Hell

Well, I've been giving a series of sermon subjects over the last couple of months based on what I received for sermon ideas from the congregational meetings we had here and in Nashville. So we've been covering a lot of different subjects. I did talk about hope here recently, basically just because, well, someone had mentioned we need something on hope, but just the trials that the churches have been going through lately, I thought it would be good to talk about that. I started, oh, it was about four or five weeks ago.

Someone had asked for me to give a sermon about, you know, the doctrine of hell. And I said, well, to really do that, I'm going to give three sermons to really cover that doctrine. So I gave a sermon on the immortal soul. What is the immortal soul? Why the scripture doesn't teach the immortal soul.

I went through that in somewhat detail. I mean, in 55 minutes, there's only so much you can cover. But, you know, that information I gave, if you wanted to study the scriptures, you would see that that is what the scriptures teaches. And amazingly, it is what a lot of theologians teach, that the Bible doesn't teach that you have an immortal soul. And that was the first sermon that in this series.

Why would I go through the second sermon? And you say, well, why would it take three sermons to talk about hell? Well, you've got to first explain what we are as human beings. And then we can talk about what God is going to do in the future in the judgment.

But what we are as human beings. Let's go to 1 Thessalonians. Because in that first sermon, we showed that the word soul just means living being. You know, nayfesh in Hebrew, in Sukei, in Greek, and how important those words are, because they didn't inherently mean immortal soul. You would have to stick immortal to it. Or you could use it in the philosophical sense, the Greek word, the way Plato and Socrates and Aristotle used it.

But that's because they use it in a philosophical sense, which they did mean immortal. But it's not biblically what the word means. And we also went through that and showed that how God himself says, I only have immortality. And then we went through a number of scriptures. A murderer has no immortality in him, no eternal life. Eternal life is something that God must give us. In fact, it says we must put it on. It is not something we have. So then we come to that. A soul is a living being. We showed how animals are souls. And that word nayfesh, especially in the Old Testament, and we showed even in the New Testament in the book of Revelation where animals are souls.

If you take that word and translate it exactly. So soul just means a living being. And we're talking about the physical world. A soul isn't separate from the body. Every place in the Bible where it talks about human beings or even animals that are souls, it means that there was a body and a life came into the body and it is a soul. It's not like it's two different things. A soul is a living body. If you take the life out of it, you have, and we showed it one place where a dead body, literally in Hebrew is a dead nayfesh, a dead soul.

And that was talking about a body. So we showed that. So once we get down to, and we start with this concept, which is biblically based, and we're going to talk about hell, we start with, we're not immortal. We have to be given immortality. And then we come to, as I said, 1 Thessalonians 5. And let's look at verse 23. Because then this is used by some who say, okay, we realize the soul is not immoral, but let's look at sort of another component of humanity. How may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely? And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ?

So when Jesus Christ comes back, we are supposed to be created into this singular person who is perfect in spirit, soul, and body. And this shows that you may not have an immortal soul, but you have an immortal spirit. Now, is that what Paul is saying? Because what's interesting, if that's what Paul's saying, it's the only place in the Bible he says it. That we are a spirit, a soul, and a body, and there are three different things.

Because especially in the Old Testament, the Hebrew concept is that you are a soul. It's one thing. You remove the life, you're no longer alive. And we talked about, in the complexity of this, what we have to deal with next time, when we talk about hell, which in a couple of months or a month or so we'll deal with that, is that, how can God's... Why does God say, do not fear those who kill the body and the soul? What does that mean? But there are those who kill the body without the body and the soul.

So the soul can die in a sense that even beyond what the body dies. What does that mean? Well, let's describe today or go through today what the Bible says about spirit. Okay? So you're a soul. Life comes into you and you have a body and you're alive. You know, you think of Adam. He was a bunch of atoms.

