Seeking for the help of the Lord
I direct your prayer for attention to our reading Ecclesiastes chapter
3 and reading for our text just the first part of verse 2. A time to be born and a time
to die. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and first
part of verse 2. I'll read the verse 1 and then
verse 2. To everything there is a season
and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be born
and a time to die. And we then read right through
to verse 8 where there are various things that are mentioned of
a time to take place, but the one that heads the list is the
time to be born and a time to die. And dear friends, we may,
I believe, rightly say that all, whether they are a believer or
unbeliever, atheist or humanist or whatever name they may come
under, would not dispute the words here, that for man, there
is a time that he is born, and there is a time that he dies. The fact of that, the reality
of that, each one of us that is alive at this present time,
we have been born. And every one of us that are
alive at this time one day, We must die. It is a fact that whatever
your persuasions and whatever your theories might be, it is
a fact that cannot be disputed. The actual teaching regarding
the timing and who has control of that timing there'll be many different thoughts
on that. What it is to actually be born
and what is involved in that birth, again, the scriptures
have much to speak of on that. What is involved in death, again,
many will have very different thoughts Scripture is very clear
on that as well. Revealed in the Word of God we
may say that there are three things by way of introduction. An unsaved person shall be born
once and they shall die twice. A saved person shall be born
twice and they also shall die twice, but their deaths are different
than the deaths of the unsaved. Our Lord Jesus Christ was born
once and died once. And so looking at this word this
morning, a time to be born and a time to die, we hope to speak
further on those three introductory statements. I want then to look
with the Lord's help firstly on timing, our text says a time
to be born and a time to die, I want to look first on the timing, secondly a time to be born, looking
at those statements we made at the beginning, the births that
are referred to there. And then thirdly, a time to die. The deaths that we mentioned
at the beginning. What deaths are they? What is
the difference between them? The unbeliever, the believer,
the death of the Lord. And we hope we will see that
the simple statement of our text that can be disused by none. When we look at it in the light
of scripture, there is a great depth to it, and that which is
to profoundly affect each one of us as we come under this word,
a time to be born and a time to die. Firstly I want to look
at the time. Who is it that governs when we
are born and when we die? There are those that will say
well this is just by chance, there is no governor, there is
no director of it at all. The Holy Scriptures, they make
it very clear that it is God that gives life and God that
takes away that life. The Apostle Paul speaking to
those at Athens who worship many gods and even had an altar to
the ungoing God to just make sure they covered all of the
gods. Paul, he declared to them that
God that they ignorantly worshipped and he set him before them as
he in whom we live and move and have our being. Well our life
has a beginning and it has an end and it is God that brings
about each. We read again and again in the
Word of God The Lord gave her conception. Life begins at conception. And then there is a bringing
forth into this world, a being born into this world. And that time is appointed and
set by God. It also indicates this, that
those that are born into this world, that the Lord already
has knowledge of them before they are born, before they are
sent forth into the world. It's quite remarkable that in
the cases of David we have the Lord saying and prophesying of
a child that shall be born to him Solomon by name. before he
was born, before he was even conceived or known. Our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman that should
bruise the serpent's head, was foretold 4,000 years before he
was born, before King Cyrus was born. He was mentioned in the
prophecy of Isaiah and that it should be by his decree that
the children of Israel that were in Babylon captivity at that
time would be released and brought back to their own land. They
are characters that are already named, already known by God,
hundreds of years, thousands of years before they ever had
an existence or birth in this world. And yet the time of their
coming into this world was appointed by God. Never before that time and never
afterwards. It was a time that God saw fit
to bring them into this world. Regarding God's children, it
is said that they are chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world they belong to God the Father the Lord says thine
they were and thou gavest them me and each one then is born
into this world in their day and in their generation at the
appointed time. God is the great orderer of time
and in many ways it is by timing that he is seen, though he is
unseen himself as a spirit. We think of the book of Esther,
and the Jews in the time of King Ahasuerus, and how that Haman
sought to destroy the Jews at that time, and how God delivered
the Jews and saved them. And throughout the book of Esther,
you do not read the name of God. But you do read of God's works,
and you do read of His timing, and a critical timing again and
again throughout that book. And there's many of us, as we
look through our lives, we can see how important timing is,
how important just a little adjustment is. You know, when I was in engineering
design, we used to design conveyors for glass bottles in the manufacturing
plants. And I often used to love to watch
the great big machines that were blowing the bottles and making
them, forming them five bottles at a time in eight positions. As this molten glass was formed
and formed into these glasses, you'd see along these conveyors,
waiting to join the main conveyor line going out to the packing
line, you'd see four bottles or five bottles, depending on
