Thank you so much, ladies. Great blessing to us. Let's go to the book of Hebrews
this morning, Hebrews chapter number 9. And I'm going to visit a little
bit here in Hebrews 9 this morning, and then this evening we're going
to visit with Hebrews 8. just a little bit, so I'll be
speaking both this morning and again this evening out of the
book of Hebrews. This morning, the ninth chapter,
and I want to have you consider the last two verses. Hebrews 9, 27, and as it is appointed
unto men once to die, But after this, the judgment, so Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation. The message that I feel like
the Spirit of God has laid upon my heart, my heart for all of
you this morning, is one that is very serious,
and every message is serious, there's no question about that.
But I'm gonna give you four very vital, very important words,
that's the title of the message, four important words. And these
have to do with, and we have to do with each of these four.
It doesn't matter what your age is, young, middle age, older,
whoever you are, this is for you. And this is for me. And I'm not going to keep you
in suspense as to what these four words are. They're very
simple. Life, death. Judgment. Eternity. We've all got to deal with those
four things. No question about it. You have
one life to live. You don't get a do-over on that. That's all you got. God gave
you one life. What are you doing with it? How
are you using it? Are you occupied in your life
by worshiping God? Do you give thanks to Him? Are
you believing on the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you look to Him for
all of your acceptance with God? You just have one life. That's
all God's going to give you. That is one physical life. And while you have one life to
live, you have one death to... die. You're not going to live here without measure. Your days are
numbered. And we all know that, even the
little ones, not so much familiar with death, but You've lost people
in your family and all of us have experienced, many of us
have experienced the life, the death of our moms and dads and
grandparents. We know the reality of death. But I know people don't like
to think about death. It's too serious. It's too somber
a subject. Let's talk about happy things.
I don't want to talk about death unless you're going to make a
joke about it. People make jokes about death.
But you know and I know when death visits, it isn't anything
to joke about. You have one life to live, one
death to die. And you have one judgment to
face. You've got to face God. And if there's nothing else that
should sober us up and make us very, very serious, serious thinking
people, it's the fact that we've all got to stand before the Lord. That's me too. How are you going to do in the judgment? So I'm as good as anybody else.
Everybody else is not going to make standing with you at the
judgment. You and the judge have one life
to live, one death to die, one judgment to face, and then you
have one eternity to spend. And that's somewhere. Death doesn't end it. Death is
not the end. In many ways, it's the beginning. It's the beginning of that which
is endless. And that's a concept we can't
grasp. With us, everything has a beginning
and everything has an end. But as God had no beginning and
no end, now we had a beginning. But we're not going to have an
end. So, let's consider our end, let's
consider eternity. I know this for the people of
God, for those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Life, we spend it certainly occupied with responsibilities
that we have, but we spend our lives every day looking to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Every day with the realization,
I need the Savior. I'm so thankful He gave me grace. I'm so thankful He showed me
mercy. I need the Lord. We live every
day in a commitment to Him. We live with a steadfast hope,
a confident expectation of future glory, future blessings. We believe
the Word of God. We look to Him. There's no question
about what we have responsibilities on this earth. We don't deny
that. And our every waking moment isn't
spent thinking upon and worshiping our Lord Jesus Christ. But He's
not just a passing fancy to us. He's not one we think about just
at Christmas and Easter. Our minds are often led by the
Spirit of God to consider Him who is our High Priest, who is
our Advocate, who is our Savior, who is our Redeemer. And the
Spirit of God brings us to give great thanksgiving unto God for
the gift of His Son. Oh God, thank You for Christ
Jesus who died in my stead, who put all my sins away, who satisfied
Your justice, who brought in for me righteousness. I am right
with God through my Lord Jesus Christ and I go through life
looking to the Savior, believing Him, rejoicing in Him. That's
the way it is with the people of God. We have a happiness. We have a joy. It's not a silly
happiness or joy where we walk around all day long just smiling
all the time. No, we have our ups and downs,
but there's a joy inside. There's a happiness within. All
is right between me and a holy God because of the doing and
the dying of the blessed Savior. The people of God, we have one
life to live. The Scriptures, they tell us
to walk in steadfastness and in godliness. We live in godly
fear. We reverence our Lord. That's
the reason we come together in our public worship services is
to worship God, to honor Him, to give thanks together as a
group of believers. When we seek the face of God,
asking Him for blessings, let's remember the reason we're here
is to express expressed through our reading, through our singing,
through the preaching, through our hearing. We're here to express
our gratitude to God for His great gifts He's given to us
and to honor Him. This is about honoring God. It's
not about honoring you. It's not about honoring me. It's
not about exalting our church or exalting our preacher. It
matters not who's up here as long as they're God's spokesmen.