Not A-D-A-M-S, but A-T-O-M-O. He was a bunch of molecules. He was created out of stuff. He was a chemical thing, but he was not alive. And he came alive. Now what we see in the Bible, it says he became alive because God breathed into it. When we looked at soul, we saw that human beings and animals are both souls. And yet there's a great difference between human beings and animals. You know, and scientists, it's amazing how they're really being able to map out what goes on in the brain. It's much more complex than they ever thought.

There's many more things going on in our brain that they have realized. There's no way evolution can explain it. There is no way you can explain the difference between humanity and animals. You can't through the brain. You should be able to if we simply evolved, but you can't.

We have capacities that are just beyond what are physical capacities. So where did that come from? So God breathed into animals or into human beings and they were alive. They became nafish. They became living souls. Breath is an interesting word in both Hebrew and Greek. There's actually two Hebrew words that are translated breath. We're going to zero into one today. It's Ruach.

Ruach means breath. It means wind. It is most often translated spirit. In the Old Testament, in most places where you see the word spirit, it literally means breath or wind. But it gets sort of complicated when you have to translate certain places in the Bible, in English, as breath.

One of the most obvious is in Genesis 1. Let's go to Genesis 1. I don't want to spend too much time discussing Hebrew and Greek words, but we have to understand what we think it means sometimes, because of an English application. It doesn't mean what it literally means. And then we've got to figure out what it meant. What did that word mean? Genesis 1. Verse 1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. That's wrong. The wind of God, the breath of God, was hovering over the waters. Now, this is a whole lot more than meaning just breathing, because think about it, God doesn't have lungs. See, I can't think like a Hebrew. I've tried. They think in pictures sometimes. I mean, the descriptions of which they say, or they talk about things, doesn't mean much to me.

It meant the world to them. They understood exactly what it meant. But the breath of God hovers over the earth and begins to create it. So, when we think of the breath of God, and the Spirit is just perfect English translation, but what does that mean?

See, in Hebrew, the breath, the wind of God, you've got to think of God sending out a force from within him. He's sending out a power from within him. It's not separate than him. It comes out of him. It is like breath. Breath comes out of you, right? The breath comes out from him, and it does what he wants it to do. It's not separate from God, but he sends it out. I mean, I suppose we could say, you know, if we had the power of our minds to, you know, if I could sit here with my mind and lift that chair, right, where would the power come from?

It would have to be coming from me. Well, if someone starts lifting a chair, it's probably a demonic power. So, okay, that's maybe a bad example, but you understand what I mean. If we had the power to do that, where would the power come from? It would have to come from within. And you could take that force, and you could expel it out someplace to do something for you, what you want.

So that's why David talks about, everywhere I go, there's the breath of God. Everywhere I go, in his Transcendent English, is the Spirit of God. Everywhere I go, he's there. So when we start thinking about this Spirit, we're going to talk about, it's not exactly maybe what we think in English. It is why there's no concept of the Trinity in the Old Testament. There's only a couple places in the New Testament they use to prove the Trinity. You can't go to the Old Testament because the breath of God is him.

It's not another being, it's him. Where does it come from? Like internally from him, outward. He breathed into human beings, and they woke up. They came alive. Every one of us received the breath of God. And when you were born, you were awake. Before you were born, right? Babies interact all the time. Ball in the womb. You were awake! We just can't remember. It is actually very good. We can't remember what it's like to be born and those kinds of things.

Those are traumatic things. It's good we don't remember that. But we understand. You look at a newborn, I looked into the eyes of my children when they were born. And they're sort of looking at you, and all of a sudden they get sort of big like, Oh, what am I looking at? They're alive. They're aware. Something is happening in that brain. Why? Because the breath of God came into them. We always think, well, they take that big breath and they start crying.

Yeah, but that's not the breath of God. The breath of God's in them already. That's just oxygen coming into them. So when we think about this spirit, I want to keep going back to the concept. It's wind, it's breath. Where does it come from? It is a very part of the being of God that comes out to us. So, we're going to talk about Ruach a lot.

