PRESENTER'S NOTES
A couple of weeks ago, believing it was going to be my last opportunity to teach before the fall Holy Days, I gave to you a revised version of a sermonette I gave last year at the Feast of Tabernacles.
What I tried to summarize is the fact that, 1. our lives right now reflect God’s salvation plan for man, and, 2. our experience diverges for a time from the experience that the rest of mankind will have.
Turn to…
I Corinthians 15:50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
How would you feel, if you only knew that truth in addition to the truth that God's way is the only way?
I Corinthians 15:19 If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Psalm 146:3 Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.
KJV "thoughts perish"
Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before…
7 …the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
7307 ruwach roo'-akh from 7306; wind; by resemblance breath, i.e. a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; figuratively, life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extension, a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (including its expression and functions):--air, anger, blast, breath, X cool, courage, mind, X quarter, X side, spirit((-ual)), tempest, X vain, ((whirl-))wind(-y). see HEBREW for 07306
Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
5590 psuche psoo-khay' from 5594; breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from 4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from 2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew 5315, 7307 and 2416):--heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you. see GREEK for 5594 see GREEK for 4151 see GREEK for 2222 see HEBREW for 05315 see HEBREW for 07307 see HEBREW for 02416
Romans 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
We learn from these scriptures that flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and that when we take our last breath we die, having no thoughts or activities. So, making a bit of a leap here, to become saved from death we have to somehow not be dead anymore. The word for that is resurrection, which comes from a word in the Greek:
386 anastasis an-as'-tas-is from 450; a standing up again, i.e. (literally) a resurrection from death (individual, genitive case or by implication, (its author)), or (figuratively) a (moral) recovery (of spiritual truth):--raised to life again, resurrection, rise from the dead, that should rise, rising again. see GREEK for 450
and is first used in John 5...
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
And on another occasion, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, presented a puzzle of a question to Jesus about marriage and how might that apply in the resurrection, which Jesus summarily answers.
Luke 20:34 And Jesus said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage,
35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,
36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
In Matthew 22, telling the same story it reads, “they are as the angels of God.”
37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.
Hebrews 16:16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Luke 14:12 He said also to the man who had invited him, When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.
13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.
John 11:24 Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.
25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?
27 She said to him, Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.
39 Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.
40 Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?
41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.
43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him, and let him go.
In the Old Testament, words that would mean, "resurrection", are not used, though the messianic prophecies infer it and some other scriptures do, too. The first mention of it in the Gospels is from the mouth of our Lord, Jesus, but he was not introducing a new concept. Members of the Jewish community believed in a resurrection, for instance, the Pharisees.
But, even with the concept made into a clear reality, except for some examples, as with Lazarus, for the resurrection to physical life, we have no example of resurrection from physical to spiritual life until the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But, even before He was sacrificed, He assured Martha in John 11 that He was the resurrection and the life, and though one who believes in Him might die, that person shall live.
Here, on the Feast of Trumpets, God’s elect have the hope of the resurrection.
Philippians 3:7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9 We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
I Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
20 because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Analogy to conception and life in the womb. Not an unthinking life based only on mechanical construction. Learning the way of God and obeying. In a sense, the Spirit of God being the conduit for His nutrition, and us consuming it.
Revelation 10:5 And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven
6 and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay,
7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.
The very first scripture, today, was in I Corinthians 15:50. Now, I would for us to turn back to that chapter and continue reading…
I Corinthians 15: 50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
Revelation 20:4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
