I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION Part 3 – 10-26-14 - Pastor Chuck Bernal
QUESTION 1: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT DEATH & THE GRAVE? DO YOU GO TO HEAVEN THE MOMENT YOU DIE? WHAT IS THE “SLEEP” THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT? All of us born to women live only a few days and have lots of trouble. We grow up like flowers and then dry up and die. We are like a passing shadow that does not last. Will the dead live again? (Job 14:1-2, 14 – NCV) Death raises many questions: When will it happen? What will it be like? What is the soul's destiny? When the believer dies, the body goes into the grave; the soul and spirit go immediately to be with the Lord Jesus awaiting the body's resurrection, when they're joined together to be forever with the Lord in eternal bliss. (Chuck Swindoll)
Human beings were created by God to live _________________________________________ God has planted eternity in the hearts of men, even so, many cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11 – LB)
At the exact moment of death, we enter into _______________________________________ It is in the plan that all men die once. After that, they will stand before God and be judged. (Hebrews 9:27 – NLV)
When you die, you immediately go to one of two places - _________________ or ________ . . . even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing . . . and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 - NLT) Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise. (Luke 23:43 – ESV) He will punish those who do not know God and those who do not obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. They will be punished forever and taken away from the Lord and from the shining-greatness of His power. (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 NLV)
When we die as a Christian, our soul goes immediately to heaven, at the 2 nd coming of Christ, our __________________________ are raised and _________________________ I am telling you a secret. We will not all die, but we will all be changed. In a very short time, no longer than it takes for the eye to close and open, the Christians who have died will be raised. It will happen when the last horn sounds. The dead will be raised never to die again. Then the rest of us who are alive will be changed. Our human bodies made from dust must be changed into a body that cannot be destroyed. Our human bodies that can die must be changed into bodies that will never die. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53 – NLV)
The word “sleep” used in the Bible is simply a metaphor for physical _________________ Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 – NET) The reference to “sleep” in this passage is a metaphor for death which compares one thing (physical death) to another (sleep). It is used of believers because for us, death is somewhat like sleep. The use of the word “sleep” for death is used only of believes in the New Testament. The aim of this metaphor is to suggest what death is like and means to the believer, Sadly, many fear their souls will have to wait indefinitely for heaven. "Soul sleep"—the belief that the soul rests after death in an unconscious state, or ceases to exist, until the final resurrection—finds its roots in the common "sleeping" metaphor for bodily death. Although this metaphor appears in Scripture, a thorough study shows that the metaphor of sleep refers only to the earthly body's inanimate state after death, not to the soul. (Chuck Swindoll)
God loves every person on earth and wants all of us to go to _________________________ Now the Lord is not slow about enacting His promise—slow is how some people want to characterize it—no, He is not slow but patient and merciful to you, not wanting anyone to be destroyed, but wanting everyone to turn away from following his own path and to turn toward God’s. (2 Peter 3;9 – The Voice)