The other word is, it just means breath, and you'll see that sometimes. It means sometimes you gasp for air. A similar meaning, but we're going to stick with Ruach. So what does the Old Testament say about this? Let's go to Genesis 7. Verse 15.

Just talking about the time of Noah. And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, this is all the animals, of all flesh, which is in which is the breath of life. All flesh in which is the breath of life. That's Ruach. It's the same word translated to spirit of God, or the breath of man, or the spirit of man. We're going to see where the Old Testament talks about the spirit of man. So this isn't oxygen.

This isn't talking about just breathing animals. It's talking about animals in which God made alive. They weren't alive, and they became alive. And that is through the power of God. Through the power of God, everything lives. Or it does not live. It's through the power of God. Everything lives, or it does not live.

So it's His breath that keeps things alive. It's an interesting concept when you realize He doesn't breathe. But it puts it into almost a physical way of God's breathing us. He's keeping us alive.

Now let's look at some of the places where it's translated spirit, the same word, relationship to human beings. Ecclesiastes 3. I hate to start here. I almost skipped this because it's such a... Part of Ecclesiastes is a really depressing book. Because it's... It's Solomon realized that God had given him great, great gifts. And he had misused them. And he had wasted much of his life. And now he's realizing, hey, I'm going to die. You know, I'm getting to be an old man, and I'm going to die sometime. And what happens to me? And he's in a depressed state here. And let's look at verse 18. Solomon says, I said to my heart concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them that they may see that they themselves are like animals.

God tests us to fight so that we can come to the conclusion in a certain way, we're just like animals. Well, that's a depressing viewpoint. He had lost sight of God's purpose. He had lost sight of what God was doing. And he said, am I any different than an animal? For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals. One thing befalls them. As one dies, so dies the other. Surely they all have one breath. They all have one spirit. In other words, the power to have life, the ability to be animated, to have life all comes from God. It doesn't matter whether you're a human being, or a turtle, or a dolphin, or a fly. Your life comes because God breathes us out and you have it. All life comes from God. He says, man has no advantage over animals, for all is worthless, all is vanity. All go to one place, all are from the dust, and all return to dust. And then he asked this very interesting question. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes downward to the earth? He says, who knows? He's wrestling with this. When a human being dies, does their life somehow go to God? Or is it just like animals? It just... we don't know what happens to it. It just goes away.

He asked that question. Now it's interesting, he answers his own question in chapter 12. Chapter 12. See, what he's struggling with. But see, the word there is spirit. It's breath. He's not talking about just breathing. Rulak is life. It's... I'm alive. I'm aware.

In verse 6, he says, Remember your Creator, before the silver cord is loosened, which is just another analogy for death. Or the golden bowl is broken. Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain. Or the will broken at the well. These are just ways of saying, you know, it's broken. Your life is broken and you're dead. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

The breath, the spirit... So remember, this isn't oxygen here. It has to do with life. Now, life is us breathing. That's why you will see Rulak sometimes just mean breathing. You know, for us, we have to have air to breathe. You know, life is in the blood. It says that in the Old Testament. God doesn't have any blood.

But he has life.

So the use of this word is centered on completely the idea. Life comes from God. So it's translated breath. It's translated spirit, but it means the same thing. Your life comes from God. Look at Psalm. See what David says. Psalm 104.

Let's see. Psalm 104. Let's go to...

Let's get the whole context here. Let's turn to verse 24. Oh, Lord, how manifold are your works, and wisdom you have made them all. He's talking about all the animals. Everything is alive. He's looking out, David. Look at everything that's alive. It's a teeming planet. And you made all this. The earth is full of your possessions. This great and wide sea, which are innumerable teeming things, living things, both small and great. There the ships sail about. There is the Leviathan, which you have made to play there. These all wait for you. You may give them their food in due season. He says, you know, you're the one who has these cycles. So that this life just keeps going on and on, and reproduction takes place, and life is passed on. And David was amazed by all this.

