What Is Death…Really

I’m a Christian. I go to church and pray. I read my Bible and talk about God. Just like many other Christians, I go through the motions. I call myself “saved”. Many of you may also be saved, and some may not even know what that means. Before we talk about this scary thing called death, this evening I would like to spend a few minutes on what makes a person truly “saved ”.

The Bible explains clearly what it means to be “saved”  Below are a few key references.

Romans 10:9
”That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. “

Romans 10:13
”For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Ephesians 2:8-9
”For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Let’s take a deeper look at these 3 references. Romans 10:9 gives us the 2 requirements for being saved. The first is to confess with your mouth. You see, we cannot be saved until we realize we can not make it to heaven on our own. The Bible tells us in Romans 3:10 that “there is none righteous”. Righteous is just a simple word for perfect. There is no person alive on this earth who is perfect. Sure, some people may be very, very good. I guarantee there are some people on earth that we may truly struggle to find something wrong they have done. The honest truth is that according to Romans 3:23, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. A sin is simply anything we do which violates God’s perfect law. The biggies like murder, rape, infidelity are obvious; but the Bible tells us it is also a sin to have something as seemingly innocent as an inappropriate thought about someone. There is simply no denying the fact that we are all sinners. The object lesson God gives us is that our very, very best deeds. The things we go through life being proud of achieving, are no better than “filthy rags” when viewed through the prism of God’s holiness.(Isaiah 64:6) If we stop right here, we’re out of luck. No one is good enough to go to heaven, and we all might as well eat drink and be merry….right?

Jesus paid the price for our sins. We have a sin debt that we could never pay back. Because God is perfect, He would never allow us into heaven on our own. Fortunately He sent His son Jesus to pay the price. In John 3:16, the Bible explains it clearly- “For God so loved the world (YOU), that He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus), that whosoever (anyone) believeth in Him should not perish (go to hell), but have everlasting life (in Heaven). The death Jesus experienced was horrible. The agony He experienced as He was whipped raw, beaten, and then nailed to a wooden cross where He hung suffering for hours,  is almost unimaginable to us these days. The amazing thing is that He went through all that pain for YOU, and for ME!!! In addition to the horrible suffering of the cross, Jesus also took on all of the sin from every man and woman who died previously and who would ever live in the future. That blood that He willingly shed was enough to completely cover up our sins. Imagine how hard it must have been for that perfect, sinless sacrifice of Jesus to have His father God turn His back on Him because of our sins. We have much to be grateful for. When Jesus finally reached the end and shouted, “It is finished”, He completed that inconceivably large payment for our sins.

Did Jesus just pay the price and die? No, just like part two of what is takes to be saved, we must believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead 3 days after He died. This was witnessed by many and is a vital part of God’s plan of salvation for our lives. God demonstrated His love and power and mercy by raising up His Son Christ Jesus. He promises to do the same for us some day. He has promised to come again some day and the dead who know the Lord will be raised up and taken to meet the Lord in the air.(I Thes 4:17)  

Recap:
So there are two things we do to be saved, we confess our sins to the Lord trusting that His sacrifice was the only thing that could ever pay the price for our sin, and then we believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. There is no voodoo or special chant. There are no good deeds or other things you can do. It’s just the act of accepting that free gift. If you’ve never put your trust in Jesus as your savior, why not pray this simple prayer:

Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I know that apart from you, I deserve to go to hell, but you died and rose again to pay that price. I accept your free gift of salvation and trust you to take me to heaven when I die. Thank you for paying the price for me. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

If you prayed that prayer, then please let me know so that I can rejoice with you and help you find a good church where you can learn more about the Lord. Reach me at kc9edn(at)gmail.com

If you’re still reading, then you might be asking yourself the question, “why didn’t he answer his original question?”. What is death…really? Well, first I wanted to explain how to have eternal life, and then we can talk about what eternal death really it. This isn’t a fairytale. If you aren’t convinced you need Jesus, or perhaps you have become complacent in your salvation, then you will most definitely want to read part II of this post.

Part II – What Is Death… Really?

The Eternal Nature of God

Ok, so I was listening to an apologetics lesson on the eternal nature of God tonight on my loooong drive home from Michigan. The speaker was explaining that God operates outside of time and space and is therefore not affected by either. God created time and space, what we call the "time space continuum".

Now as I understand it, Einstein taught us that light and time are related, or simply stated, the presence of light indicates the passage of time. This makes sense to me for several reasons. We measure the passing of a day by the rising and setting of our great light, the sun. We measure objects in space by the light, and color of light, that they emit. It has been hypothesized that if an object could be accelerated faster than the speed of light, it would travel backwards in time.

Now, imagine a universe with no light. I mean nothing but pure, utter, unadulterated darkness. How would we measure time? There would be no day and night, no heaven and earth, no anything without the presence of light in our lives. The Bible tells us in John 1:7 that John gave a witness of "...the Light, that all men through Him might believe." It is interesting that God is often referred to as the "Light" in the Bible. The greek work used was "Phos", which literally means "to shine by rays". Given this information one can only conclude that God is the one and only, true and unquestionable, source of all light.

I believe God created the heaven and the earth. This means the sun, stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae, etc, etc, were all initiated by God. Continuing this though process one could deduce that if God = Light and Light = Time, then logically one would make the jump that    God = Time and therefore God is eternal because He exists outside the linear boundaries of Time.

