Understanding Death Through Biblical Euphemisms: Reagan Explores 'Falling Asleep'

In this insightful talk, Reagan discusses how human beings across various cultures use euphemisms to address uncomfortable subjects, especially death. He explains how the Bible uniquely refers to death as 'falling asleep' to comfort and provide a sense of hope for those with a relationship with Jesus. With references to scriptures and personal anecdotes, Reagan illustrates how sleep and death are interconnected, emphasizing the Christian promise of resurrection and eternal life.

00:00 Introduction to Euphemisms
00:56 Euphemisms in Everyday Life
01:39 Euphemisms and Death
03:28 Biblical Perspective on Death
05:01 The Bible's Preferred Euphemism for Death
05:48 Death as Sleep in the Bible
16:31 Comfort and Rest in Death
25:25 Awakening from Death
26:33 Jesus' Perspective on Death
34:07 The Resurrection and Eternal Life
38:28 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

As human beings across all times and cultures, we speak euphemistically for things that make us. Uncomfortable. The euphemisms might be different from time to time or culture to culture, but we all use them. For example, a woman is expecting, expecting what a bundle of joy. And where did that bundle of joy come from? Well, the stork is going to drop it off, and if you don't understand that, well, she has a bun in the oven, which makes sense because she is eating for two.

Now we find that those kind of euphemisms kind of fun and silly, but it's also true of things that truly do make us more uncomfortable. We call torture in enhanced interrogation techniques. Being fired is a workforce reduction or downsizing. People killed in war or collateral damage. A pet goes to the vet to get. A lady goes to powder her nose. People watch adult entertainment. A driver is buzzed euphemisms. Lest we have to deal with the true reality too, bluntly, which we don't like very much.

I think this is especially true of death. Someone passes away. Departs or is no longer with us, and we might even make light of that to a certain degree and say that they're pushing up daisies or kick the bucket or bit the dust. Sometimes it even leads to confusion because we think about things euphemistically and we refer to things euphemistically and people misunderstand thinking the reality.

What we don't want to deal with is what people are talking about when they're really not. You may or may not know that, the Pope is not doing particularly well right now. He's had pneumonia and various other problems. And so, last week or the week before, there was a tweet that went out and from a news source that said this Pope Francis, who has been diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs, passed a peaceful night.

The Vatican has said, amend growing concerns over the 88 year old's condition. Now, the first time I read that as I opened up XI thought the Pope had died. And apparently I wasn't alone in that because this kind of went viral and lots of people had comments about it. And my favorite was when people started commenting with some of their own about this.

So give, just to give you a few examples this person said it's like they heard he was still alive. Mid headline or this one hospital confirms the pope is no longer with us as he was discharged this morning in good health. How about this one? Breaking last night, Pope Francis left us and went to heaven.

It is a cafe near the Vatican, which he frequents. He had tea and return by 8:00 PM and then I actually know in person this next guy whose tweet was viewed a million times breaking. Pope Francis went to be with the Lord this evening in prayer, as is his custom. So. We like talking about things that make us uncomfortable euphemistically, and certainly that's true of death and maybe we would expect the Bible not to do that because the Bible doesn't beat around the bush on most, most topics.

Usually the Bible speaks directly and explicitly and non euphemistically about all sorts of things that genuinely make us uncomfortable, I think. Not here, but preaching somewhere else. One of the, the biggest trouble I got into as a preacher was just reading a text and reading that text and made lots of people uncomfortable because the Bible just talks about stuff, stuff that we don't like talking about.

But interestingly, the Bible speaks euphemistically about death. Very often, we might not expect that, but when it comes to death, the Bible often speaks euphemistically, not everywhere. But in many places, and I think if I understand, if I understand the intent of the Holy Spirit correctly, it is for a more pointed and important reason than easing our own discomfort with death.

The Bible doesn't care about us being uncomfortable. In fact, the Bible was written to make us uncomfortable about a lot of different things. But when it comes to death, the way the Bible talks about it. Is intended to paint a picture in our minds of what death really is. At least for the one who has a relationship with Jesus.