But you give them, they gather in. You open your hand, and they are filled with good. You hide your face, and they are troubled. You take away their breath, and they die, and return to the dust. You send forth your spirit, and they are created. And you renew the face of the earth. Now, what's interesting here, in verse 29, their breath and your spirit are both rock.

In other words, the life of animals, if you will, the spirit of animals, the life that's in them, this breath that's in them, comes from God, and it becomes his life. His life is what creates our life. This Hebrew concept is so enormous, I'm not sure I understand it, Charlie. The idea that every life, I mean, we understand it, I think they had a grasp of it that was very intense.

Every life comes from God. Everything. And it is his life, his spirit, that creates this life. And so that's the words, once again, are interchangeable here. Not that his life is their life. God's living in everything in terms of, like, pantheism. But that life is generated by God. That's the important thing here. That life is generated by God. The realization that what David's talking about here, you know, if God doesn't, if he takes that back, they all die.

So it's not like God is in everything, you know, that you get into worship of nature and just pure paganism. But it is generated by God. All living things exist through the will of God, because He is the one who gives them life.

So the concept's very interesting. I think it's very clear. I mean, there's lots of other scriptures we can go to. But this is a clear concept. Now let's look at Zechariah chapter 12 in something that's just a statement. It comes out of sort of nowhere here, but it's important. Zechariah 12. And let's go to verse 1. The burden of the word of the Lord against Israel. So this is a prophecy, but I'm going to pull out a little statement that He makes here instead of, you know, our purpose is to go through the prophecy. Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the Spirit of man within him.

Ruach. It's the same word for the Spirit of God, but one is the Spirit of God, this Spirit of man. It's the same word, but a different application. It's the same word that was used for the breath of animals. The life of a man is formed by God. Every human being has purpose to God. Now, unfortunately, and we read this whole other subject, but because of the deterioration of humanity, because of sin, and Satan's tyranny that we live under, there are all kinds of genetic problems that God lets us have.

That doesn't do away with God's value He puts on human beings. They're actually working on that couples will be able to genetically design their children. That one will make sure that they won't have bad eyesight, or that they'll have the colors of eyes that you want, or whatever. That's not what God designed us to be.

But unfortunately, we do suffer... Believe me, none of us are like Adam and Eve. Those were people with perfect bodies. None of us are even close to that. Part of that is the degeneration that comes from being in Satan's world, but God prophesies that's going to be taken care of.

So that's, once again, another subject. So, animals receive this life from God, this breath from God, this spirit from God, and they're alive. But like we talked about last time, there's no concept of the Bible of immortal animals. That is not biblical at all. So when they die, even like Solomon said, it's like their life just goes away.

It just goes into the ground. What happens to that life? It just goes away. He knew that. He had no explanation for it. But what happens to us? We're not immortal, but we're also told that we won't be dead forever. There's some resurrection in the future. What happens to us? We have to understand that when it talks about this spirit, this life that is given to animals and human beings, there is different qualities to that. What I mean by that, the life that God gave to turtles is the same thing that all turtles have. The life that he gave to a horse is much more complex than the life he gave.

Part of it is the way their brains constructed, but he gave them a different life. The spirit he gives to us is not like the life he gave to animals. That's why we're so different. The life he gave to us is different, and it's more than just our brains. What God has given to us, the ability to relate to him, the ability to have intellect and consciousness... Come on, a snail has no consciousness. The ability to have consciousness, the sacrificial love, the ability to do mathematics...

You can't bring any animal into that discussion of literature, creating music, creating economic systems. The closest thing I've seen to an animal economic system when we were camping one time, and there was a pack rat, who would come and steal something from the camp and then bring back something in return. That's it. That's the closest thing you're ever going to get. I'm going to come take your food and bring you back a rock. We're even, right? There's just no concepts of what we do and live every day. We manufacture, we engineer, we solve problems, we dam rivers. I've seen beaver dams. Beaver dams are the same. And they've been the same since the time God created beavers.

