Sermon Illustrations on Immortality

Imitation

Invisible forces prove the existence of unseen realities, like the soul's immortality.

IMMORTALITY, Attraction of For many years previous to 1845, it had been known that the planet Uranus was subject to certain perturbations in its orbit, which could not be accounted for by the attraction of the sun and of the other planetary bodies. From the nature and amount of these perturbations, Le Verrier, a French mathematician, demonstrated the existence of an undiscovered planet; and so completely did he determine its place in the distant heavens, that, when Dr. Galle of the Berlin Observatory pointed his telescope to the place designated by Le Verrier, he not only found the new planet, but found it within one degree of its computed location. Here, then, we have not only an unknown planet casting the spell of its attraction upon those that are known and seen, and producing thereby its visible effects; but, to the eye of reason, these mysterious effects became the infallible proofs of the existence and direction of another world hitherto undiscovered and unknown. So with the human soul, and its continued love for the dead. Dr. Mattison.

Imitation

The soul's existence far outlasts the physical world, enduring through vast ages.

IMMORTALITY, Conception of Suppose the Creator were to commission some tiny insect to remove the matter of this great globe to the most distant star in immensity. It can carry for a load only an atom so small as to be imperceptible to the eye. Millions of years are required for the performance of a single journey. It commences its task upon the leaf of a delicate plant. With its invisible load it departs, deposits it, and, after millions of years, returns for a second atom. What numberless ages would pass before that single leaf would be carried away! — what untold periods before the whole plant would be gone! What vast cycles would elapse before a tree, a forest, a hill, a mountain, would disappear! The strongest imagination staggers at the thought of the ages which would pass ere the last particle of the globe would be removed. Yet even then your imperishable spirit would be but in the infancy of its existence. Dr. Wise.

Immortality, Emblem of

The peacock symbolizes the Christian hope of mortal life exchanged for immortality.

The peacock was an ancient pagan symbol signifying the apotheosis of an empress. The early Christians, accustomed to this interpretation, adopted it as a general symbol of the mortal exchanged for the immortal existence. With this signification, we find the peacock, with outspread strain, on the walls and ceilings of the catacombs, the tombs of martyrs, and on many of the sarcophagi, down to the fifth century.

Immortality, Inference of

Human longings and nature's beauty imply a destiny beyond this earthly life.

I cannot believe that earth is man's abiding-place. It can't be that our life is cast up by the ocean of eternity to float a moment upon its waves, and then sink into nothingness: else, why is it that the glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our heart are forever wandering about unsatisfied? Why is it that the rainbow and clouds come over with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off, and leave us to muse upon their favored loveliness? Why is it that the stars, who hold their festival around the midnight throne, are set above the grasp of our limited faculties, forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory? And, finally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty are presented to our view, and then taken from us, leaving the thousand streams of our affection to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our heart? We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth: there is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like islands that slumber on the ocean; and where the beings that pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever. Bulwer.

What Is Soul?

The soul is the immaterial part that thinks, feels, hopes, loves, and even aches.

—Laura Bridgman was an exceedingly interesting young girl who was not only deaf and dumb, but blind Her instructor, endeavoring to show the difference between the material and immaterial, used the word soul. “What is soul?” she asked. “That which thinks, feels, hopes, loves.” “And aches,” she responded.

Unbelief Tested By Loss Of Dear Ones

Denial of the soul’s immortality is challenged by the grief experienced at a loved one’s death.

Did you ever know a man who denied the immortality of the soul when following the body of a loved one to the grave? Throughout the sad and solemn scenes of a death and funeral no man, unless he be unbalanced, can say: “I have buried my wife, or my child, and that is the last of them, for the idea of an immortal soul is a myth.”

Voice Of The Soul

The restless soul reveals the reality of life beyond death for the wicked.

After all, let a man take what pains he may to hush it down, the soul is an awful, ghostly restless possession for a bad man to have. Who knows the scope and bounds of it? What a mistaken creature is he who locks his door to keep out spirits, while he has in his own body a spirit he fears to meet alone.

Mother

A dying child's vision of her mother illustrates hope of reunion in heaven.

A dear little girl, who had lost her mother at an age too young to fix the loved features in her memory, was left to a kind friend who took almost a mother’s care of her. She was as frail as beautiful, and as the bud of her heart unfolded, it seemed as if it was won Heavenward by the mother’s prayers or influence. She faded early, and as she lay in the lap of her friend she would say: “Now tell me about my mother.” After the oft-told story had been repeated she would whisper: “Take me into the parlor, I want to see my mother,” and so she would lie gazing on her mother’s picture. The hour for her own death came. “Do you know me,” sobbed close to her cheek the voice of one very dear to her, but the question awoke no answer. All at once a brightness, as if from the upper world, spread over her face. The eyes opened, the lips parted, the little hands flew up, and gazing into the far-above, she cried “mother!” and passed away.

