The Second Death: The Path to Eternal Life

Welcome to episode 291, In the Beginning Was the Word.

And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing to talk about death, and I know that is a kind of a morbid subject, but I think that if we get death right as the body of Christ, then we will truly learn to live. And we've talked about this a few times in this podcast. Getting death right is such an important target Because I believe as Christians, and I've talked to multiple hundreds of Christians, and every time I say this, most of them nod their head in agreement, and it is when you stand before Father God, you want to hear Father God say, well done, my good and faithful servant. So if that is our end goal, and the kingdom of God, if we look at Matthew 6:33, it says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. We are looking for all the things here on earth. Most people, Christian, non-Christian, whatever, they're trying to accumulate stuff or things. And God knows that we have need for all of that. God knows that there's the gas prices. Nothing— none of this caught God off guard. And I think that God is using this time to mold us into the people that he wants us to be. I believe his church is going to rise up. Now, this is me in faith speaking. But I believe that we're going to rise up in power and we're going to show the world that there's a different way to look at life. And I believe it starts with looking at death. And I know that's counterintuitive, and I know I've used counterintuitive a couple of times, but I think it's a cool word, so I'm going to use it. Goes against the grain a little bit of what most people want to think about or talk about. If you can just imagine standing in front of Father God we need to get death right. And in order to do that, I believe, we've talked about on a previous episode, we need to start looking at our obituary. And we need to think about what we want people that are standing around our casket or at our funeral, what we want them to think and say about us. And if we think about that, and if we can picture that, go backwards to a life well lived. And if you go with goals in mind, and that's how I'm gonna bring all this together because this Ezekiel, Wheel in the Middle of the Wheel is all about goal setting, and it's all about being Spirit-led and walking in the Spirit and learning how to apply the Word of God to our lives. And I just think that it's what God has put me on this earth to do. And I know maybe that's a bold statement, but I just believe that I need to have one thing be the thing, and this one thing is gonna be goal setting. I am gonna help you get your life right, and I know that's a big statement, but I want to help you live the life that God created you to live. And we've got to live with purpose, and we have to live based on the Word of God. We have to be biblically based. We have to have a biblical worldview instead of this current worldview, which just means— I don't even know what it means. But you've got so many competing worldviews, and you got so many people arguing and fighting and bickering. You can see the division everywhere. In every country, there's wars and rumors of wars. And we knew this was coming, but God also told us to occupy until he returned. And I don't think the church has done a wonderful job of that. Jesus said that he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And if you've declared Jesus your Lord and Savior, that means he rules and reigns over you. But he's also a King of Kings, which means you have a kingdom. And we need to figure out what that kingdom is, and we need to start ruling over it, and we need to start making commands on that kingdom. And we need to rule like King David ruled and like King Solomon ruled. And all of these things are going to just kind of come together because the Bible is giving us a great example of how we should live our life and really how we shouldn't live our lives. So we're going to talk about death and we're going to go to a few scriptures. The first scripture is in Hebrews 9:27, and it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. And so I want you to hear that again. We're going to talk about death, so we're taught we got to talk about dying. The writer of Hebrews says it is appointed for men to die once. So I want you to hold on to that thought right there, that every one of us is going to die once. But here's the kicker: there is also a second death in the Bible, and this is why we need a biblical worldview. I believe that if you are a Christian, you have already died once. You are already dead to sin if you declared Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior at salvation. You died. Okay, I need you to hold on to that. You have declared him Lord and Savior. You are dead, and now it's no longer you who lives, but Christ lives in you. So you are walking around— that's when I say spirit, soul, and body— your spirit man is 100% just like Jesus. You are alive in Christ. You are a new creature. You are a saint of God, and saints have an alive spirit. So you have died once, so you are dead to sin and the law and death. You are dead to all of that. Well, now we got to kind of bring this back into context, and we're going to go for that. We're going to go to Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So there you have it. We are crucified with Christ. We are dead because Christ died for us. As we follow and imitate Christ, we die also. So we've been crucified with Christ. We are dead, and it's no longer us who lives, but Christ lives in us. Okay, so now all men have been appointed to die once. And then the judgment. Now, we're not going to talk about the judgment today. We're going to get into that. There's two different judgments. We've talked about it before. There's the White Throne Judgment, and then there's the Judgment Seat of Christ. But we're, we're going to bypass that. We're not going to chase that rabbit today. We're going to continue on this death march, and we have got to go to Revelation because we now— we got to see this second death. And I just need you to picture this while you're working out, while you're driving, while you're thinking about this, while you're pondering life and death. I want us to go to Revelation 2:11. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. All right, now hold on to that thought and let's go to Revelation 20:6, same book, just a little bit further down the road. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power. But they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. All right, I need you to kind of hold on to all those things. We're going to be thinking about this, we're going to be meditating on this, and we're going to be digging into death. But right now, I just want you to understand that there are two deaths. You and I are gonna suffer two deaths. And every person in the world is going to suffer two deaths. I know again that the subject is kind of morbid, but we have got to get a hold of this thing, and we're going to work from the end to the beginning. We're going to come back to where you are today, or next week actually. We got to start with the end in mind, and we all want to hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." So in order to hear that, we also got to know that we are going to be in a casket one day, or when God returns we're going to be raptured, all of this stuff. There's going to be a time where we are no longer here on Earth. We're going to call that our death. That's when our mortal body is buried or is planted as a seed, and then we're going to plant corruption, and then it'll come up in corruption. We talked about that on a previous episode. But I just want you to kind of picture this thing. There's the first death, and then there's the second death. And the second death everyone's going to face. And if you do not die to self, if you deny Christ, if you tell God, I don't want anything to do with you, well, you are going to stay alive here on this earth. Your flesh is going to be alive and well. You're going to do whatever you want to do. You are going to be a sinner in this world. And it says that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So when Christ died for us, if you as a sinner say, look, I can't do this, I want to declare Jesus Lord, I want to be a Christian, you die right then to say— I don't know how it works, but there is a spiritual rebirth that you got to be born again. So what is dead, you, you then are born again, and it's instantaneous. I didn't write no part of this book. I don't have any idea, not even going to try to play God. That is the most powerful, the most wonderful miracle that God does. And I really believe in John 14:12 where it says, and all these works and greater works you will do. I believe the greater works— and this is just Gregology— I believe the greater works that Jesus was talking about was the salvation, was when a dead person is resurrected and becomes a new creature. When Jesus was talking in John 14, he was pointing toward the crucifixion, but he had not yet been crucified. He's talking to his disciples, so he is pointing his way. And God— if you, if you can think about this too— God came here, Jesus came here on earth to die. You and I are gonna die, so let's just embrace that instead of being worried about it. Bible also says, death, where is thy sting? Jesus conquered Hell and the grave. We gotta get this in our mind that we are not ever gonna die again. If you die the first time, if you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are never gonna die again. There is a second death, and for Christians, the second death is when your heart stops or when your body quits breathing, when your physical body dies. Then to be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord. For Christians, when your physical body dies, that's the second death. And I want us to hold on to that. We're going a little bit long. I just want us to pray about that. I want you to meditate on that, and I want you to ask the Holy Spirit. And we're going to do that with the prayer right now. Let's pray. God, I thank you for this message. God, I thank you for your word. Holy Spirit, I pray that if I've messed anything up on this, that you will make it straight with this listener. Or with this person watching this video, I pray in Jesus' name that we will get death right. And God, we thank you that you came to die and that you lived a perfect life and died a death that I deserve so that I could have salvation. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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