as long as they're telling the truth about God. We have come
together this morning to worship. We have one life to live and
we intend, we aim to live it in such a manner as God is glorified. This is what the apostle said
in Philippians chapter one and verse 21. He said, for me to
live is Christ. That's exactly what he said. Can you say that? For me to live is Christ. And then he said, to die is not
loss, it's gain. You know, a spouse, husband or
wife, or brother or sister, somebody in the family who knows of the
Lord dies? So what a loss. Not for the one
who died in Christ. There's no loss there. It's only
gain. That's what Paul said. For me
to live is Christ. To die is not loss. It's gain. Oh, he's lost everything. No,
he's gained everything of infinite value in his death. We have one life to live. But
others? And this is all of us by nature.
We live life selfishly. We live life in a self-centered
way. That's the way we all are by
nature and we're concerned about ourselves, our life, your husband,
your children, your job. And the natural man, he's occupied
with these things. He has these responsibilities,
and there's very little room in his crowded life for Christ
Jesus. He just doesn't have room for
it. I've had people tell me, Preacher, I'm just so busy. You
just don't know how busy I am. I usually come back with something
like this. You won't be too busy to die.
Because the Lord's not going to ask you, is this a good time
for you? Because inevitably, everybody
would say, not now. But that's not your choice. What are you doing in life? What
are you doing? I wish that the Spirit of God
would give to me Words that would convey to you the urgency, the
urgency of closing with Jesus Christ. No wonder the Scripture says,
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. When's that? While you're alive. Now! Seek ye the Kingdom of God and
His righteousness. You've got to have a righteousness
that God approves of. Do you understand that? I'm not
talking about you doing the best you can. To be right with God,
you must be holy and perfect. And the only way you can be holy
and perfect is in the holy and perfect One, Christ Jesus the
Lord. That's why He's called the Lord,
our righteousness. Will you not seek the Lord? Will
you not seek Him? Is there not an urgency to this?
Listen to the urgency of the words of John the Baptist. He
said to people, flee from the wrath to come. Flee, run from the wrath to come. Well, where shall I run? Run
into the arms of the Savior. That's where you run. You run to the blessed Redeemer. That's what faith is. It's running
to Christ. And I know you'll never run to
the Lord Jesus Christ until He draws you with powerful grace. Oh Lord, draw me, then I'll come. Then I'll come. You've got one life to live.
This is it. This is it. Some live this life resting in
Jesus Christ, worshiping the Lord. Others live ignoring Christ. But one thing is true, whether
you're a believer or an unbeliever, you've just got one life to live. That's all you've got. You can live in rebellion against
God and say, Lord, I just don't have time for You. I've got things to do. I don't
have time to worship. I don't have time to read Your
Word. I don't have time to listen to this preaching. And you can
live like that. And if the Lord leaves you alone,
you will. You just go on that way. Because
multitudes do. That's called the broad road.
The broad way that leads to destruction. The broad road. And many there
be that go in there at. But oh, if the Lord would be
gracious and He would impress upon your heart and upon your
soul, I understand, Lord, You've given me one life. I don't want
to waste it. I want to, as the Apostle said,
redeem the time? For the days are evil? Lord,
help me in my life to seek Christ Jesus and that righteousness
that is only to be found in Him as a result of His substitutionary
sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. Oh, may God give you an urgency. You got one shot at life, that's
all you got. And no do-overs. And you got one death to die. Scripture says, and it is appointed
unto men once to die. That word, it's an interesting
word there, appointed. It has kind of a double meaning.
First of all, it means reserved. You have reservations. You know
what it means to have a reservation somewhere. You take your favorite
girl out to a restaurant. You say, it's our anniversary.
We're going to be kind of fancy tonight. You call up and say,
I want to make a reservation for two. Reservation. That's your appointed time. I
want to make it 6 o'clock. Of course, with some of us, as
we get older, it's more like 4 or 4.30. We eat early. But you make your reservation. Now, something may happen that
you have to break the reservation. But you do have, you have a reservation
to die at a specific day, hour, and moment. But you don't know
what it is. But I promise you, the reservation
has been set. It was set before God made the
world. And you don't know when that
hour will be. You got reservations. You got reservations. Another idea about this word
appointed is it's the idea of a layaway. In fact, if you look
it up, there's that expression, laid away. It's used three or
four times in the New Testament, and that's the meaning of this.
