The Dangers of a Diluted Gospel

October 18, 2010
By Pastor Doug BatchelorAn Amazing Fact: In 2005, cancer patient Georgia Hayes won a $2.2 billion court settlement against her pharmacist, who had diluted her chemotherapy drugs with water. In the process, she had lost her best chance for recovery. While $2.2 billion is a lot of money, it’s little comfort when you don’t have long to live. Dilute: to make thinner, to lessen strength, to adulterate, to reduce value or efficiency, to make fainter, or to water down What could be more deadly than diluted cancer medication? Maybe placebo pills for a cardiac patient. Or diluted insulin for a diabetic. Actually, the most deadly medicine is a watered-down gospel—because the tragic results are eternal. Jesus says there will be two groups of people in the end times. One group He calls few, the other He calls many. “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? … and done many wonders?’ ... And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ” (Matthew 7:22, 23). Evidently, the majority of Christ’s professed followers are self-deceived. They know His name. Their religious activities seem to have the marks of genuine ministry, but Jesus, with a broken heart, will declare to them, “I don’t know you.” Why? Because they live a compromised life full of sin. This is a popular characteristic of people in the last days. They are “lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, … haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:2–4). Of course, when Paul describes the last-day conditions above, he’s describing what has always been typical in the world. But here he’s saying that it will infiltrate the church. All these lawless behaviors so prevalent in the world are going to be common in the church. Christians will have all the “form of godliness” but lack the power (2 Timothy 3:5). They have a medicine bottle and a label, but they’re taking diluted drugs that can never heal them. Sin Isn’t Just a Case of the Sniffles Perhaps you know somebody with hay fever. Maybe even you. There are some over-the-counter pills you can take to fight the symptoms. Sometimes, depending on the pollen, you can take half a pill and be okay. Sometimes, though, you have to take the entire pill. If you don’t take the right dose, you might leave the house thinking all’s well, but then later it hits you: Your eyes start itching and your nose starts running. You’re miserable. You just can’t wait until winter arrives. Getting the right medicine in the right dose makes a world of difference. So it is with the gospel. If we don’t get the full strength, we could be deceived into thinking we’re really healed when we’re actually getting worse. Likewise, the devil is mass-distributing a watered-down version among God’s people. He’s content to let you go to some churches because the medicine there is often so diluted it won’t make any transforming difference in your life. “The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3, 4). In this verse, Paul describes a problem in the pulpit and in the pew. You have preachers who are not sharing a straight message, and you have people who don’t want a straight message. The people don’t want to take anything that’s hard to swallow. They generally want what’s easy and sweet to the senses. They want someone who will give them a prescription for candy-flavored, chewable medicine. “Savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29). The gospel gets watered down because preachers want to be popular and some, for pride or money, want to draw away disciples after themselves for power and influence. (See Ezekiel 13:10.) Untempered Mortar Instead of warning the lost to turn from their sins, false teachers tell people to be at peace in their sins because God is too full of grace to expect them to change. They give diluted medicine, which gives people a false sense of security. The Scriptures refer to false teachers as those who build a wall and “plaster it with untempered mortar” (Ezekiel 13:15). In Bible times, lazy builders would stack bricks with no mortar and then put a plaster veneer over the bricks to hide it. Without the mortar, there’s no stability. (Today we use concrete to hold the bricks together.) The wall might have looked solid from the outside, but a donkey could have kicked it over because it had no real strength. More than 500,000 were killed or injured in the 2010 Haitian earthquake. One of the principal causes of these casualties was untempered mortar. Greedy contractors skimped on the percentage of concrete they mixed into the mortar and expensive iron rebar, which reinforces the concrete. It made for pathetically weak walls, and as soon as the massive earthquake struck, the fragile buildings crumbled. There are walls for Christians too. The Ten Commandments are a wall, built to protect your freedom and happiness. When someone gets an STD because of promiscuous living, he reads the seventh commandment and understands that wall was put there to protect his happiness, not to prevent happiness. The wall of obedience protects our lives, freedom, and contentment. But if the mortar gets diluted, whether from the pulpit or the pew, then, when the storm comes, like a house built on sand the wall implodes. Diluting the Prosperity Naturally, I always want a big crowd in church. That’s understandable, right? But this desire carries risk. In order to draw people to church, I’ll always be tempted to make my sermons as attractive as possible. Marketers try to convince you that if you use their product, you