the size of the machine, and they'd be sitting on this conveyor,
and it'd be rocking a bit to and fro, and suddenly it'd start
up and it'd throw those four bottles into the main conveyor
line, into a slot that was just enough space for them. And this
would be happening all the time. And it wasn't by chance, it was
all timed by cams and mechanical links, but it all worked perfectly. And you think of the engines
of our cars, If anyone was to explain that they had an idea
of a design, that there should be an engine that had a cylinder
and a piston in it, and that it would go down and this valve
would open and draw in a mixture of petrol and air, And then the
valve would close, and the piston would come up, and it would compress
that mixture. And when it got to the top, then
a spark would happen just at the right time, and it would
explode, and it would push that down, powering the engine. And then another valve would
open, and the cylinder piston would come up, and it would blow
out all of those exhaust gases again. And then when those spent
gases were gone, that valve would close, and then other valve would
open, and down it would come, and bring in a fresh mixture
of fuel. And this would happen 5,000 times
a minute, or even 10,000 times a minute. And you look at that
person, you'd laugh at them. You couldn't time all of that
happening like that. But man, in the wisdom given
to him, has made machines that we use every day that rely on
split-second timing. And God's work, it relies on
that timing exactly. Our preserving from death. My
own brother spoke to me last night, saw an accident in Tasmania. They'd had a car pass them, And
then, a little while later down the road, they came across a
terrible accident, and all the people in that car had been killed. And they found out that it had
happened that a solar panel had flown off the caravan of a car
coming the other way, and gone into the path of that car. That
car had sought to swerve to avoid him, and then heard a car coming
in the other direction. And my brother made the observation,
if we had just been a minute or so further down the road,
that could have been us. And there's many times I've been
driving on the road, and I've seen things that have happened.
I've seen cars overtake another car just before a bend. And I've
seen the car that's coming the other way, and I mentally thought,
Driver, you do not know, but if you'd have been just a few
seconds further on on that road, you would have hit that car that
was on your side of the road on that blind bend, and you didn't
even know that you'd been preserved, that that car had tucked in just
before you came around that bend. And how many times do we not
know how close we have been to death? Those timings are not
by chance, they are in the Lord's hand. We sung in our hymn, not
a single shaft can hit till the God of love sees fit. There is a time to be born and
a time to die, and that time is in God's hand. And for a believer,
that is a great comfort. It is knowing who the Lord is, knowing of his love and mercy
and kindness and be able to trust him with their lives. We take all reasonable care and
protection and in the pandemic and in all the things that we
do that we know that when that appointed time comes then we
must die and we know also that for those that are seeking a
family and children, that it is the Lord that gives that.
We think of the case where in the scriptures, Jacob had two
wives. They were both sisters, Leah
and Rachel. Leah was the elder, Rachel was
the younger. Rachel was the one that Jacob
loved and wanted to marry, but was deceived by the girl's father,
Laban, who then gave Leah fast. And when God saw that Leah was
hated and Rachel was loved, then he shut up Rachel's womb and
opened Leah's womb. And Leah had four children before
Rachel had any. And Rachel said to Jacob, give
me children or I die. And Jacob was angry with her,
he said, am I in God's debt to give life or to withhold it? It wasn't in Jacob's hand, it
was in God's. And later on, God did open Rachel's
wound and did give her two children, Joseph and Benjamin. But the
timing is of God. And May we be able to view that,
watch God's timing in all that happens in our lives, all of
the adjustments that he makes. I know I've referred to this
before in my own life, when we went to Australia and I started
school there, and then we moved schools when I was six years
of age, and Because I was so close in age to my brother in
the new school, we would have both been in the same class. I should have been in year two,
he should have been in year one. It was a composite class of year
one and two. But because we were brothers,
the school thought, well, they're brothers, they can't be in the
same class. They put me in grade three. And
halfway through the year, they found out and they realized that
I'd skipped a year. They said, well, he's doing all
right, we'll leave him there. Well, that adjustment in that
early part of my life has affected the timing of my whole life. Again and again, things that
have happened. If there had been a year back,
if I hadn't have had that year, it wouldn't have happened right
away, and I believe it will continue to happen right away. through
my life, things that were vital, especially in obtaining employment,
when I did my apprenticeship, when I actually got the jobs
that I did, when I was called by grace and what stage in my
employment I was at, able to buy my own home, when we emigrated
over here, and the timing of exchange rates and the house
prices, everything all tied in to that little adjustment. How
vital that that was, that adjustment in timing. A time to be born
and a time to die. So dear friends, maybe watch
God's timing. Maybe watch things in our own
life. Maybe marvel at it, maybe see
an overall hand that is governing and directing it, and in seeing
and believing, may we have the comfort and assurance that God
is in control, not us, not chance, not the devil, not the fortune,
not government. God is in control. Our times
are in his hand. But secondly, I want to look
at the time to be born, a time to be born. And under this, heading on to
