you would open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter nine. And looking at these four last things together, we'll consider a number of verses. And so there'll be sort of a variety of verses that I'll draw in to teach these ideas somewhat topically, to see what the Bible as a whole has to say about these things of death, judgment, heaven and hell. But we can find, I think, all four of them, really, in these two verses at the end of Hebrews 9, verses 27 and 28. We have here our death and judgment in verse 27, and then heaven, and by implication, hell, for those who are outside of Christ, in verse 28. And so let's read these verses and pray for God's blessing on our time in the word this morning. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. God, we ask that you would help us in our study of these things. In this hour, we pray that you would help us to understand the teaching of your word and to have a true Christian perspective and biblical worldview about matters of ultimate significance, about which there's much confusion in the world, And even among Christian people, wrong ideas. And we pray that you would help us to replace our wrong ideas with the truth of your word and to believe rightly that we might fix our hope rightly on Christ. And not fear death or judgment, but God have a confidence before you God, the confidence of those who are heaven bound through faith in Christ. And God, we also pray that as you help us to understand these things, that you would put heaven in our hearts. And God, that you would make us a heavenly minded people. And that this would lead us to fix our hope on the coming again of Christ, that we would look for him and for his return. that we would not grow comfortable and at home in this world, but would always be looking for the return of our Lord and Savior, of our God and King. And God, we pray that this would bear fruit in our lives, and we pray all of this in Christ's name, amen. Well, again, this morning we'll consider the first of what Christians have in the past referred to as the four last things, the first of these being death. At some point in time, this was very common for the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, the four Sundays of Advent, to be taken up with preaching on these four topics. It was almost expected of preachers that they would address these matters. By the time we come to Christmas, and we reflect upon the incarnation and everything that it means for God to take on human nature and to come to earth for us and for our salvation, that this would be truly and well appreciated as we've reflected on everything that made this necessary. There's a lot of wrong thinking about death that even Christians can adopt. There are common sayings about death that we're familiar with that are only, at best, they're only partially correct. And some of these, there are many of them that I could have mentioned. We hear people say things like, death is natural. Death is natural, people say. But the truth is that death was not part of the original human condition. Death is actually unnatural. And I suppose that if we have our fallen human nature in view, then death is natural to that. We expect that as fallen human beings who are in sin, the penalty of sin is death. we are going to, as sort of just the natural consequence of our sinful human nature and fallen human nature, that we will die. And I guess you could think about it in that way and make sense of that saying that death is natural. But I think it's better and more biblical to think of death as something that's awful and unnatural. We ought not to have these kinds of pithy sayings that somehow sugarcoat a reality that is that is truly horrifying, tragic, awful, unnatural. Another saying, death is a part of life. The truth is that death is not a part of life, but it is the end of life, and it's the opposite of life. And people say these kinds of things in order to be okay with death. That's just a part of life. It's something to be expected. We just somehow make peace with it, but we ought not make peace with death. The Bible refers to death as an enemy. Death is a punishment. We're to love life. God is the author of life. Death is a punishment for sin, but God is the author of life, and he's made us to love life. And so everything in us that loves our own life and the life of others, It calls us to hate death and to see it not as a continuation of life or some kind of, but is the opposite of life, the end of life, the opposite of life. Death is a gut-wrenching tragedy and a powerful enemy. Death is the great equalizer. You hear people say this, and yes, all men die, and so, you know, Some men, some people elevate themselves over others, but the fact is all men die. And so there is a sense in which this saying is true, that death is a great equalizer, but there is a measure of truth to this. But in death, there's a great sorting of souls, and it is an unequal experience. So death doesn't bring us all into the same final place. But again, there's a great sorting of souls. And it is the body which dies, but the soul does not die. And in death, the soul of a person may experience either blessing or curse, very unequal. Death is final. People say death is final. Yes, there's a finality in death in the sense that our choices in life do correspond to our condition for all eternity. but better to understand that death is in no way final, that that need not be the case for you, because there will be resurrection. And so just thinking about some of the common sayings and sort of folk wisdom that we have around death, that some of it has a measure of wisdom or truth to it, but ultimately all of these things are calculated to help us to cope with the harsh reality and the unwelcome prospect of death. But I wonder, how do you think about death? if you think about it at all. Far too many people prefer not to think about their death because it is an unsettling prospect. But in order to live well and in order to die well, we must understand what the Bible teaches about death and prepare ourselves for our own eventual death. And you recall Psalm 90, we just read. And verse 12, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. You see there is, there is real wisdom that is available for those who will contemplate death, to think biblically and rightly about death, even their own death, and prepare themselves for it. And so let's begin by considering where death comes from. