Life Begets Life

The year was 1931. It was a movie that has even made the list of the top 100 movies of all time. It was new for its time and its day, and the movie was called Frankenstein. It was actually from a Shelley book of that title. And as most of you know about this character, this creature called Frankenstein, which we really won't go into. There's not the purpose of my sermon, of course.

But it was very interesting for the few minutes that Dr. Frankenstein, this doctor, had put this creature together. And if you've even seen the highlights on YouTube, he gets all excited as he comes up with some way for electricity to come out of the sky.

And electricity electrodes go into this body, and he just gets so excited. And he says, it's alive! It's alive! He's almost insane saying it. And then he says, I know what it feels like to be God.

Now, I do not believe when God created Adam that he was so excited and unbelievable that this creature came alive. I think it was nothing for God to create man, but it was his greatest creation. What about us? You treasure life. You treasure being alive. Are you thankful to be alive? And do we truly know where life comes from? If you believe, as most Christians do, that God is sovereign, and that he's over all, he's under nothing, he always and will always be over everything, as he mentions in Hebrews 2, that he is over everything to the point that, and in control of everything, that when Jesus Christ came and did what he did, and performed his not only duty and job, but he actually says that because of that, God has the power to put everything under Jesus Christ.

He puts everything in subjection to Christ. Peter also mentions that in 1 Peter 3 and verse 22. So as you're a God-given life, most of us do not even think about it. We get up in the morning, and we get out of bed, and we breathe, and we eat, and we go about our activities. Do you believe in your core that God gives life? You really believe that, because there are a lot of people in this world that do not believe that. Not in their core. And the reason you are here today, alive, is God. There are a lot of people, supposedly the educated people, of the world today who say that we evolved.

We came from a lesser creature. We actually climbed out of water as slime, and we've just evolved. The education of today's world teaches that. Well, can you explain 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 17? Can you explain it? I'd like to go there. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 17. I'll read from the New King James. Because here, like Dr. Frankenstein, we have a new creation. We have a new creature, as described here. And for those who follow Christ, it says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. A new creation, unlike that creature from the movie. But a new creation that takes on a totally different personality as time goes on.

Next weekend is Pentecost weekend. We celebrate the anniversary of the giving en masse of the Holy Spirit. The anniversary of the Ecclesia, or Clezia, or the potato, or the patata. The anniversary of the New Covenant. Also, the anniversary of the New Temple of God. Because after 31 AD, no longer did the New Testament church consider the temple in Jerusalem as the temple of God.

And we also celebrate the body and the bride of Christ. So let's make sure we are grounded in God's truth. Because we need to know the truth about this life and what is known as the Spirit in man. Because this is a knowledge that most of the people I would say in the world do not have this knowledge. And I want to compare that to the gift of the Holy Spirit because they are different. A lot of people will just read Spirit and take it as one, but they are different.

And we want to look at that today. I'd like you to turn to John 6. John 6, verse 63. John 6 and verse 63 said, It is the Spirit which gives life. He's talking about the Holy Spirit. And we will touch on that later because that's how everything was created. It was by the Spirit of God. But here it says the Spirit gives life. So life comes from life. This physical life came from spirit life because that's what God was. That's what He is. Sarah Barnhart, famous actress in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was considered the world's greatest actress at one time.

And she is known to have coined the phrase, Life begets life. Life begets life. And that is the title of the sermon today. I'd like to go back to that time when spirit life begat physical life. And like you'd turn to Genesis 2. I'd like to turn to Genesis 2. Genesis 2, verse 7, And the Lord formed man out of the dust of the ground. And then He says, Breathe into His nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

So you had dirt. You had dirt. And then you had God breathe into this formed dirt. And all of a sudden this creature, named Adam, became a living being. The actual Hebrew word is nayfesh. Nayfesh. So you had dirt, breath, and then life. It's amazing that man was informed from gold. There was plenty of that in the ground. He wasn't informed from granite. There was plenty of that in the ground. But God actually just took dirt. Kind of makes us not get too big on ourselves.

We know we just came from dirt. Life came from God. And life came from life. Did God make man of spirit? No. God gave him a spirit. As a matter of fact, there's another Hebrew word named ruach. Ruach means spirit. But something else happened before. I'd like to turn there. It's on the same page as mine in Genesis 1 and verse 27. Genesis 1 and verse 27 said, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him male and female.

He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion. Interesting word. Have dominion, or power, over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So even though man was not more powerful than most of the creatures, he isn't as big as a lot of the creatures. God still gave him dominion. And how did he do that?