look at three points. Firstly, man's first birth. Man is born into this world as
possessing a soul and a body. This is mentioned later on in
the chapter that we read, the difference between a man and
a beast, who knoweth the spirit of man, in verse 21, that goeth
upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to
the earth. Man has a soul. A man is born with a body that
is of dust, that returns to the dust exactly the same as a beast. It is an earthly body. But he
differs in that he has a soul that is an immortal soul, that
is a soul that will exist forever and forever. It is made in the
image of God, who is the eternal God, who never had a beginning
or ever will have an end. And man is made in that image.
And so when man is born, he is born body and soul. When he is born he is also born
because we are fallen in the fall, we are born spiritually
dead already. Adam was born so that he could
have communion and fellowship with God, he could know God,
he could enjoy God, he was spiritually alive. But when he disobeyed
the Lord's command, when the sentence of death fell upon him,
then the effect of that was that he died spiritually. So when
we are born into this world, every man, woman, and child,
everyone that is born, when they are born, they are born in sin
and shape and in iniquity. They are already dead spiritually. They cannot know God. alienated
from God through wicked works, and the natural man, we are told,
cannot, cannot understand the things of God, cannot receive
them. They are spiritually discerned. We need to understand and realize
that, that we are dead in trespasses and sins. Also, when we are born, we are
under the sentence of death for the body. We mentioned right
at the beginning that no one would dispute the fact that those
that are living now, that we must die. We must needs die. And we are under that sentence. God said to Adam, in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the death
spiritu was instantly, but the death of the body was put off. It was, in Adam's case, to be
hundreds of years later, and then reduced as the years went
by. So now in our day, that the years
of man are threescore years and 10, and if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years, then is their day labor and sorrow. There is the sentence that shall
be carried out is like a person that is on death row. They are
not dead yet, but they know that they will die. They are under
that sentence and all they are doing is waiting for that time
to come when they shall die. So when we are born, we are already
under that sentence as soon as we are born, which means also
that we are under a law, God's law, God's law that is broken
and God's law that demands justice, that where there is sin, where
there is transgression, that that sentence must be carried
out. We are born under that. We're also born under the wrath
of God. Paul when he writes to the Ephesians
he includes the believers and he says that we also were children
of wrath even as others. We are born under the wrath of
God, under condemnation. So man's first birth is a very
solemn birth, coming into this world as one already spiritually
dead and under the sentence of death. And yet we're born into
this world, and some of the Lord's dear people seem so overwhelmed
by the solemnity of a child or grandchild or great-grandchild
born into this world, into the solemn world that they are born
into and what they are born under, that they lose the fact that
to be saved, to be blessed, to enjoy God forever, to be with
Him forever in heaven, we must first be born into this world. Every one of God's children are
born into this world, or conceived. Some, of course, die in the womb,
murdered in the womb, but we believe that all that gives life,
that soul exists in the womb. John the Baptist, when he was
in the womb and his mother Elizabeth met Mary, the mother of our Lord,
at the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in the womb. We have
that evidence of the the life and the reaction there in the
womb. So man then has a first birth. Remember what we said of a unsaved
person shall be born, but once. So that description
of a time to be born is a description of an unsaved person, a saved
person we said was born twice, that also is a description of
the first birth of a saved person. But what about the Saviour's
birth? That is the second one I want
to consider. We said of the Savior that our
Lord was born once and that he died once. We've just mentioned
the first birth of man. What about the Lord's birth that
was a birth once? How different to our birth? With our birth, apart from in
the mind and purpose of God, it is our first existence. With our Lord, He is the eternal
Son of God. He already existed from eternity,
and His birth was a coming into this world, being made flesh
and dwelt among us, Emmanuel, God with us. He is the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and of truth. So his birth was
an entrance into this world from heaven. He was in heaven, he
spoke of the time that he had with his Father before the world
was. We read in the very beginning
of the Word of God that God said, let us make man. in our own image,
that is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, speaking
as together, three persons, yet one God, the Trinity, a mystery, but yet a reality taught in the
word of God, and our Lord then became flesh and dwelt among
us. When he was born, he was not
born in sin. He was born as sinless, as spotless,
as perfect, not partaking of Adam's sin. And the reason was
that though he was born of a woman and made under the law, he was
the proper seed of the woman, yet not through the man, because
it was the Holy Ghost that overshadowed Mary Wherefore that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And
it's vital for us to understand that there's a difference in
his birth in that he was not sinful, he was sinless, he was
pure. And his whole life proved that. He was tested in the temptations
of Satan and by the contradictions of men. And especially it was
seen in his resurrection from the dead, that death had no power
over him. And so with the Savior's birth,
there is that vital difference that he was not born a sinner.