Human beings keep figuring out how to dam the greatest rivers in the world. That's not animal. But they have a spirit or a life or a breath. What God gave us is different because we're designed in the image of God and that's more than your brain because God doesn't have one.

He doesn't have a physical brain. So something's been given to us is different. Now that's why...so what you're saying is we have an immoral spirit. You know, if animals have a spirit from God and they're not immortal, we can't conclude that that makes us immortal. That's not what it's saying. But it is unique. It's different. And what's its purpose? Okay. To really understand that, we go to the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it's really a mystery. They get bits and pieces of it. But let's go to 1 Corinthians 2. Paul is given understanding from God.

He gets it. And this isn't...obviously, this isn't Ruach. It's a Greek word which is Numba. But he makes his point. Because he uses spirit here, and the spirit of God and the spirit of man is the same Greek word.

But we know from...we're reading it. He's talking about two different things. He's talking about the life of God and the life of a man. Remember, the spirit of God is the very life that comes out from him. It's the power that comes out from him. And then because of that, everything on this earth has life. He generates it, and we're animated. We wake up. We have life. So let's look at what he says here in verse 9.

He starts this by quoting the Old Testament. He says, I is not seen or ear heard, nor have entered through the heart of man things which God has prepared for those who love him. He says, what God's doing here is beyond our comprehension. He says, but God has revealed them to us through his spirit, through God's life which generates from him, God's life which is eternal, God's life that comes out as his spirit, comes out as his breath.

This spirit that comes out gives us information that we would not have. He says, through his Holy Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, just the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Now that's a remarkable question. It's not something Solomon asked, because Solomon had bested up his life so much, he was just questioning, do I even live after this? Paul was saying, you and I understand, he can read Greek, he can read Hebrew, probably Aramaic, and how can I read Greek?

Because the life of man is unique. The life of humanity is not like the life of cows. It's just not. We have a life in us that's different, that has come out from God and given to us. It's a different quality. Because we're designed in the image of God to have a relationship with God.

He says, we know things because we're different than animals. It's the spirit, it's the life in man that gives us the ability to do what man does. But then he goes on, and he's really going to break this down into what conversion is. He says, even so, no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God. He says, what goes on in the mind of God, God knows.

What goes on in the mind of a man, and sometimes we'll see spirit as a reference to mind. The human life gives us the ability to think our consciousness. So it's our mind. What goes on in the mind of God, his spirit knows. Because it's his spirit that's generating it. He says, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

Verse 14, but the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolish to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. In other words, the normal human mind can't interact with God unless God does something.

We can't, unless God does something. We'll make up gods, right? People make up gods of stone. People make up all kinds of gods. People walk around saying, I'm God. I found the God within me. That's the New Age movement, right? We need God so much that if we're not in contact with him, we'll make him up. That's what human beings do.

God knows things that he gives to us through his spirit. So he's actually making there's a difference here. God gives us life, but there is something he has that we don't have. Just because he's given us life doesn't mean he's given us everything he is.

We're not God. So he gives us life, but there's this huge gulf between us. Verse 15. But he who is spiritually, the spiritual, judges all things, that he himself is rightly judged by no one. Ah, verse 16 is an amazing verse. I am meditating on this verse a lot. But who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

When God gave you life, he gave you spirit. He gave you breath. He gave you power. He animated you. He gave you consciousness. He gave you abilities. And it's different than any other creation because you are designed to be a child of God. But he did not give you immortality.

He didn't give us that. Why? Because there's something else we have to receive. We have to receive the mind of Christ. And this is in conjunction with what? God's spirit. We must receive God's spirit in order to have the mind of Christ. Otherwise, we have the mind of a human being. And we can figure out a lot of stuff.