Laid away for you. Now, you know what that means,
too. You know what a layaway is. You go, say, October and November
or whatever, And you find something that's quite beautiful and you
say, I want to buy that and don't have the money right now. And
this was more prevalent a few years ago when we didn't use
credit cards as much. But they say, well, we have a
layaway policy. You do? Yeah. This is yours. It's for you. But you've got
to pick it up by such and such a date. I can lay it away, yeah,
it's laid away for you in your name. Let me tell you something,
death is laid away for you on a specific day. And the thing of it is, you're
not gonna pick it up, it's gonna get you. That's the way this
layaway policy works. And this is what the apostle
is saying. It is appointed. This is a reservation you've
got. This is laid away for you once,
once to die. I have a dear friend. I was talking
with her a week before last and this person was telling me this.
She was on the table in the hospital and her heart stopped beating
for ten seconds. and they used the paddles to
shock her hard back into rhythm, back into beating, which we're
thankful. And she said, there were people
who asked her then, what did you see during those 10 seconds? Did you see a light? Did you
see a light? And she said, no. And they said,
that could be either good or bad. Now, this person didn't
die. There's one death, one physical
death. And we're all going to face it.
What's the reason for that, Jim? Well, the Lord said to Adam way
back in the book of Genesis chapter 2, and this has been roughly
6,000 years ago, give or take a few. The Lord said to Adam,
He said, I put all these trees in the garden, but one of them,
one of them is a tree of knowledge of good and evil. I put that
in the middle of the garden, Now you leave that one alone.
Don't you eat the fruit of that. You got all the rest of them.
But this is just keep you in memory of the fact that I'm God,
you're not. I'm the creator, you're the creature. You're not my equal. But Adam wanted to be equal with
God. And so he ate. But the Lord had said to him,
when eating that fruit was prohibited, when he laid down that statute,
the Lord said, in the day thou eatest, and you notice He didn't
say if you eat. There's no if about it. It's
all going to work in the purpose of God. In the day thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. Adam died spiritually. He died
physically. But for the grace of God, he
had died forever. One death. One physical death. Adam died. By one man sin entered
into the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men for that all have sinned. So there are two people that
didn't die in the Bible. Enoch and Elijah. Can I bring him back again? I shall go to Him, but He shall not return to me.
He's not coming back. Job said, when a few years have
come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return. 2 Samuel 14, 14 says, For we must
need die as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered
up again. What is death? Death is when
the body and the soul are separated. That which really keeps you living
is your soul, also called the spirit. And one of these days,
as is set forth in a beautiful way in Ecclesiastes chapter 12,
one of these days there's going to be a dissolving of that union
between the body and the soul. And when the soul leaves the
body, the body is dead. You see, here's what the body
is. It is a tabernacle or a house for the soul. That's what Ron
read to us in 2 Corinthians 5. This body is a tabernacle. This is the house. You're looking
at me. This is the house. The house
is my soul. And my body is beginning to deteriorate. I'm getting some cracks in the
foundation. and the mortar's beginning to
break up. Hey, things are happening. The
roof is turning white. The teeth, not so good anymore. The eyes. What's happening? My body, this building, is slowly
becoming dilapidated until finally this body will die when the soul
leaves it. That's what death is. Death is
the soul leaving the body. There in 2 Corinthians it talks
about this earthly house being dissolved, being torn down. It's the residence of the soul. Death. I got a death to die. Now, death is not something to
be dreaded by the child of God, though we don't long for it. I mean, because God has given
us a natural love for life, right? We all know that. There's a natural
love that the Lord has given us for life. And we think about,
I don't want to leave my family. Not my physical family, not my
spiritual family. But still, there must be that
separation. And while we don't ask for death
and long for death, still we don't dread death. While it's going to be glorious
for the child of God, You see, death comes to an unbeliever
as an executioner. I'm taking you to the judge right
now. But death comes to the child
of God as a messenger of mercy. I'm taking you to the Father's
house. The Lord Jesus said, in my Father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I wouldn't
have told you. Death. Death's not something
to be dreaded by the children of God, but death is something
to be dreaded by unbelievers. You should, those of you whose
hope is not in Christ Jesus, the solid rock, you should be
absolutely fearful of dying. But you're not. You're not. Because if you were, you'd flee
to Christ Jesus and find in Him that salvation that is all of
God. You see, here's the difference
for a believer, for a child of God. Death doesn't swallow up life. Death brings mortality to this