And so I want us to think for a few moments this evening about the Bible's preferred euphemism for death. Thank you for being here this evening. We have a few who are visiting with us. We're grateful for your presence, but we're grateful for the presence of all and maybe, maybe you're unaware of this if you, you're visiting with us, but certainly our members are aware that we've had to deal with quite a bit of death in in recent months.

And so I want us to take just a few minutes this evening, and I hope that the thoughts that I've prepared tonight will be helpful to us, to all of us in navigating the proper Christian attitude toward death as we think about the Bible's preferred euphemism for death falling asleep. So let's think about this in, in a couple of different ways.

The Bible's preferred euphemism for death. Number one, the Bible does not refer to death as passing away. I think that's the way usually we refer to death, that someone passed away that sort of terminology and the Bible uses that phrase or that idea frequently, but, but almost never about death. I, I mean, there are a few scriptures where you might.

Try and squint and try and get that idea out of it. But it would be a stretch as far as I could tell, and it's certainly not wrong or sinful to refer to death as this, in this way as passing away, but that's not the Bible's preferred image. Instead, things that pass away are the fleeting things of the physical realm.

And while that would in some ways include physical life. We are more than just physical beings, physical things that passed away. In two Corinthians chapter five in verse 17. Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new, and we want those old things to pass away.

But we as human beings do not want to pass away. If you have your Bible with you, would you open it up to First John chapter two? First John, chapter two. This is perhaps the most famous of the two dozen or more passing away passages that we see in the Old and New Testament and in First John chapter two, beginning in verse 15.

John talks about something passing away, but it is not us in death. Instead, it is the realm in which we dwell. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world.

Now, listen to verse 17. The world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. The world is passing away and this phrase is not talking about the end of the world at the last day. And that's true. All of these things will be burned up, but that's not specifically what John is talking about.

This passage, I believe, is referring to the constant and perpetual passing away of things that is happening right now and has been happening as long as the world existed. What's popular now will not be popular tomorrow. What's important now will not be important tomorrow. What's remembered today will largely be forgotten tomorrow, and because we live within the confines of time, the world is constantly changing and the hot new thing is being replaced by something new and greater.

At least it's perceived that way at the time. We know, of course, that things around us are constantly breaking down, growing old, and passing away. The reality of the realm in which we live is that that is a, a constant reality, that things are perpetually passing away. And, and maybe that brings some anxiety and uncertainty into our minds and heart, that everything around us is passing away.

Where do we turn for solidity in that kind of environment? Well, he says he who does the will of God abides forever. And while this isn't exactly what John is talking about, the day will come when what now is in this realm will pass away. It will come to an end. The reality of death is different in that death is not the end.

We don't just pass away into nothing. There is something more, and if we do the will of God, we can abide how long for and by implication, that means that we will never pass away. So the Bible doesn't talk about passing away in death, but instead it uses a different image, a different euphemism, a different illustration.

The Bible primarily refers to, at least when it refers to Christians or fateful servants of God refers to death as sleep, as falling asleep, or the person. Fell asleep. More than a dozen passages in each of the old and New Testaments. Talk about death using this metaphor, this image that someone fell asleep.

And it's interesting, isn't it? Have you ever thought about how much death and sleep resemble one another? It's right under here. I loaned this book to somebody here recently, Mark Dickerson. And I read it a, a number of years ago, and so it's been in kind of my mind since I loaned it to him. Why We Sleep, unlocking The Power of Sleep and Dreams.

I enjoyed this book very much. And in the first chapter he's talking about this doctor is writing from a totally secular perspective. I don't believe he's even a believer in Jesus or God or those sorts of things, but he's talking about how sleep has confounded scientists, especially those from a evolutionary perspective because.

There is no seemingly evolutionary benefit to sleep. I mean, it doesn't make any sense if it's survival of the fittest that you're gonna spend like a third of your life in, in the kind of position where you can easily be killed and you can't reproduce and you can't eat, and you can't do all of these other things that are important to life.

And so it's flummoxed scientist for years and years and years. So I'm just gonna read a short excerpt that really resonated with me as we think about this idea of sleep. And then how it relates to this idea of death. Not only do they say it has no evolutionary benefit for, for many, many years, and in fact it's only in the last 50 years or so that we've really started to figure out why we sleep at all.