God gave man a mind, not just a brain. Because all the animals that he created before he created man and woman, they have brains. And there's quite a few, if you look at it, whose brain is a lot bigger than ours. But animals learn from instinct. But God created us in his image, and he gave us intellect. He gave us intelligence. Because of man's mind, he was given dominion over all the earth. Now, what's interesting is, you can look this up for records, and man has killed more animals than animals have killed men over the history of time.

Can you imagine the intelligence it took for all the amazing things that man has created and taken animals and actually brought them under his power? You can go back and read historical accounts for thousands of years. Man never even rode a horse. It wasn't until Nimrod actually domesticated a horse, and people actually thought that he was part animal, part man, because no one had ever ridden a horse before they had seen.

Even dogs were considered wild, and nobody ever thought about taming them for a couple of thousand years. So, God gave us a mind. God gave man a mind to think, and to be able to figure out things because that was similar to God's mind. One of the issues came, though, with man thinking, and given the option to decide for himself or herself what was right and wrong. More people chose wrong than right. Somebody was telling me, and I looked it up on the Internet because someone mentioned him.

I had been somebody even here. He was telling me the news story about where the Ebola plague that's hitting parts of Africa now came from. I actually looked it up and was reading a couple of stories. Was it anybody in here? Wasn't you, Stephen, was it? No. Somebody told me the story, and they actually did a story on CNN. It went back to a family that ate bats. They smoked bats out of a tree.

This family was hungry, so they ate these bats. Then it started to wipe the whole family out, and then it started with anyone who came in contact when trying to help. Well, God gave us His instruction book of what to eat and what not to eat. But man's smarter than God. They basically have rejected, told us not to eat pork, but people have to have bacon in the morning. Even though we are very intelligent, we do not always do what we should be doing. It does not always happen that way.

See, God is the originator of life. For those of you with children, you gave them life. They would not be alive if you and someone else had not gotten together and created life. It's that simple. They need to know that and understand that. You gave them life because life was transferred by you from God. It's that simple. Life transferred by you from God. Life begets life. God to Adam and Eve to thousands of years to you. That's why you're here. Whether the world wants to believe that or not, that's the facts.

I heard one time on the radio, a commentator was asked whether he believed in Adam and Eve. And he said, they weren't real people. They were just symbolic of people. He did not believe that. And when someone called in and said, well, even Jesus Christ mentioned Adam. And you say you're a Christian.

Are you saying that Jesus Christ was lying? And he spent about 10 minutes going around in the answer. So God took dirt from the ground. God formed the body from the dirt and gave the body a living spirit. In the Greek, this breath, the spirit, various words they use.

One is pneuma, p-n-e-u-m-a, and also suki, p-s-u-c-h-e, suki, which can mean solar spirit. When you die, when I die, this body returns to the dirt where it came from. And the life-giving spirit returns to God who gave it. That is Scripture. Let's go and look at the Scripture.

Let's go to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12. And I want to read verses 6 and 7 because the writer of Ecclesiastes, the preacher, he's telling that your days are numbered and that everyone's going to die as he was coming to this understanding. And in verse 6, he says, Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well. And verse 7, Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit will return to God who gave it.

I had questions over the years about that. Why would it return to God? And wait a minute, are you getting into the immortality of the soul? No, not at all. A life-giving Spirit that Adam had, and he had it for over 900 years.

And that Spirit contains all your memories. It contains your character, your mind and the experiences from this human life. And they're all collected and held as we can piece together from the Scripture, line upon line, precept upon precept. You're a little there, little.

Because God lays it all out for us. But that Spirit returns to him for the resurrection. Now that we know there are three in the Bible, we'll have a Bible study on it eventually. The first is for the ones that will be raised of Christ's coming, first fruits. And the second, for the great white throne.

And then the third, for the lake of fire. I mentioned, I think probably two years ago, gave a message on that. But some have asked me, well, how all the billions of people who have lived, and the Spirit life-giving Spirit, returned to God with that, and He's holding it for the resurrection. How's He going to keep up with all that? How did He create 40 million people over the time? And if you remember our sermon I gave on Psalm 139, it actually talks about those who are His. He keeps a daily record of you, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, of every single day of everything you're doing in your life today.

Psalm 139, just read it. And He has it written down. He says in a book. It's an incredible book. It must be big, but look how big a space He's got. He's not running out of space up there, as far as we can tell. So I think it's interesting, because most of you have computers, and you have what we know where it's called a thumb drive.

