Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Dying Grace: Every man dies but not every man really lives.
Sunday, November 2, 2003
REV 12:11 Furthermore they overcame him, Satan, because of the blood of the lamb, the saving work of Christ on the cross, and because of the doctrine applied by means of their testimony. In fact they did not love their life to the point of death.
Every believer is a strategical winner – once he believes in Christ he has become a strategical winner in the angelic conflict, identifying with the strategic victory of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross,
COL 2:14-15, 1JO 5:4-5.
Strategic – TLJC came up with a strategy to defeat Satan and executed that plan magnificently and He defeated Satan.
COL 2:14 having cancelled out the certificate of debt which was against us by means of the decrees, and which [certificate of debt] was hostile to us and He [by means of the decrees] has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross.
COL 2:15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
1JO 5:4-5 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
The strategic winner who fails to advance in the PPOG lives in the cosmic system and fears death.
Whereas the tactical winner lives in the PPOG and has no fear of death.
The Christian way of life is divided into two general categories: living and dying.
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity.
If you advance to spiritual maturity, and if you become an invisible hero or a tactical winner, then it can be said that you have enjoyed living.
The dessert of dying is so fantastic and many times such a surprise, since it is manufactured by the sovereignty of God totally apart from our own volition.
Death is designed by God to be the most beautiful adventure in life, for God always saves the best for last, JOH 2:10.
Death is no more to us than a change from the bondage of time to the freedom of eternity.
The day which we fear as our last is in reality the birthday of eternity.
Death is not the last sleep, it is the last and final awakening.
For those who make daily good decisions from a position of strength, whose #1 priority is the Word of God, it is inevitable that you will come to realize that God saves the best things for you until last.
1. Phase 1 starts at salvation and goes to the point of reaching spiritual maturity.
This is called the life beyond gnosis or knowledge, EPH 3:19.
The life beyond gnosis is the life of epignosis which is the life of wisdom or the perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.
2. Phase 2 starts at spiritual maturity and goes to the point of physical death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first, EPH 3:20.
God never designed dying to be a horrible or frightening experience for the believer.
Godly – chaciyd = faithful, holy, gracious or mature.
Since God’s plan for the believer is fulfilled through the intake of Bible doctrine, only the mature believer will experience the fantastic blessings and happiness from dying grace.
NAB –
PSA 68:20 “The Lord, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.”
God is absolute righteousness and He therefore cannot possibly make a wrong decision, He is always right.
God is also just and the perfect justice of God is always fair in the death of any person.
Omnipresence and omniscience knows firsthand all the facts, therefore, the Lord has a right time and a right way to remove each of us, and, excepting suicide, death is strictly His option.
REV 21:4 “He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes [erase a part of their memory]; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
2CO 5:8 “to be absent from the body is to be face to face with the Lord.”
God not only assigns you your death but He also supplies every need related to that death.
Your only concern is to prepare for the inevitable; the only preparation for death is the same as for life – Bible doctrine resident in the soul.
JOB 14:5 “Man’s days are determined, The number of his months is with Thee,”
The believer can check his spiritual progress by his attitude toward death and this attitude has a great deal to do with his capacity for life.
If we have nobility and greatness in life, we will have nobility and greatness in dying.
Dying grace is the mature believer’s experience of physical death under the provision of grace and under conditions of happiness and blessing.
He knew the best is saved until last: dying, death, heaven, resurrection, and the eternal state.
Occupation with Christ, which equates living with dying and adversity with prosperity, is the ultimate in happiness.
If living is occupation with the person of Christ, and dying is absence from the body and being face to face with the Lord, then dying can only be much more profitable than living.
The body experiences dying, not the soul or the human spirit.
Christ is exalted in the body in dying because He chose the time, the place, and manner of that death