God Keeps His Promise to Us, Even After Death
JOHN 11:21-26
21 Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. (Notice that to Martha the death of Lazarus was like a cut-off point. While there was life, there was still hope, but once her brother had died, then that became a very different situation, it was not that she was an unbeliever, it was just that from that point on, her faith was required to stretch beyond what seemed like the finality of death)
22 But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
There have been millions of believers in Christ down through the seven church ages, and to our understanding every one of them saw death, but Jesus is telling us plainly that they that believed in him shall never die, so because we know that the bible is always right, then all these faithful believers did not actually die at all, their bodies may have died, but they themselves are not dead, and according to the word, they will never die. So look at the power that lays in believing the word for your age, it is the power of eternal life, so the word for your age is the most powerful and beneficial thing to you that you could ever hope to have the opportunity to receive.
God Keeps His Promise to Us, Even After Death
Often God likes to wait until things go beyond any possible hope that a human being may hold on to, and then he comes and brings deliverance and proves himself the great provider and the great healer and the one who is able to keep his word beyond what we would call the point of no return. So we need to be believers that believe beyond the point where most others stop believing, that’s the difference between normal faith and Abraham’s seed Faith.
Abraham was one of these types of believers, because he believed that he would become the father of many nations when his body (as far as producing children) was completely dead.
HEBREWS 11:8-12
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
Notice that the death of Abraham’s body was not a hindrance to his faith in the promise of God, because he knew that God keeps his promise to us even after death – death is not a restriction to the God’s promise to you.
HEBREWS 11:17-19
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: (So we must understand that Isaac was the manifestation of the promise that Abraham had waited for 25 years for, yet God was asking him to destroy the very thing that this promise was to come to pass through and be made manifest by, and so we see that Abrahams faith had to go beyond the point of death and not just up to the point of death.
Many people’s faith stops at the point of death because it looks like God’s promise to them has failed because we put a limit on God’s word just like we are limited, but not Abraham, because he knew that death was not barrier to the promise of God, he knew that if God had to, then he was more than able to raise a person up again in order to keep his promise to them)
19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
Abraham knew this because he had already experienced it in his own life because he was also dead in his body (as far as being able to produce children), so in order for God to fulfil his promised to Abraham, the only way would be that he would have to raise him up from the dead (that part of his body), and so by this Abraham knew that God always keeps his promises regardless of whether death gets in the way or not, and we have to come to that same knowing as well.
THE.END.TIME.SIGN.SEED_ TIFTON.GA MONDAY_ 62-0319
E-68 But Abraham... One stood back with him. There's One that he called God. And the sign that He performed there before them, what did it do? It proved what He was. Abraham was the elected, because he was... Abraham had the promise. And now look, this is Abraham's seed. The promise was not only made to Abraham, but his seed. Not his seed Isaac, it failed; it proved it did. But the seed, the faith that he had: no matter what the circumstances was, how against the nature it was, how much the doctor said it wasn't so... Abraham, after he had the promise given to him, when it was impossible...
E-69 He married his sister about seventeen years old, his half-sister. They had no children. And when she was sixty-five and he was seventy-five God appeared to him and said, "You're going to have a baby by her." Why, she took--he took His Word. He made ready for it. Twenty-five years after that nothing had happened. Now, he's a hundred years old, and she's ninety. That didn't stop him a bit. "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief."
That's the faith. That's the royal seed of Abraham. That's the kind of seed that takes God's Word. That's the thing that'll bring the Bride. That's the thing that'll meet Christ. He is the Word.
E-70 And if the church is sowed with something else besides the Word, it can't go to meet Him. He hasn't got a freak body with fungus on it. He's got a perfect body, and He's the perfect Word. And the church will be sowed and believed in the perfect Word. And the perfect Word and perfect Word will unite together as one flesh and one body, as a husband and wife is. Amen. (I'm not "amening" myself, but "Amen" means "So be it.") I believe it, anyhow. Yes, sir.
II KINGS 4:24-28
24 Then she saddled an ass, and said to her servant, Drive, and go forward; slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee.