You know what a basic thumb drive is? And it's this little bitty thing about that big, and it stores information. You can have a whole year, two years, or ten years worth of information on that little bitty thing that goes in the computer. And man figured that out. So can you imagine what God can do? That it's not too much for Him to have this information. Because I'm sure He can look at the thumb drive and go, but wait till we tell Him about the real stuff, eventually.

And our computer geniuses are going to find out that they weren't near as smart as they thought they were. The immortality of the soul, we do not believe in that. It's actually the teachings of the pagans. And through the years, it's easy to figure out. Our souls sleep in these other things.

Because we actually know in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 5 that the dead know nothing at all. It's actually laid out for us. But think of the example being many of you are hopefully well-read in the Bible. Are you continuing to? Are you laboring in the Word, as we hope to be doing, every day? And you go to the book of Daniel, and there's this incredible, credible individual named Nebuchadnezzar, who was actually ruler of the most powerful empire of the world at the time.

And that's where he runs into Daniel and Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego and the furnace, and you have all these stories. But even with God working with him through Daniel and his friends, Nebuchadnezzar never got over himself. And we know the story that he walked around Babylon, and they saw the beautiful gardens of Babylon, the wonders of the world at the time, and his empire. And I described that a year and a half ago in a sermon about Babylon. Just how great this city was. And he walks out and he says, Look at all this beauty that I have built.

And so as we read the story, we find out, all of a sudden God took his mind. Didn't take his brain, he took his mind. And for seven years, Nebuchadnezzar, this great king, wandered around on all fours like an animal. His hair grew long and even as some began to grow like scales. And he grazed in the field just like a cow.

For seven years, and after seven years, God returned his mind back to him. Like that. Where do you think his mind went? Did he just forget all the stuff? Or was this God showing us that I control everything, I am sovereign? Because when he came back and he got his mind back, God gave him his mind back. Because God is the one that did this. It wasn't, well, he's got a bad case of Alzheimer's. Not the way it was. He got his mind back. God gave it and then he remembered everything.

And he actually knew why God did what he did. And he then praised God and gave God the glory. And he happens to be the only pagan king that ever wrote anything in the Holy Scriptures. It's the only one that ever did. God actually put his actual words down that you can read about in Daniel. But in Ecclesiastes, since we're there, go over to Ecclesiastes 3. Ecclesiastes 3, verse 19.

Here the preacher says, For what happens to the sons of men also happens to beasts. That means the beasts, they're going to die. They have so much time and then they will die. One thing befalls them. As one dies, so dies the other. Surely they all have one breath. Man has no advantage over beast, for all is vanity. He's not saying that he's not contradicting what God said you will have dominion. But he's saying that there's nothing you can do.

You may be smarter than an animal, but once your time is up, your time is up. And he says, all go to one place, all are from the dust, and all return to the dust. Who knows the spirit of Son of Man, which goes upward? Again, he's confirming the spirit. When one dies, it goes back to God. And the spirit of the beast, which goes down to the earth.

The animal has lived out its time, its purpose. And I've had actually young people in the church ask me when their pet died. Well, can I have, you know, in the kingdom of God, will the pet come back? As a matter of fact, didn't the Pope address that the other day? A couple weeks ago, I think the Pope addressed something about dogs going to heaven.

You find it in the... you saw it and read a little article and thought, okay, don't know where you got that one.

But as you see, God gave animals a purpose. Basically, they are to be under the control of man.

But I had, last week, Dale Bessesser, who was here last week. It was Saturday night. We got back from church and we spent, I don't know how long, going back and forth talking about the Bible till way too late. And being we had our Bible study last week, Dale decided to throw it out on me. What is a biblical definition of death? And I threw out something that I... and he goes, no? Not what I'm looking for. What is a biblical definition of death?