Ah! There Thou Art

A man’s joy at seeing his lost love symbolizes the soul’s reunion after death.

Most touching is the story of Carnaval, of Paris. By the death of the object of his most tender and devoted affection his mind became clouded, and he could never be made to understand that she was really dead, but spent his life in the vain search for his lost one. In most affecting tones he would mourn her absence and chide her long delay. Thus time wore on, and he too came down to the river’s brink. In his last moments, he suddenly aroused, his face was lit up as with a wondrous joy, and reaching forth his arms as if grasping something, uttered the name of his long-lost love, and exclaimed: “Ah! there thou art at last.”

Those Things Are True

A vision of a deceased friend confirms the reality of life after death.

A strong friendship existed between Michael Mercatus and Marsilius Ficinus. They discoursed on the state of man after death, and agreed: “That whichsoever of them should first die should inform the other of the life beyond, and whether the soul be immortal or not.” Some time after this agreement, Mercatus was at his study, when he heard the noise of a horse’s gallop and then stopping at his door. He heard Ficinus, his friend, crying to him: “O Michael, Michael! those things are true, they are true!” Michael, wondering to hear his friend’s voice, rose up, and opening the casement, saw Marsilius riding away on a white horse. He called after him, and followed him with his eye, but he soon vanished out of sight. Amazed at this, he inquired if anything had happened to Marsilius, who then lived at Florence. Upon inquiry he found that he had died at the very time he had heard and seen him.

Immortality

The soul's hope of everlasting life transcends physical death and decay.

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The fadeless hope of everlasting life is thus exprest by St. John Adcock:

I, that had life ere I was born Into this world of dark and light, Waking as one who wakes at morn From dreams of night.

I am as old as heaven and earth; But sleep is death without decay, And since each morn renews my birth I am no older than the day.

Old tho my outward form appears, Tho it at last outworn shall lie, This that is servile to the years, This is not I.

I, who outwear the form I take, When I put off this garb of flesh, Still in immortal youth shall wake And somewhere clothe my life afresh. (Text.)--_The Monthly Review._

Immortality

Aging signals the coming of eternal life, like winter yielding to summer.

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When the late Dr. Reese, of Swansea, preached the last time in North Wales, a friend said to him--one of those who are always reminding people that they are getting old: “You are whitening fast, Dr. Reese.” The old gentleman did not say anything then, but when he got to the pulpit he referred to it and said: “There is a wee white flower that comes up through the earth at this season of the year. Sometimes it comes up through the snow and frost; but we are glad to see the snow-drop, because it proclaims that the winter is over and that the summer is at hand. A friend reminded me last night that I was whitening fast. But heed not that, brother; it is to me proof that my winter will soon be over; that I shall have done presently with the cold east winds and the frosts of earth, and that my summer, my eternal summer, is at hand.” (Text.)--VYRNWY MORGAN, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

Immortality

Human hope for immortality reflects a deep, instinctive longing for eternal life.

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James T. White is the author of the following lines, entitled “A Sea Shell.” They appeared in the New York _Tribune_:

Imprisoned in the shell Are echoes of the far-off ocean’s roar. May not our hopes of immortality, That deep within us dwell-- Instinctive to the soul, and more and more Insistent to the heart--may not they be Soul-echoes of the swell That ceaseless beats on an eternal shore?

Immortality, A Symbol Of

The butterfly symbolizes the soul's transformation and hope for eternal life.

This apostrophe to a butterfly was written by Alice Freeman Palmer:

I hold you at last in my hand, Exquisite child of the air; Can I ever understand How you grew to be so fair?

You came to this linden-tree To taste its delicious sweet, I sitting here in the shadow and shine Playing around its feet.

Now I hold you fast in my hand, You marvelous butterfly, Till you help me to understand The eternal mystery.

From that creeping thing in the dust To this shining bliss in the blue! God, give me courage to trust I can break my chrysalis, too!

Immortality, Evidence Of

Human intellect and soul point beyond temporal life to immortality.

Man, who builds bridges, sails ships, fights battles for liberty, erects cathedrals, writes hymns and prayers, founds homes, is given a little handful of thirty or forty years. Nor can the bulk of the elephant above man’s size ever explain the two hundred years given to some Jumbo munching hay, or the three thousand years given to some tree that is dead, inert and voiceless. The architect builds a marble palace for centuries, stores it with art treasures, that all the generations may throng in and out, feeding the eye and feasting the hunger for beauty, in form and color. But God spent millions of years upon this body, fearfully and wonderfully made, storing the soul’s temple with intellect, memory and judgment, with conscience, affections and moral sentiments. And did He build this soul that goes laughing, weeping, inventing, praying, through life, for that goal named a black hole in the ground?

— N. D. HILLIS

Immortality, Feeling Of

Spiritual perception reveals the reality of eternal life beyond earthly senses.