(The son that she had received by the word of Elisha, she had received as if from the dead because she was a barren woman, and now her son was dead again, and so it looked like the promise of God had failed her because God had given her this son but now he was dead, the evidence of the promise was gone, but she knew that if she had received him from the dead in the beginning (like Abraham did with Isaac), then she also knew that God was able to raise him up again, she knew that God was able to keep his promise, even after death)
25 So she went and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite:
26 Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well.
27 And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the LORD hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.
28 Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord? did I not say, Do not deceive me?
Look at her approach, “do not deceive me” – in other words, you told me that I would have a child; if he is taken away from me in death then I am back to the same condition I was before I received him, which means that what you said to me was not true, the promise of God that he spoke through you has failed and you have deceived me.
II KINGS 4:35-37
35 Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.
36 And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunammite. So he called her. And when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son.
37 Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out.
As human beings we mostly think of the start of our life is at the time of our birth, and the end of our life is when our bodies die, but God doesn’t see it that way at all, because to Him we are eternal beings that are just passing through this very short phase of time, and to God this is a very important part of His great plan for us to developed us from an attribute of himself into the full expression of what he intended us to be before the foundation of the world so that we can live and reign with him in his eternal life in that great world that is to come.
**So we have to expand our thinking from temporal life thinking to eternal life thinking.
Some of the biggest mistakes that we get ourselves into in life are generated from our temporal life thinking approach. If we would approach our decisions with eternal life thinking, then many times we would not make some of the mistakes that we make and end us in the messes that we end up in.
MARK 5:21-43
21 ¶ And when Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto the sea.
22 And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet,
23 And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.
_____Inserted in here is the woman with the blood issue that touch the hem of his garment and was made whole_____
35 ¶ While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?
36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.
37 And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James.
38 And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.
39 And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.
40 And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying.
41 And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.
42 And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment.
43 And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat.
Many times we do not understand God’s ways of how he deals with us, and I think that that is because we are mostly looking at our lives from a temporal stand point of our current circumstances, whereas God is seeing us from what we were in his eternal thinking and then to when we will be with him in our fully expressed form in the eternity that will follow this very short and temporal life.
So all the troubles and disappointments of this life will not affect God’s plan of what he purposes for us to be in the great hereafters. God is allowing all the troubles of this life to mould us for that great time that lies ahead.
ROMANS 8:18
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119
225 Shalom, God's peace be Light upon you! And when God's Word is vindicated in this age, completely, and you see It and believe It, shalom to you!
226 Face the new year with this, put Him as David said, "I'll put Him always before me. Because He is on my right hand, I shall not be moved." If you meet death this year, what difference does it make? God promised He would raise you up. If an accident kills you, what difference does it make? You have Eternal Life, "I'll raise him up at the last days." Amen. What if anything happens? No matter what it is, nothing can separate us from the love of God, that's in Christ. "Hunger, peril, nakedness, no matter what it is, nothing can separate us from the love of God, that's in Christ." And He is the Word. Shalom!
I have notice lately that the devil is being very active among the believers in trying to cause problems in the many circumstances of life – things go wrong that shouldn’t go wrong, weird stuff is happening all the time – it’s the enemy, it’s spiritual war. He tries so hard to cause upset between brothers and sisters in Christ, but we know that it is the enemy that does this and not the brother or the sister, so because of this we make a stand against what he is trying to do.
God will still keep his promise to us even when it looks impossible to us – we must know that God never fails to keep his word.
MARK 16:17-18
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
**But sometimes we lay hands on the sick and they die, and then many of us stop believing for them at that point, but Jesus said that they would recover, so how can this be, it is because death does not hinder God from keeping his promise to us, so therefore he will have to raise them up again and then heal them in order to keep his promise and we see examples of this all through the bible.
*Lazarus was not only raised up but he was also healed of what his sickness was that caused his death in the first place.
The Shunammite’s woman’s son was not only raised up from the dead but was also heled of his sickness. Jairus’s daughter was not only raised up from the dead, but she was also healed of her sickness.
Abraham and Sarah were not only turned back young in a resurrection of their bodies, but they were also healed of their sickness of infertility.
God Keeps His Promise to Us, Even After Death