And so he says about that society's apathy towards sleep has in part, been caused by the historic failure of science to explain why we need it. Sleep remained one of the last great biological mysteries. All of the mighty problem solving methods in science, genetics, molecular biology, and high powered digital technology have been unable to unlock the stubborn vault of sleep.

To better frame this state of prior scientific ignorance, imagine the birth of your first child. Many of us can think back to that, right? Remember the angst that you had, that I was talking about this with Preston the other day. You know, you're holding this baby and you're like, I'm going to break this.

This thing is so fragile, and so you're being all careful, and then like six months later, you're carrying that baby like a football, right? So imagine the birth of your first child at the hospital. The doctor enters the room and says, congratulations. It's a healthy baby boy. We've completed all of the preliminary tests and everything looks good.

She smiles reassuringly and starts walking toward the door. However, before exiting the room, she turns around and says, there is just one thing. From this moment forth and for the rest of your child's life, he will repeatedly and routinely lapse into a state of a parent coma. It might even resemble death.

Times and while his body lies still, his mind will often be filled with stunning, bizarre hallucinations. This state will consume one third of his life or more, and I have absolutely no idea why he, he'll do it or what it is for good luck. Now because we all sleep. That's not the way we perceive it. But if you stop and think about it for just a moment, sleep is weird, isn't it?

It's weird that we spend all of this time where we're unconscious and where it resembles death in many ways. Why do we do that? Well, this book gives us lots of good reasons why we should do it and why we should get a certain number of hours and why sleep is different at different ages and so forth.

But allow me to look at sleep from a religious perspective rather than a scientific one. May I suggest that God, as he so often does, uses things in his created world to illustrate things to us about who he is. About our relationship with him, about what's important and about how we should view things.

I love using an illustration that is almost universal in experience. I think about that, I think about the illustrations that I use, and I know y'all tease me about using sports illustrations. Well, that's because I have so much experience with that, but I try really hard to think about with the illustrations that I use, you know, who's gonna resonate with this illustration?

Who has this? Experience. And so you think about sports, but also music or agriculture, even marriage and family, all of those kinds of illustrations leave some people out because they've not had the experience with sports or music or agriculture or even family. So what, what kinds of things are universal in their application?

Well, sleep is one of those things. Sleep is experienced by everyone. So why does the Holy Spirit refer to death in this way? I believe to illustrate to us, well, I want you to see from this physical sleep, this shadow of what death is. I want you to see what death is really like from God's perspective. So if we think about sleep.

We think about death as sleep. What? What does that mean? What does that imply? What does that tell us about death? Well consider two things with me. There are more. I originally had a much longer list, but I think these two are the most important. You can rejoice that there are only two subpoints to my second point, right?

Number one, sleep implies comfort and rest. For Christmas Stephanie got me this watch right here. It's primarily, so that I can use it while I'm golfing, but it's also got a lot of other things I can run with it and so on and so forth. And it tracks my sleep well. You know, me, I had, that became a competition for me.

It's like, what is the highest sleep number I can possibly get on this thing? The worst I've gotten is like a 42, you know, that's short night, bad sleep, all those sorts of things. But a few weeks ago I got a hundred. And so now it's like I don't even have to wear this to bed anymore. I've already conquered it.

I've already conquered sleep. I've had a perfect night's sleep, right? Well, sleep is intended to be something that is restful, that is comforting. There are times in our life where we can't wait to go to sleep. Why? Because we're tired and we need rest so that we might recharge and feel better. Who here has ever in your life been so tired that all you can think about and all you want to do is falling in bed and going to sleep?

Who, who's ever had that experience? We've all had that experience of I just want to sleep and even in terrible circumstances, the rest of sleep can bring us comfort. I want you to turn to the Book of Acts if you would. Acts chapter seven for just a moment as we consider a few passages here in the second half of our lesson

in Acts, chapter seven, Stephen a mighty servant of God, fateful servant of God in the early church. Is arrested and, and accused of blasphemy. And he gives a sermon to try and defend himself, but also to proclaim Jesus to these people. And at the end of this sermon, his application gets pretty harsh in verse 51.