Living on the surface of the earth sense impressions constrain us to regard the earth as flat and still, and the sun and other heavenly bodies as moving across the heavens above our heads. But astronomers know that by long watching of the heavenly bodies an observer comes often to feel the motion and sense the rotundity of the earth.

So of the man who will live in the spiritual altitudes. He reasonably believed before in the future life, but all his impressions have been earthly, materialistic. But on the higher level he actually “lays hold on the powers of an endless life.”

Immortality, Intimations Of

A mountain shell's ocean song symbolizes the soul's longing for its eternal home.

Eugene Field is the author of this:

Upon the mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell; And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.

How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say? Whether there dropt by some too careless hand, Or whether there cast when ocean swept the land, Ere the eternal had ordained the day.

Strange, was it not! Far from its native deep, One song it sang-- Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide, Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide, Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.

And as the shell upon the mountain height Sings of the sea, So do I ever, leagues and leagues away-- So do I ever, wandering where I may, Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee. (Text.)

Immortality, Intimations Of

The soul senses a future world, like travelers hearing the sea before arrival.

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A solemn murmur in its soul Tells of the world to be, As travelers hear the billows roll, Before they reach the sea.

Immortality Of Influence

A poet's spirit lives on through his enduring written words after death.

Richard Watson Gilder writes this verse about a dead poet:

I read that, in his sleep, the poet died Ere the day broke; In a new dawn, as rose earth’s crimson tide, His spirit woke.

Yet still with us his golden spirit stayed, On the same page That told his end, his living verse I read-- His lyric rage.

Behold! I thought, they call him cold in death; But hither turn, See where his soul, a glorious, flaming breath, Doth pulse and burn.

This is the poet’s triumph, his high doom! After life’s stress-- For him the silent, dark, o’ershadowing tomb Is shadowless.

And this the miracle and mystery-- In that he gives His soul away, magnificently free, By this he lives. (Text.)

--_The Outlook._

Immortality, Proof Of

Human awareness of eternity suggests the soul's immortality beyond mortal life.

“Proof,” asks the Soul, “that that which is shall be? That which was not, persist eternally? Faith fails before the mortal mystery.”

Yet more miraculous miracle were this: The mortal, dreaming immortality; The finite, framing forth infinity; The shallow, lightly plumbing the abyss; Ephemeral lips, creating with a kiss; The transient eye, fixt on eternity! (Text.)

--GRACE ELLERY CHANNING, _The Century_.

Man Indestructible

Man's spirit is indestructible, reflecting God's image beyond physical death.

Some time ago a Philadelphia anatomist announced to the world that the brain of Walt Whitman, through the carelessness of a hospital employee, had been lost to science. The jar that held the poet’s brain fell to the floor and was broken, so that not even the fragments of the organ were saved. Well, let the poet’s brain be shattered, if you will; the poet himself can not be touched. The flaming star-wheels can not crush him, the maddened oceans can not engulf him, the black caves of night can not hide him, the scorching flames of hell can not destroy him. Man is a spark of divinity the image of deity, an “emotion of God flashed into time.”

— F. F. SHANNON

Why I Believe In Heaven

John 14:1

We take it for granted that the Bible teaches about heaven. Many people wonder if there is any other evidence.

For one thing, there is the universal longing of mankind for eternity. As far as we know, of all God's creatures, man is the only one who longs for eternal life. It is a universal experience of mankind which forbids him to accept any other answer to the riddle of life.

As the poet Emerson said, "The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution."

Franklin's Epitaph

In the old cemetery of Christ Church at Fifth and Arch streets, Philadelphia, the passerby can see through the iron railing the grave of one of America's greatest men and one of the world's most versatile geniuses. If you have made a pilgrimage to that quiet acre of the dead, walled off from the city's roar and traffic as if to comment upon the vanity of it all, you will have observed that the flat stone over Franklin's grave bears no trace of the epitaph which he composed. It was as follows:

Like the cover of an old book,

Its content torn out,

And stripped of its lettering and gilding,

Lies here food for worm;

But the work shall not be lost,

For it will (as he believes) appear once more

In a new and more elegant edition,

Revised and edited by the Author.

--McCartney

Man's Instinct For Immortality

Danton, a leader of the French Revolution, on his way to the guillotine said to his companions on the scaffold: "Our heads will meet in yonder sack."

That is the outlook on life if there is no resurrection of the dead. But because Christ is risen, and because the dead rise, the Christian believer, as he lays the body of his beloved in the grave, can say: "Our souls will meet in yonder heaven."

The Fourth Element

We have come to the final factor necessary for bringing meaning to life: security. This seems to be most sought in the waning years. Beginning with wonder in childhood, through the pursuit of truth in adolescence and the fulfillment of love in the adult years, as we age we feel acutely that longing for security. Wonder may fade with the breakdown of the body. Truth brings the reality of an end to earthly existence. Love will soon be a thing of the past if death is the end of all consciousness. Where, then, does one find the security that can regain the wonder, know the truth, and enjoy the love?

