[ ] 5/18/2009 #830
THE THINGS WE CAN KNOW
Romans 8:28
INTRODUCTION: The Bible tells us that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Death is the experience of everyone. Death occurs to those who belong to God and to those who do not belong to Him. We may ask why God allows His people to suffer a tragic death. Why doesn’t He just take them in their sleep or some other way? I don’t have the answer for this. In the Bible I read of Jesus suffering the must horrible death known to man. The Heavenly Father had a purpose for the death of His Son. Jesus died the death of the cross so you and I can have forgiveness of sin and eternal life. God allowed Kermit to suffer a horrible death. Although I do not understand why, I know my Heavenly Father can make good come from Kermit’s death. In Romans 8:28 Paul wrote: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” There are some things we can know from Scripture that can give us comfort today.
1. We know that Jesus is with His children even in death.
In Matthew 28:20 Jesus told His disciples, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” In Daniel we are told how king Nebuchadnezzar had the three young Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into the furnace. As the king gazed into the fire he said: “Did not we cast three men, bound, into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” In Psalms 23 David said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.” In Psalms 48:14 we read, “For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even unto death.” Someone has beautifully suggested that this verse could be rendered: “This God is our God from eternity to eternity. He will be our guide even unto death, over death, and beyond death.”
2. We know that the child of God has eternal life.
Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” (John 10:28) In John 6:47 Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” Jesus did not say that the saved will have everlasting life but that he has it right now. The person who is in Christ has eternal life. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” 1 (John 5:11-12)
3. We know that the child of God goes immediately into the presence of Christ at death.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
Our bodies are buried but our soul and spirit go immediately into Christ’s presence. If we are saved we can say with Paul, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” What can be more wonderful than to be in the presence of the One who loves us?
4. We know the child of God will receive a new body at the resurrection.
Death could not hold Jesus in the grave and neither will death imprison the body of the saved. The bodies of the saved will be
raised up. At the tomb of Lazarus Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Paul said, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Cor. 15:51-52) Again in I Thessalonians Paul wrote: “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” (1 Thes. 4:17)
Jesus said, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” (John 5:25)
5. We know Jesus is preparing a place in heaven for His people.
Jesus said: “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2-3) The saved have their citizenship in heaven. Like Abraham, the saved are pilgrims and strangers passing through this world for we look “for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
6. We know that God can use death for good to them that love Him.
God uses death as a passage way for His children to enter into His eternal presence. In the presence of God there is love, joy, and peace. “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”
7. We know that nothing can separate God’s children from His love.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)
8. We know that God will receive every person who will come to Jesus in repentance and faith.
Jesus said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37) “ I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:9-10) Genuine repentance is both a turning from sin and a turning to God.