Notice what he says. Now, keep in mind he's had a whole sermon before this. I don't know if somebody like shouted out in the crowd and interrupt him, interrupted him, or if you know their eyes were glazing over or what, but all of a sudden, almost outta nowhere, he says this, you stiff necked and uncircumcised and hardened ears.

You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute and now. They killed those who foretold the coming of the, just one of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels, but have not kept it.

When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. He being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and he said, look, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God.

Then they cried out with the loud voice, stop their ears and ran at him with one accord, and they cast him out of the city and they stoned him. And the witnesses, the false witnesses who had testified against him, laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul, and they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

This was a difficult and painful and gruesome way to die. Stoning. Meant quite, quite literally that they took up stones, and we think about stones. We're not thinking about pebbles. Usually it was large stones and a mob of people threw those stones at and on someone until they were beaten to death by those stones.

And so Stephen dies with humility and forgiveness. He prays in his death. He kneels down and cries out with a loud voice in verse 60. Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And we remember that Paul was there. He is one of the ones who Stephen is already being willing to forgive. But is there anything odd about how this gruesome death is described?

It might be odd, given the circumstances of being stoned to death in this gruesome sort of way that the end of verse 60 says. When he had said this, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. He fell asleep for Stephen. He just fell asleep. And I think there's a great lesson in that for us as Christians, no matter the circumstances of death, death is a comforting thing for the one who is a Christian.

Now, don't misunderstand me death. Our enemy, one Corinthians 1526 says that the last enemy to be destroyed is death, and it is the price of sin. It is an enemy that we all must face until the Lord comes again, but we do not have to face it alone. In Jesus Christ can be our light to guide us safely through death.

As we sang euphemistically about crossing the Jordan river of death, Jesus is the one who can be there with us to make that crossing. And only faith in God and trust in Jesus Christ. The conqueror of death can remove the terror and sorrow of death to make it comforting and restful for us. Rather than frightening by his grace.

Christ has conquered death for us and death. Though our enemy can become a friend to help us pass through life to the eternal light and happiness that awaits us in heaven. All has been judged and earth is no more. I want you to turn to First Thessalonians chapter four. You're familiar with this passage.

For me personally, it is the passage I read most often at funerals as we think about death. And the church in Thessalonika had a lot of really great things going for it, but they had some misconceptions about the second coming of Christ. They, they thought that this coming was imminent, that Jesus was gonna come any day.

And because of that, they, there were a couple of things that they were having issues with. One, lots of people were just kind of like quitting their jobs and standing around being spiritual so that that Jesus would come at any time and Paul addresses that and say, no, you need to go back to work. You need to work and live your lives.

Jesus is gonna come when Jesus comes. But the second issue they had, because they felt like this was so imminent, was, well, people are dying. And what does that mean for those who have died if Jesus hasn't come yet? And so that's what Paul is addressing in chapter four in verse 13. But I do not want you to be ignorant brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest do sorrow as others who have no hope for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again.

Even so, God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. For this, we say to you by the word of the Lord. We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first.

We who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. And thus, we shall always be with the and meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words over and over. He refers to death as sleep in this passage because it is the sweet sleep in Jesus that leads to comfort and rest.

I'm a little weird about some things and I can acknowledge that, but I come by it, honestly. My dad is a little weird about some things. Also anybody in here ever felt guilty about you're praying a prayer and you fall asleep? Anybody ever felt guilty about that? Okay, so my dad would say, don't do that.

Don't feel guilty. He's like, there's nothing better that you can do while you're praying. Then fall asleep in the arms of Jesus. That's kind of a neat image, isn't it? That's exactly what death is For the one who is a Christian, it is falling asleep in the arms of Jesus. Sleep implies comfort and rest, but sleep also implies that those who are sleeping in death will awaken and rise again.

Isn't that what we expect when we fall asleep? Now we know that nothing is guaranteed and that maybe we won't wake the next morning, or maybe Jesus will come again. But our expectation when we go to sleep is what? To wake up again. In fact, what do we do? We set an alarm to wake us up at a certain time so that we might do the things that we need to do once we have finished this needful sleep.

