God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton and this message on Eternal Life.
Today we continue in a multi-part series called I Will See Dad Again. And if you've lost someone, I've lost both my mom and my dad, but yet, like Dr. Wilton and his loss about this message, I Will See Dad Again, we have not lost without hope, but we know where our parents are. This time of encouragement is going to take us straight to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 as we open God's encouraging word together. Know that we're open to pray with and for you. Perhaps you need someone to encourage you. Our phone number is 866-899-WORD.
Jot it down, store it in your cell, 866-899-9673 or meet us online at www.tewonline.org. Now today's great Bible teaching from Dr. Don Wilton on the encouraging word. When you go outside in the evening, you look up and you see that marvelous array of stars and you look at all those stars, they all look the same to an untrained eye. But you know that astrologers and people who are qualified in these areas, astronomers, they'll look up and they will tell you that every star hung there by God in His sovereign grace is equally different from another.
Every star is completely unique, completely unique. Well, what is God doing here? He said, listen, I know that you folks who love me, you've got questions about things that are difficult to understand. What am I going to look like? How am I going to be raised from the dead?
Let me do this. First of all, I want you to think about a seed. You put a seed in the ground and something grows.
Everything that grows begins at a seed, but it takes shape according to the design that God has put into, if you please, the soul of that seed. It's no different. Animals have a different look and men have a different look, fish have a different look, birds have a different look, but it's like the stars in all their glory. They look the same.
They are clothed in the splendor of the Shekinah glory of Almighty God, but each one of them is uniquely made in the eyes of Almighty God. Now look at verse 42, so will it be. You see that?
That phrase there? So will it be just the same as I'm trying to show you about your differences and yet your sameness as human beings, so it will be after you die, so it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable. Now why is my body perishable? Folks, I'm here to tell you that it is. My body is perishable.
My arthritis and my joints and my teeth and my hair and everything, we are born to die. What God is doing is God is just simply confirming what we know to be true. Listen to how He puts this in to help us to understand.
He says the body that is sown is perishable, but it is raised how? Imperishable. Now hold on a minute. Watch me. Watch me. Very important. I'm going to discover in a minute the theological significance of the imperishable body, which God calls our spiritual body.
In fact, I'm going to go back in just a minute to the great love chapter. I'll show you how God connects these things to us. He says the body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable.
It is sown in dishonor. Why? Because of the sin of Adam. It is raised in glory.
Why? Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is sown in weakness.
It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body and it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, so also there is a spiritual body. So it is written on this basis, the first man, Adam, became a living being.
In the Hebrew text, the word is nefeshkayah. It means the very breath of God. It means the very soul and the heartbeat of the one who was and who is and whoever will be was breathed into the very being of man who was encased by this perishable body. The first man became a living being and the last Adam who is Christ Jesus became a life giving spirit.
Now folks listen. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he became a life giving spirit. It is because of his death that we have life. Now watch how this all ties together. Verse 46, the spiritual did not come first but the natural and after that the spiritual.
All right, let me back track there for just a minute. What God is saying to us in his word is that we cannot be raised to our spiritual state accepting that the natural occurred first. We are born or conceived in sin and then we are set free by the grace of God in Christ Jesus and because of his resurrection we are raised to our spiritual state to walk in newness of life with him forever and forever. Anyone want to say amen to that this morning?
Now listen. The first man, verse 47, was of the dust of the earth. The second man, Jesus Christ, from heaven. Why did they call him the second man? Is that disrespectful?
No. Because Jesus Christ became flesh for us. He is the God man. That is the deity of Christ. That's why we preach Christ Jesus and him crucified. The first Adam being Adam in the flesh. The second Adam being Christ Jesus in the spirit. And the word of God tells us that the first man went back to dust. The second man rose from the dead, ascended to be seated at the right hand of the father where even to this very day he is making intercession for you and me. Verse 48, as was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth.
That's you and me. And as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Paul is about to lay it on the line and he's going to say to us, listen friends, I've told you that it is in Jesus Christ that we live and move and have our being.
If you want to know the answers to these things, look to Jesus. And in fact, just in case we weren't listening, look at verse 49. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
Alright? One of the things we're going to have to do in these next two short weeks is we're going to have to look at the likeness of the man from heaven. That's what Paul says. Is there any way that we can know what Jesus Christ looks like now that he's in heaven?
I submit to you that we do. And if we want to know how we're going to look, we're going to have to look to him because God says to us, look to him and you'll know what you're going to look like. And so it is in verse 50, I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. Are we talking about the rapture of the church? We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will all be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then it is that the saying written will come true that death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is law, but thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm, let nothing move you, be encouraged in your hearts, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why? Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. May God write His word upon our hearts. How do we know these things?
Yes, I will see Dad again. What a marvelous thought. How do we know this? Well, I'm going to share with you five major ways in which we can know this this Sunday and next Sunday. Number one, we can know this because the Word of God implies it.
