El pensamiento correcto acerca de la Resurrección

The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Therefore, go around the world teaching and preaching the gospel to all creatures, to the end of the earth. En Contacto, the biblical teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Today on En Contacto, the correct thought about the resurrection. The night before Jesus Christ died, he gave the most encouraging message possible to his disciples. Let's see what John 14 says, Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. Then he said to them, In the house of my Father there are many dwellings. If it were not so, I would have told you. And he added, And if you prepare a place for me, I will come again, and I will take you myself, so that where I am you may also be. That was his way of encouraging them for the simple reason that the next day he would go to the cross. And this reminds me of what Paul said when the time came to face his death. And according to Timothy chapter 4, he said, Because I am about to be sacrificed, and the time of my departure is near. And the word he uses when talking about his departure is the same that was used when, for example, they released a ship from the dock, or if an army gathered its camp, preparing to leave. That is, someone prepares to leave, so he says, I have fought the good battle, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. For the rest, I have kept the crown of justice, which the Lord Judge will give me just on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who love his coming. And considering the idea that Paul had of death, and what happens next, listen to what he said in 2 Corinthians 5, he said, Now, because by faith we walk, not by sight. Therefore, he said, but we trust, and we would rather be absent from the body and present to the Lord. Each time he gives us a word of encouragement. And then in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, for example, he says, And when this corruptible is dressed in incorruption, and this mortal is dressed in immortality, then the word that is written will be fulfilled.

For the dead are in victory. Where is your death, O scourge? Where, O grave, is your victory? For the scourge of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. When Paul spoke of death, it was always something encouraging, nothing gloomy, nor with the attitude, this is the end, it is over, but with a sense of great confidence, and it is because he knew the truth that the Lord taught him of what follows after death. So, when we see these passages and see their perspective, we must ask, what is the perspective of the believer? As regards the resurrection, we all plan to rejoice, to praise the Lord. One day we will have a new body, we will see each other and feel better. Everything will be wonderful. Well, that is fine if we start there, but if we take a step back, we must face death, and that is a different story. It is not all joy, happiness, etc., but until we reach the understanding of what the Bible teaches, of death and our relationship with Christ, and the basic understanding of our confidence and security, death is a different story. And it is interesting how people have different ideas of death. For example, if someone does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, he does not even want to talk about it, he does not even talk about the subject. And if he is not a believer of any religion and thinks, well, one day this will be the end of this, and when I die I will evaporate into nothingness, he expects a great surprise, because that is not what the Bible says. So I want us to look at what the Bible teaches and consider what Paul thought. He said that it would be like something similar from here on earth. Absent of the body, present to the Lord. Always confident of what would happen on the other side. So I ask you, would this be true of you today? And the first question I want to answer, I have several to answer.

The first is, what happens when someone dies? I want to ask all of you, what happens when someone dies? Well, if you are a believer, it is very evident. Now, what I would like to do is answer two or three questions here. There is a lot of confusion circulating in the world today and in the Church today, and I want to answer this question, that is, we ask, what happens when someone dies? The souls of the believers go immediately to the presence of God. Death is only a temporary separation of the body from the soul from the spirit. If you do not believe that when you die, and your heart stops beating, you will go to the presence of God, where will you go then? There are those who say that in purgatory, we will talk about that, some people say, one disintegrates, one annihilates, that is the end for one. People have all kinds of ideas about where we are going when we die, but the Bible is clear in terms of the exact place where we are going when we die. But if Paul had thought, for example, pay attention, if he had thought that when he died, he would have gone to any place other than the presence of the Lord, he would not have said, absence of the body, floating in space, in the grave for two thousand years. No, he said, absence of the body, presence of the Lord. Let me ask you, can you say that? Can you say, if I die today, according to what the Bible says, not my opinion, according to the Bible, if I die today, I will be absent from this body and present with the Lord? Exactly that, said Paul. Anything other than that is not biblical. Can you say that? You can say that for sure. And if you answer yes, then I ask you, what is the basis for saying today, if I die today on my way home, or if I had a heart attack right here, if I die today,

with what basis could I say, I can rejoice in the Lord because I am absent from the body, present with the Lord? What would be your basis for saying that? The cross, not the works. The only way to be sure is that we have accepted Christ, the substitutive sacrifice of his expiatory death in Calvary to pay our sin, all our sin, so that when he calls us, we go to heaven without basing ourselves on anything else. So, if tomorrow I ask a friend, and I say, well, if you die today, where would you go? Well, I don't know. Maybe I would go to heaven. And why do you say that? And listen to his answer. 95% of the answer that most people give is, well, I have not been a bad person. I have been as good as others in the church. There is only one answer. The cross. Not my works. The cross. And think about this. Think about people whose relationship with God is not good. And they think, well, one of these days I want to fix this. Then they see a fatal accident. One of the first things they think is, I would not be ready. So I ask again, would you be ready?