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 6.23 that the wages of sin is death. And you may go crazy trying to follow I'm just preparing you that I'm going to be quoting a lot from a lot of different places in Scripture, so I don't want you to miss the point as you're trying to keep up with the pace of things here. You're welcome to follow along, or just to jot down the references to look at later. But the Apostle Paul says in Romans 6.23 that the wages of sin is death. And nowhere in scripture do we have a more succinct statement of the ultimate origin of death. Where does death come from? If it's not a part of God's original design for creation, where does it come from? And Paul says that the wages of sin is death. In other words, death comes about as a consequence of sin. And if we go back to the beginning, the Bible we can see this told in the story of creation and the beginning of mankind when God made Adam and Eve and set them in the Garden of Eden. And we see in Genesis 2 15 that the Lord God took the man and he put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. So in addition to Adam's responsibility to keep God's law in the same way that all mankind is responsible to keep God's law. Right and wrong are true for Adam as well as they are true for us in the law that we've read in summary form in the Ten Commandments even this morning. But in addition to that moral law of God, God issues this positive injunction. He declares one further command for Adam and that is that he's prohibited from eating of one particular tree that he's to live in dependence upon God and to listen to God rather than to be a law unto himself and to determine for himself what is good and evil. And so there is this tree in the midst of the garden that he's not to eat from. And the consequence of that disobedience would be death. You shall surely die. Of course, we know how this story goes in Genesis three, starting in verse one, we encounter the serpent. The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And so you see there, there's already, you can see the intention of the serpent to deceive, to confuse the truth, to introduce confusion and deception. You shall not eat of any tree. That's not what God had said. And so he's, attempting to confuse and deceive the woman. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, and so just brazenly lying to her in an attempt to deceive her, says you will not surely die. And of course, this is the promise that the evil one makes to each of us. This is the temptation of sin is that you can, what we would say is you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have sin without death. You can sin without consequence. You can sin with impunity. Even though God has made clear what his will is for our lives. We do know, we have a conscience that bears witness When we have sinned, when we do right and we do wrong, our conscience either accuses us or excuses us. We know, and yet the temptation and really the lie that comes in is to say, but you won't die. You don't have to think about the consequence of this. That can be a future problem for you, or no problem at all. And so now this is what the devil, the serpent of old, said to the woman, you will not surely die. And on account of their sin, so they, of course, they took of the fruit, they ate, they gave in to the temptation and disobeyed God. And on account of that original sin, God cursed Adam and Eve. And he cursed them with certain life difficulties. And we know how that goes if we read in Genesis 3 about the curses that fell upon them. But he cursed them with these difficulties in life that would go on until, and picking up in verse 19, Genesis 3, 19, until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Which is why we use those words in funeral services. These are the final words that we speak over the casket of our departed loved ones. We say ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and we return this loved one to the earth. And this is based off of these words. We see here the origin of death. is that this comes, first of all, as a consequence for the sin of Adam and Eve. But here is where this, so that's how Adam and Eve were promised death. But how does death go, how does it jump from Adam and Eve to all of Adam and Eve's descendants and to the point where it's the condition of all of us? So now we all have this universal experience or expectation of experiencing death. And Paul says in Romans 5, 12, that sin came into the world through one man, that's Adam, we've just read about that in Genesis 3. Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. And the worldview of the Bible instructs us on our own nature that we have not an unfallen, pristine human nature that is free from sin, we have a fallen, sinful nature that comes from our father Adam. And so that everyone who follows from Adam, and who is, we might say that the children of Adam, according to the flesh, so mankind, all have Adam's fallen human nature. And because we all sin, we also have the consequence of sin in our own experience, we have death. And so this is where death comes from, it comes from sin. So as we think about sin, we need to connect it to death. And that can be difficult for us to do because we might think, well, this person didn't die because they sinned. Some people do, maybe there's some kind of very obvious sinful lifestyle or choice they've made and as a direct consequence they pay the cost of that sin. So say someone is a drug addict and they overdose and you can see there's a direct link between the sin they've committed and the evil they've engaged in and the death that's come about as a result. But for other people, the connection may not be so clear or obvious. Why does a certain person die when they appear to be a good person, maybe, to us? But the answer is still, biblically, the answer is it's because of sin. And it's because of their sin that they die. Because we sin, we die. And so this influences the way we think about death. Death isn't a good thing. It's