life, but it opens the door to a glorious life above where we'll
never die again. Death for the children of God
means a happiness that will never end. The end of sin. And then I must go quickly, one
judgment to face. It's appointed unto men once
to die, but after this, the judgment. Got to face God. It seems to me, though there's
one judgment, it's almost as though it's in two phases. When we die, The Scripture says
there in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, the soul goes back to God
who gave it. You remember reading that? The
soul goes back to God who gave it. And then He's going to do
something with us. If by His grace we've been brought
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, He's gonna say, come into my
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
That's a sort of judgment. Remember this, no judgment is
a decision-making time. No. No. The judgment is to dispense
to you that which you merit If you die in Christ Jesus, you
merit everlasting life, everlasting happiness. Our Savior earned
that for you by His perfect obedience unto death, even the death of
the cross. But if you die in your sins, the wages of sin is
death. That's judgment. That's judgment. I think about and then facing
the judgment. And I say, by the way, that I
think it's in two phases because there's an immediate dispensing
or putting us either into glory or into hell. But the second
phase of it is in the resurrection when we'll be judged body and
soul. But when I think about I think
about the judgment. I think about how wonderful it's
going to be when I stand before God in Christ Jesus. I promise you, nobody is rejected
in Christ Jesus. Washed in His blood. Robed in
His righteousness. Fear the judgment? No. I'm not afraid that God's going
to bring up my sins against me. Here's the new covenant promise,
and I'll be talking about this tonight. He said there's sins
and iniquities. Well, I remember no more! No
more! I'm forgiven. I'm fully forgiven. I have no block against my record
in heaven. Only a perfect record because
the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ has been put to my account. And I stand in His perfection. In fact, the Lord will say to
me what Paul said He would say to him. Well done, thou good
and perfect servant. There are no good and perfect
servants. I beg your pardon. In Christ
Jesus we are. On the other hand, and let me
add this, when we enter heaven, I want you to think about the
company that's going to be there. All the blood-washed throng.
all the saints of God, all rejoicing in the Lord, and all the angelic
hosts will be there. Oh my! How glorious it's going
to be to close our eyes in death and then wake up in glory! There's
the angelic hosts and they're beaming with the holiness that
God gave them. There's the rest of the saints
of God all robed in white and they all say, welcome home! But
mainly the Savior embraces us and says, welcome home! Welcome
home. I chose you. I bought you. I
called you. I kept you. And now here you
are. Father, look at me. I've taken
good care of you. But for those who die in unbelief, there's no way that any mortal
tongue could ever even begin to describe the absolute horror
You go into experience. You stand before God immediately. And He says, depart from me,
I never knew you. And He puts you away in the regions
of the damned. You say, yeah, but there will
be a lot of people with me. They're going to be crying and
shrieking and awful terror. and your other company is going
to be the demons of hell. My soul, you have no idea what's
in store for you. You do not want to leave this
world without the Savior, without the Advocate, without the Redeemer. I warn you. I warn you. Judgment's coming. And then eternity. Now here's
the thing about eternity. There's no end to it. So whatever
state you're in when you leave this world, that's it. If you're righteous, you read
again Revelation 22, 11, he that is righteous is righteous still.
He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Jim, do you really
think God's going to pour out judgment upon unbelievers? Absolutely
no question in my mind. And if you believe the Word of
God, you've got to know that. You see the illustration there
in the early chapters of Genesis 6 and 7 and 8? When God sent a whole world of
people to hell. He washed them away in an awful
blood. You don't believe God will punish
sin? Look again at Calvary. See the Savior, who lived a holy
life, who had one death to die, and He died once unto sin. Why
did He have to die? Preacher, He didn't have any
sin. He bore our sins. He took our sin. And I'll tell
you what, He had a life to live and a death to die and a judgment
to face, and He faced it on the cross. He faced my judgment. He faced the judge for me. And my Savior went on to glory,
came back, then went back and stayed. He's the eternal King. If you don't think God punished
his sin, well, you need to take a look at Calvary again. God
didn't spare his son. He's not going to spare you either. Oh, may God be gracious to you. Don't let the black birds, the
demonic birds take these words away from you. You'd think about
these, would you? Life, death, Judgment? Eternity. You give some consideration
of those. Ask God to impress upon your
heart the seriousness of these things. Let's get our songbooks
and turn to number 200. I tell you, all of the people
of God can sing this. My sins are blotted out. I know. Isn't that wonderful? My sins are blotted out. I know. Let's stand together.
Hymn number 200. Would you sing the first stanza?