Something great about true science is that even secular scientists frequently prove there is a God while shooting for something completely different. For Einstein, rather than calling the beginning of the universe "creation", he assigned it to the "universal constant". Scientists are still looking for the "God Particle", also called Higgs Boson, that creates matter from nothing. This is the only "particle" that has never been observed.

In conclusion I encourage you today to stop and consider that everything about the world we live in points to a creator who has told us that even though He made our whole universe, He still has time to listen to and answer our simple prayers.

President Obama?…What Were You Thinking!

The Tax Man Cometh

I hope and pray that I am wrong, but as I watched Mr. Obama take the oath of office today, it felt as though the remainder of my American liberty was slipping through my fingers. Of course, you accuse me of being a racist for the previous statement, and the truth of the matter is that you are dead wrong. What is more racist, someone who criticizes a person because of the content of his character or someone who overlooks obvious massive character flaws because of the color of a person’s skin?

Today was a historic day on two accounts. Yes, America has elected the first partially Black President. Far more historic in the minds of intellectually honest citizens is the fact that America has elected the first obviously, if not outspokenly, socialist President in our nearly 233 year history. You should know that I am a middle class American clinging to my guns and religion because somehow that is an important bit of information, but I digress…

Today President Obama’s inauguration was more of a coronation than anything else. According to Valarie Jarrett of Obama’s transition team, he is expecting to “take power and rule from day one”. The Constitution, or what we have left of it, intentionally limits the scope and power of the President. Article II Section 2 covers most of his power and it is only 3 sentences. The true power of the President lies in the veto pen. Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi and her clan will have free reign to indenture this and all future generations to a life of servitude in paying for the excesses of the Congress. If we see any veto’s during Obama’s reign, it will not be because he disagrees with a bill, but because he feels it does not tax or spend enough. This is not hearsay. Listen to my warning. President Obama’s number one priority is giving away the sovereignty of the United States of America to the world. America will soon be part of the international community and subject to assist every other nation of the world by whatever means he deems necessary. In fact, according to news reports today, his first order of business will be to pass a law providing funding for abortions to women in foreign nations. Technically he will be repealing a long standing policy; however, this will open the floodgates for yet another opportunity for our leader to give away America.

Where does the President find the resources to fund his ambitious plans? Before we answer that question, let’s ask another-  How much is this going to cost us? The answer is like licking a tootsie pop. He has so many layers of spending planned, one cannot truly fathom the depth of his desired spending. Let us look at the well publicized fact:

• $65 billion a year health plan. This is to cover 45 million Americans who have no health insurance (many by choice). In case you’re wondering how efficient that will be it breaks down to about $1,400 a year per person. I know my health insurance costs about $6000 a year. This would make the intellectually honest person consider how effective healthcare system could be running on 67% less than patients who pay for their healthcare on the “free” market.
• $15 billion a year in “Green Energy” Just answer one question. Since when has legislating progress actually produced progress? Obama has publicly stated that he intends to ensure that the coal industry is legislated out of business. By killing an entire industry he will be putting millions of hard working Americans out of work, single handedly and irreversibly destroying the economy. Spending $15 billion to make up for such a change would not even be a drop in the bucket. That $15 billion could be utilized to incentivize those who have the talent and ability to develop practical, affordable, sustainable alternative energy sources.
• $25 billion a year in foreign aid increases. Of course, the economy means nothing compared to our standing in the global community. What makes us look good? Well, I know I’d like you if you wrote me check to support my screwed up government whenever I asked for it.
• $18 billion a year increased education spending. In 2006 there were 49.8 million students enrolled in grades 1-12. The total taxpayer contributions to the public education system was 521 billion in 2006. Once again, the math says Americans are spending roughly $10,461 per student in the public school system. I understand education is expensive, but that is a lot of money. Students should be held to expectations or be relinquished to “second option” Schools. With the President’s increase, students will now be blessed with  $10,823/yr in free education. Maybe the answer to improving the quality of our future generations of taxpaying citizens is to teach them some accounting based on the cost of their education.

--Total spending for only 4 of many programs… $123 billion per year, or an increase of about $1,366 per year for each of those roughly 90 millions American who actually have to pay taxes!!!

Still don’t feel your freedom slipping away? Socialism looks at capital (your money) as a social force and seeks to control it as a means to control the people (you). In addition to spending increases, President Obama plans to increase social security taxes to pay for the dysfunctional and  insolvent program to continue in perpetuity. He also plans to raise payroll taxes to help fund his social programs. He also plans to raise the corporate tax. Wait! That won’t affect me…right? Wrong! Corporations do not really pay taxes, they pass the excesses of government on in the selling price of their product. This in a nut shell means that we will be paying even more for every single thing we buy. Don’t forget the carbon taxes, transportation taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, state income taxes, luxury taxes, inheritance taxes, gift taxes, medicare taxes, and the many, many other taxes that escape me. Oh, don’t forget our leader Obama wants to tax our 401k funding. 401k, you know, the little account you use to squirrel away money because you already know that the money the government steals from you for social security will never make it full circle back into your pocket.

Now say it with me, “What was I thinking?” “Obama is a socialist who wants to take away my freedom”. Feel better now? I know I do.