He was born with a body and with a soul. He was not made like
unto a beast, which a beast just has a body and no soul. He is
not made like the angels, which only have a spirit and no body,
but he is made as the seed of Abraham, which is body and soul. And his coming into this world
was to redeem his people, to set them free, to come where
they are, to be a near kinsman, to be one that was qualified
to offer an offering in their place, and to redeem his people. And so he had to, as to redeem
their soul and their body, be possessed of both of those, and
that was right from the beginning. The whole life of the Lord Jesus
Christ was to be a life that was to be given to his people,
put on their account. Our lives are one never-ending,
or it is an ending, but from beginning of our life to the
end of our life, a catalogue of sin and transgression of the
law of God. There's no man that doeth good
and sinneth not. But the Lord Jesus Christ, his
whole life was good. No sin. And so the reason why
he came was to give a righteousness, to give a life to the people
of God that believe on his name, and then to offer that life as
a sacrifice. Our Lord was not born like we
are under the sentence of death, that we must die. The Lord had
no cause of death in him. Pilate, he said very clearly,
I find no cause of death in him. And though he is the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world in the purposes of God, the Lord
said, no man taketh my life from me. I have power to lay it down,
I have power to take it again, this commandment have I received
from my Father." So he was capable of death by voluntary act, but
he did not have to die because of his sin and because of being
under the sentence of death. Though he was under the law,
the law did not have power over him because he was not a sinner. You and I, we are under the law
when we go out in our cars of this land and we go on the roads
and we're under the law. If we obey the law, then the
law has no power over us. The police can't send us off
to prison or take away our license or fine us if we keep within
the law, though we are under the law. But if we transgress
that law, then the police have the authorities of that law to
deal with us, whether to fine us, take away our license, or
imprison us, or whatever. And so our Lord, though he was
under the law, the law had no power over him because he had
not transgressed it, he had not sinned, he was sinless. So the Saviour's birth, the one
birth, was very different than ours in many respects. The importance
in that it is the same is that he was a real man. He was truly
born into this world. He had a real body, a real soul,
that he really walked this earth as truly man and truly God. Not two different persons, but
one person with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature. The third birth, a time to be
born, is the second birth of a believer. What is that birth? The second birth is a spiritual
birth. It is the birth that our Lord
speaks of in John 3, where Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, came to
him. And the Lord said to him, verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Many people will have heard about
born again Christians, about being born again. But there are
many that would not know what it actually means to be born
again. Our Lord was clear that it is
to be born of the Spirit. It is to be quickened into spiritual
life. The Lord visiting a person and
giving them eternal life. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hands. At the time of that
birth, they are given to be able to understand and know spiritual
things. They are given to have spiritual
eyes, given faith. He is the author and finisher
of faith. Faith is given at that time.