will live longer, look better, have more money, and be more popular. Does the Bible tell us that’s how we’re to market Christianity? Does Jesus promise health and wealth and popularity? Is “prosperity preaching” right? There’s a lot of good in the good news. There are many blessings, but Jesus also says, “Take up [your] cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). Deny yourself daily—we don’t hear that very often. Jesus said the real key to happiness is to put God and others first. Today, however, it’s all about putting “me” first. A lot of people hear this diluted version of the gospel and believe it’s good medicine. But good medicine is really just the beginning. Jesus said we are to be doers of the Word. A Christian isn’t defined by church attendance. A Christian is defined by a transformed heart that influences his actions. Jesus asked, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). We can’t call ourselves Christians if we don’t do what He says. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Part of the gospel we’re not hearing today is that He wants us to be a people who obey Him. Giving the industrial-strength prescription of gospel truth will heal the symptoms of sin. We are not saved by obedience, of course. That is legalism. But obedience is not legalism if it’s a response to God’s love, a response to having already been saved. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). One way the gospel gets diluted is when people are encouraged to have enough faith to believe that God will forgive them, but not enough to believe that He will keep them from sin. It’s a gospel that says God accepts you as you are and doesn’t care if you change. The Bible says the gospel is not just about justification, but also about sanctification. You can come to Jesus just as you are. That’s good news. But He loves you too much to leave you that way. That’s good news too! You can be changed to be like Jesus. He can transform you so you become a new creature. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That’s great news! Show, Don’t Tell “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, [from falling,] And to present you faultless Before ... His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:24). I want to have a life where I don’t stumble all the time. How about you? But Christians hear so little of that, and the results are obvious. People have to explain they’re believers because they don’t consistently live it. Instead, we ought to be lights on a hill so people say, “Wow. Her life is distinctly different.” “He’s not just like everybody else.” “What’s different about you?” And we answer, “I believe in Jesus. He saved me. He changed my life.” Prior to the Dark Ages, the church thrived even though the Christian religion was forbidden. They were being thrown into lion dens and being burned at the stake. They couldn’t practice it in the open, so they dug catacombs under Rome for the first 200 years of Christian history. You can still visit these Roman mines. Some Christians etched on the walls, “Vita, vita, vita,” which means, “Life, life, life. I have life.” They were suffering and dying in these dark mines—and yet they were joyful. Then something happened in Rome. Constantine wanted to build his empire because of the civil war between him and Maximus. He claimed to have had a vision and was now supposed to fight under the sign of the cross. They didn’t know anything about Christianity, but his soldiers painted Christian symbols on their shields. They were all pagans, but they marched into the Tiber River for battle and called it a baptism, figuring they were Christians when they came out the other side. It became the in-thing to be a Christian, but they hadn’t been taught the whole truth. When the emperor made Christianity acceptable, pagans came pouring into the church. The leaders didn’t handle it well. They didn’t want to lose the new converts, so they began to dilute the message, just a little. The pagans would have to make a lot of lifestyle changes, and if they didn’t like it, they might go back to persecuting Christians. One such problem was idols. One historian wrote, “There were more idols in Rome than Romans.” These new Christians wanted to do what was right and asked the priests what they should do with their statues. Some of the priests said, “Throw them out!” But many of the pagans balked. So some of the other pastors suggested, “Ease them into it. Tell them to give Christian names to their idols and we’ll take care of it later.” So they named their idols Peter, James, John, and Mary. Many pagan practices crept into the church so that in one generation Christianity became the commingling of paganism and Scripture. They diluted the gospel for the sake of having quantity instead of quality—and it ushered in the 1,260-year Dark Ages. How to Grow the Church It’s a constant temptation churches face when measuring success. They ask, “Is it growing?” Very rarely do we measure the success of a church by how godly the people are. Instead, we measure success by numbers, and that can be a mistake. We’re tempted to make it easier to be a member. It becomes a mindset to just get them in the door and worry about the rest later. So we dilute the message little by little to make the medicine easier to swallow. Even today, I hear pastors saying, “Don’t insist they quit smoking or drinking before they join the church. Make it easy for them to come to Christ and baptize them. The Lord will deal with these things in His own time.” Then they