The longing for life beyond the grave does not of itself establish that there is life beyond the grave, but this hunger does speak of our need to know the truth about death.

I had the privilege of speaking in Vietnam during the military conflict. It was an experience that changed my life; the conversations with military personnel are etched in my memory. One of those memories is a poem given to me, written by an American soldier. He told of a life-defining night when he was caught in the crossfire of battle while a war within his own mind raged. He heard within his mind the voices of friends from his youth who had convinced him of a universe devoid of God. But now as he gazed at the starlit sky, he wondered whether his friends had ever taken the time to marvel at its sight. In the eerie silence of the night, he surrendered his doubt to God, and penned these words: "Funny I had to come to this hellish place before I had time to see your face ... Strange, now since I met you, I’m not afraid to die."

One may dismiss this "foxhole conversion," for in the face of death one desperately hopes there is something beyond the grave. But the spectre of death is real and we cannot dismiss its inescapable question: Is there a God beyond the grave and the security of heaven for those who know Him?

Consider again Soren Kierkegaard’s conclusion in his search for meaning: Only by learning to define life backwards was he able to live it forwards. The final state of life directed the present path chosen.

Four essential components to meaning: wonder, truth, love, and security. All four are found in the person of Jesus Christ, who alone brings meaning at every age of life, even bringing security beyond the grave.

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Eternal Life; For Whom?

Romans 2:7

“Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness — indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek;” (Romans 2:7-9 NKJV)

Eternal Life; For Whom?

• by…continuance — 2 Cor 4:16-18 — unflagging perseverance

• well doing — Gk., good work

• glory — highest state of grace and perfection to be attained. “Glory from, with, and in God.”

• honour — reward

• immortality — incorruptibility (Alford)

• eternal life — John 12:25-26, 1 Cor 15:53-54 — from, with, like God for ever

• contentious [self-seeking] — Gk., those who are full of contention, from erithos, a hireling. “To those who act from a principle of factious and self-seeking resistance to God.” (Wordsworth)

• obey — approve mentally, serve practically

• truth — the moral law (Psalm 119:142)

• unrihteousness — error, sin

• indignation — the feeling from which wrath proceeds

• wrath — the expression of indignation (these, instead of glory, etc., verse 7)

• tribulation — “painful pressure,” rising into …

• anguish — “agonising compression” (Vaughan) — (These, instead of eternal life, v. 7)

• ever…evil — soul the agent in sinning, the seat of suffering

• Jew first — as the chief in knowledge, and first to reject or pervert mercy

• also…Gentile [Greek] — 1 Pet 4:17, Matt 11:22 — who, with less knowledge, is yet without excuse

The Christian’s Great Aim — J. Dunlop

I. The object of the Christian’s pursuits. He seeks

1. A glorious position

2. The highest praise

3. To hold this position and praise in perpetual possession

II. The means employed in order to obtain this object. There is

1. The performance

2. The patient performance

3. Perseverance in the performance of good works

111. The object obtained by the means employed — eternal life. This life is

1. Pure

2. Progressive

3. Permanent

Patience — 0, impatient ones! Did the leaves say nothing to you as they murmured, when you came hither to-day? They were not created this spring, but months ago; and the summer, just begun, will fashion others for another year. At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle and in it is an infant germ; and the winds will rock it, and the birds will sing to it all summer long; and next season it will unfold. So God is working for you, and carrying forward to the perfect development all the processes of your lives

Divine agency — “It is unphilosopbical,” says a modern writer, “to introduce Divine agency when adequate human means are in exercise.” Suppose we should, for argument’s sake, grant it; there are still left multitudes of problem that this writer and kindred errorists will not easily solve; cases where “adequate human means” were not in exercise. Were any such means employed in the following instance? — A young man who was very thoughtless and negligent of religion, and to whom no person had spoken on the subject, as he was standing engaged in an engrossing employment, became suddenly and remarkably impressed with a sense of the being and character of God. His unutterable emotions were not those of fear, but of reverence, solemnity, and tenderness. His mental exclamation was, “Oh, the being, the majesty, the goodness of God! And how have I neglected Him!” His frame trembled and tears floods of tears gave vent to his feelings. Was there any adequate human means here? Do men get excited upon politics, poetry, or philosophy in this way? How can anybody be so wilfully blind to the operations of God’s Spirit, as to say such convictions are all ver natural and have no special power of God exhibited in them? — Dr Cheever

“A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.” — Young

“In vain they try to end my life, that can but end my woe.” — Coleridge

“No virtue is acquired in an instant, but by degrees, step by step; from the seeds of right instruction and good resolution it springs up, and goes forward by a continual progress of customary practice. ’Tis a child of patience, a fruit of perseverance, and, consequently, a work of time; for enduring implies a good space of time.” — Dr Barrow

“By their patience and perseverance God’s children are truly known from hypocrites and dissemblers.” — Augustine.

“Fortune is like the market — if you wait a little, the price will fall.”