They're given spiritual eyes, spiritual ears. They're given
a new heart, a new nature, They're made teachable, they're made
to be a people that have been brought out of nature's darkness
and into God's marvellous light. The Lord uses many means for
this, primarily the Word of God. Through the reading of the Word,
through the preaching of the Word of God, he quickens a soul
into life, though it is not always in that means, other means that
Lord can use. But as John Newton said, that
once he was dead, but then he lives, once he was blind. Now
I see John speaks of the the record there
in John 3 of our Lord so insistent that there be a new birth, and
certainly the Apostle Paul would say, that is what happened to
me on the Damascus Road. Once I was a unbeliever, once
I hated the Lord Jesus Christ, I persecuted his people, But
on that Damascus road, the Lord revealed himself to me and changed
me and brought me to believe and to trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is the vital thing that must
happen to all that are saved. They must be made spiritually
alive. They must have a second birth. Without that, There shall never
be eternal life. There shall be a second death
which is very different than that of those that are saved. Many of the Lord's dear people
cannot see a very distinct time in their lives when they had
the new birth. But looking over a period of
time, they very often are able to say, I am not now what I once
was. Many of them have known that
that time of the new birth has changed how they view the Word
of God, how they view the sacred hymns and psalms that are sung,
how they view the people of God, how they attend the means of
grace, the chapels and churches, how they listen to the sermons
and listen to the word. Now they are spiritually alive,
they need to be fed, they look to the Lord for direction. The
Lord Jesus Christ is their life. Their life is different. You
and I may not, and no doubt, Now none of us remember actually
our birth. We're told about it literally,
our literal birth. Our parents could tell us about
it. But we know that we're alive
by what we are now. And so God's children that are
born again, the greatest witness and evidence is what they are
now. I am not now. what I once was, I now am spiritually
alive. I want to look then thirdly at
a time to die, a time to die. Remember that we said at the
beginning that an unsaved person, they are to die twice, but then
also A saved person is to as well, but our Lord is only to
die once. The two deaths of an unbeliever. There is firstly the literal
death, the death that all men are aware of, when the body that
we live in, the soul lives in, returns to the dust and returns
to the ground. Dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return. That is the first death of an
unbeliever. But then there is a second death
that is spoken of and Primarily it's spoken of most solemnly
in the book of the Revelation. And we have this said. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh
shall not be hurt of the second death. And then later on, in
the 20th chapter of the Revelation, we have the blessing of those
that obtain a first resurrection, that live with Christ and reign
a thousand years, which I believe points unto the new birth, the
quickening, resurrected from spiritual death to spiritual
life to live again. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection, the new birth. On such the second
death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. Then we have the end there. And
death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the
second death. And whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Read in Revelation 21 and verse
8. But the fearful, and unbelieving,
and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers,
and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the
lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second
death. And we read then that after the
death of the body there is then a resurrection, another body,
an eternal body is given to an unbeliever, but then they are
banished to eternal death, to being where our Lord says, in
a place of fire, of eternal torment. We have our Lord speaking in
Luke 16, of the solemn case, it was a parable, of Lazarus
and the rich man. And he says in verse 22, Luke
16, And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried
by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died
and was buried. And in hell he lifted up his
eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus
in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father
Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented
in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember
that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things and likewise
Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and thou art
tormented. He's not teaching that the rich
they go to hell and the poor they go to heaven, but he is
teaching that those that are saved look for their comforts
eternally and not in this life. And that rich man, he then said
in that parable, to send back to his brethren, lest they come
into that place of torment. And he thought that if Lazarus
was sent to him, then they would believe if one rose from the
dead, but Abraham said, if they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
Of course, our Lord was to rise from the dead, but many did not
believe, even though He did rise from the dead. We have the Word
of God that is sufficient for God to bless and to save. So the two deaths of an unbeliever
is the death of the body, But then after death the judgment,
an eternal death, where it is constant dying but no relief,
and no release from it, a most solemn, solemn prospect for an
unbeliever. The two deaths of a believer,
what are they? The first one is actually before
the death of the body. The Apostle Paul speaks of that. He says, I was alive without
the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. It is what is set forth in the
ordinance of believers baptism, buried with him that is buried