come in and years later they’re still chained to these destructive habits. Baptism represents a new beginning, a liberation, a changed life. It doesn’t mean you’re instantly perfect. It does mean addictions to sin should be repudiated and left behind. One of my favorite Christian authors said it this way: “Men and women have many habits that are antagonistic to the principles of the Bible. The victims of strong drink and tobacco are corrupting body, soul and spirit. Such ones should not be received into the church until they give evidence that they are truly converted, that they feel the need of the faith that works by love and purifies the soul. The truth of God will purify the true believer. He who is thoroughly converted will abandon every defiling habit and appetite. By total abstinence he will overcome the desires for health-destroying indulgences” (Bible Training School, July 1, 1902). As we learned earlier, the Dark Ages were a result of bringing people into the church before they really understood, before they had surrendered their hearts. The church becomes diluted, enfeebled, weakened. The power of being a follower of Jesus loses its strength, and pretty soon we’re coming together, going through a ritual once a week, and living like the world. Instead of winning souls to Christ and living godly lives, we’re doing exactly what the devil wants in weakening the power and the efficacy of the gospel. “Gospel Lite” The mega evangelical churches have something they call “gospel lite.” They want visitors to be comfortable, so they make the worship experience as easy as possible. They offer coffee and donuts before and after service. They encourage relaxed dress, even just T-shirts and shorts. They have theater-like seating so you don’t have to squish together in a pew with strangers. If you offer enough enticing perks, you can get anybody to visit for an hour. Then once you get them in, you can’t preach the hard things or rebuke their pet sins because they might not come back. Feed them on clichés about the power of positive thinking. Entertain them with animated music, laser lights, and dramatic presentations. Then you think it must be the truth because after all you have 10,000 people coming to church. But how many have repented of their sins and really know Jesus? So how are you going to know that you’re not getting a diluted gospel from your pastor? You must study the Bible with guidance from the Holy Spirit. You need to search it out for yourself. There are a lot of preachers out there who are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They measure success by numbers, so they preach a diluted gospel. Pastor John MacArthur says, “Watered down, diluted theology will fail to produce deep reverence, deep worship, deep repentance, deep humility, deep understanding of God’s nature, His work, His ministry, His laws, His standards, His principles. It fails to make people of God, people that are God-centered.” He’s right. An undiluted gospel is going to involve real repentance for sin, a sorrow for sin, and a turning away from it. Repentance means “remorse, regret, contrition for past sin. To change for the better as a result of remorse or contrition for one’s sins.” The first thing John the Baptist said when he started preaching about the kingdom of God was, “Repent.” The first thing Jesus said was, “Repent,” and if He tells us to repent, it means we can and we should. Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matthew 9:13). The first church leaders said, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). First comes the baptism of repentance, then comes the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The full-strength gospel medicine precedes reception and filling of the Holy Spirit. Along with repentance must be restitution and reform. “If the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die” (Ezekiel 33:15). In 1858 revivalist Jeremiah Meneely brought his preaching to Belfast, Ireland. He talked about repentance, reform, and committing yourself to the Lord. The men there worked in a shipyard and were so convicted of their sins, they repented and began to return the tools they had pilfered during the previous years. The response was so complete the shipyard had to build extra sheds to take in all of the returned tools! Eventually, the management asked that there be no further returns of stolen property! You know the Holy Spirit is working in a community when people start living like real Christians and make tangible changes in their lives. This is the fruit of the real gospel. What Gospel Do You Desire? Is it your desire to be filled with the Spirit and to have an undiluted message in your life and in your church? Let us encourage one another to be real Bible Christians by studying for ourselves to know what constitutes having a relationship with the Lord and being saved. I have a friend who is still crippled today from a small plane crash. While flying with friends in a South American country, they trusted a stranger to fill up the tanks in their aircraft. It turns out that gas was badly contaminated with water. Unfortunately, they did not discover the polluted fuel until they were 600 feet off the ground. The engine coughed, lost power, and they crash landed in the jungle. Friend, do you know that you’re getting the pure, high-octane, unadulterated, industrial-strength fuel of God’s truth? Many will be deceived by bright lights and promises of wealth, but a few will study for themselves in the Word and be changed. Which one are you?

