DEATH Our Great Enemy | Bob Barney (Transcript)

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Hi, Bob Barney for The Plain Truth Today, brought to you by theplaintruth.com, and in the past we’ve run some shows about the idea, the doctrine of the immortal soul, and today we’re going to talk a little bit about death and how different people see death. For example, scientists who do not accept the notion that there is a God sees death as an animalistic type thing, that we are of the animal race, and that when you die, you return to the dust like an animal does, like a plantdoes, and you just become fertilizer, and there is no going to heaven or going to hell. Now, most religions teach that, and this is universal amongst, you know, Hindus and Christians and Muslims,they teach an idea of the doctrine of an immortal soul, that when you die, unlike an animal, you go to either heaven or hell when you die, and the plain truth is the atheist scientist probably has a better understanding of death than does the religious person who is following after pagansources about the idea you have an immortal soul.

It’s the first, it’s the first lie of the Bible, we’ll get into that in a minute, but the truth is, even the Bible agrees with the scientist who do not believe in God, and this is written by God. If you go to the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, you read, for the fate of both men and beasts are the same. As one dies, so dies the other.

They all have the same breath. Man has no advantage over animals, and then it says everything else is futile, meaning it’s futile to try to place man above the animals. And when you go to the first chapter of Genesis, where people first see the word soul, they do not understand, if they do not understand the Hebrew word for soul, that was rendered soul, was used before it talks about man became a living soul.

It also talked about the animals that were created, and they became souls, or nephesh was the Hebrew word, which means living creature. And the right rendition of Genesis, when God created man in their own image, they became a living creature, no different than an animal, no idea of an immortal soul. In fact, that’s the first lie of the Bible, we’ve gone into that before.

I’m going to go through that a little bit right now, but I really want to talk about death, and whatreally is the hope of Christians that believe in God, believe in the word of God, and every word of God, and do not accept pagan doctrines that have lurched their way into Christianity, and they have. Many famous people of the past actually did not believe in going to heaven or hell when you die, believe it or not. That’s, for example, Isaac Newton knew that there was no idea in the Bible of the idea of souls going to heaven when they died, or to hell.

Matter of fact, they all go to hell, if you understand even the word for hell in the Old and New Testament. For the most part, the word in the Old Testament is Sheol, and in the New Testament is Hades, and they mean the same exact thing, a grave. When your pet dog dies and you bury it,you’re burying it in hell, or a grave.

It was unfortunate that the King James Version translators, because they had this notion of the immortal soul, which is not biblical, that every time it came to a man, they would render the word for grave, hell. But whenever it was for an animal or a hole in the ground, they would say, a hole in the ground, which the word Hades or Sheol really means. But before I get into the idea of deathand the biggest enemy, according to the Bible, the biggest enemy you’re ever going to face is not Satan the devil.

The biggest enemy of mankind is death, because that is what was promised to Adam and Eve for their original sin, and that is really what’s promised to us. For the Bible says in the New Testament, not Old Testament here, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says all mankind must die once, and then comes the resurrection, and that is the biblical source. But I’m going to play one small video, audio actually, just going over the doctrine of the immortal soul, but then we’re going to get into the notion of death, what it is physically, and what it is down the road spiritually, if you are a Christian that actually accepts every word of the Bible.

This is from BT Daily, and they have a pretty good broadcast. They’re one of the offshoots of the Worldwide Churches of God. They do pretty good, they have TV shows, they have a magazine,and let’s listen to this right now.

This week at BT Media, we had a telephone call from a Protestant minister who was reading a publication, a Christian publication, about the debate between people who believe in a resurrection of the body, and those who believe in the immortality of the soul. He was surprised to find that there’s such a division on that, and it also challenged his long-held cherished beliefs about man being an immortal soul, being born with eternal life in some form already within us that at death either goes up to heaven or down into an ever-burning hellfire. And as he researched the subject on the internet, he came across some of the material that we have here in BT Media about this very subject of the immortality of the soul, and he began talking with us and was more than intrigued to realize that his long-held belief of what the Bible teaches about the immortality of the soul was coming under challenge, and he could not find it in the Bible.

In fact, he came to realize, as many people do who get into this subject, that the teaching of theimmortal soul is not found in the Bible. You can’t even find these two words together, immortal soul, as a phrase within Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It’s just not there.

What the Bible does show us about human life and what man is is really very simple and yet very profound. When you look in the Old Testament and you see what the word that is translated from the Hebrew as soul, it’s the Hebrew word nephesh, and it merely means a living creature. In Genesis where it says that man became a living soul, he became a living breathing creature just like, in a sense, a cow or any other beast of the field becomes a living breathing creature,although man is much higher than the animal realm, and that’s another subject.