And so sleep implies that we will awaken, that we're gonna rise again to do the things that we are called to do. And if we hear that someone is sleeping, there's no panic in that, right? We come home, we say, well, you know, where is where are the kids? Oh, they're in the back room. Asleep. Asleep. Let's go wake 'em up.

No. We say, well, it's a good thing. They probably needed that. If they're asleep, they're gonna wake up again. And that image is something that we see Jesus himself talk about on a number of occasions. I want you to turn in the Gospel book of Matthew, Matthew, chapter nine for just a moment. We won't encroach on Preston's class, but we'll just read a, a few verses here in Matthew chapter nine, starting in verse 18.

Matthew chapter nine, starting in verse 18.

While he, that is, Jesus spoke these things to them. Behold, a ruler came and worshiped him, saying, my daughter has just died. Come and lay your hands on her, and she will live. So Jesus arose and followed him and so did his disciples. Now, some things happened on the way there, but let's drop down to verse 23.

When Jesus came into the ruler's house, he saw the flute players in the noisy crowd wailing. It's interesting in Jewish culture there are all sorts of things that we have to do to prepare for a funeral. One of the things many Jewish, especially wealthy Jewish families would do apparently, is they would hire professional mourners who would come in and mourn on behalf of the deceased loved one.

And whether that's the case here or whether these are professionals or whether this is just friends and family and neighbors and loved ones who are wailing over this death. Whichever the case is, Jesus comes to a full scene of music and people mourning and he said to them, you can imagine this crowd that he's gonna have to go through.

He says to them, make room for the girl is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him well, rightfully so. We, we know the difference between sleep and death. Jesus, this girl isn't asleep. She's dead. But why does Jesus say this on this occasion? A couple of things. Number one, he's about to show his power that there is no difference to Jesus in raising somebody from the dead or shaking their should, their shoulder to wake them from sleep.

But also, I think it tells us something about Jesus's perspective as well. Death is not viewed the same by God because he will awaken us from the sleep of death. And that's exactly what he does here. Verse 25. But when the crowd was put outside, he went in and took her by the hand and the girl arose. Well, isn't that exactly what you would do to wake somebody up?

Well. You've gone in to wake up your kids, that's, that's the first round, right? You kind of pat their hand and say, Hey, wake up. It's time to get up. And then 15 minutes later, after they haven't gotten up, you turn the light on and say, Hey, get up. We gotta get to school. Jesus tenderly comes and takes her by the hand and just like he would wake up somebody in bed, he would pull her up and she's awake for Jesus.

There's no difference. It tells us something about his perspective. This report when goes throughout all the land. Others know about that and it's helpful to try and see death, especially the death of a Christian from God's perspective is death. The kind of problem that God cannot solve. It is as easy to him as waking someone up.

And so we see from God's perspective verses like Psalm one 16 and verse 15, which says, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Psalm one 16 and verse 15, the psalmist invites us to see the day of death from God's perspective. From our perspective, it's a day of death. From God's perspective, it's what a day of life.

From our perspective, it's a day of loss. From God's perspective, it's a day of gain. From our perspective, it's a day of ending. From God's perspective, it's a day of beginning. From our perspective, it's a day of sorrow. From God's perspective, it is a day of rejoicing, and it's not that God doesn't sorrow over our pain because we hurt, because we sorrow.

God also hurts and sorrows for us. But he knows that this sorrow in this moment of loss is not the full picture, and that's illustrated well by another time that Jesus confuses people by talking about death as if it were sleep. Turn to John chapter 11 for just a moment. The Gospel of John and the 11th chapter,

John chapter 11

and verse 11. Messengers have been sent to Jesus informing him that his good friend and loved one Lazarus is sick, and Lazarus's sisters are especially worried about him. And so they call for Jesus so that Jesus might come and help. And so notice what he says in verse 11, these things he said. And after that he said to them, the apostles, our friend Lazarus sleeps.

