Most likely you have heard it. The two things we cannot avoid are death and taxes. But people find ways to avoid paying taxes all the time. So that leaves only one thing we cannot avoid and that is death.  Since we cannot avoid it, how then can we soften its pain?

Sin, Evil, Death, Dying, and What Happens After We Die

This series addresses the concerns we all have: the concern for sin, evil, death, dying, and what happens after we die. Is there hope after death? When God created us humans, he intended for us to live forever in a loving, peaceful relationship with him. But this relationship has been broken by sin.

Here, we address the origin of sin and look more closely at death and dying.

But, instead of looking at death negatively, we look at it in the context of hope, the promised hope based on what Jesus did for us when he died and came back to life again. 

From the Sabbath School Adult Bible Study Guide 2022 Quarter 4: Sabbath.School (See also Hope Sabbath School and 3ABN Sabbath School)

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Inviting God’s Presence

God Most High, thank you for giving us your only Son, Jesus. He became our Great High Priest. He took on our sins and the curse of death for us so that we could live eternally. We praise you Oh Lord, In Jesus’ Name Amen

And as Moses lifted up a snake on a piece of wood in the desert. So the Son of Man must be lifted up. Then everyone who believes in him will not die, but will live for ever’ ” (John 3:14, 15, WE). 

How can this be if we all must die sooner or later? Life and the Bible teach that all roads lead to one place for both the righteous and the wicked, the rich and the poor. Our final destiny in this world is death and the grave.

This is why having hope in the resurrection is so very important. As we have discussed in previous lessons the resurrection is the time when God will wake up His people from the dead at Jesus’ Second Coming.  If you have not watched our previous lessons, do so at SabbathSchoolDaily.com.

But what about those who do not believe there will be a resurrection? For some, their only hope is in this life. Thus, they live as if they have no hope. The truth is without hope in the resurrection, then we have no hope at all. 

We might as well blot that word hope out of our vocabulary and live as if there is no tomorrow!

The Apostle Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:18

18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. (Corinthians 15:18)

Simply put, those individuals claiming to be Christians “died believing in Christ are also lost” (1 Corinthians 15:18, NIrV).

Therefore, central to the faith of the Christian, those who are followers of Christ is the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus waking up from the dead is important to our faith because it offers the surety that even though we will die we shall live again. With this surety, we have the promise that we will not die the second time.

The resurrection of Jesus was a sample of the final resurrection of all who sleep in Him…In like manner will those who sleep in Jesus rise again. We shall know our friends even as the disciples knew Jesus. Though they may have been deformed, diseased, or disfigured in this mortal life, yet in their resurrected and glorified body their individual identity will be perfectly preserved, and we shall recognize, in the face radiant with the light shining from the face of Jesus, the features of those we love. 

At His second coming all the precious dead shall hear His voice, and shall come forth to glorious, immortal life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead will raise His church, and glorify it with Him, above all principalities, above all powers, above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come.—The Faith I Live By, p. 180.

Before Jesus was resurrected from the grave, He had to die first.

This was not a pleasant event for Him. This experience was terrible. It was so painful that John in John 12:27 tells us that in the Garden of Gethsemane, before Jesus’ death he suffered with deep anguish.

In his agony, he prayed, “ ‘Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save Me from this hour”? But for this purpose I came to this hour’ ” (John 12:27, NKJV). 

This week we will look at Jesus’ death on the cross and what His death means for the promise he gives of living eternally after death.

God’s plan for Jesus to die was not a reaction. God is not reactive; he is proactive, thus his plan to save us was not an afterthought. So, When did God develop His plan to save us and when did it go into effect? Find out in Day 2: From the Foundation of the World

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