LIFE AFTER LIFE – ONE

LIFE AFTER LIFE 1

 

I am speaking on – Life After Life.

 

LIFE AFTER LIFE

And we are going to take our text from Luke 16: Saint Luke’s Gospel 16, reading at verse 19 – the familiar story of Lazarus and the Rich Man.

 

Luke 16:19-31

 

19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.  20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate,  21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.  22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.  23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’  25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.  26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house,  28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’  29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’  30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’  31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'”

 

Life After Life

 

Shall we pray

 

PRAYER:

Father, thank You again for the opportunity we have to come to you and to reason with You in Your Word. May You speak to us now…In Jesus’ name. Amen!

 

There are two forms of life: mechanical and biological lives. Arrr…somebody may say, mechanical life? Does a car have life? Evidence of life is anything that can eat, anything that can breathe, anything that can excrete and anything that can reproduce. Those are the evidences of life.

Now, let’s take a car for example. A functional car feeds on petrol or gas, breathes in air: that is why it has air filter, which is the equivalence of our lungs; it excretes, that is why it has exhaust; and it reproduces – it takes you from one point to another. It takes you from Enugu to Enugu Agidi, it takes you from Aba to Abakaliki, it takes you from Lokoja to Bodija. The car is producing.

 

Biological life – we have plant life, animal life and human life. The later: human life, is the most precious – the most valuable – the highest of all forms of life. Why? Not because of the size, not because of the strength, not because of the affluence or influence, not because of the intellect or race. After all you are not as strong as a lion, you are not as big as an elephant. It’s not size; it’s not strength; it’s not even race. If you come to human’s race, Hitler’s third, Reich, based the value of human life on these, and so sought justification for the extermination of all that did not fit their criteria. They fixed the value of life on race.

 

What determines the value of human life? What determines the value of human life is the source of life. Genesis 1:26-27 which we are familiar with…

 

 

Genesis 1:26-27

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

 

So, we determine the value of life by the source. God made man in His image. And that is what has given man the highest value of all things that God created.

You can also determine value not only by source or ownership but also by price paid. The costlier a thing is the more precious it is in the sight of the person who has paid the price. A car that has cost you 50 million naira, for example, you value more than the one that cost you 10 million. And when we think in terms of price paid, I want to remind you, friend, that God paid a very high price to salvage man.

 

In Psalm 49:7, God said,

 

Psalms 49:7

7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother,

Nor give to God a ransom for him — 

 

Because the price is too high.

 

In 1 Corinthians 7:23

 

1 Corinthians 7:23-24

23 You were bought at a price [God says]; do not become slaves of men.

High price!

 

In 1 Peter 1:18-19,

 

1 Peter 1:18-19

8 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers [those inherited sinful threats], 19 but [you are redeemed] with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

 

In other words the price God paid to redeem the sinner, to redeem you, from eternal damnation, cannot be quantified. It is out of this world.

 

Man has two lives: physical and spiritual – life. But the spiritual life of man was lost when sin entered into man.

Adam fell into sin. And when God asked Adam that question, where are you? It was not a question of location; but it was a question of allocation – allocation of relationship. Adam where are you? Genesis 3:9. It was God as it were asking, where are you in the relationship between you and me?

Access to spiritual sphere of life is granted only through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. To reenter into the spiritual sphere which is the most important aspect of man, you need access.

Romans 5:1-2 – Romans 5:1-2 and John 14:6, these two scriptures tell us about the access we have through Christ.

In Romans 5:1-2,

 

Romans 5:1-2

 

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access [ACCESS] by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

 

We will continue from where we are stopping now when we come back next time to explore this very important topic, Life After Life.

Shall we pray

 

PRAYER

Father, we want to again say thank You for the time we have spent, though short. But I trust that you have spoken something to the hearts of some this evening. And Lord, may the Word that You have spoken to them produce fruit. May it produce healing not only for the spirit but also even for the body and for circumstance…in Jesus Name. Amen!

 

See you again next time.

 

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