not something to be celebrated. It's not a part of life. It's none of these things that we use to downplay the seriousness or significance. It is the reminder that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that we've dishonored Him by lives which are lived in rebellion against Him, contrary to His will, transgressing His law. And the capstone of all of this, the ultimate punishment for it, is a death, which is not just physical, but ultimately, unless there is salvation, will be spiritual as well, spiritual death. So that's where death comes from. But there is an experience of death that we think about death being something that happens at the end of your life. We're all really unaffected by death until the moment of our death. That isn't exactly true. It is appointed for man to die once, and yet, That death, it looms ahead of us on the timeline of our life and casts its shadow backwards so that we walk all of our days in the valley of the shadow of death. And again, Paul says in Romans 5, 14, that as a result of the sin of mankind, death reigned. And so there's this idea of death reigning or having dominion over mankind. There's an influence that is felt by all mankind. Even in life, we feel the influence of death, and how can that be? Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 26, that death is an enemy of ours, the last enemy. It is an enemy to be destroyed by Christ when he comes again, but it is our great enemy, our last enemy. Hebrews 2, going back to the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15, the author of Hebrews speaks of one who has the power of death, that is, the devil. And so the devil is able to use death in a way that produces in us fear. He goes on to say that we, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery. And so the influence of our certain death could be at any, we obviously, there's no 18-year-old who doesn't think they're gonna live to be 19. And there's no 79-year-old who doesn't think they're gonna live to be 80. And no five-year-old doesn't think they're gonna live to be six. We don't know how long we live. And we're not guaranteed any time at all beyond the present moment in which we draw breath. but the specter of our someday death, it leaves us in fear, and it's a fear that puts us in bondage. Why is that? I think there's an intuition with us that death is punishment, and that it's not the only or the final punishment, that death puts an end to our mortal bodies, but that we have an immortal soul that cannot die, and as we'll talk about more tonight and next week, There's an experience after death, which is potentially harrowing, and we might come into judgment. We might actually experience an eternal death, a second death, as the book of Revelation calls it, which is the lake of fire. And so there's this fear of death that we have. And I'm not here to tell you, as some might, that you ought not to fear death. I'm here to sharpen your fear of death. If there's in you at all a fear or an apprehension about death, I'm here to say you need to dust that off. It's not strong enough. You have probably put it out of sight, out of mind, and been able to get on more comfortably in life without thinking about death, but you shouldn't. You should think about death. You should remember that you're mortal. You should learn to number your days. And it should cause you some degree of anxiety that one day you will die. And so that you might be prepared for that death. Revelation does speak of more than a physical death. In Revelation 2.11, we hear the first reference to the second death. And in Revelation 20 verses 14 and 15 we read this, then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. And this is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. So this is why death ought to be such an apprehensive thing to you. filling you with fear and dread is that death may be the entrance, our physical death may be just sort of the first stage in a much more fearsome second death if our lives are not written in the book of life, if our names are not written in the book of life. And so we need to think very seriously about death and to contemplate this so that we would have a heart of wisdom. Where does this wisdom come from? If we are only scared of death, and we've not found a way to make peace with it, and there's no hope in our hearts in the face of death, no confidence before death, there's no wisdom in that. Some people will conclude that if we can only number our days, then we'll just make the most of the time we have. And if we remember that life is quickly passing away, we'll live in the moment and we will sort of wring life like you would a sponge for all it's worth and really get the most out of life. And that's wisdom. That you're not wasting your life, but that you're enjoying the life that you have before it's over. But that's not, biblically speaking, that's not the wisdom that we need. We need to remember that this life is not all there is. In fact, this life will someday for each of us, be like one single grain of sand on the beach. And the span of our lives will be like that in light of all eternity and all the ages of eternity in which we live. And when we've gone through every grain of sand on every beach, eternity for us will have only just begun. And so it's for that reason that we need to be prepared for eternity. And I mean, that's where wisdom comes from. So Paul recognizes, especially, Paul has learned to number his days, he's got a heart of wisdom, and we see this in Romans 7, where Paul, he points us to where we might find this wisdom, where we might find freedom from death. Death holds us, it reigns over us, it has this dominion over us, and we're enslaved because of fear of death, we're enslaved to it. and yet there's freedom from it. Where is this freedom found? Paul says this in Romans 7, 24, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? So you get the impression Paul is, he's contemplating death, the eventuality of it, death as the consequence of sin, the certainty of his own death, and he's filled with this foreboding. And he is rightly concerned about it as we all ought to be. And so he just, he writes this and it's as if he's just crying out, wretched man that I am, woe is me. How