Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Read Rom.14:7-12.
There is coming a day when we will not meet again as we are today. The clock will never tick again for us. Our tomorrow will be the beginning of eternity. Since removing the believer out of this life and taking him or her to heaven is the plan of God, the believer’s death is not a tragedy. The mature believer looks forward with great anticipation to what lies ahead for him or her. This positive growing believer, who’s time on earth has come to an end, has spent a great part of his or her life in the process of changing into the image of the one he or she is now about to meet.
I could have stopped teaching on the subject of the divine imputations at the last segment regarding dying grace, but there is so much more to follow that involves each one of us. I pray that you will never grow weary in learning the depth of your salvation for it involves all that God has planned for you. It is much more than your getting saved and your name on the role in heaven. It is much more than you performing a set standard of works. There is also a rewards ceremony awaiting the believer and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to miss out on what this entails. The number of messages we have covered is not relevant to the scope of the material we have in this important doctrine of the Bible.
I heard a man say that he could teach the book of Revelation in forty-five minutes. But I am afraid that all you would get would be a forty-minute understanding of a marvelous and captivating prophecy of things to come. People spend more time than that just learning how to make a salad on one of the food channels, or how to catch shrimp in the Louisiana Bayou.
For the mature believer the sting of death has long escaped his or her thoughts. Like going to the doctor’s office and seeing the needle when you were a child, it used to make you quiver just thinking about it, much less seeing it. But now you do not fear it. As Paul said in I Cor.15:55-57, the sting of death is sin, but for the believer the sin has been removed and so the victory over the grave has been won. These past worries and fears have become obsolete. The great overcoming victory which you have over them has already been won for you by Jesus Christ.
Paul said in Rom.8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor poverty, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, or depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
At the time of your death you may be physically bankrupt, and maybe even financially bankrupt, but if the Lord has come first in your life, your soul will be overflowing with treasures. Everyone leaves this life empty handed, but you don’t have to leave it empty souled. Leading up to that time your desire for the word far out weighs your desire for the world. The word of God has given you a taste for the heavenly bounty that awaits. And so, at the moment of death God takes your soul and human spirit out of your body and immediately transports you into His presence, II Cor.5:8. You will not be on earth stuck in your broken body. It has served its purpose of housing your immortal soul.
We have already studied the fact that your soul and human spirit will be ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, II Cor.5:8 and housed in an intermediate body. There will be no more tears, sorrow, or suffering any more. You will be recognizable and finally the eternal life which was imputed to you at the moment you received Jesus Christ in time, will become a living reality.
At the time of your passing and entrance into heaven you will not receive your resurrection body, as that will have to wait until the rapture of the Church when all Church Age believers will be gathered together at the close of the dispensation of the Church Age, I Cor.15:23, 51-53, I Thess. 4:13-17.
Great fellowship will be enjoyed with all the saints who have arrived in the after life. And you will have to wait along with Paul and Mary and any other New Testament believers before you get your rewards. But during that time, think of all the things you will experience, and all the wonderful people you will be surrounded by. Think of being in the presence of the Creator of all things, the Lamb of God.
When the time finally arrives and all of the New Testament saints are assembled then the words of Paul as found in II Cor.5:10 will come into session.
The issue at this judgment seat will not be your sins, but your sanctification. It will not be your position in Christ that comes into question, but your purity in Christ. It will not be your confession, but your consecration that will come into question.
Your sins have been removed from you, removed as far as the east is from the west. Ps.103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Isa.43:25 “I, even I, he who blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Micah 7:19 ... “and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea.”
In closing I ask you, have you been to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sin, and have you received him as your Lord and Savior. I trust that if you have not that you will do so today. Do not put off today what you must do to inherit eternal life. No one is guaranteed another day, much less another hour or minute of time.