And what is the basis of your preparation? Apart from having accepted Christ as your personal Savior, based on the sacrifice of your expiatory, substitutive death, and sufficient in Calvary, if it is not this, it has no basis. So when someone says, what happens if I die? We go to the presence of God. Now, if that is true, what about those who speak of, for example, the dream of the soul? And a couple of weeks ago, I had a long two-hour conversation with someone who wanted to persuade me, look, when you die, you sleep in the grave until Christ returns. I knew exactly where that came from. They took it, for example, from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And Paul uses the term sleep, but not to teach it as a doctrine, because he did not believe that. He said, absent from the body and present to the Lord, not absent from the body and present in the grave. And there was no contradiction in what he said. So it is very clear what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. He points out, we do not want, brothers, to ignore those who sleep, so that they do not be sad like the others who have no hope. By using the term sleep, he does not mean that they sleep in the grave. Here he speaks of when a person who is a believer dies, when a believer dies, what happens? It is like going to sleep. We wake up in the presence of God, and Paul would not have believed it if he had not said, Absent from the body, present to the Lord. So think about this.

Apostle Paul would never have said, I don't know what to choose between these two directions, as the Philippians said. Number one, I really want to stay and preach the gospel to him. On the other hand, I want to leave and be with Christ. Now, if he had thought that he would stay in a tomb, whether for a hundred or a thousand years, he would never have said that. He said, I want to leave and be with Christ, or stay here and preach the gospel. He said, I don't know what to choose. So he would never have felt that way, if he had believed that anything else would happen to him, except to be in the presence of God. So, when it comes to the dream of the soul, there is nothing like that in the Bible. And you can look for all the verses you want, it is not there. So, it is not true. Then there is purgatory. And I am surprised by the people who believe that. I think many Roman Catholics are saved. I do not question that, because if you talk to them, they accepted Christ as their Savior. They understand what it means to be saved. Now, think about what he is saying. Think clearly. If there was a purgatory, if he had to make a statement of how it definitely cannot be true, if, for example, there was a purgatory, it would imply this. It would be an absolute denial of this truth,

that the death of Christ paid all our debt of sin. So, if you died and went to purgatory, to suffer for your sins, they will tell you this. Well, there are sins that you committed that you did not pay in life, so you have to suffer until you pay them. There is absolutely nothing like that. Definitely nothing. It is totally false. Otherwise, it would mean that the death of Christ was a partial payment and you have to take care of the rest. It is the total denial of the truth of the expiatory death of Christ for the sins of humanity. What I want us to see is that these are beliefs that many people have and firmly believe, but they are not true. Look, one thing is to believe something, but when questions arise, one thinks, it is not possible to believe that. Well, if you believe the word of God, you cannot believe this closed idea. So, what about the people who die without Christ? They are lost. I will say a couple of things here. The Bible says, it is established to resolve that they die once and after this judgment. Now, pay attention. We must say it with love, say it with tact, but speak the truth. When someone dies without Christ, all the preaching,

the flowers, all the money, and the praise, and the song, all of that, nothing will take a second from the eternal separation of God. Now, comes the hardest part, the most difficult part, to realize that someone has gone to hell, to torment, and they will be tormented until the final resurrection in chapter 20 of Revelation, when the bodies of the non-believers come out of the tomb, and are united with the spirit and the soul, and are judged for eternity, for their works. Because, look, when someone dies without Christ, he goes to torment. But the final judgment is not at that moment, because the judgment will be perfectly faithful to the way we live our lives, and to what the judgment carries. That's why you can't tell someone, I know he wasn't a believer,

but as a pastor, I've faced that many times, like every pastor, I tell them, talk to me about your husband and his relationship with God. Well, he was a good man. He can't be so good to escape the torment, if he has rejected Jesus Christ. It's hard to have to tell that to someone, but it's the truth. And we can't afford to divert someone to think that because they did this and that, for example, or they say, oh, I'm not sure about all that, but I know he'll be fine. Well, I don't have the heart to go any further. But the truth is, they won't be fine. It's established. for men who die once and after the judgment." That is, after our last breath, we will hear the presence of God or the place of torment. There is no reasoning, sermons, theology, doctrine, false beliefs, and everything that happens. None of that will work. The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,

you understand what it is about, you will be saved. Look, God the Father placed all our sins, His and mine, the sins of the whole world, from Adam, He put the blame and the payment of all the sins of humanity in the only one who could take them, someone without sin, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, all the lambs, goats, and bulls that were sacrificed. All of that was a foretaste of what? Of the day that Jesus Christ went to the cross. The Bible says that the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Now man has access to the Father. Therefore, everything that happened in those years, our access to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Now, God put the sin of humanity in the person who never sinned. And who killed Jesus? Neither the Romans nor the Jews killed Him. The Father killed Jesus. It was His Son whom He sacrificed for our sins. Therefore, by accepting Christ as our personal Savior, we accept the gift of God, of His Son, as the only and true sacrifice suitable, spiatory, vicarious, and sufficient sacrifice for our sins. He put all that sin on Christ. This is what makes it so atrocious to reject Christ. He is the only one who can take us to heaven. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He did not make a fuss, He said the truth, He declared it. Therefore, whoever rejects Christ, rejects the gift of the Father, of dying for their sins.

