We Are Not Those People!
Posted on March 6, 2007
Filed Under Matt Clifton, Sermons
by Matt Clifton
The old joke is told of the day the preacher tried to fully impress upon the congregation the surety of the fact that death would come to each of them. “Each and every one of you in this congregation is going to die!” he boomed from the pulpit, pointing his finger from person to person. Out of the corner of his eye, the preacher noticed a man in the front row snickering. Puzzled, the preacher asked him what was so funny. “I’m just visiting!” the man replied. I suppose the visitor felt a tickle of humorous hope that death would not come upon him.
However, the truth is that death comes to all men, followed by a judgment (Heb. 9:27). For centuries, mankind has wondered and worried about what happens in the afterlife. Some non-believers throughout history have supposed that nothing happens.
In 1 Thess. 4:13-18, Paul spent some time reassuring Christians of the hope that we have for those who are “asleep in Christ:”
“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will be no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Christians, Paul says, are not to act like those in the world without hope! There are people in this world today who have no hope. There have always been people who have had no hope.
The Roman poet Catullus, himself a pagan who died about 50 years before Christ, believed like so many Gentile pagans that death was the end. He once wrote:
“The sun can set and rise again, / But once our brief light sets
There is one unending night to be slept through.”
In fact, although there were some pagan groups who believed in an afterlife, much of the pagan and Gentile world was swallowed up in the abyss that is Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus, who lived from 347 - 270 BC, was one of the most prominent philosophers of the gentile world. He influenced the pagan society greatly, and he taught that there was nothing outside the physical world that man should look forward to. The popular Epicurean saying was:
“Nothing to fear in God; / Nothing to feel in death;
Pleasure can be attained; / Pain can be endured.”
This philosophy affected much of the Gentile world at one time. Hope had so far eluded them. The Gentiles were a people without hope.
You might recall Paul’s words by the Holy Spirit to the Christians at Ephesus as he reminded them of their former state as pagans:
Ephesians 2:12: “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
But God had a plan to cure this hopelessness! From before the foundation of the world, God had a plan to bring the Gentiles to the light (Isa. 60:1-3). Now, Paul said, these people had been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:13).
Here in our subject text, when Paul speaks to the Thessalonians about “those without hope,” he is referring to some feelings they held in their former state of being, outside the body of Christ. Apparently there was still some “holdover” thoughts about the dead among those Thessalonians, who themselves were once without hope and separated from God. They still had not completely rid themselves of at least the fear that those who had died were just plain “dead all over.” They still had the nagging fear that there was nothing further after the grave.
And so they were tempted to feel a tainted sorrow for the dead. Not an honest, realistic sorrow over the fact that a precious soul has been removed from physical life, which we will not see again until our own parting. But rather they were tempted to feel a sorrow that was poisoned with the idea that there was now no hope for Christians who were “asleep,” even in Christ. That somehow God’s promise of eternal life through His Son could not extend into the grave! As if death were a barrier to God’s promises!
Epicureanism is still around
In our modern world, there is still the influence of Epicureanism. All around us, the world tries to sway us to think that the goal of life, the end result, is simply the grave, and nothing more.
British zoologist and proponent of atheism Richard Dawkins has said, “Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.”
Keith Cornish, former president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, said, “Scientific research confirms that humans are a link in the evolutionary life chain. There is no credible evidence for the existence of an immortal supernatural element. Our only life is here and now.”
And so the world tempts us to grieve like they would grieve. The world tempts us, when faced with the death of a loved one who is a Christian, to cry the tears of an atheist! To cry the bitter tears of one without hope and without God in the world!
But Paul gave the Thessalonians a good reason for not grieving in this way. He said in 1 Thess. 4:14 that if we believe in the plain, foundational fact of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, we can be assured that He will raise up those brothers and sisters who are asleep in Jesus!
Shrug off that pagan fear that death is the end, Paul says! You cannot have a belief in Christ, without a belief in the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:16-20)! And likewise, you cannot have a belief in a resurrection without a belief in Christ!
If there is no hope in life after death, Christians are indeed a pitiful lot, aren’t we? Second Tim. 3:12 says that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. If we labor to serve God with no hope of eternal life, we would certainly have to admit the appropriateness of burying our hopes in the ground with our loved ones!
But not so! As Christians, we do not stand over the graves of other Christians, weeping because we fear their lives have ended. Instead, we weep for those of us left behind without them. We weep like Christ wept, sorrowful for the family of Lazarus, and the sadness of the situation, John 11.
Death is planting a seed
It is awful hard to do sometimes, but we should view the death of a Christian the same way a farmer would a seed. Do you ever imagine a farmer putting a seed into the ground, filling in with soil, and then crying because the seed is no more? No! He will rejoice because that seed will be changed, and blossom into a new and glorious plant!
It is not exactly the same for human beings. We grow attached to one another. We love one another! So there will be grief over the loss of contact after a death. Even so, Paul tells us that our physical bodies are sown corruptible, but will be raised incorruptible, 1 Corinthians 15:42. In this way, Christians are like seeds that will bloom and flourish after the death of the seed!
Not only should we take heart for those who have fallen asleep in Christ, but we should also be in anxious anticipation for the future event of the resurrection of the dead! In full agreement with his statements in 1 Thess. 4:15-17, Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:50-53, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit corruption. Behold, I will tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
What a glorious future event! Paul finally tells the Thessalonians, “Therefore comfort one another with these words” in verse 18. Do not give in to those former philosophies of men that say there is nothing beyond the grave!
There are people today, just as in the past, who hold the pagan, Epicurean view that death is the end.
But we are not those people!
There are people who live their lives fulfilling their every fleshly desire, sure that they should “live fast, die young, leave a clean corpse.”
But we are not those people!
There are people that will lie upon their deathbed, breathing their dying breaths, with the expectation of nothing but non-existence.
But we are not those people!
As Christians, we know that when the curtain closes on our lives, and we face death, we will do so with our heads held high, with the confidence that Paul professed:
“So when this corruptible seed has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, “˜Death has been swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” - 1 Corinthians 15:54-55.
The victory is in our Lord Jesus Christ! What comfort!
What about you? Do you have a confidence that Christ is preparing a place for you (John 14:1-3)? Or will you have a place in punishment? Be assured of having a place among “a people with hope” by believing upon Jesus Christ as the Son of God (John 8:24), repenting of sin (Luke 13:3; Acts 26:20), confessing Jesus Christ publicly (Matt. 10:32-33), and being baptized into Christ for the remission of sins (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38). By God’s living and powerful word, may His richest blessings be yours.
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