Confusion in the Cemetery

By Pastor Doug Batchelor

An Amazing Fact: In 1876 a handful of mobsters botched a morbid plan to kidnap the body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it ransom. The hapless grave robbers were arrested just a few days later. Fearing another attempt, the government secretly hid the body of the sixteenth president in an unmarked grave for 25 years. Then in 1901, under the urging of Robert Lincoln, the president’s only surviving child, Lincoln’s body was dug up and placed inside a steel cage, lowered into a 10-foot-deep vault, and buried under tons of concrete. He’s still there today, in his tomb, on the grounds of Oak Ridge Cemetery. So do the dead care when their remains are disturbed? There’s no evidence that Abraham Lincoln ever complained about all the odd grave shuffling.

One of the most important subjects in life is to understand what happens when it’s over. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion about death, inside and outside the church, which makes it very difficult for the average person to understand such a vital subject.
Perhaps the greatest understatement ever would be to say that death is unpleasant. In our culture, when people die, we quickly cover them up and whisk them away. We don’t want to think about death, especially when it comes to those we love and ourselves. But the topic must be faced, not only for the practical reason that we’re all touched by it eventually, but because understanding the truth about death is actually good news if you have everlasting life.
It’s not hard to see why people are so confused about what happens when we die. Even the many and varied tombstones at graveyards reveal this state of confusion. For example, one tombstone might read, “Father is sleeping now in the arms of Jesus, waiting for the resurrection trumpet.” But a few tombstones over, one reads, “Mother is now singing on golden streets with the angels.”
So which is it? Are the dead sleeping, waiting for the resurrection, or are they alive somewhere? If so, what are they doing? There is a debate about the afterlife, even among good and honest Christians. This brief study on death will help you see what the most important document in human history —the Holy Bible —really says about the subject.

Life and the Human Soul
Before we can understand what happens at death, we need to understand the basics of how life happened. The Bible tells us that when God made Adam in the garden of Eden, the man became a living soul. “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
Notice it doesn’t say that God “gave man a soul,” but rather, “man became a living soul.” The dust from the ground (the body), combined with the vital breath of life from God, produced a soul.
When someone dies, it is creation in reverse. “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). The spirit that returns to God at death is the energizing breath of life given by God in Genesis 2:7.
“All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27:3). Here Job is talking about “the breath of life” mentioned in Genesis 2:7. In fact, it’s the very same Hebrew word in both passages. At death, the body returns to dust, the breath of life returns to God, and the human soul ceases to exist.

An Eternal Reward—the Afterlife
Nobody is suffering in hellfire today, and the vast majority of people who have died are not in heaven. This might shock you, but it’s exactly what the Bible teaches.
“Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:12). Everyone gets his or her reward when Jesus returns. It’s important to understand this because Jesus hasn’t returned, has He? Judgment Day is still in the future.
“So man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more” (Job 14:12 NKJV). The dead do “not rise” from the grave until the heavens are no more. When will the heavens be no more? “The day of the Lord will come … in which the heavens will pass away” (2 Peter 3:10 NKJV). The heavens pass away on the day of the Lord, when Jesus returns to the earth. Until then, the dead do “not rise” from the grave.