And so I said, well, you better tell me that. So he said, let's go over to James 2. And I thought, wait a minute, James is my book. I own that. I know that. I read it many times. There's nothing in there. I don't know. And then Dale took me to James 2 in verse 26, a verse I knew very well, but I always spent more of my time at the last few verses, on the last few words there. So faith without works is dead. So is works without faith. But in verse 26, the first, it says, For as the body without the Spirit is dead. Definition. When does life end? When the Spirit, according to Scripture, when the Spirit is gone. Now, we have ways of keeping people alive in the hospitals. As many of you have, probably, you have been with a loved one the last few moments. I had my nephew. He was 14, I think, at the time. And they called us all in after a bad car wreck. And they had kept him alive for a week. And had a couple of heart attacks as they were trying to keep him alive. And just a very sad, sad story. So they called up family in. And so they were going to take him off the respirator, because it was actually breathing for him. Because his mother came to the decision after going through this and a heart attack, and doing everything they could to keep him alive that it wasn't worth it. They couldn't find anything in his brain, the waves. And so she decided, and we all went in together. It was a very sad time. As they took off, they turned the respirator off. And he never, within a matter of seconds, it was over. It was gone. And there was no breath. There was nothing. He was gone. He had been gone for a long time. They just, keeping him alive, is... And about two years or three years ago, when I was responsible for the church in Fort Myers, we had a young lady who was in her forties that caught some type of disease. She was working for the TSA, and something happened really bad. She got it. Something that came in on an international airport. And so she actually was in and out of the hospital, anointed, prayed, did all this stuff. And she got out, and we thought she was going to be okay. And then she went back in, and she just slipped away. And they had her own life support. And I remember being there with the family, because they asked me to be there, when they decided there's no reason in doing this anymore. She'd been in for a week or so, and basically she was gone. So they took the respirator off. I remember standing there, holding one hand as her husband was holding the other hand. And they took it off. And she actually breathed on her own for probably a minute and a half. And then she was gone. And I knew it. I mean, you were holding her hand and you saw things, and you know, and then she was gone. So I know the validity of what the Bible says here.

And so it answers the question, what is it, a Bible definition of death? Well, it says for the body without the Spirit. So when that breathing Spirit is gone, it's gone. Now, it's interesting. There is a publication that's put out in South Florida here called New Times. And they really have some weird articles in it sometimes. Some of you probably might have seen it. It's free. Have it on the deal. They did a story on cryogenics this time. And it's amazing what people will do and pay to try to stay alive. I'll let you read the article. It's well done. But I just never realized how much money they will pay to stay alive. Or to hope that in 300 years that they can have their bodies. Because they actually can either save you, according to the article, they've got these chambers. They will put your body in. For 200,000, you can have your whole body put in. Or for 80,000, they'll just cut your head off and put your head in there. Thinking that your brain, that somewhere down the road, they're going to be able to find a way and you can live again. Isn't it amazing what people will do? So we see the definition of death, but when does life begin? It's one of the big questions surrounding our judicial system today, isn't it? Well, I think the Bible does a better job of defining when life begins than when it tells us how to live and breathe and everything else. So to me, it gives us the perfect answer. In Jeremiah 1 and verse 5, God addresses this one. He says to Jeremiah, Before you were born, I formed you. He said, I knew you. Before you were born, I knew you. I formed you in the womb. So it tells me a lot. Before these little fingers started going, and he started developing all these things that a little baby does, God actually knew. When life is brought together, when a husband and wife come together, they bring forth life. I don't want to argue with God when life begins because of something I may think. He'd go what he thinks. When you look at Luke 1 and you see the story of Mary and Elizabeth, and the unique part was that said John the Baptist, when he was born, he had the Holy Spirit from birth. So he not only had the human spirit, he had God's Holy Spirit, which will be the focus of next week's weekend. But he said that it actually knew because when Mary was just pregnant, she came into contact with Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant.

And the baby inside of Elizabeth jumped. It jumped because it knew.

I'd like to turn to 1 Thessalonians 5.

This is a deep subject. 1 Thessalonians 5. Verse 23.

It says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. Sanctify, we know, means set apart for a special purpose. He has set us apart for a special purpose. He is talking to the church at Thessalonica. He is talking to us today. So we are separate. Does it make us any better? No, it should make us even more humble.

She's got her own preacher in the pocket. And now you can't get her to shut up, can you?

I would make a joke about women, but I will not do that here.

1 Thessalonians 5. Verse 23. May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole, and here he breaks it down into three parts.

The three parts. The spirit. The soul and the body. The spirit. The soul and the body.

Be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. First we have a body. And then we have a soul, Sukeh. That spirit that's in man and woman. And then the final stage of this three-stage process is the Spirit of God.

See, we must understand the Spirit in man, that there is what is called a Spirit in man, and then there's God's Holy Spirit. Two separate things.

But for us to understand, to comprehend Jesus Christ's words that he talks about in Scripture, we have to understand the Spirit in man and God's Holy Spirit. Because most of the world, they don't understand that.

There's an awesome difference between the Spirit in man and God's Holy Spirit.

One is the actual essence, power, and energy of God, and the other isn't.

