"It is Appointed unto Men"...the Wayfarer 8/12/14

“It is Appointed unto Men”
 8/12/14

“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.”

(Hebrews 9:27&28)

For today’s message I choose to cover two subjects that are constantly and studiously avoided by most in our society today; death and sin.

The discussion of death is most often avoided because of unwillingness to accept our own mortality.

The discussion of sin is avoided for much the same reason, most are unwilling to even define sin, much less admit their guilt of it.

We will attempt to cover these because, without the understanding of why they exist, they will continue to be ignored and avoided resulting in eternal separation from the love of our God.

There are two kinds of death, as we will also discuss today, physical and spiritual.

Why must we face a physical death?

Who is responsible for its existence?

What is spiritual death as opposed to physical death?

Who is responsible for that form of death?

Why does sin exist?

Who is responsible for this?

These questions begin, most appropriately, to be answered in the first book of our bible, Genesis:

“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

(Genesis 2:15-17)

There is a necessity to call to attention that there was no death intended for Adam. He was created in perfection and given the responsibility of taking care of God’s world that had been created!

God gave him a free hand in that task, telling him that everything contained in the garden was free for his nourishment and use, except for one thing, the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

As long as Adam had no concept of good and evil, he would remain perfect and in perfect innocence before God!

The 19^th through the 25^th verses detail that Eve was created to be a partner and helper for Adam, after this commandment was given.

What happened to change that perfection that had been created and how did it happen and who was responsible?

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

(Genesis 3:1-5)

The serpent: Lucifer: the devil: Satan, by whatever name you choose to call him, came into the picture in an attempt to draw her from God’s only given law at this point.

Eve, having no knowledge of what evil was, listened to his seduction and promise of being a greater creature through the disobedience of that only given law.

As most are thoroughly familiar with the history of the fall from grace of mankind, I will leave the scripture at this point, as the answer to several of our questions have been answered in the passages quoted.

From that point onward sin existed, and therefore the end result of death existed. Eve compounded her mistake, giving Adam of the fruit that she had eaten, assuring that he also fell from grace and perfection that day.

Why did Satan want them to disobey God?

One need only remember his own fall from grace and that he set out to be equal with God and despised God’ very creation of mankind. It was his intent to forever separate man from God, and to make man a lower creature than he was, after all his own fall from grace came about because he refused God’s command to serve this creation.

The answer to the question of who is responsible for physical death is apparent in that intent.

I can hear the skeptics now saying that Satan doesn’t even exist! This is another of his lies that once accepted leads us to the other type of death I mentioned, spiritual death.

This lie is the greatest lie he has ever perpetrated on mankind, and the most believed!

Jesus himself warned us about his being a liar and the father of it!

God didn’t give up on His creation that day in the garden. He instead allowed them to suffer the banishment from the ultimate carefree life they had been given, intended to last for eternity and required both the expenditure of physical labor and eventual physical death.

Unwilling to have mankind forever separated from His eternal blessing and love, God provided, through their progeny a means to get back into his grace, only to be rebuffed until he was ready to destroy mankind entirely, had it not been for the righteousness of a man named Noah.

God gave us a second chance, which was abused and rebuffed once more requiring separation of the descendants of the two in the garden.

Eventually Abraham was found to be worthy of a covenant, and yet again a chance to prove our worthiness for the intended function of man.

Again mankind listened to the wiles and lies of the creature in the garden that continued to attempt to forever separate this hated creature of God called mankind from Him.

Eventually the purity that was given, through lineage, was no longer sufficient to provide the required righteousness to return to God’s favor, and the Law was given to Moses as a means to make ourselves worthy.

This too was inadequate, because of the fact that that old serpent corrupted the law by using the thought processes of his most hated creature to render it unacceptable to God. This is why it became necessary for God to give the same sacrifice that he rescued his servant Abraham from.

The sacrifices given by man himself were polluted by the corruption of that law that was a part of the covenant given them.

God made the ultimate Sacrifice by sending his OWN Son, Jesus, to reteach the intent of the laws that were given us, and to die a physical death in order to give us a way back into his favor.

This negated the further need for sacrifice by man to atone for the inherent sinfulness that still today pervades all societies throughout our world, also no longer perfect, because of our failure to accomplish the primary function of dressing and keeping the perfect garden initially given us.

Now we have answered several of the initial questions that I began with. Let us now look to the existence of spiritual death, why it exists, who is responsible for it and whether it too is inevitable.

There is no redemption from this second death, as the choices made in this life dictate whether or not it will be experienced.

It consists of an eternal separation from the love of our God and creator, and more, punishment for having refused the offered salvation.

As to who is responsible, Satan continues in his hatred for mankind and wishes only to see us separated from that love and will do anything to assure that we join him, and those who have followed him in eternal damnation and punishment.

The responsibility for the decision is, however, not His, but yours!

It is a decision that must be made individually.

It is each individual that must face God in the judgment mentioned in the opening verse!

 No man may make this choice that must be made for you; it is a choice, given each of us to be made only on our own behalf.

The answers to these questions are found throughout the New Testament, after God gave us, yet again, another way into eternal life through the sacrifice of His Son.

I would have the reader go once again as I have in the past go to the writings of Matthew and the teachings of Jesus himself for complete and undeniable evidence of these these answers.

Matthew 25:31-46 answers these questions thoroughly.

There is a way to the grace of God that is intended for us.

It is through His Son, and through the only requirement asked by Him is that we repent recognizing our sinfulness, and truly love one another as He loved us through His sacrifice for us.

This, and only this, is sufficient to God.

I state once more with total conviction in the strongest terms possible that we are God’s creatures, intended to live forever in His love, deprived of this love by our sinfulness that may only be overcome by repentance and acceptance of the only Savior and intercessor that will ever be available to us, Christ Jesus.

Failure to do this results in the second death as defined in Revelation’s 20^th chapter.

I beg the reader to go to the scriptures I mention, but leave them for your own reading.

 Accept the same facts that I did so many years ago, that we are lost forever to God’s love without the intercession of His Son, and may receive that intercession only through repentance as Jesus himself preached!

I close once more with the love given the reader by this sinner saved by the grace of God through faith in my Savior Christ Jesus, praying that all who read this come to the same repentance and salvation found through that faith.

2 Timothy 1:12 King James Version (KJV)

¹² For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

AMEN and AMEN
the Wayfarer