The Death of Death

Hebrews 9:27

I have been reading an article in THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION about the possibility that people could live a thousand years or even longer if the findings and research of Aubrey de Grey prove true. De Grey is an English biogerontologist who is making some profound observations concerning our ability to live longer.

He is, of course, talking about using medical procedures of various kinds to reverse some of the things which cause aging. He is also talking about growing new organs in the lab from stem cells in order to replace worn-out ones. He is being heralded as the man who will “murder” death. I don’t want to throw water on Mr. de Grey’s fire, but “murdering” death just won’t happen. God said along ago that “it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this, the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

Mr. de Grey is simply trying to do something that is impossible -- he is trying to solve a spiritual problem through medical and “mechanical” means. He is trying to do what man has been trying for thousands of years to do -- and that is to get back into the “garden of Eden” relationship with God. All of human history attests to this desire of man. Once he was put out of the garden because of sin, man has been struggling to find a way to get back in. Immortality was one of the things man experienced in Eden. Adam and Eve were created to live forever and have an unending and blissful relationship with God day to day. Mr. de Grey is trying to restore the eternal life characteristic to man without so much as dealing with the spiritual nature of the problem we now face with death.

Initially, man lived longer than he does now. There are biblical characters, including Methuselah, who lived for hundreds of years. Methuselah lived for 969 years. Lamech, the father of Noah, lived 777 years. Noah himself lived 950 years. The longer man has been on the earth, the shorter the time he has lived. Why is this true? The reason is found in the fact that man’s perfect genetic code, which allowed unending life, was corrupted by this thing God calls sin. The longer man has lived on earth, the more the code has been corrupted, resulting in a decrease in the life span of mankind. Death is not a natural state for man as far as God is concerned. He “engineered” man to live forever with Him in the garden of Eden. But man corrupted himself with sin, and death entered the world.

In these modern days we have been able to increase man’s lifespan somewhat, but only because we have made living conditions better. We have invented medicines and procedures which help us live longer. We have found better ways to eat and exercise. In general, we have improved our lives greatly. But remember this: Death is still universal. Everyone dies physically, eventually. Mr. de Grey can postulate all he desires, but he is not going to solve the problem of physical death.

I have posed this question to a lot of people: Would you like to live to be say, 300 years old? You might be surprised to learn that even though people in general fear death, I have not found a single person who answers “yes.” Nearly universally, they say they would tire of life at extreme ages. They can’t imagine dealing with the growing problems in the world, which surely will get worse. To them, the thought of outliving everyone they know is depressing. Most people say they want to live a normal lifetime and then die peacefully.

Mr. de Grey is trying to solve a problem the world almost universally wants to reject, and that is the problem of judgment. But judgment is no problem to those who WILL live forever, and those are the people who have trusted in God’s way of solving the problem of death and separation. Those are the ones who have eternal life given to them as a gift when they trust their life to Jesus Christ, God’s only way of solving our sin and death problem. So, Mr. de Grey and all others who might hold to his views are coming at the problem of death and eternal life from the wrong direction. They want life to continue by solving the medical and physical side of aging. They should be looking at it from a spiritual perspective. The solution to death is found when one comes at the issue from God’s perspective, and that perspective is focused on the person of Jesus Christ, who gives us the eternal life man that Adam and Eve lost in the Garden of Eden.

Want to live forever? You can, when you go at it from God’s pathway, which leads to eternal life through Jesus Christ. And, by the way, the death of death has already taken place. It happened when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, thereby defeating death and making eternal life possible for anyone who will come to God by Him.

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William F. Harrell serves as pastor of Abilene Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia.

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Discomforted and Disoriented - and Living Forever

John 3:16

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL reports that Arakawa and Madeline Gins are artists who have committed their energies and art to the quest to make human beings immortal - a movement known as Transhumanism. Arakawa (his entire name) and Madeline Gin base their artistic quest for immortality “on the idea that people degenerate and die in part because they live in spaces that are too comfortable.” Seriously. Their answer is to “construct abodes that leave people disoriented, challenged, and feeling anything but comfortable.”

Arakawa insists that living in these disorienting spaces can make one “become like a baby.” As the JOURNAL reports, “They build buildings with no doors inside. They place rooms far apart. They put windows near the ceiling or near the floor. Between rooms are sloping, bumpy moonscape-like floors designed to throw occupants off balance.”

The whole idea throws me off balance. The world of modern “art” is littered with nonsense of limitless variety. These artists have built nine “reversible destiny” lofts in Japan at a cost of $6 million. The lofts are shaped like spheres, tubes, or cubes and are marked by odd features, misshapen floors and walls, and uneven floors.

One Japanese loft tenant, Nobutaka Yamaoka, claims to have lost both weight and his hay fever after a couple years of living in the loft with his family. He admits that he isn’t sure that the loft had anything to do with these achievements. He can’t buy furniture for his loft because of the uneven floors and his wife complains that she hits her head trying to crawl to the outdoors through a window, but Mr. Yamaoka is undeterred. Ms. Gins told the JOURNAL that crawling out of the low window in order to hang up the laundry is “one of the exercises.” Obviously.