In the New Testament, the word that is translated soul is from the Greek and it’s the word psuche, and it essentially means the same thing, that of a living creature. And so Christ said that, you know, fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell, which is God. He was saying that the body can be destroyed, and that’s exactly what both the Old Testament and the New Testament teach on the subject.

I’m going to go on with this, but I just want to make what he just said very plain because he said it quickly and maybe some people misunderstood what he just said. But Christ said, first of all, in the Old Testament, there is twice in passages, the soul that sins, it meaning the soul, shall die. And Christ went on that same tangent and said, do not fear anyone who can kill the body but not the soul, meaning the living creature.

Fear rather the one who can destroy both body and soul in a hell fire. Another word that’s translated hell comes from a whole different word, ghana fire, and what it represents is the final judgment of God on mankind. You either are resurrected to life or you’re resurrected to eternal death in a hell fire, burned up, no more consciousness, no more sizzling like bacon over an open pit fire.

That is what the Bible teaches, and that’s what Jesus said. But I wanted to point out that he had a very good point here, that Jesus made sure that we’re only to fear God because only God can destroy the soul or the living ability of any creature to be eternally destroyed. Yes, you can kill an animal, you can sacrifice an animal and kill it, and you can kill a person, and the person dies in the same way that an animal dies.

There ain’t no difference. And their science, actually, I’m talking about pagan science or atheistic science, I won’t call it pagan, but atheistic science, agrees with God and the Bible that when a person dies, there’s not a difference between a person dying and a cow or your dog or your cat dying or an amoeba dying. It all loses the breath of life.

The breath of life returns to God. That is not an immortal soul, that all life, every animal that lives has a breath of life, and that breath is God’s spiritual, physical life force that he breathes on the animal kingdom, the man kingdom, if you want to say that, and they become a living creature, not a dead creature now, a living creature. And when that animal, including man, dies, that essence of life returns back to God.

That’s the thing that returns to God, not your soul, not your consciousness that goes to heaven and lives in heaven. And I wanted to make that clear because he went over that quite quickly, that even if you want to just believe the words of Jesus, he makes it clear that when you die, God can bring you back from death and judge you. Man can kill only the physical body, but not the eternal hope for that body.

Only God can do it, but God can do it, and there goes your idea of an immortal soul between heaven and hell. Let’s go on with Beyond Today. You know what really does intrigue people when they get into the subject of the immortality of the soul and what they are surprised to find is the fact that the teaching of what happens at death comes into play here because many people believe that at death you either go to heaven or you go to a place of hell, ever-burning hell fire, and torment in that way.

Because if you believe in the immortality of the soul as a biblical teaching, then you’ve either got to put that body, that person at death, either in heaven or in hell. That’s what it comes down to. I mean, that is the tradition of the teaching going back for centuries.

But when you understand the truth of the biblical teaching of the resurrection and the hope of life, and essentially then what man is, that he’s not an immortal soul, but he is born with the possibility of living forever in the family of God as a resurrected spirit being, it opens up a whole new area of understanding, and it also gives great encouragement and comfort that loved ones, people are not suffering in torments forever and ever in an ever-burning hell fire. This doctrine of the immortality of the soul is one of the most critical ones to understand from the Bible about what the nature of man is, and most importantly about what his future role is and what his purpose and his great potential is, and that is to be spiritually living forever in the family of God as resurrected beings at a future point in time. It’s an encouraging and comforting hope.

Don’t be surprised if your long-held assumption about this subject or any others finds itself coming under the scrutiny of the Bible and lacking. Even Martin Luther, in one of his diatribes about the immortality of the soul, and he struggled back and forth believing it, but he did say that for the most part no one has gone to heaven. He did kind of think Enoch did because he misunderstood the words of the Bible, but he said if everyone went to heaven when they died, what does there need to be a resurrection of the dead? And here’s the question, when you readthe chapters, and I’m not going to get into this today, I’m going to talk about death in general, but when you read the 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, you are resurrected back to physical life to be judged, or if you are a Christian already, you are resurrected into the God family automatically as a spiritual immortal person, or being I should say, and believe it or not, angels, even though they are spirit, are not immortal.

The Bible is clear, you can do any concordance search you want, only God has immortality. Only God. God the Father and Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that they’re made up out of hasimmortality, and because we are children of God, and when we are born from the grave in a resurrection, and we have been obedient to God, and we are faithful, and we understand our reward is going to be children of God, we are gods.

That’s not blasphemy. Now they tried to say to Jesus, the Pharisees, that that was blasphemy when he said it, but he knew he was God, and he understood that God is reproducing themselves in mankind, and that those who the first time around are resurrected into immortal spiritual Godbeings, they have no fear of the second death, and that’s in 1 Corinthians 15, and if you want to just understand the truth of the Bible, read 1 Corinthians 15, and read the last three chapters of Revelation, and if you just read that, and nothing but that, you will know how nowhere ever believe in the doctrine of the immortal soul ever again, and you will realize that the very first lie of the Bible was the doctrine of the immortal soul. I’ll be right back.