The Word of God implies it. Now friends, we could do a long Bible study in this. I want you to turn back with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the great love chapter. 1 Corinthians 13 speaks most eloquently to that. And most appropriately within the heartbeat, the seed bed or the kernel of the great love chapter has to deal with the things that we're talking about. Because it is the ultimate epitome of the extension of God's grace to us. The fact that despite ourselves we're going to spend all time in eternity with Him. So I'm going to go back and read from verse 10 for you. The Bible says, but when perfection comes, now I beg your pardon but we must hold a minute there.
Otherwise we're not going to understand this. I have read and I believe that there are a significant number of people who believe that perfection there is personified. And that when God by His grace and through His Spirit is talking about when perfection comes, that He's talking about Jesus Christ or the second coming.
Distinctly not the case. How do we know that? Because the word perfection there is neither masculine nor singular.
It is neuter. It is not talking about a person. It is talking about a state or a condition based upon or because of a person. Now I'm going to show you something here that is absolutely remarkable. Here the apostle Paul, writing about love, makes this statement.
He's talked about prophecy and knowledge, the ability to move mountains, the capacity to do things that would boggle any form of human intelligence or understanding. And right slap bang into the middle of this kaboof bang, he places this thing in the context of love and he says to us, but when the perfect comes. Perfect?
That's me. I know it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way. You see what God is talking about here folks.
He's not talking about me today or my dad today celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary. He's talking about me tomorrow in Christ, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, where I can know that I know that I know that I am going to be made completely perfect in His presence. But when my perfection and completeness comes, in other words, the ultimate consummation of the very dispensation of God's grace extended to me as a sinner. When perfection comes in verse 11, what happens to the imperfect?
Now ladies, you all need to say amen to this. Those bulges around the thighs, they're gone. They're gone.
Listen to this. When perfect comes, the imperfect disappears. What's going to happen to me when I get to heaven, when I die?
All these other things are going to leave. And when we get time, we go back into the book of Revelation and read what the book of Revelation has to say about our condition. Once we find ourselves in heaven, it's a most marvelous thing to think about. But he goes on, he says, when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put childish things behind me.
How is that possible? What is the maturational context that Paul is talking in here? He says, now in my imperfectness, in my natural state, now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror. But then when the perfect comes, what's going to happen?
We shall see face to face. Thank you for the interruption. We'll be back with more of today's message with Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. The Dr. Don wants us to remind you, we're here for you, love to pray with you and for you at 866-899-WORD. Anytime, day or night, jot the number down, store it in your cell.
It's 866-899-9673. We also want you to know we're available for you on our website, keyboard to keyboard at www.tewonline.org. And while you're on our website, there's so many wonderful resources.
The cost of following Christ is great. But two giants of the faith, our pastor, Dr. Don Wilton, and his good friend, Dr. Charles Stanley, are sharing some wonderful insight called Forward in Faith. Actually, the book is Courageous Faith and the message is Pressing Forward. All those details are on our website right now and it's something I encourage you to pick up. You can take a peek at it while we're studying online at www.tewonline.org. A powerful resource that not only might strengthen you, but maybe there's someone in your life that you know needs that encouragement. The details are on our website at www.tewonline.org. That's www.tewonline.org.
Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. You know that Jesus Christ tells us that when we die, number one, we're going to look Him eyeball to eyeball, face to face. What is a face? What is this thing? It's something that identifies us. It is recognizable.
It has form. All of us. We're going to see Him face to face and because of that we're going to see one another face to face, eyeball to eyeball.
Why? He says, because now I know in part I am incomplete, but then I shall know fully even as I am already fully known. Why am I already fully known? Because I am born again of the Spirit of the Living God. My heart has become intertwined into the heart of Christ. That's why Paul right throughout his epistles continually uses that little phrase, ice or into. It means I am amalgamated with.
I am brought into partnership with. I am fused with the very mind of Christ and I have become one with Him. Why? All because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. So Paul says, hold on a minute folks, you have all these questions, I know you're wondering about it, but you are only able to see so far as your human intellect and understanding will permit you to see, but I want you to know that Jesus Christ already knows you. Why? Because God is not just the God of the living, He's the God of the dead.
Wow! We cannot understand these things my dear friends if we don't get down and really dig and begin to understand what God is teaching us. It's no wonder that you never hear preachers preach on the subject.
There's a lot of speculation going on and very little fact. God wants us to know the mind of Christ and Paul said, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. He said, listen, I want you to appropriate the spiritual reservoir of God's eternal understanding. It's what I want you to have, it's yours.
There's no shortcut. What is he talking about? Well, perfect, the heavenly state of believers.
He's talking about face to face. When is this going to come about? This will only come about without glorification. When we will be illumined by the very glory of God Himself. Listen to Revelation chapter 21, turn back there, quick, quick, quick with me. Revelation chapter 21. Revelation 21 and verse 23, listen to what the Bible says. Very important.
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it. By the way, can we hold there for a second? Got to tell you this. What's heaven going to look like? You know what it's going to look like? It's going to be a city, folks. How do we know that?
God says so. It's going to be a city. What's going to be in the city? There are going to be houses in the city, buildings. How do we know that? Jesus said, He said, let not your heart be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many, come on now, are many? Mansions. Mansions, homes.