Here is my favorite part of the article:

“Their research is a milestone in the history of conceptual art,”

says Alexandra Munroe, senior curator at the main Guggenheim

Museum, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where the couple’s work

is currently on display. She says many of their supporters don’t

literally accept the couple’s message on immortality but

appreciate it in a “metaphorical” way.

To the artists, eternal life is a real possibility. “This is a

great chance for the human race,” says Ms. Gins.

Well, this “great chance for the human race” is endangered by a lack of funding, given the fact that these artists lost their funding to Bernard Madoff’s scheme. “Here was someone we thought was a supporter of ours, and he pulled the rug out from under us,” said Ms. Gins.

Other transhumanists were quick to distance themselves from the odd theory of age reversal advocated by this artistic couple. Ray Kurzweil, identified as “a leading transhumanist figure in the U.S.,” dismissed the theory of Arakawa and Ms. Gins and offered his own, presumably less odd theory of age reversal. Kurzweil told the JOURNAL that future human beings will have small cell-regenerating robots in their bodies. He evidently thinks that robots inside our bodies would seem less odd than the idea that we are dying because our living spaces are too comfortable.

Just last week TIME magazine reported that “amortality” is one of the “TEN IDEAS CHANGING THE WORLD RIGHT NOW.” Meanwhile, the JOURNAL cites a professor of aging who called the promotion of longevity “the second-oldest profession.”

The great quest of transhumanism is to defy death and to redefine what it means to be human. But death will not forever be defied and those who live in uncomfortable houses are not likely to live much longer than those who reside in (apparently) deadly comfort. God is not mocked.

O Death, Where Is Your Victory? Reflections of Death At Easter

Job 14:2

There are so many ways we could talk about the significance of Easter morning — particularly, the meaning of Christ’s resurrection from the grave.

With no hesitation, believers will tell you that the fact that Jesus walked out of that tomb changes everything. That very moment — the morning of the resurrection — is at the foundation of all those that follow it. The coming of the Holy Spirit, Paul’s road to Damascus conversion, and the ministry of the church for centuries thereafter all hinge upon the reality of a risen Savior.

It, indeed, is the center of history. If it happened — and it did — it changes everything.

That’s the title of my message this morning at The Moody Church, “This Changes Everything.” And, that’s not an overstatement. When the first iPhone was introduced that was there motto as well, but Steve Jobs is gone now, there are lots of other phones now, and the world did not change that much.

But, when Jesus walked out of the tomb, that did change everything.

Easter and Death

When people think of the resurrection, though, often they contemplate the forgiveness of sins. Perhaps they remember God’s sovereignty and power. Maybe they reflect on his goodness. But the language used in churches and among bodies of believers often also includes particular reference to Christ’s victory over death.

As he leaves the grave, Jesus defeats that which all the Roman soldiers, scoffing Jews, and religious leaders thought would defeat him.

But all this talk about death can often seem so morbid on a day of the year that’s become commercialized through the use of pastel pinks and purples and little chocolate bunny rabbits.

Obviously, this is a time for celebration — Jesus did, in fact, rise again and later ascend into heaven securing for us a hope and a future of eternity spent with him. It’s a joyful occasion and one that’s more than worth celebrating!

Death of the Lead

But on this Easter morning — with all the eggs and bunnies — I can’t help but ponder why the salvation story first involved the death of its main character.

Why did God design this to be so?

As I write this, I have two friends, younger than I, who are clinging to life. Their prospects are not good. Doctors have used words like, “not much time left.”

It’s not yet their time.

Death is real and it still hurts. We don’t want to die and we don’t want our friends to die.

Yet, the story of Easter, really, is a story steeped in perhaps the most troubling part of the human experience: death itself. It’s the one thing that unites people across historical contexts, cultural barriers, and whole continents — everyone, no matter who they are, eventually dies.

In a piece in The Atlantic, Professor and Vice Provost at the University of Pennsylvania writes:

Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. This has become so pervasive that it now defines a cultural type: what I call the American immortal.

No matter how advanced societies across the globe have progressed since the dawn of time — vitamins, diets, surgeries and all — death remains humankind’s one undefeatable foe. Try as we might to immortalize ourselves, scientists, medical practitioners, mathematicians and the like have yet to craft a path forward for humanity that doesn’t end in the grave.

Due to Die

All of us really are, as Athanasius writes in On the Incarnation, “due to die.” And this death, ultimately, is not just the result of old age or sickness, but of the sin that surrounds us in our ever-broken world. Unlike the rest of our culture chasing immortality, Christians are often fixated on this sin problem above all else.

But it strikes me that Christians so often explain away death as if it were merely God’s chosen method of punishment for sin. Death, in this narrative, is no enemy on its own but only as it pertains to the depth of human brokenness and rebellion against God.

