and hope of death.
Todd was a Vermont boy who lost both his parents at the age of six.
He lost his brothers and sisters to because they were divided among relatives.
And John was taken in study for the ministry.
The years passed, and he ended up becoming a very effective pastor.
One day, He received a letter from the aunt who had raised him, and she was dying, knowing that he was a pastor she had the questions that all of us ask.
She said, what is awaiting me in death? Is this the end?
John could feel her anxiety in every line that she wrote, and he loved her and sat down to answer her letter.
and he began the letter with the story of a little boy of 6 who had waited for the arrival of the woman who was going to become mother to him.
And here’s what he wrote. I can still recall my disappointment when instead of coming for me yourself, you sent your servant, Caesar, to fetch me.
I remember my tears and my anxiety is perched high on your horse clinging tight to Caesar.
I rode off to my new home.
night fell before we finished the journey and I became lonely and afraid.
Do you think she’ll go to bed before I get there? I ask, Caesar anxiously.
Oh, no, he said. She’ll surely stay up for you.
When we get out of these here woods, you’ll see her candle shining in the window.
And then Todd said presently, we did ride out into the clearing and there sure enough was your candle.
I remember you were waiting at the door that you put your arms close about me, attired and bewildered little boy, and you had a big fire burning in the hearth and a hot supper waiting on stowe.
And after supper, you took me to my new room, and you heard my prayers, and then sat beside me until I fell asleep.
and then he made the transition. Someday soon, anti, God will send for you.
To take you to a new home, don’t fear the summons strange journey or the dark messenger of death, god can be trusted to do as much for you as you were kind enough to do for me so many years ago.
At the end of the road, you will find love and a welcome awaiting, and you will be safe in god’s care.
John Todd painted for his aunt a picture of new life that was as beautiful as any person could hope for, but I can assure you it’s not even close to the way it really is.
When we finally closed this gate and opened the new one into god’s presence, We will be wondering for eternity why we ever let death even cause us one moment of concern.
for god loves us, and it is not yet dawned on us, all of the good that he has in store for each of us.
Now having said all of this, let me tell you something that’s very important for you to hear The provision that god has made for death, these wonderful promises and stories that I have told you is only applicable to those who put their trust in Christ.
If you want to go to heaven when you die, you have to do something about it in the here and now.
You don’t get to have an end to make a choice. Your choice has to be made here and now.
The Bible says that you must place your trust in Jesus Christ.
If you will believe in him, he will give you eternal life as your gift.
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of god is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our lord.
I wanna urge you today. Don’t play chicken with death.
Don’t sit back there and say, well, I don’t need to do now.
There’s some other time I can do it.
Listen, you’re not you’re not gonna ever hear another sermon like this the rest of your life because the next time a sermon like this is gonna be preached, you won’t hear it, So will you take the opportunity of this moment to really ask yourself the question.
Am I ready to die? I don’t mean physically. I mean spiritually. Are you ready to meet God?
because you can get ready and you can do it today and it’s simply a matter of putting your trust in him.
It’s a matter of saying, I am going to decide to believe in Jesus Christ and his word and what he has done for me on the cross.
Will you do that today? Will you say, look, I’m not gonna play any more games with death.
I am going to get ready today so that no matter how long I live or how short my life may be, I’m ready to meet God because what God has in store for those who put their trust in him is far beyond anything I have said to you today but it’s only for those who trust him.
You say, well, that’s pretty narrow. It’s just as narrow as the word of god makes it.
Uh, to put our trust in him when you do it.
Knowing that god awaits us at end of our earthly lives gives us incredible peace and comfort, not only at the time of death, but our lifetime.
You’ve heard the expression of fate worse than death. That’s not just a figure of speech.
There really is a fate worse than death, and that’s dying without knowing the savior, Jesus Christ.
That relationship makes all the difference in this life and in the next, and it’s my deepest hope that you’ve entered into that relationship.
I want you to have 2 powerful resources that have enabled people all around the world to grow in their relationship with zine turning points.
They’re yours at no charge when you contact us here at turning point.
Next time, on turning point.
There is a great day coming, and it won’t be long.
And there’s a bright light on the horizon, and we have plenty of evidence for it.
And we have biblical evidence, and boy does it lift our spirits. Jesus Christ is coming back.
and he’s coming back soon.
Thank you for being with us today.
join Doctor Jeremiah next time for his message. A great day.
Here on Turning Point.