11/25/07 – 47LAW - “The Rich Man and Lazarus and What Happens to Us at Death“– Part 5
 
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Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

Today’s message is “The Rich Man and Lazarus and What Happens to Us at Death” Part 5

Before we begin, let us seek God’s guidance, “Heavenly Father, as we finish our fifth and final week in studying this most important subject regarding the real truth about the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus and the state of the dead, I pray that You bless those listening today with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we may understand how Satan has deceived the Christian world into believing that this parable somehow teaches what happens to us when we die. We pray for wisdom, knowledge and understanding so that we may live in the center of Your revealed will, as we ask in Jesus Name, Amen.”

Right now, I continue to keep my pledge, to cry aloud and spare not, to lift up my voice like a trumpet and to show God’s people where they are transgressing God’s law.
Last week we quite thoroughly explained the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We will continue this week applying the parable to those in the church in the last days of earth’s history, a place we find ourselves today. Then we will summarize what we have studied these last 5 weeks.

The closing scenes of this earth's history are portrayed in the closing of the rich man's history. The rich man claimed to be a son of Abraham, but he was separated from Abraham by an impassable gulf--a character wrongly developed. Abraham served God, following His word in faith and obedience. But the rich man was unmindful of God and of the needs of suffering humanity. The great gulf fixed between him and Abraham was the gulf of disobedience. There are many today who are following the same course. Though church members, they are unconverted. They may take part in the church service, they may chant the psalm, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God" (Ps. 42:1); but they testify to a falsehood. They are no more righteous in God's sight than is the vilest sinner. The soul that longs after the excitement of worldly pleasure, the mind that is full of love for display, cannot serve God. Like the rich man in the parable, such a one has no inclination to war against the lust of the flesh. He longs to indulge appetite. He chooses the atmosphere of sin. He is suddenly snatched away by death, and he goes down to the grave with the character formed during his lifetime in co-partnership with satanic agencies. In the grave he has no power to choose anything, be it good or evil; for in the day when a man dies, his thoughts perish. (Ps. 146:4; Eccl. 9:5, 6.)  

     When the voice of God awakes the dead, they will come from the grave with the same appetites and passions, the same likes and dislikes that they cherished when living. God works no miracle to re-create a man who would not be re-created when he was granted every opportunity and provided with every facility. During his lifetime he took no delight in God, nor found pleasure in His service. His character is not in harmony with God, and he could not be happy in the heavenly family.  

     Today there is a class in our world who are self-righteous. They are not gluttons, they are not drunkards, they are not infidels; but they desire to live for themselves, not for God. He is not in their thoughts; therefore they are classed with unbelievers. Were it possible for them to enter the gates of the city of God, they could have no right to the tree of life, for when God's commandments were laid before them with all their binding claims they said, No. They have not served God here; therefore they would not serve Him hereafter. They could not live in His presence, and they would feel that any place was preferable to heaven.  

     To learn of Christ means to receive His grace, which is His character. But those who do not appreciate and utilize the precious opportunities and sacred influences granted them on earth, are not fitted to take part in the pure devotion of heaven. Their characters are not molded according to the divine similitude. By their own neglect they have formed a chasm which nothing can bridge. Between them and the righteous there is a great gulf fixed.  

Now in review of what we have studied these last five weeks, we can come to no other conclusion about the state of the dead, then the facts revealed in the Scriptures.
God warned the holy pair in Genesis 2:17 “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.”

Sin constitutes rebellion against God and Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death;”

But the arch rebel in Genesis 3:4 told Eve the first lie on earth, “Ye shall not surely die:” And that is the lie that the Christian church perpetuates today. When a member dies, they say he or she did not surely die. They put him in heaven singing with the heavenly choirs and praising Jesus. Those lies are rebellion against God because they are saying that God is lying. Are you one of those who call God a liar? You say certainly not. Well let me ask you this. When you go to a funeral, do you say the person, relative or friend, is in heaven, or they are dead in the casket and they know nothing? If you say they are in heaven that you are calling God a liar because God’s Word says,

Psalm 115:17 “The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.”
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6 “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” 
Job 14:12. “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” 
Job 14:21. “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.”
Psalm 146:4. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”        

When a man dies he enters the sleep of death where he has no conscious thoughts and will not have conscious thoughts until the resurrection. Jesus Himself called death “SLEEP” in John 11:11-14. “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.”                         
Jesus spoke of the time man will rise and have conscious thought again in one of the two resurrections in John 5:28, 29. Jesus said, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”  
Paul called death sleep as well and he so stated in respect to the second coming of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53. Listen carefully, “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, (In other words when Jesus comes, some will be alive, but all the dead will be in the sleep of death) We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”  
You see we don’t posses immortality. We are mortal and subject to death. We will not live again until Jesus comes and then and only then do we put on immortality. Anyway common sense tells you how could you go to your reward before your case is decided in the court of heaven. Jesus tells us in Revelation 22:12 exactly when we receive our reward, “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” It’s at His second coming that those righteous who are alive receive their reward and the dead righteous from all the ages are raised to their reward, eternal life, and not before.
There is another scripture that is twisted to make it seem that at death we go straight to heaven and that is when Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:8 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”  Well that is the experience of every prophet of God that is taken into vision, their body remains while they are in the presence of Jesus receiving instruction. Their eyes remain open and there is no breath in their body, until they come out of vision. Paul was stating what he would have preferred, but his theology was correct. He knew that when he died, he would enter the sleep of death and get his reward at the second appearing of Jesus. He stated so when he was going to his execution in 2 Timothy 4:7, 8: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
When you believe Satan’s lie about continuing existence after death and before the second coming, then you will swallow spiritualism in all its demonic deception. Four times Jesus warned against deception in the last days in Matthew 24. He knew that if people did not have a correct understanding on the state of the dead, that they would be prime candidates to receive the mark of the beast when it comes soon in this final generation.
I have given you great detail over these last five weeks regarding what happens to you when you die, exposing the false theories regarding the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You can continue to embrace the lie of Satan or you can say, NO! I will no longer rebel against the truth of God. And don’t forget, Satan has almost the whole world believing another lie, and that is keeping the counterfeit Sabbath Sunday. A day God never blessed or made holy.
Well time is up for this week. Next week we will begin a brand new study in God’s Word as week after week we expose many of the deceptions that Satan holds Christendom captive with.
If you would like to worship with seventh day Sabbath-keepers, come to the Victory Everlasting Gospel Church at our new location at the Hampton Inn Conference suite in South Hill, VA at the exit 12 interchange of Interstate 85. We meet at 9:30 am each Saturday the Lord’s Day and will be meeting there until out new building has been completed. 
Look, if you have been listening to these broadcasts for any length of time, you know Saturday is God’s Sabbath and He’s calling you to start keeping it holy. Why not begin this week?
Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. Even so, come Lord Jesus.