But as we’ve bought into this explanation, perhaps we’ve missed that fact that sin and death are actually quite intertwined. It appears that each of us has not only a sin problem to solve, but a death problem as well.

And it seems that Jesus came to address them both because both, in fact, were hurting us — body and soul.

Death

Centuries before the first Easter morning, the Lord promised the prophet Hosea: “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;I will redeem them from death” (Hosea 13:14). As it turns out, God’s chosen method of deliverance was himself — it was God who came to defeat that which had always defeated us.

But as Fleming Rutledge writes in her book The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, it wasn’t just that Jesus took to the cross and walked out of the tomb on the third day, it was how he did those things that also matters.

Jesus was “put to death publicly, deliberately, and with impunity” and “his execution was carried out by all the best people, representatives of the highest religious and governmental authorities” (73). To speak of crucifixion in general is “to speak of a slave’s death” (75-76).

This, she writes, was “the destiny chosen by the Creator and Lord of the universe: the death of a nobody” (76).

But something made all the difference: this crucified nobody was God in the flesh. And what first looked like one of the lowliest, most degrading, and humiliating events ever recorded in human history turned into a moment of celebration on Easter morning.

For those who believe — for those who trust in the empty tomb — we join Paul in asking “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55-57).

Death has been defeated and in Christ, we too will one day share in this victory over the grave. Not because of our own efforts to save ourselves; no health craze or self-preservation will do.

But only because of the empty tomb.

Praise be to God.

Mortality, Death, and The Illusion of Control

Job 7:16

Early in February 2024, tech multi-millionaire and anti-aging obsessionist Bryan Johnson invited 2,500 people to apply for a spot in his latest endeavor. “Project Blueprint” is a 90-day, watered-down version of Johnson’s extreme $2-million-per-year anti-aging regimen. The project’s goal is simply, “Don’t die.”

In addition to a $999 entry fee, those accepted will spend $333 per month on food products that make up about 400 calories of a daily diet. Those interested in tracking their progress more closely can purchase “more advanced biomarker measurements” for an additional $800 or $1,600, depending on the desired tier. Spending at least $2,000 on a three-month “self-experimentation study” that does not include daily groceries is a heavy lift. However, in less than 50 hours, 8,000 people had applied.

In addition to his celebrity status, one factor that makes Johnson’s immortality experiment so compelling is the myth of “progress” that still holds significant sway over the modern world. With that myth comes the illusion that eventually, somehow, we will gain mastery over our mortality. After all, thanks to modern medicine, deadly diseases like measles, mumps, and polio — diseases that once devastated mankind — are now largely preventable. Others, like smallpox, have even been declared eradicated. Add in modern innovations such as public sewage, running water, and increased agricultural production, and in under 200 years, the average human lifespan has nearly doubled.

Scientific discoveries and medical advancements are gifts of God. And yet, for all the benefits brought to the common good, a common side effect has been an inflated sense of control. It’s not difficult to see why so many people remain convinced that death can be defeated with ever newer and more impressive technologies.

This illusion of control over mortality has captivated more than the technocrats, Silicon Valley elites, and their followers. It’s at least partially behind the ever-growing demand for anti-aging creams, innovative diet and workout regimens, and supplements. The promises of extended life are particularly convincing in a culture detached from the transcendent. All our machines, screens, and urban sprawl leave us increasingly out of touch with the grandeur of God’s creation. Much of the “progress” we celebrate reinforces the notion that meaning and purpose are self-determined, solely up to the autonomous individual.

The problem with the modern version of man’s attempts at immortality is neither the desire for it nor a hatred of death. The Bible is clear that humans are made for eternal life with God through Christ, and that death is a bad thing, not the way it’s supposed to be, a result of man’s sin. Life should be desired; death should be hated.

Our attempts to master mortality in our own strength stand in opposition to a fundamental truth about reality and humanity repeated in Holy Scripture. The Psalmist sums it up rather well: “Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who made us and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3, NKJV). In the words of theologian Ephraim Radner, it is a feature of modern life to reject “the basic limits of our lives as creatures” and, as such, the God who made them.

Death is evil. Yet, for the time being, it is our lot. Thanks to Christ, death does not have the last word. In fact, in the cross of Christ, God took on death so that we might have life everlasting. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, death is transformed, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reportedly said as he walked to the gallows, from the “end” to the “beginning of life.”

Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Denying, downplaying, or attempting to control death robs people of the healing they ultimately need: restoration in Christ, the Great Physician. It is when we courageously confess our plight of death and sin that we find life.

In a culture that refuses to accept mortal limits, Christians must not succumb to fear-filled, denial-ridden attempts to eliminate or control mortality in their own strength. While we can and should work to improve ourselves, including our physical health and wellbeing, we can face our mortality with humility and courage and, especially, hope. After all, we know the One who conquered death.