can I ever know peace? Who will deliver me from this body of death? That's the question that we ought to be asking. At a certain point in time, for me it's been recently, where you begin to feel your body weakening and you don't have flexibility and your joints don't work like they ought to. I had trouble putting my socks on in the morning. It's a long way to bend over. When I jump off of a short ledge, I did this recently with the kids or something, I jumped off a short ledge and just felt my whole body just like, don't do that again. And so this is the way it goes for us at a pretty early age. We begin to feel, you know, I can't do what I could do in my teenage years or my 20s when I was a kid. And then from there it just, it gets worse. And we realize that we are inhabiting a body of death. We long to be free from it. We long to be ultimately alive in the truest sense, to know eternal life with God forever and to know no more sorrow or pain. But where can this be found? Who will deliver us? He goes on to say in the very next verse, thanks be to God. In other words, it is God who will deliver us, and he will do so through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin, Paul says. But it's the Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have freedom from death. And we see the work of Christ, and that work is that he tasted death for us, that we might not have to come into the full experience of death, not that second death that the Bible talks about in the book of Revelations. So if we trust in Christ, if we have faith in him, then what we're trusting is that Christ has tasted death for me and has freed me from it. And so although the body will die, my soul will not die, it will never die, there will be no death for my soul, no first death, no second death, my soul will immediately upon my death go to be with the Lord in glory and will never be separated from him for all eternity. And we can have our confidence before God in the face of death only if we're trusting in Jesus Christ that we're right with God. Not that we have self-righteousness, not that we have done anything that God should be pleased with us, or as if we were to have some basis for confidence with God that we'd earned salvation or heaven, but totally looking outside of ourselves and despairing of all of our works, we look to Christ and we're trusting in the things that he has done, and him being the perfect one, and him not only being perfect when we have failed in keeping God's law, we've broken it, but his sacrifice for us, that he paid the penalty for our sin so that we wouldn't have to face death as the penalty for sin. And so Paul points us to Christ. And elsewhere, likewise, he points us to this wonderful reality of 1 Corinthians 15 verses 54 and 55. Paul says, when the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, So in other words, whenever finally, those of us who are in Christ are raised from the dead and given an imperishable, immortal body, then we'll be done with death. Death will be no more. And so we can say, it's written, death is swallowed up in victory. That is the victory of Christ. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your sting? Oh death, where is your sting? Paul says. And ultimately, The picture that we have at the very end of the Bible is this, that he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Let me ask you this morning, are you trusting in Christ? And if it doesn't sound like a very urgent matter to be trusting in Christ, to get right with God, by putting your faith in Christ, repenting of your own sins, repenting of your works. Really, we have to repent not only the things that we've done that are bad, but in a sense, we've gotta repent of our works. We've got to say, I'm not trusting in my works. So I'm turning from self-confidence, and I'm turning to be confident in Christ, and that's what faith is. Do you have faith in Christ? And if you think this is not an urgent matter, perhaps it's because you're not really thinking very clearly about death. A death that can come at any moment, at any time. I was just thinking of a friend of ours from another church, who's not much older than me, maybe my age, and has just recently had a very serious heart attack, and was in the hospital. I think while he was in the hospital, had another, some kind of cardiac event. But these kind of, these things are a reminder to us, even those who are strong, even those who are young, can be suddenly taken away from us. And we need to be reminded that our life is fragile, it's short, our days are numbered. The day of our death is written down on the calendar of God. God has that day in mind, it is fixed. As Hebrews 9, 27 puts it, it is appointed. The day of your death is appointed. Will you be prepared for that day? Will you be confident on that day? Paul certainly was confident. You know, he says, you know, if I live, die, doesn't matter to me. If I live, there's a lot of good work to be done. There's a lot of people that I can minister to, a lot of people to love, a lot of ways to serve the Lord and honor Him in life, but to die, that's far better. That's far better. Because this body of death is passing away anyway, and my soul will go to be with the Lord, and that is a far better thing. Can you say that honestly? It would be a far better thing to die. So far from being afraid of death, that you welcome it because of faith in Christ. Well, I pray that you would, and let's pray together. Father God, we do thank you for what you've done for us in Christ, to take away that fear of death, which has held us in lifelong slavery, that you can guide us through the valley of the shadow of death and bring us through the other side, that we might live with confidence even in this mortal body that's passing away, even with all of the evidence of deterioration and corruption and God, we know that our days are few in number and that we'll soon fly away. And yet God, we thank you for what you've done for us in Christ to give us confidence against that day. We pray that you would grant faith in the hearts of those who are yet to trust you here this morning. that no one would leave here without a confidence in the face of death. And we pray all of this in Christ's name, amen.