The Ultimate Journey - Part A

Here's a truth that is uniquely about the human being.

No other creature on earth, no other species has this characteristic. God has put eternity in their hearts. You have maybe a dog at home or a cat at home or a goldfish or a pet iguana, I don't know, but do your pets ever come to you and ask you the meaning of life? You ever see them pondering over in the corner like, what happens to me after I die?

You give them a hug, you give them a meal and you walk them once a day and life's good. They don't really care about much beyond that. But humans have this unique dissatisfaction, this search. There's got to be something beyond that.

We're restless. Do you know that the funeral industry makes about $20.7 billion annually? That's the cost of an estimated 2.4 million funerals. The main cost of a funeral is for the casket, the grave and the tombstone. And that cost is so high that more people than ever are opting for the less expensive option of cremation. So why all this talk about death?

We all know that it's a documented fact that should the Lord tarry, every person will die. But what's less clear is what exactly happens once we do. That's what we'll talk about today here in Connect with Skip weekend division, as we join Skip Heitzig for a new weekend teaching series called From the Edge of Eternity.

But before we do, let's find out what's happening in the Connect with Skip resource center this December. Recent research has found that Google searches for the word prayer have surged worldwide alongside the spread of the novel coronavirus. In fact, Google Trends data shows that the search intensity for prayer doubles for every 8000 COVID-19 cases. But is there a right way or a more effective way to pray?

Here's best selling author Kay Arthur. Where the battles raging were to be on the front lines, on the front lines on our knees, on the front line standing in the full armor of God. Kay's book, Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days offers simple but powerful instruction on how and what to pray and what to expect when you do. And it's our way to say thank you when you give a gift of $25 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Pastor Skip will be focused on Ecclesiastes chapter three today. So I hope you'll join in there as we begin From the Edge of Eternity. This week I was reading one guy's description of how big the universe was and something caught my attention. He said if it cost you one cent, just one penny to travel 1000 miles, you could take a trip around the world for 25 cents. And you could go to the moon for $2.38. You could travel to the sun for $930, but if you wanted to make a trip based on that same financial ratio to the nearest neighboring star, it would cost you $260 million.

He was trying to show how vast was our galaxy and our universe. Of course, it wouldn't matter if you traveled around the world or went to the moon, either of those journeys you would certainly need to make preparations for them in advance. Some of us traveled to Israel for a couple of weeks and to do that you made preparations. It's interesting about two, three, even four weeks out at every service those who are going to Israel would ask some predictable questions. What should we pack? What will the weather be like? What about electrical outlets? Can we wash our clothes while we're there?

Is this the right camera for it? Schedules were cleared. Money was saved. Some people even read in advance the sights that they were going to see. All of that for just a two-week trip.

Here's my point. We make those preparations for a two-week trip overseas. Some people don't even make the same kind of consideration for the ultimate journey, and that is the eternal journey. It was J.B. Phillips, who was a great Bible translator and scholar, who in his lifetime conducted over 5,000 funerals.

And yet whenever he would do a funeral, he would never speak about the dearly departed. He would speak about the one who has arrived. The one who has arrived. The question is, where did they arrive? Where did they go? What is it like now for that person?

And for us the question is, where will you arrive? I heard about two neighbors. There was a pastor and a salesman.

They lived next door to each other. And at the same time that the pastor died, the salesman went away for a trip to Florida. And while he was there, he sent a quick postcard back to his wife, but the postcard was delivered to the wrong mailbox. It was delivered to the wife of the deceased pastor. When she opened the mail, she was shocked to read the postcard, arrived safely.

The heat here is awful. Quite a shock. So, when you die, and while people are on the earth preparing your memorial service, what kind of casket you'll be buried in, what kind of a flower arrangement should be before your casket, who will do the eulogy, what should be said, what songs will go on. While they're doing that, what will you be doing?

You will be very conscious. The Bible indicates that. Will you be rejoicing, beholding God's throne with myriads of angels and countless humans who have passed before you into God's presence? Or will you be in misery and in torment, separated from God forever?

We're beginning a new series. I'm calling it From the Edge of Eternity. And what we're going to be doing principally is following the Christian from death all the way to heaven, through all of the stages of heaven. Though we will from time to time be discussing the other side of that, the unbeliever, principally we want to follow the Christian from the moment of death and what happens next and then next and then next with the resurrection of the body and the stages of heaven.

One of the reasons that I decided to do this is I've done my share of funerals also over the years, and at funerals I get to hear what people believe about death and about the future and about eternity. And you might be surprised to hear what some who call themselves believers even think about death. I've heard Christians say that when a Christian dies, he turns into an angel.

And so at funerals I've heard, you know, at funerals you can't like stop and correct them. Well, I guess God just needed another angel. That's why he called this person to heaven. Or I've heard at a eulogy not too long ago somebody stand up and say, right now I know he's playing golf in that big fairway in the sky.