________

Immorality Is Just Like A Cat's Paw

Immorality is just like a cat's paw. When you think everything is going well; it is all soft and fluffy. But when you least expect it the claws come out. The claws of sin that will shread your very life from you.

- Dr. Tony Evans, {The Urban Alternative}

Your Neighbors Are Possible Gods and Goddesses

John 10:34

Here is how C. S. Lewis says we should regard our next-door neighbor:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses. You need to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. On the other hand, they might be a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

“All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”

________

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

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(This illustration was originally HolwickID #4039. I am not sure how it got deleted.)

Dead People Know

Luke 16:23

Dead people know. Billions of people know, they just can’t get the answer back to us.

In the dedication of her book “Spook” Mary Roach writes, “To my parents, wherever they are, or aren’t.” An interviewer asked her, are you willing to say they are somewhere, or they aren’t? She answered, “If I had to put my money on it, and I had to decide one way or the other, I would put my money on, they aren’t anywhere. But that’s really depressing. My mother believed. My mother absolutely had faith that when she died that she was going to heaven. And even if she’s wrong, she doesn’t know she’s wrong. So, she went through her whole life with a calmness and a peace of mind that I’ll never have. The people who believe, win. The skeptics lose."

Moody Is Not Dead

John 11:25

One day, realizing that he was not long for this world, Moody said to a friend: "Someday you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. At that moment, I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all--out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that sin cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837; I was

born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die; that which is born of the Spirit will live forever."

Stay Alive All Your Life

Mark 16:9

These manifestations of disappearing and reappearing [the appearances by Jesus after Easter] were designed to emphasize that, while He seemed to be gone, He was not, but is ever near to us. Then comes the astonishing statement that we shall know the same aliveness after the experience called death. “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). The mere fact that we can no longer see our loved ones in the flesh does not at all mean that they are not alive. They still live in this dynamic, mysterious universe, even as we, too, shall live forever.

The day I received the news that my mother had died, I went to Marble Collegiate Church and sat in the pulpit. I did that because she had always told me, “Whenever you are in that pulpit I will be with you.” I wanted to feel her presence.

Then, I went into my study. On the table lies a Bible. It lay there that morning, and it has been there ever since. It is old and tattered now, but that Bible will remain there as long as I am connected with the church, and then I will take it with me wherever I may go. I never give a sermon that I do not, first, put my hand on that Bible.

On that morning of her physical death, I placed my hand on the Bible, in an instinctive desire for comfort, and stood looking out toward Fifth Avenue, when all of a sudden, I distinctly felt two cupped hands, soft as eiderdown, resting gently on my head. And I had a feeling of inexpressible joy.

I have always had a questioning mind and, even then, I began to deal factually with this experience, reasoning that it was hallucination due to grief. But I did not believe my own attempt to reason it away. Then the idea dawned that I should lift my thinking to the spiritual level and realize that in this dynamic universe, what we call death is but the change in form of deathless spirit. From that moment, I never doubted my mother’s spiritual aliveness.

I once wrote of this incident in a magazine article, and received scores of letters from people who told of a like experience. One physician wrote: “I was attending a man in his last illness. Suddenly, a look came over his face that can only be described as out of this world in its beauty. He began to call by name his mother, father, brother, sister. Then he said, ‘Why, Frank, I didn’t know you were there.’ And, closing his eyes, his spirit took flight. “The daughter of the man,” the doctor continued, “told me that mother and father, brother and sister, had been dead for years. But about his mentioning Frank, she could not understand. Frank was not dead.

“An hour later came the message that Frank, a cousin, had been killed in an accident some hours before.”

They live and they will live forever as you will, also, in this dynamic universe. The conviction that this is true first gripped me years ago, in a little country cemetery in Ohio. I was standing by my father’s side as the body of my beloved grandmother was lowered into the grave. I felt sorry for him that day, for he was sad and so was I. I can see the preacher even yet, standing by the grave and, in memory, hear the strong, sure tone of his voice as he repeated those immortal words, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). Suddenly, I had one of those flashing experiences of intuitive perception and instantly, deep in my heart, knew that immortality is a true belief.

A while ago, on a sun-kissed day, I came to the place where those words were first spoken. We rounded a turn in the road that winds up to Jerusalem, and there, on the shoulder of the Mount of Olives, was the village of Bethany, just as it appeared in every Biblical picture book. We came to the grave where once rested the body of Lazarus and descended to the spot from which he came forth. Later, emerging into the brilliant daylight, we stood by the open tomb and read aloud the great words. The place where we were standing must have been almost the exact spot where Jesus made that immortal statement to those grieving people.

You never know when a great experience is going to come. When least expected, an unforgettable moment flashes across your life with inexpressible meaning. It is difficult to recall, without deep emotion, the feeling of absolute certainty that burned into my mind that the words spoken there nearly twenty centuries ago are absolutely true. I turned to my wife and said, “Think of all the grieving millions of people down the centuries who have been comforted by the words that were spoken here.”