Hi, Bob Barney for the Plain Truth today, the place to go to to understand today’s news, and what God, if anything, has to do with today’s news, what it could mean for you, your family, your future, and realize that tomorrow’s headlines are going to be ripped from the pages of biblical prophecy,because about a third to two-thirds, depending on who you listen to, of the prophecies given in the Old and New Testament have not yet occurred, and they will occur, because God is never wrong, and they will be the headlines someday in the future. In the future, you’re going to see headlines like a temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem. You’re going to see headlines where this UFO alien is coming back to, or coming down from heaven to earth, and this bright light, brighter than the sun, and all of mankind who thinks it’s aliens and UFOs are going to stand on Armageddon and try to fight this force, which is Jesus Christ.

That’s what the Bible teaches. And we’re back, and I wanted to mention when I said the first lie of the Bible, and then we’ll get into the whole idea of death, the first lie of the Bible was given to Eve from the devil, and that was the lie of the immortal soul. When the devil said, have you eaten fromthis tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she goes, no, we can eat of any of the fruit of the garden, but of that tree we are not to touch it, which God never said, or eat it, or we would die.

And what does the reply of the serpent, who’s really the devil, you cannot die, because when God knows that when you eat it, you will have the mind of God, and you will become gods, and she thought that was great. And Herbert Armstrong always used to say, and I always found this quiteentertaining, that the very first scientific experiment by these atheist scientists today who still follow this is the scientific experiment that Eve did in the garden. Science, you look at something, you observe, you postulate, you experiment, and you record the results.

Well, she observed that the apple looked like it would, and it wasn’t really an apple, the fruit looked good. She postulated that from the devil’s influence that if she did partake of it, she would become God and have God’s mind. So she experimented, like scientists do, and she ate the fruit, and the result of that experiment was she died.

It was the curse of mankind that she also gave to Adam, who also partook of that fruit, and he was told he would die. And God made it clear in the very first two and three chapters of the Bible. God said to Adam, from dust you were taken, from dirt you were taken, He was saying, and dirt you will return, because you do not have some immortal soul.

When you die, you’re going to be dead like a dog. You’re going to die, you’re going to rot in the ground, and then the promise of a Messiah right then to Adam and Eve would be coming to help you get over this sin and have a second chance of immortality, which we inherently do not have. Now we’re going to talk about death itself, because another thing the Bible says the greatestenemy we have is death.

Now the good news, and sometimes it’s hard for even us Christians to believe this good news, is that Christ conquered death. When Christ was killed on the stake, mistranslated the cross, and he was dead for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, as he predicted he would be,when he was resurrected from the dead by God the Father, he became God again, and he conquered death. And again, when you read 1 Corinthians 15, God says, oh death, where is your victory? Where is your sting? Because Christ overcame death, the last scourge of mankind, the most terrible position that we can ever be, is when we are dying.

There is a reason why we are frightened when our life is about to be taken. I don’t care if you’re a Christian who believes in going to heaven or going to hell, but especially that you think you’regoing to go to heaven, about the time that sickle is going to take off your head, and this happened to John the Baptist, believe it or not, it even happened to Jesus Christ, and he had all the faith inthe world. You know, he prayed three times to get out of the crucifixion.

Do you know that? Well, that’s a different subject, but you can look that up. Three times he prayed, Father, if it’s possible, take this cup away from me. Three times.

And when the apostles kept falling asleep on the night he was betrayed, three times he prayed a prayer to get out of the crucifixion. But he ended that prayer like we should, but your will, Father, not mine. And the Father’s will was Christ would die for us.

Christ knew that would be the will, and that that is what gave us the right to have immortal life in a world to come, and that’s the good news. But death is not conquered by us yet. It’s been conquered by Jesus Christ, and in our mind we cannot really comprehend everything that’s going to happen.

We can only hope, and that is what faith is all about, is hoping something you can’t see, you can’t feel, you can’t touch, and believing in the words of Christ that if you follow, obey, and do what he says to do, you are going to be an immortal soul or an immortal being in the kingdom of God, which will, by the way, the first thousand years will be on this earth. We’re never going to heaven, by the way. Eventually, if you read the last few chapters of Revelation, you’re going to read that actually God makes a new heaven and a new earth, and the new heaven is going to be on this new earth, and God the Father is actually going to come and live among us.

We’re not going to heaven. Heaven’s coming to us on a new earth. That is what the Bible teaches.

But as somebody who has been struggling with God, and I will be frank and honest, that when you start a journey, and if you’re somebody now listening to me and you really don’t believe, but you want to believe, that’s where I was. Well, actually, I wasn’t even there. I started to read all this stuff, and I did not want to believe it.

I was secular. I was scientifically motivated. I believed.