Really? I didn't know there was a big fairway in the sky. What about all the people who don't like golf? Do we got to like be caddies for them or something? Or some people will say, well, you know, after you die you got to go to a place, some other place for a while and work really hard. And then if you work really hard for a long time and pay off your sins, then you get to go to heaven. Ever heard that?

Not true. But some will indicate that. Or there's a number of stories that, well, you know, when a person dies, they go to heaven, they got to stop at the gate. And at the gate of heaven, who's there? Yeah, Peter. And Peter's going to fire a whole bunch of questions off.

And you got to get all those questions right, like what's the square root of that number? And then if you get them all right, you get to get into heaven. Or I've heard people say, well, you know, heaven, you know, you sit on a cloud all day long and you play a harp. Man, I'm sorry, but I don't even like harps. To play one for a million years?

No thanks. So what will it be like really the moment after death? Do people turn into angels? What happens to the body? Do we remain disembodied spirits? Or do we enter into a period of soul sleep until the resurrection? When do we get our new bodies?

What will those bodies look like? What about a baby who dies? What happens to babies at death? And does that baby remain a baby for all of eternity? What about those who die at old age? Do they look the same if they're 95 years old forever?

That doesn't sound appealing. What will heaven be like? What will we do in heaven? Are there stages of heaven?

And what will those stages be like? And what about the judgment? Is there one big judgment? Or do believers get a certain kind of judgment? And if so, when?

And what will that be like? Those are some of the things we want to explore in this series, that we might be prepared for the ultimate journey. But today, in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, it's a book that we looked at this last Wednesday, but strategically did not cover these verses on purpose, because we wanted to go through them today. I'm going to call these travel tips, because of the message title this morning.

These are points that emerge out of the text. These are three travel tips for the ultimate journey. First of all, we all face our mortality, or we might better say we're bound by mortality. But we're made for eternity. And thus, we all long for certainty. All of those three emerge from our text.

So let's take the first one, the mortality part of it. Verse 1 of Ecclesiastes 3 begins, To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. peace.

What profit has the worker from that in which he labors?" Now just that quick reading of those verses reveal a repeated word in those verses. And what is that word that's repeated in every verse? The word time.

It appears 28 different times in those eight verses. Time. It's because we're creatures of time. We're bound by time. Since mankind has been on the earth, we've observed our world. We've mapped out the rotation of the earth on its axis. We know that there are periods of the day that are light and some that are dark and we've divided it up into 24 segments called hours and 60 units in that hour of minutes and then seconds, 60 seconds.

And that's time. And we live regularly by that time. We write things in our appointment books. We set our alarm clocks. We keep track of our watches all day long. We are bound by time. We are creatures of time. U.S. News and World Report had a little article in it and it says, in a lifetime, the average American will spend six months at stoplights, eight months opening junk mail.

I knew it. One year looking for misplaced objects. Two years unsuccessfully returning phone calls. Four years doing housework and five years waiting in line. In addition, if you live to be 70 years of age, you will spend a total of 20 years sleeping, 20 years working, seven years playing, five years getting dressed, two and a half years in bed, that's besides sleeping, and five months tying your shoes.

Get loafers, you know, flip flops. Take it easy. Now all of these activities just amplify this truth. We all have a terminal disease. It's called mortality. And if the Lord tarries, we're all going to face what Solomon says in verse 2. There's a time to die, just as there's a time to be born. And George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying, the statistics of death are quite impressive.

Every one out of one person dies. We're bound by time. We face mortality. What's more, we're not really satisfied with any of this stuff. These activities don't fulfill us. Here we are on earth, in time, facing mortality, involved in all of these activities, but they don't really satiate us.

They don't really quench our thirst. We have a hunch this might not be all there is. Randy Alcorn, in his excellent book on heaven, calls earth the in-between world. Earth is the in-between world.

Here we are, says Alcorn, in between heaven and hell, in this place called earth, in this time and space continuum, making choices as to where we will spend eternity. Well Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, and if you know the gist of the book, you know that every activity that Solomon searched out and got involved with and experienced left him tasteless at the end. It wasn't enough.

It wasn't satisfying. He's on a quest. He's on a journey. Life is disappointing for him, very even despairing, as he looks under the sun and all his vanity. A repeated theme throughout this book. So that all of life's experiences, if you keep doing them, they don't satisfy. Paul even mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable.

It's interesting. Mark Twain, the American author, was having a conversation with a gentleman and the guy was telling Mark Twain about heaven and being cynical as Twain was, Twain said, look, you keep your heaven, I'd rather go to Bermuda. Why would he say that? Well maybe it's because of all the ways he's heard Christians talk about heaven. Maybe they haven't come up with any suitable answers as to really what eternity is going to be like. Maybe a lot of Christians gave him the idea that heaven is one long church service where you sing one song after another song after another song, and I've got to tell you that doesn't sound all that exciting and when we hear that that's what it's going to be like, we think that's boring.