But aren’t there people in heaven now?
Yes. A few. They are the exceptions. The Gospels tell the story of the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus on the mountaintop. They were real and in the flesh. Jesus spoke with them; the apostles saw them. They had come from heaven to offer encouragement to Jesus. But how did they get to heaven?
In 2 Kings 2:11, the Bible tells us that Elijah was caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot. Elijah went to heaven, even though he didn’t die. Moses died first, but the Lord raised him up and took him to heaven (Jude 9).
In Matthew 27, during the time when Christ died on the cross, there was a strong earthquake, and many of the graves around Jerusalem opened up. Many of the saints who had died—patriarchs and prophets who lived prior to the time of Christ—were raised in a special resurrection. It doesn’t name names, so we don’t know who they were. But the Bible says they came out of the graves after His resurrection and went into the holy city where they appeared to many.1 At the ascension of Christ, they ascended with Him.2 These resurrected humans were what the Bible calls the first fruits of Jesus’ successful mission.

Empty Cemeteries
When you go to the cemetery, does it ever make you feel creepy? Especially around sundown, are you afraid that some ghost is going to lunge out from the grave and grab your ankle? We’ve been trained in our culture to think that the dead aren’t really dead. But the Bible teaches the dead don’t come back. They can’t communicate. They certainly don’t haunt cemeteries!
Have you ever gone to bed and woken up, thinking you had only slept a short while, then you peek at the clock to discover it was hours longer than you thought? You have no awareness of time in sleep. That’s how the Bible describes the sleep of death. For the saved and the lost, it’s the same.
“Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death” (Psalms 13:3). Death is called “sleep” over and over again in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus clearly referred to death as “sleep” when speaking about Lazarus. “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep” (John 11:11). The apostles took Jesus literally, so Jesus clarified for them that Lazarus was, indeed, dead.
It took Jesus four days to get to Lazarus’ tomb. Lazarus’ body was decomposing, turning back into dust. Martha was even afraid of the stench of an open tomb. They reluctantly rolled away the stone, and Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” That’s what Lazarus did.
I believe Jesus allowed Lazarus to be in the grave for four days so there would be no doubt that Lazarus was very dead. Some skeptics suggest that other resurrections in the Bible were probably due to coma, arguing the people weren’t really dead yet. But Lazarus had been embalmed and wrapped up. If he had been alive, he would surely have suffocated to death! The stench of his decomposing body wafted out of the open tomb and gagged them. But Lazarus came out alive at Jesus’ command.
If that happened today, FoxNews and CNN would have called Lazarus for an interview. What do you think would have been their first questions?

• What happened?
• What did you see?
• What did you do?
• Who’d you meet?
• What was it like to be dead?

Despite the fact that this is one of the most public miracles of Jesus, and all the Gospel writers knew about it, we find nothing regarding Lazarus commenting on his experience.
Lazarus has the answer to the biggest question in history! But there’s no comment. Why? Jesus tells us Lazarus was asleep. Lazarus had a fever, he was sick, he lost consciousness, and eventually he died. He didn’t know anything until, all of a sudden, he woke up feeling great, wrapped up in something like perfumed first-aid bandages. He didn’t know what was going on. He was hearing Jesus call him. That’s all he knew. He stumbled to his feet and shuffled to the shiny entrance. To him it was like waking up from a nap.
Some believe that while the body might perish, the soul remains conscious. But the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.”