But we can't be in relationship with God without him giving us a different spirit, if you will. What we have is a spirit that gives us physical life and spiritual capabilities, but it doesn't give us the mind of Christ. It doesn't make us a child of God. We have to receive another spirit for that to happen. So, we look at this and we realize that the spirit in man gives us the power of animation, the power of life, this breath of God. But we can only receive immortality through the spirit of God, which is very specific. When you see spirit of God, it's very specific. It's not the spirit you and I received when we were created.

That was just life. This is the very mind of God must be put into us. Now, that's a whole other subject, too. That's why it's very interesting when you look at mind in the Scripture, it is the human function. You'll see the mind of God and you'll see the minds of human beings. You're not going to see the mind of a donkey. That's not going to be talked about.

Even though they have a quote-unquote spirit, they have a life. It's not like what we have. So, what you will see in the Bible that we have, human beings have the spirit of wisdom. We can mourn in the spirit. I think of Ray and Laurie all day yesterday. I just mourned in the spirit. Deep inside my life. You understand what? Deep inside your life, you're mourning.

That's part of the spirit that God's given us. The Bible explains human reactions and human emotions in terms of this life I have. I feel this in my life. I think this in my life. You can have a willing spirit, a sorrowful spirit, a lying spirit, a broken spirit, a humble spirit, a faithful spirit, a proud spirit.

There's all kinds of spirits in the Bible. All describing the human application of this spirit that's given to us, this life that's given to us. My favorite is vexation of spirit. That's just a great old... I mean, don't you wish you could use that word more often? Vexation. Certain old English words we don't use. So the breath of God created in us the spirit that God gave us created in us the ability to be human.

Just like this spirit that came out from God, this powerful came out from God, gave cats the ability to be cats. We have a cat that comes around our house every morning and we feed it. We shouldn't. Now it's bringing its friends. And a bunch of wild cats are showing up. And I refuse to name the cat that comes over, even though she literally runs across the street, runs up to me and just lays on my feet.

I call her Miss Cat because she will not have a name. I will not be that attached to her. I wrote something the other day. The difference between dogs and cats, you feed a dog and it concludes you're God. You feed a cat and it concludes I'm God. I actually heard people say that's true. That's true. So we're nayfesh. We have no inherent immortality. We are nayfesh because we were created a body and this breath, this spirit came into us and now we're a living soul. You see, you can't separate. You pull one thing out of here and you're dead. You are, these things are combined together. The soul doesn't leave the body.

If the soul leaves the body, you're dead. If the spirit leaves, you're dead. So what happens to us when we die? Now this is very interesting. Let's go to Luke 8 Luke 8 verse 49 This man's daughter had died and people are telling him, don't go talk to Jesus. You know, she's already dead. It's too late to do anything. But he goes to him, and he hears them talking, and Jesus said he's going to take care of it. So he goes into the house and everybody's weeping there, verse 51, verse 52 He says, you know, she's not dead, she's asleep.

Well, she's dead. But once again, you will see over and over again in the New Testament death called sleep. It's an unconscious state. And they ridiculed him, knowing that she was dead. Okay, come on, she's dead. From Jesus' viewpoint, she's asleep. This is a God viewpoint. Now that's interesting, because it means she's unconscious. I mean, she's literally dead, but she's not erased.

So what do you mean? Let's think about this in a minute. Because we're going to get into the second death when we talk about hell. And there's a difference between the first death and the second death. There's a huge difference. So he says, verse 54, he put them all outside, took her by the hand, and said, little girl, rise.

Then her spirit returned, and she rose immediately. She was no longer a living soul. She was a dead body with no consciousness. Jesus, she's asleep. She has no idea what's going on. He prayed, and her spirit came back. And she woke up. That's a very telling little scripture here. And by the way, it's just another place in the New Testament where people die in a resurrected, and they don't tell anybody about heaven, because they didn't go there. In the Old Testament, too, there's numerous people that are physically resurrected, and not one of them says, let me tell you what it's like in heaven, because none of them went there.