Now we're going to get down the line here, folks. We're talking about what we're going to do, what we're going to look like, how we're going to operate. I'm here to submit to you, heaven is going to be a city, the heavenly city. And in that city there are going to be many mansions. I love the word mansions because this is God's house, folks.
If it were not so, I would have told you. And in fact, God, even Jesus goes on in that passage and He turns to His disciples and said, by the way, I don't even need to tell you how to get there because you already know the way. I've told you that I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come to the Father, no man can come to that heavenly mansion, no man can get to heaven but by me through the Lord Jesus Christ.
No man can get there. And what are you saying here? Listen, in verse 23, he says, the city of heaven does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the lamb is its lamp. Now, what is the basis by which we are able to see, number one, the face of Jesus Christ and number two, one another's faces? It is because of the radiant shekinel glory of a most marvelous and majestic God, our heavenly Father.
His face is going to shine for everyone to see. I can't wait to talk to Moses about it because he had a little problem with that light when he was up on the mountain, remember, and so he hid in a rock and God passed him by and just his very presence was enough to bring about a life change in his servants so that when Moses came down from the mountain, having met with God, that his face shone with the shekinel glory of a God that he had encountered on the mountaintop. God is carrying the radiance of his glory from the beginning of the age until the end of the age throughout all time and throughout all eternity. Yes, the Word of God implies it. In the next verses, the Bible says so many things about this time.
The Bible says in verse 3 that no longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him there. Who are his servants? That's me.
That's you. Those of us who love him, we're going to serve him day and night. We're going to be actively involved in the work of servanthood when we get to heaven and what is going to happen to you and me? They will see his what?
They will see his face and his name will be written on their foreheads. Listen, what's a forehead? This little funny piece of skin right up here above my eyebrows and below my hairline, that's my forehead. It's a billboard.
That's what it is. Charles Manson chose to put a swastika right in the middle representing the evil from which he came and operated but God says, I want you to know that when you're born again of the Spirit of the living God, I'm going to put the stamp of my eternal grace across your forehead. I am going to remove the number 666 from even its very existence and your face is going to shine with the glory and the majesty of a God who died for you from before the foundation of the world. That's what God says. What's going to happen to me when I die?
What's going to happen to me? The word of God has much to say. What powerful teaching and what powerful grace, eternal grace that Dr. Wilton's talking about. Perhaps as we've been studying the word, you have questions. We would love to answer those questions in God's word together at 866-899-WORD.
That's our phone number, 866-899-9673. Not just now during the broadcast, but 24 hours a day, we'd love to speak with you, pray with you. Perhaps the Lord has stirred your heart in a unique way and you've been hearing Dr. Donaes has been preaching, but now as he steps into the studio, I pray you'd open your heart to what he wants to ask next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?
I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much, and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today, I repent of my sin. I confess my sin to you and I invite you to come into my heart and into my life by faith. In Jesus' name I pray. If you prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.
This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey. Perhaps moments ago, as Dr. Donaes was leading in that prayer of salvation, you prayed along with Dr. Wilton and gave your life to Christ, perhaps for the first time or rededicated your life to Jesus. We believe God is at work through this teaching today as we all have been made more aware of not only our mortality, we all are going to die, but the truth is we all have a choice about where we will spend the rest of eternity. Again, if Dr. Don's message has challenged you and you have questions, call us at 866-899-WORD. We'd love to maybe continue that conversation with you, but if you gave your life to Christ or rededicated your life to Jesus, we have remarkable resources Dr. Donaes wants you to have absolutely free, if you'll call us, the number is 866-899-9673. We stand ready not only to pray with you and for you to put these resources in your hands that will help you grow in your faith. And speaking of growing in your faith, right now on our website, TEWOnline.org, there's a remarkable book from Dr. Wilton's good friend, Dr. Charles Stanley, and a message from our pastor, Dr. Wilton, that together provide a resource that will help you strengthen your faith like never before. Again, here are the details about how you can get a copy of Pressing Forward and Courageous Faith.
What's going on in your life today? Are you thinking about giving up? Don't give up. We cannot afford to be deterred on the Christian journey.
Too much is at stake. This month, Dr. Wilton has two special resources to send you for your gift of support to the encouraging Word. You will receive Dr. Wilton's inspiring message, Pressing Forward, along with Courageous Faith by Dr. Charles Stanley. Both of these ministry resources will help fortify your faith to stay the course on the Christian journey.
Call us at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673, and request Pressing Forward and the bonus book, Courageous Faith today. Thank you for supporting the encouraging Word.
We cannot fulfill our mission without you. It's a powerful resource. I hope you'll discover more on our website at www.tewonline.org. And while you're there, sign up for the daily encouraging Word devotional.
It's absolutely free. You can receive it email-a-phonically if you'd like by signing up at our website, www.tewonline.org. But you also can request a hard copy both on our website, www.tewonline.org, and by calling us at 866-899-WORD and asking about the daily encouraging Word devotional. That's 866-899-9673 or online at www.tewonline.org.
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