But I go that I may wake him. Then his disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get well. You know, why do you have to go first of all? And second of all, why would you wake somebody up? It's kinda like waking a sleeping baby, right? Waking a sick person up doesn't sound good. You wanna let 'em sleep so that they might recover, but Jesus is talking about something else.

Verse 13, however, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that he was speaking to them about taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, we would say non euphemistically, Lazarus is dead, and I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go to him.

Then Thomas, who is called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go so that we might die with him. So if we drop down in the text to chapter 11 in verse 41. After having an interaction with Martha and Mary, he's taken to the place where they've laid him and in verse 41, then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, father, I thank you that you have heard me and I know that you always hear me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.

And when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice for the benefit of the crowd. It's not that he had to yell really loud for Lazarus to hear him, but for the benefit of the crowd, he said, Lazarus, come forth. And he who had died, came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.

And Jesus said to him, loose him and let him go. We know of course, that in verse 35 of this same chapter, the shortest verse in the Bible is that Jesus wept, but he did not weep because Lazarus was dead. He wept because others were sorrowful At this death, he, he wept because of their sorrow, and yet he knew that Lazarus would be raised.

He would awaken, he would rise, and he would continue with life. A microcosm from a physical perspective of what Jesus offers all of us. I want you to turn earlier in the Book of John to John chapter five, John chapter five, verses 28 and 29. I probably shared this with you before because I just, I giggle every time I think about it.

Jesus was specific and said, Lazarus, come forth. Why did he do that? Why didn't he just say, come forth? Well, I've heard it suggested if Jesus just said, come forth, and every dead person who had ever been dead would come forth from the grave, maybe not, but Jesus has the power to do that. In John chapter five in verse 28, he says this, do not marvel at this for the hour is coming in, which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth.

Those who have done good through the resurrection of life. Those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation every morning, God designed us as human beings to experience a resurrection. We die in the night. We're raised again in the morning. That's what sleep is in so many ways, and that is, I believe, intended by God to be a picture of that final resurrection.

We all will experience after death. But the question that begs to be asked from what we read here in John chapter five is to what Then will we rise? Will we awaken to paradise or will we awaken to the judgment reserve for those who are against God? I want you to turn to one final passage this evening, one Corinthians chapter 15, if you would.

One Corinthians chapter 15, which describes death and life and resurrection, and this idea that Christ's death and resurrection is a picture for our death and resurrection. And one Corinthians chapter 15, beginning in verse 16, for if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins.

And also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men, most pitiable. But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have. Fallen asleep. Christ's resurrection is the assurance of our own resurrection.

If we are in Jesus Christ and the assurance of the resurrection of those that we love, who died in Christ, this is the victory that is found. Not that we fall asleep, but that we awaken to rise again in service to God, an eternal fellowship with him. Drop down to the end of this chapter in verse 51 of one Corinthians 15.

Behold I tell you a mystery. It used to be unrevealed, but now it is revealed in Jesus Christ, we shall not all sleep. There are gonna be some who never taste death because the Lord will come again, but we shall all be changed in a moment. The twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible is put on incorruption and this mortal is put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass. The saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Death. Where is your sting? Oh, Hades.

Where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, victory over death so that we might sleep, but not just sleep so that we might sleep awake. Rise again to eternal life. I hope the things that we've thought about and talked about tonight will be helpful to you in your perspective of death, but really we've talked about these things from the perspective of one who is a Christian.

The sleep of death is sweet for the one who falls asleep in Jesus, but for the one who is outside of him, it should be a terrifying thing that we will die to rise again. My question to you is what do you have to look forward to when you awaken from the sleep of death? Is it a resurrection to incorruptibility and eternal life or a resurrection that leads to not just temporary death but eternal death?

Jesus came and died and rose again so that you might have hope. His death, burial and resurrection is a picture, not just of the death, burial and resurrection that will happen in the last day for each one of us, but also what is required for each one of us to come to him. If you're not yet a Christian, will you put to death the old man of sin and repentance?

Will you go down into a watery grave, a baptism? So that you might rise, be resurrected spiritually to walk in newness of life with the hope of eternal life on the other side of sleep, on the other side of death. And if we can help you with that, even this evening, come now or together we stand and while we sing, I have that.