Posted on 07/29/2015 1:15:13 PM PDT by Gamecock
The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:26
Bible Reading
1 Corinthians 15:24–29
Devotional
At every funeral we experience concretely that death remains an enemy. Once a person breathes his last he is out of our reach. Death is so final. But why do believers need to die if Christ has gained the victory over death? In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul addresses this issue and confirms the glorious gospel of Christ’s victory over death. Death came into the world because of sin. Since Christ conquered sin He has conquered death, too. Death is not a natural part of our existence. Sin brought death into the world but the Lord Jesus came to deliver us from the curse of death. According to God’s counsel and plan, all Christ’s enemies must be brought into subjection to Him. Satan, godless men, sin and death will all be placed under His feet. The last enemy which Christ will destroy is death.
Why is death the last enemy to be subdued? Is it because death is the last of the enemies to enter a person’s life? Although this may be true, the real reason lies elsewhere. Think about it. If Christ had destroyed death right after His resurrection He wouldn’t have been able to finish His work of redemption. For it was the will of the Lord to have the message of Christ’s victory preached to all nations. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed to give Christ the opportunity to gather all His sheep, to gather all who are chosen to everlasting life.
Notice the mercy of God. He delivers His redeemed and takes them out of this sinful life. The Lord takes His loved ones to Himself and releases them from the body of sin. They do not have to wait until the return of His Son to be relieved from the suffering of this present age.
Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. This is comfort for believers in Christ. Those who die in the Lord can be assured that death is the last enemy. It will be destroyed. On the last day the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised. Death will have no dominion over any of God’s children. No child of the Lord will ever die again. The day is coming when the last enemy will be destroyed. God will be with His people and will wipe every tear from their eyes. On that day all God’s children will rejoice together in what has been accomplished for them through Jesus Christ.
Thus the first lesson that it takes a blood offering to cover sin. The leaves would not do, there was no blood offering.
Adam and Eve sewed the fig leaves, an inappropriate offering to cover sin. God made them robes of animal skin thus teaching them it takes a blood sacrifice to cover sin.
Can you imagine how repulsive the first death of animals must have been in the Garden?
...” Adam and Eve ate us out of house and home!”...
That’s a good way to put it without getting into the depth of what that really meant.... thank God for Jesus!
Yep ...God himself killed the first animal (blood) sacrifices.....when he covered them with skins...
Can you imagine what God must have felt taking the life of the animals he created in order to cover Adam and Eve?.....Which also proves again God sees man’s life over and above the animal.
Yet even today we see a lion being killed by a dentist taking the headlines ‘world wide’ over that of Planned parenthood butchering His children.
Yes. Very unfortunate. I’m sure God grieves the life of animals lost, we are told all creation groans under the weight of our sin and awaits the renewal that is coming. But God clearly prizes human life, we alone on earth are created in His image, and we alone are the ones He died to save.
Unfortunately the ADD attention span of our society is easily distracted by shiny objects like the death of a lion.
I’ll bet those most upset with the lions death are the same ones that have no problems with killing a “clump of cells” right up to delivery.
Well, we must have had the capacity to sin in order to commit the first sin, but the Bible tells us that once the first sin was committed, our fundamental nature changed for the worse.
I think in our first state, we could choose to sin or not sin, but now we can’t (freely at least, without Christ) choose not to sin.
Well that sounds good..still... how do you explain then those ‘without Christ’ who also choose not to sin??....
Pinging a couple others to this for their input as well because I,m just not sure
I don’t think that we ever had the choice to not sin until we became born again.
We were born into sin and have a sin nature that is natural to us. Therefore we sin, because we have a sin nature that we inherited from Adam.
Agree mom. IMO, when Adam and Eve sewed the fig leaves, it was the first "religious" act, or man's first attempt to work his way to God. It didn't work then, it doesn't work today. No one can work their way back to God. It is ONLY by the blood. Lest we be too judgmental of Adam and Eve, if anyone of us had been in the Garden of Exen, we would have done the same thing they did. 😇😱😎
No one can choose not to sin. We are born in sin, and we all roll in our own filth just like a dog rolls in the dirt. Paul says all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
There may be people without Christ who try to do the right thing, just as those of us in Christ try to do the right thing, but God tells us our righteousness is like filthy rags -— and those are our best acts! The only way to choose not to sin (and we really can’t until we see Christ face to face and are given our new bodies and new names) is to have our filth covered by the Blood of Christ. Then God gives us His righteousness and credits even our feeble acts as if they were Christ’s.
I guess what I am saying is someone without Christ may look like a good person to us, but thats not how God sees it.
There’s a world of difference between being a good person and being a righteous one.
Lots of people are good.
None (without Christ) are righteous.
Done!
I do not agree.
The same people protesting the death of this Lion probably are the same ones who have no probably with woman taking the life of their children through abortions.
....”I guess what I am saying is someone without Christ may look like a good person to us, but thats not how God sees it”.....
I think what I’m attempting to understand is that it seems Adam and Eve had the freedom to choose to do as God said or not....but they had no familiarity with consequences at that time for not doing as God said.... He told them....” you must NOT eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, FOR when you eat from it YOU WILL CERTAINLY DIE”...Gen:2:17...though he gave them all the “other trees to eat from...including the tree of life.... but seems under the tempters voice of deceit , who they had not known prior ....eve was deceived and Adam out right sinned against the Known will of God not to eat...for the command was given to Adam. So what was their nature before they sinned?
I just have questions...such as since death entered the world via this event....how would Adam and Eve even know what death was before eating? Did they?....Since they had not yet fallen what actually was the condition of their nature ‘before’ the fall....clearly sufficient to act on “something” within themselves to defy God’s requirement not to eat via satan’s allurement to do so. Evil had entered the garden ....did that alone change their nature somehow ....
I do recognize our righteousness is just as God says “filthy”.....but what was Adam and Eves nature before they ate? Obvious had the tempter not entered the equation it would seem Eve nor Adam may not have chosen the route they did....
We on the other hand know what our nature is in and without Christ...and the difference.
Even though this is a devotional it’s through this devotional I have some questions...can we have discussion even if this is a devotional Thread?
I have no objection to polite discussions.
...”We were born into sin and have a sin nature that is natural to us. Therefore we sin, because we have a sin nature that we inherited from Adam”...
That’s us since Adam....but what were the natures of Adam and Eve before they sinned? They could not have had the nature we contend with unitl afterward......
Thank you very much.
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