They wake up, and it's like, they just wake up. They probably ask what's going on. What's happening? But if God wanted to teach us about heaven, all these things that miracles he did, he would have taught us about going to heaven. He didn't, because it doesn't happen. So, what happens? There's two things that are very important in thinking about this. Then we're going to read just a couple other scriptures. Right before Jesus died, what did he say? I commend to you, my spirit. Right before Stephen died, what did he say?

I commend to you, my spirit. You take everything that I am, and you hold on to it. When we get to the second death, that's a totally different experience. You take what I am, and you keep it. I'm going to sleep now. You take what I am, and you keep it. What was Jesus saying? I commend to you, my spirit. What was Stephen saying? I commend to you, my spirit. I'm going to die now. I'm going to sleep. Take everything I am, and keep it. Take everything I am, and you keep it. The spirit of man is kept by God.

That's why there's a promise of a resurrection. Her spirit came back. What that means is, her life came back. She didn't wake up and say, Who am I? She woke up and knew exactly who she was. Why? God took those, whatever it is, this life he gave us, he took that life, and he took it back. Now, here's the thing. That life, that spirit, is not eternal.

It's God's. He can do with it whenever he wants. But he saves it. Look what Job said. Job 14. Job 14. We read some Job here already today.

It's interesting. In the Sosino Jewish commentary, they look at this passage, and they say that Job really didn't mean this. He was just wondering. He was hoping. No. I think he was struggling, and he came to a conclusion. And what it says is what it means. Verse 10. But man dies and is laid away. Indeed, he breathes his last. And where is he? He's gone. He's just dead. There's nothing there. There's just a body. The person is no longer there. As water disappears from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dried up. Notice that, once again, that Hebrew imagery. You want to know what death is like? Go out to a pond when there's a drought, and to a dry zap and it just becomes cracked dirt. That's what death is like. These are incredible images they create when they're describing things. So a man lies down and does not rise, till the heavens are no more. They will not awake, nor be roused from their sleep. So when you die, you die. What happens to a human being? Now, remember, at this point he's facing death. This disease is racking his body. He's lost everything he wanted and had in life. He feels he's turned his back on him. Oh, that you would hide me in the grave. That you would conceal me until your wrath is passed. That you would appoint me a set time and remember me. Oh, if it could just happen, let me die and wake me up at a better time. If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait till my change comes. And you shall call and I will answer you, and you shall desire the work of your hands. Now, it's interesting that Jewish commentary said he didn't really mean that. He just was saying, I hope maybe, just maybe it could be that way. I don't know. When I read Job, I think he meant it. He didn't understand entirely, but he knew, I'm going away and you're going to remember me. Remember, your spirit goes to God, and he holds on to it. In other words, he remembers you. He remembers you. In Daniel, well, let's go to Daniel. Daniel chapter 12.

I commend to you my spirit. I am still with you. I don't know I'm with you, but you've got what I was. And you can bring it back, if you will. You have what I was, and you can bring it back, if you will. That is not the second death. When we get into the second death, those involved in the second death are annihilated.

I was going to say you. That's not you, not me. The second death, they no longer are remembered. Those who die now, even the evil are still remembered. Do you know how I know that? Because even the evil are to be resurrected in the future. Their spirit goes to God, and he remembers them. He holds on to it.

Because everybody's going to face judgment. In that lake of fire, it says even their remembrance is gone. They're gone. So this first death is different than the second death. In the first death, God remembers you. He holds on to your spirit, if you will, your life. Once again, you get away from the idea of an immortal spirit and say, oh, he holds on to what I am. He holds on to my life. And one day I wake up again. That's right. We wake up again.