Talking to the Dead
Paul, to the Thessalonians, writes about death, “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep” (4:13). Paul wants you to understand the truth about death because not understanding this opens you up to deception in the last days.
In fact, there are several prominent television programs that feature folks who allegedly talk to or “channel” the dead. Some of them reveal things only loved ones would know. According to the Bible, it’s not dead people. It is either trickery or Satan’s minions. They know a lot about us, even our secrets. They can use these bits of knowledge to trick you into thinking you’re talking to your dead loved one.
I miss my brother Falcon and would love to talk to him. But I can’t. He’s dead. If anyone appears to me with red hair and freckles claiming to be my brother, as much as I miss him, I know from the Bible it’s not my brother. Either my mind is playing tricks on me or it’s the devil.
There are hundreds of scriptures on the subject of death, so how can the church be so confused on this topic? How has the devil been able to bamboozle Christians? Why has he bothered to put so much energy into deceiving the church on this subject? Because he’s going to use it to his advantage before Jesus comes again! “In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1).

Why the Truth About Death Is So Important
Of course, you’ve heard reports of near-death experiences, of people on the operating table who floated around the room. Yet researchers have shown that when people temporarily stop breathing, they will quickly build up too much carbon dioxide in their system and hallucinate. Some have interpreted these events as visions, but it’s dangerous to base your theology on an operating table dream or hallucination.
“He said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets” (1 Kings 22:22). There are going to be in the last days lying spirits in the mouths of false prophets. Revelation 16 says these unclean spirits go forth to the kings of the earth, working miracles to deceive. That will have a trickle-down effect and deceive people into thinking they should embrace a certain theology based on the testimony of demons posing to be the spirits of the dead.
“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders” (Matthew 24:24). The spiritualism infecting the church today is going to be used by the devil in the last days to deceive, similar to how he deceived Saul. Israel’s troubled king, in the desperation of his last days, went to see a witch. He saw a devilish apparition, not the dead prophet Samuel, that greatly discouraged him, and he committed suicide the next day.
How can we avoid being deceived in the last days? “They received the word of God with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). The Word of God is our only sure foundation. “If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). It doesn’t matter if it looks and sounds just like your departed grandma or Mary the mother of Jesus, and it knows all the intimate secrets only they would know. If someone dead appears to you, it’s of the devil or your brain is not functioning properly.

The Fate of the Righteous
“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 shall rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Jesus made it very clear that this resurrection is in the last days …

“Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life;” [the first resurrection] “and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” [the second resurrection, at the end of the thousand years] (John 5:28, 29).

“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40 NKJV, my emphasis). The words of Jesus could not be clearer! How many are raised when they die? None. The saved are raised up at the “last day.”
One more: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Corinthians 15:22, 23 NKJV). The dead believers are raised at Jesus’ coming!
The Bible promises that one day, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4). Unfortunately, death is a reality in our world today—and it does and should cause us sorrow. But, most important, you don’t need to be afraid of death. Jesus promises, “He who has the Son has life” (1 John 5:12 NKJV).
That life begins now because Christians don’t die permanently! You might experience a momentary dreamless sleep, but Jesus will awaken you on that great day. You don’t need to be afraid of death if you have Jesus. So I invite you today to accept the fullness of His Word and take His grace into your life.

 A Misunderstood Bible Passage Regarding Death
How do we explain what Jesus told the thief on the cross? “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). It seems, at first glance, that Jesus is telling the thief that on that very day, both of them will be in heaven together. This is an unfortunate mistranslation. The original Greek had no punctuation, so translators had to guess about where to place a comma. They decided on the common rendering of the text.

But they got it wrong. It should read: “Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Jesus is saying, even though right now I don’t look like a king, I’m telling you right now that because you called me Lord and King, you’re going to be with me in heaven.

We know it’s a misplaced comma because Jesus didn’t go to heaven that day! Three days after that promise, Mary saw Jesus after His resurrection and grabbed hold of His ankles. He said, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father” (John 20:17). He could not have been in heaven on Friday! The Bible makes it clear that the thief did not go to heaven with Jesus Friday afternoon.