One is about life eternal, the Holy Spirit. And the other, the Spirit of man, is basically about three score and ten.

What you're going to remember and accomplish in this life.

Paul covered this, and I'd like to do this as we begin to close here today. I'd like you to turn back to 1 Corinthians 2.

A lot of people look over this.

I'd like us to dig into it.

Matter of fact, the whole chapter 2 is loaded with three or four sermons.

But I'd like you to go to verse 4.

Because you have to realize Corinth was a very educated society. Greeks.

They had wonderful teachers, all the books, knowledge, everything you could want.

But Paul came in there realizing that, I'm just going to teach you.

I'm going to teach you from God's Word.

And so in verse 4 he said, And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom. Because that's what the Greeks were all about. Right, Stefano?

But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

So he said, I had taught you and I'm going to teach you from the Holy Spirit.

Because that is where power is. That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature. Yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.

The hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory. So he's setting up the case to tell them that the things they got from God, the world's not going to understand.

And that they are a mystery.

They are the deep things of God, as actually brought out.

It says in verse 8, which none of the rulers of this age knew. For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But as is written, I has not seen, nor where he heard, nor has entered the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But, here's a caveat. Here's the thing. The world doesn't know. They can't understand the, for one thing, the three resurrections, the spirit and man, all the things that he lays out. Who is God? What is man? The great questions of life, as we even have these books. That's why I brought these two today. Who is God? Most of the world, they do not know.

And this book takes you back to the Bible. And the road to eternal life. Why do you want eternal life? What's it all about? It's required.

So, he says that you have never seen it, you've never heard about it. The world doesn't know. But, but God has revealed them to us through the spirit and man. No. Through His Holy Spirit. Through God's Holy Spirit. That very essence of God. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. So, he's telling the brethren, you're going to understand things that even the great, powerful people of the world are going to go, uh-uh, how is that possible?

Unique? Absolutely. Why are you sanctified? You're set apart for a special purpose.

For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man? Right?

You understand how humans think?

You know in what it's talking about right here, that if we go outside and there's a lion, a couple of lions running around in the outside here, you know the spirit of man is going to tell us, I won't go out there.

We'll say, Stephen, you go first. Right? Yes.

See, that is not a lot of deep thinking there. That, I don't think we want to go out there because those lions will eat me.

So, what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God. That's why the Holy Spirit is so different. That's why it is the missing ingredient. You have the body, you have breath, and then you have what God wants you to have, the Holy Spirit, His Spirit. So that you will know the things of God. You will read this book and go, Oh, now, oh, yes. Now I understand that. And I read that book for 40 years. We had an actual man in Tennessee that God called him and he was 79 years age. And he started reading the book and he got baptized and he, I remember going up and talking to him, and he goes, Man, I've read that book a lot and fast and it just never made sense to me.

Now I understand the whole plan of God. I understand who God is, what man is, what his destiny is, why I'm here. I never knew I was here, why I was here. That's what these scriptures are telling us. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God. That we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with the spiritual.

We can figure out a lot of stuff now. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him. Nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. I was amazed when I saw the Christo when we first had... My father was first taught about Christmas with pagan. Well, I'm like 12. I'm going, well, that's a bummer. Because, hey, I was expecting to get something. And so my father set me down with this booklet about Christmas and pagan. He set me down and he read that to me.

And I never thought much more about it until later. Then I began to read it and it made sense. And then I just thought, man, my best friend's got to know about this. So I got them a couple of booklets and took it to them. And they should have been all excited about it. But they weren't. What's wrong with you? Are you nuts? And we will sometimes think, well, here we have this booklet on who is God. And you can read it and it breaks it down and gives you all these scriptures and fills in and helps you to understand and points you back to the Bible.

Anybody ought to get this, but you hand it to people. What? Okay. Don't need that anymore. This is what these verses are teaching us. That there are spiritual things that the world's not going to understand. And you can beat your head against the wall and you think, oh, my family! No. It takes the Spirit of God. And I realized that He was working with me way before He was working in me. Before I ever was baptized and received the Holy Spirit, I realized that God was working with me. And He was working with you.

Verse 15, But He who is spiritual judges all things, yet He Himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct Him? Do you know the mind of Christ? When you read this and Christ gives these sayings in here and teachings, and who can know the mind of Christ? Well, He tells you. The only way you can know the mind of Christ is because it says, But we have the mind of Christ.