I proved that the Bible was wrong, that there was no God back in my college days, and then listening to Garnert at Armstrong and the Plain Truth magazine that they published, and his World Tomorrow broadcast, he challenged my entire thought process. And when I realized that there was a God, and you can prove there is a God, then you also start realizing you better start reading the Word of God. And is the Bible it? Is the Quran it? Is what holy writings of the Hindus, is that the right one? Well, when you really study the Bible, and you study the archaeology of the Bible, the science of the Bible, and the predictions that the Bible has made that came true, then you get to believe in the Bible.

And if you believe in every word of the Bible that’s inspired by God, then you come away with one conclusion, that you don’t have an immortal soul, but you have something better. You have a hope of conquering death and never experiencing having to go through it again as a physical being, like all of the other people that refused or never had the opportunity to hear the gospel of Christ. And if you heard it, and you obey it, and you understand it, you realize that you’re going to die, and the second you die, it’s like going, it’s like having an operation.

And I had one a few months ago. I’m still battling some of the scars of that. They put you to sleep, and it’s a sound sleep that you have no thoughts, you have no consciousness, and if it takes three hours in the operation, you go under, and it seems like a second later you’re in a recovery room, and you do not remember anything that happened while you were in that grave, which is your hospital bed, and you come to life again, and that is a symbol of what’s going to happen when you’re resurrected from the dead if you’re a Christian.

You might have died 3,000 years ago, like Abraham, or actually like David 3,000 years ago, and it’s going to seem like you’ve slept for 20 seconds, and you’re going to awake to a new world, and you’re going to be an immortal being. You’re going to be God’s literal children, never fearing death again, and that’s when you conquer death. You don’t conquer death as a human being.

Death is our enemy. It’s still my enemy. I understand all of this, and I’m still afraid of death.

I’m afraid of getting old. You know, when you’re 25 years old, and you’re first believing what I’mbelieving today, and it started when I was 24 years old, and now you’re 71, and all this time has gone by, and most people, at least in my case, struggled with believing in God, tried to reject God, and couldn’t because once you find the real plain truth, you just can’t reject it anymore. Once you know the truth, no matter how bad your life becomes, no matter what the trials are, no matter what the fears are, you can’t reject it because you know it’s the truth, and I know it’s the truth, but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of dying.

It doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of getting old. So if you’re somebody who thinks you’re not measuring up to God because you’re afraid of things, you have panic attacks, or you’re in fear of death or aging, that’s human. That is what God expects because God made you a human.

He made you a living creature with all of the fears that any animal has. You have the same fight or flight reaction that any deer has in the woods when a coyote or a wolf is chasing it. They run out of fear, they fly, or when they’re backed into a corner, if it’s a buck especially, it will fight itsbejesus off to stay alive, and you have that same fight or flight in you like any other animal.

It’s the fear of death, by the way, that I think God uses to control us once we are true Christians because we understand we can fall, and we can fall into a state of eternal death, which is the final state of those who will not accept God and God’s world because those who are resurrected to judgment because they never became Christians, maybe they didn’t know the Christian message, but if they reject it or have rejected it in this lifetime, they may find themselves going into a fiery furnace that will burn them up. No suffering, no agony, just they will be gone, just like Christ’s example of throwing, you know, picking the wheat, taking the kernels, making it food, and taking the rest of the chaff and burning it up in a furnace, and that is what’s going to happen to those people who will not follow God’s way, but if you’re afraid of death, you’re human, and don’t think you’re failing God or your faith is not strong enough. God knows we have weak faith.

You know, Jesus said if you had the faith of a mustard seed, the smallest seed there is in nature, if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could tell this mountain to pick itself up and lower itself into the sea. Can you do that? Do you know any Christian minister that you look up to who claims they have all the faith there is? Can they do that to a mountain? That means they don’t even have the faith of a mustard seed. By faith, you are justified.

Everybody wants to say by faith you’re going to be saved. It’s a gift from God. You don’t have to do anything.

It’s there. All you got to do is believe on Christ. Well, you want to know what? The devil and the demons believe in Jesus Christ, and they fear his being and his name, but they’re still the devil, and they’re still demons because they don’t obey God.

So, fear of death is how God makes us Christians realize, even though it’s not our nature, because we’re an animal, we have animal instincts, we have animal sexual desires, we have animal desires of staying alive, to put two babies together and put a toy in between them. They’re going to knock each other over the head. That’s an animal instinct.

It’s in us. God put it in us to survive this physical life. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

God understands us. The good news is that God can overlook our frailties, our worrying of everything. God understands it.

Jesus, more than anybody, because he went through every trial and tribulation and temptation that you and I have, but he didn’t sin like you and I did do, and that’s the good news. Well, this is Bob Barney, ran out of time talking about death and the plain truth. Until tomorrow.

Bye-bye.