And by rejecting Christ, no one else will be able to pay for their sins. Listen carefully. Who else will be able to pay their debt? I will tell you why no one else will be able to. Because everyone is a sinner. We all have our sin. Jesus, the only Son of God, perfect, without sin, paid all the debt and period. By accepting Him as a personal Savior, He assures you eternally, based on His death on the cross, how He pays for your sin. Well, if you ignore that, who takes your sin? You must do it. And you will say, and my good works? How good that you ask me. Because your good works are useless when it comes to your acceptance before God. That is why God sent Him. Perhaps someone will say, well, then what about the resurrection? What is it about? Well, the Bible says that there will come a day when God will declare the end of everything. And He will bring everything to light. There will come a day when the Lord Jesus Christ will come into the air and our resurrected bodies will be gathered with Him in the clouds in the air. Now, let's read a couple of verses here because I consider it very important. When He says to the Thessalonians, for example, He says, we do not want, brethren, that you ignore those who sleep. And remember, we said that it does not mean that they sleep in the tomb.

That is only the terminology of how we sleep at night and wake up the next day. Because if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then He will also bring God with Jesus to those who slept in Him. Now look, I will repeat it again because it is an important matter for people. If God brought me with Him and my physical body was resurrected, then I would think that I was in the tomb. It would not make any sense. Therefore, there is no sleep of the soul. One dies and goes, or to the presence of God, to the torment. And in Luke 16, a well-known passage, the rich man and Lazarus, remember what Christ said when He told this story. And the rich man died and went to the torment. And you remember what happened. The Bible says that the rich man cried out to God and said, I asked, send Lazarus to soak his finger in water and refresh my tongue. Why did Jesus use such terminology? Simply to emphasize the fact that torment is torment. It's not a luxury apartment. It's torment. And when someone dies in Christ, it's torment. In Revelation chapter 20, when the Virgin says that the great white throne of judgment will come, what happens? He will resurrect the bodies of the dead from the whole world. You will say, what about those years and years ago? Let me ask you. Do you think it's a problem for God to raise bodies from the sea and the fish and the earth, being that he was the one who created everything? None of that is a problem for him. And he says that the judgment of the great white throne will come. And each person is someone who rejected Christ.

Someone will say, well, if I'm already dead and I'm in torment, what is the judgment about? The judgment determines the degree of punishment that person will experience for eternity. Does that mean that he believes that people will suffer for all eternity? That's not a good question. Ask what God says. He says that when someone goes to hell, there is no escape. That's why he tells this story. Look, there are parents who say, well, if I live in integrity, my children will be fine. Not necessarily. Especially if he did not live as God pleases. Well, he has set the pattern. What does the Bible say? When someone dies, or goes to torment, or goes to the presence of God. When the children of God die, we go to their presence. And then, when Jesus Christ brings the judgment for the believers. What happens? We will be rewarded for our good works. And we will enjoy for eternity the rewards of God as a result of how we live. The non-believer in the judgment does not receive a reward. He spends eternity suffering according to how they have lived. So there is no escape. You will say, why so much emphasis on death? Because it is inevitable. And we must all be ready to die. There is only one way to prepare. It is not to attend the church. Although the church is important. It is not to read the Bible, although it is important. To pray, very important. The essential thing is that for an act of self-will, you ask Christ to forgive your sins.

Accept the fact that he went to the cross in his place, paid all his debt. And he places his faith in him as his Savior. Believing that he forgives his sins. Accepting him as his Savior. And that when he dies, he will be in the presence of God Almighty. There is nothing else, nothing at all, that substitutes that. So I ask you, are you ready? There are only two answers. If I am, I am not. You will say, well, my answer is perhaps. Perhaps what? The only reason you can say perhaps is because perhaps you are wrong. No. The Bible is clearer than water. The one who is not born again cannot see the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. So what? You have accepted Christ in your life as an act of self-will, saying, Lord, here is my life. It is not that you have lived a perfect life, but that you have secured your eternal inheritance by being here. There is no sleep of the soul. There is no annihilation. There is no purgatory. None of that. We live and we die. We live in Christ. We die in Christ. Rewarded for our life. We die without Christ. Without Christ.

And we will suffer eternally the penalty of the rejection of the Son of God. Now look. It is not what we did or stopped doing that makes us lose heaven. It is the rejection of the Son of God. Jesus Christ. the sacrifice, which is what makes us lose eternal life. And my prayer is that you think about this seriously. I will say, well, I will think about it one of these days. Perhaps many people who are today in hell, who said the same thing, I will ask you to be sincere with yourself. Are you ready to meet the God who created you, and gave you life and an opportunity? Are you ready to meet him, having rejected his Son, acting in his own way, rebelling against God's love? Father, I ask you that the Holy Spirit record these truths in the depths of our hearts. I ask you for those who have sought excuses not to have to confront their relationship with you. I ask you, Father, to make them feel broken, that when they go to bed, they cannot sleep. When they try to concentrate on something, they cannot, until they resolve the most crucial matter of all, their personal relationship with you, through your Son Jesus. I ask this in his name. Amen.