But we don't want to voice that because we're going to be unspiritual if we do, but we're thinking in the back of our heads, could I like bring a computer and do something else or like text message my friends from my iPhone, something else besides that. You take heaven, I'd rather go to Bermuda. But back here in time, framed by all of these activities spoken by Solomon, we're not satisfied. It's not enough.

Why is that? Well the next couple of verses tell us why. Though we are facing and bound by our own mortality, we haven't been made for that. We were made for eternity. Look at verse 10, I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Notice the next part, also or besides this, besides these activities in time, also. He has put eternity in their hearts. Stop right there for a moment, pause just for a moment. He has put eternity in their hearts. Now here's a truth that is uniquely about the human being.

No other creature on earth, no other species has this characteristic. God has put eternity in their hearts. You have maybe a dog at home or a cat at home or a goldfish or a pet iguana, I don't know, but do your pets ever come to you and ask you the meaning of life? Have you ever seen them pondering over in the corner, like, what happens to me after I die?

You know, I have a dog, you give him a meal and you walk him once a day and life's good. They don't really care about much beyond that. But humans have this unique dissatisfaction, this search, there's got to be something beyond that.

We're restless. There's a whole field of study that has come really out of this truth called fanatology. Whether you're a nursing student or you go to a modern college, you'll find a course on fanatology, the study of death. What happens to the dying person and what do they think will happen to them after death?

Fanatology from the Greek word, phanatos, which means death. And why is that? Why that interest? Because God put eternity in our hearts, that's why.

You know, we've been created to wonder about eternity, to desire it. Today's teaching was the first half of the ultimate journey, and it's easy to listen again and share it with the quick links you'll find at connectwithskipp.com. You can also get a CD copy of today's study or the entire series, From the Edge of Eternity.

Just log on to connectwithskipp.com, or for assistance with your order, feel free to call us at 1-800-922-1888. We're so glad to welcome Skip and Lenya into our studio today to talk about this brand new series. And that's what's happening today, the ultimate journey. And this is going to unlock what the Bible says about life and death. Whoa. So that kind of really is the ultimate journey.

It is. We're all alive and we will all face death. It's appointed unto every man once to die, and after this the judgment. You know, that's such a stark reality.

If we don't get ready for that, we're in trouble. And it seems like some people have like a morbid curiosity, others are just afraid. I mean, it's a really deep fear for them about what happens when they die. How could a study like this and an eternal perspective help them with everyday life? Well, you're always taught when you're young, all through life, that you should have a long term, not a short term perspective. When you make a choice, that choice will have ramifications for weeks, months, and years to come.

And so when you're going to date someone or think about marriage or think about what school you're going to go to, what you're going to study, you're going to be in that groove for a while. And it just makes sense to live with an eternal perspective. I've heard it put that we have one life, but we live three times. One is in the womb. That's preparation for this life. Second is this life from birth to death. That's usually where people stop all their planning.

It's all about comfort. It's all about now. Estate planning.

Yeah. And yet, that is like the womb. It's preparatory for a yet fuller, longer, and in this case, eternal living that takes place after we die. So just as the nine month gestation period readies us for this life, this life readies us for the next life, and all of us will live somewhere. So if we keep that in mind, we will live here differently. We will make different choices. We will hang out with different people. It just makes more sense that we're dealing with God's eternal perspective in living now.

That's how Jesus conducted his entire life. It's kind of a good evangelistic thought or this idea of people saying, so what do you want to do with your life? Well, I was thinking of going to college. And then what?

Mm-hmm. Well, then I'm going to get married and have a job. And then what? And then what? And then I'll have kids.

Okay. And then what? You know, and grandkids. And then what? And then I'll die.

Right. And then what? So really, there are those and then what's in lives, and we prepare so many things in this world that don't matter quite as much as eternity. And there's nothing like getting the perspective for distance by reading the Bible.

You read the Scripture, and it's like God gives you a whole new set of binoculars you can see further. And that's the point of it all, is because we are eternal creatures. We are made for eternity. The book of Ecclesiastes says that. And we've got to put eternity in our hearts. And we can try to stuff that, push it away, and not deal with it.

But all of us long for it. And we can live in such a way that our life is fulfilling here, and we're ready for the future. And ultimately, if we're planning for eternity, our plans for this world will change radically. What you may think the goals now could really, really change based on where you're headed.

I'll say amen to that. Well, thanks, Skip and Lenya. And if you enjoy Skip's teachings each day, I hope you'll take time to connect with him by liking him on Facebook or adding him to your Twitter or Instagram. You'll enjoy regular updates and keep up with all his latest happenings.

All the info is at ConnectWithSkip.com. Eternity is wrapped up in the minds of every human. Learn why as we conclude the message, The Ultimate Journey, next time here on Connect With Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on His Word. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.