with Christ in baptism and risen again in newness of life. By nature we think that we are
alive, we do not know that we are dead. But when God gives
the new birth and he brings us under the law of God, he shows
us that we are dead. By the law is the knowledge of
sin, the soul that sinneth it shall die. And so the first death
of a believer is when they first realize that they are dead in
sin, when they first realize that they are under the sentence
of death, when they first realize their need, when they first realize
that all their own good works will never obtain heaven for
them. And it is as the apostle then
said, when sin revived and I died, died to hope in self, And we
may say that none are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, none are
truly saved who are not first lost. And none are truly raised
to eternal life who, in their own feelings, were not first
made to be dead and to feel that they are dead. The Apostle testified
that he says that I am dead, but my life is head with Christ
in God. The Lord says, because I live,
ye shall live also. And the life of the people of
God is bound up with the Lord. And that is signified in baptism,
buried with him, dead to self, alive unto God. So that is the
first death of a believer. The second death of a believer
is, you might say, the same as that of an unbeliever, the first
death of an unbeliever. But it is not the same, because
the scriptures, they speak of it as a sleep. It is a passage
from time into eternity. It is a release of the soul from
this body of death, this body of corruption, and releasing
it to go immediately, absent from the body, present with the
Lord. It is to enter into the mansions
that God has prepared for his people. It is when they shall
see the Lord face to face. It is when faith is turned to
sight. It is when they enter into the
mansions prepared for them. into the inheritance that is
prepared for you from the foundation of the world. It is spoken of
as a sleep. When Stephen was being stoned,
he testified, he looked up, he said, I see Jesus standing at
the right hand of God. And after he said, into thy hands
I commit my spirit, then he fell on sleep. is a blessed thing, to sleep
in Jesus, to pass from this life to that which is to come. And
we're told in 1 Corinthians 15, of the beautiful body that the
Lord will provide for his people, that they shall at the last day
be raised again from the dead as all will be, but given a glorious
body no more sin, no more death, no more sufferings, no more sorrow,
and to be forever with the Lord, body and soul glorified in heaven. So when we are blessed, when
we are a believer, death is no more death to die. Death is but
the Lord's bidding to come unto himself, to be received, into
those mansions prepared. A believer is blessed. The believer's
deaths are very different than the unbelievers, though they
both be but two. And why is that so? There's one
death we have not yet spoken of, and that is the death of
our Lord, the one death that he died. The death that he did
not have to die for himself. It was a death that he died for
his people. It is why a believer does not
endure that death that an unbeliever does, both the first and the
second death of an unbeliever. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
willingly took the sins of his people upon himself. He had laid
on him the iniquity of us all. and he bore those sins away at
Calvary. He endured the wrath of God that
we deserve. We are born under wrath, but
the Lord endured that wrath. And a believer looks upon what
Christ has done, and he is satisfied justice. He has fulfilled the
law, he has made it honorable. He has put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself, and he has risen again by his own power, by the
power of God, from the grave. Sin could not hold him, grave
could not hold the Lord, because he was spotless, and that sacrifice
is accepted. We read, he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Christ
died but once. He only needed to die once. In
the Old Testament, we read of the sacrifice of thousands and
thousands of bullocks, of rams, of lambs. They could never put
away sin, but they pointed to Christ. They pointed to the need
of a blood sacrifice, beginning at the sacrifice that Abel made. but Christ being come and offering
that sacrifice, he does not need to die anymore. He died once
unto sin, he liveth now forever and ever in heaven, rose again,
showed himself to many, many witnesses, over 500 brethren
at once, and their witness all testified in the word of God. There he appears in the presence
of God for us, and his will is that his people be with him where
he is. He lives to die no more. When the Lord raised from the
dead Lazarus and the widow of Nain and others, they one day
would die again. It was a miracle the Lord wrought
for that time. But the life that our Lord took
again, the same body that hung upon the cross, glorified as
in heaven, he has raised his only begotten son from the dead. And there he is in heaven, waiting
until that time appointed that each one of his people also be
brought to be with him where he is. The death of our Lord
is vital for the life of a believer and for the turning from death
as a curse to the death being a blessing. Instead of a death
being to usher us into the second death and torments forever, it
is the death to be able to usher us into the presence of God to
stand faultless before his throne clothed in his righteousness. So I hope we have covered those
first three points, those first assertions that an unsaved person
shall be born once and die twice. and a saved person, to be born
twice and to die twice, and yet their death's different. And
our Lord, to die but once, to be born once and to die once,
a time to be born and a time to die. Where do we stand, dear
friends? Are we a believer? Or are we
an unbeliever? Have we yet had the second birth? What is the death that still
lies before us? The Lord, by His grace, bless
us to believe on His name to the saving of our souls. Amen.