That's what the Holy Spirit is. It is the mind of Christ. So we look at everything through a spiritual filter of the Holy Spirit. It's like it comes to us, and there's this filter that shapes it and turns us for us to understand what's in it for us and what's important. Which really brings out earlier we read John 6. Remember? 63. Well, as you go down, Jesus Christ is teaching there.

And now when you understand that it takes the Spirit of God to understand the spiritual things of God and His writings and everything there, is it coded? Yes, it is. Because it's so important, most people, unless God is really first in your life, and God is working with you, you're going to throw it to the side. You're going to set your mind on the things down here instead of up here that He mentioned twice in the Scripture. But three verses down, two verses down in John 6, this helps you to understand why He says, No one can come to the Father.

No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him. We're not going to understand. And most people do not want to understand because it's a total change of life. The first time telling your family or friends that you're not keeping Christmas, that you don't eat pork, that you don't do this stuff, and they look at you like you have four eyes, even if you're not wearing glasses. Right?

It's hard to understand, but for us, it's a way of life, isn't it? It's not a problem. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. There's a couple of verses here. 1 Corinthians 15. The resurrection chapter, read at every funeral that I've ever done. But here it tells this again. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 43 said, talking about the resurrection of the body, said, It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, and it is raised in power, talking about when someone of the faith dies.

It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so, it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being, spirit and man. And the last Adam became a life-giving or a spiritual man. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was made of the earth, made of dust, and the second is the Lord from heaven. Verse 49, And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.

It is a progression. This is where we need to end up. We start with dirt. We shall end in divine divinity. That's what God says. We will be like Christ. We will be divine. Christ addressed our subject that I covered here today over 1,980 years ago with a very difficult saying. I'd like you to turn to Matthew 10. It actually covers in two places because Luke covers it also. But in Matthew 10. I actually had someone bring this to me about a year ago. Matthew 10 and verse 28. Christ said, Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul or the spirit.

How can that be? That's what they ask. But he said, But rather fear him. Who is him? Jesus Christ. Fear him who is able to destroy both the soul or the spirit and the body. Because guess what? There's a resurrection coming. And at that time, that spirit that is left with God when you are resurrected back to physical life or spiritual body, if you're a follower of Christ, at his coming. There's a big time issue here. Luke covers it.

Let's go over to Luke. Luke 12. Luke 12. Luke 12 and verse 4. He said, But I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body. Right? And after that, have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear him who after he has killed, has power to cast into kahina. Yes, I say to you, fear him. Because of the resurrection. What is he talking about?

That's why he says, all shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ. All! Everyone! All who have ever died are going to come up. He's going to raise them up.

And they're going to stand in the judgment seat of Christ. He not only says it in 2 Corinthians 5.10, he says it in Romans 14 and verse 10. He says, All will stand. All! And you'll be given back the Spirit, and you'll be given the opportunity to know Christ. That's why it's a wonderful plan. Beautiful plan. But they will have the chance to reject. But you're also going to find out that this vain life of yours was just that. Vain.

And someone asked me, wait a minute. All! Does that mean we will too? Those who have followed Christ, wait a minute. We were changed at a moment in a twinkling of an eye. Will we come before the judgment seat of Christ? Absolutely. He covers that. He covers that. And why do we come before Him? We've already been judged.

He said, judgment is now upon the house of God because you have a Spirit. Why do we come? The Scriptures... Christ gave quite a few parables about it. You come for your reward. You are come before Him. Well done, good and faithful servant. And then He tells the parables, what's going to happen?

Take your cities. Take this. Where much is given, your crown.

Every knee shall bow. Every knee shall bow.

I'd like to turn to one last verse. But we quit here today, back in Job.

If I have brought up things today that you have questions on, good. That's what I want.

If you have things you need to think about and read about, good. That's what I want you to do.

I want you to think because we're talking about the deep things of God that you know.

One of the most important things I read from the New Living Translation.

In Job 12 and verse 10, it says, God is sovereign. Every living thing.

Body. Spirit.

This week, the sermon is focused on the body and the human spirit.

Next week, Larry Vicentez will be here from Arizona.

And he will be talking about the second part, the Holy Spirit.

So he will not be dwelling on the dirt and the breath. He will be dwelling on eternal life.

Romans 6.23 is a verse we should all know. You don't want to turn there. Wages of sin is death, right?

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

What a wonderful blessing!

Because as we started out with life begets life, it's important for us to know, and those who are sitting in this room, it's not just about life begetting life. For us, we must understand that only eternal life can beget eternal life.

That's our Father.