Because God never let go of who you were. Daniel 12. Verse 1. And at that time, Michael shall stand up. This is the time of the return of Jesus Christ. The great Prince who stands, watch over the sons of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was, since there was a nation even to that time. And at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone who is found in the book. Interesting. In the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall be awakened, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn away to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

In the book. You know there's places where that's called the book of remembrance? God doesn't have an actual book, and he writes this all down. God takes you when you die and he says, I remember you. I have everything you were. And I wake you up again. Isn't that amazing? I've actually had people ask, where's he store all that? He's God. He stores it. He says, I remember it all. I remember all of it. And I have your spirit. I have your life here. And I will wake you up again. And some of the people, he's going to wake up again and say, guess what?

You're now going to face a second death. I tell you what, that second death is totally different. It's a frightening thing. Because there's no coming back from that one. There's no coming back from that one. So what do we know here? I find this interesting because Scott Ashley, who's the editor of the Beyond Today magazine, and Darris McNeely and I were having this discussion two nights ago after dinner in Darris' house. And finally, Debbie, his wife, came in and said, go downstairs. You guys keep talking about this and my head's going to explode. I mean, you just keep talking about this and it's going to explode.

You're just going information and information. She says, I need to chill out. It's been a long, hard day. So, we went downstairs and watched the movie. But that's, you know... But we were going on and on and on. God holds on to this. It's the book of remembrance. It's not a real book. It's in God's head. God's head. It's in God's mind. He holds on to every human being. And some he resurrects for eternal judgment. Others he resurrects for eternal life. He then gives immortality. That's when we receive it. So, we've been able to conclude that the Bible clearly teaches that all human beings die.

And that means we're no longer animated. We're no longer aware. We're no longer alive. And we are kept alive by the breath or spirit given to us by God. This life given to us by God. When a person dies, this life force is taken by God. And everything we are is remembered. Everything we are is remembered. He holds on to it. He doesn't lose it. He doesn't misplace it. He doesn't destroy it. He holds on to it. And that's why he promises a resurrection. It's promised a resurrection. I commend to you, my spirit. Take what I am and hold on to it. And then wake me up.

And so, every human being will be reanimated. Every human being will be woke up. And you'll know who you are. Why? Because God remembered. God kept all that. And you will wake up. And, you know, Herman Armstrong wrote about this 50 years ago, and no one knew what he was talking about. Some of this was a brand new concept. And he wrote about it in great detail 50 years ago. He didn't know how to explain where it gets stored. Remember? So he'd say, remember, maybe it's like...no, he didn't mean this literally. Like cassette tapes. Somehow God stores this stuff. Well, there's no way...no matter analogy you come up with, today we'd have to say jump drives. I mean, what do you do now? You have to get...the analogy is all analogies break down. The point is, in God's mind, every person is still there. Every person is still there. Abraham's still there. What do you think about in Revelation, where it says, all the martyrs are under the altar in heaven. Now, what an uncomfortable place to be if they actually exist. They're under the altar, and they don't get their bodies back yet. And of course, the promise of the reward is you get a spiritual body. So they're under the altar, miserable, waiting to get a body, and saying, when will you avenge us? Because we were killed. Now, you know how you don't take that...that's not literal? Well, first of all, the setting is not literal. But God's answer is, just stay asleep. Just stay asleep. I will...I will awaken you after there's others martyred. He actually says, the time will be when these others are martyred. After that, I wake you all up at the same time. Just stay asleep. So it's not really a conversation going on, because it wouldn't mean they woke up, and nobody wakes up until the resurrection. So it's an analogy of this relationship. God remembers every martyr. They're right there with him. Every one of them. Every one of us. Every one you know that's died. Whether they had turned to God or not, guess what? God's got them. They're there. They just don't know it. And they'll wake up. This is one of the most remarkable understandings of the Scripture. Because wow, this was God's plan all along. Sometimes you grasp this, and death isn't quite as scary. But death is always scary. But, there's hope in this. So, sometime in the next month or two, I'll finally give the sermon that someone asked to give. We will discuss what is the lake of fire? What is hell? And what happens to people who are thrown into the lake of fire?