From Death to Life - 1A

David Jay: Today, on Real Life Radio.
Jack Hibbs: We are born dead in our sins, the scriptures teach. God is holy, and we're not holy. God loves us. We don't love him. He loves us. The Bible says he didn't We didn't first love him. He loved us. We didn't first choose him. He chose us.
David Jay: This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible.
Jack Hibbs: Hey my friends, come with me on our Bold Faith Hawaii Cruise, June 12th to the 19th, 2027. Listen, we're going to set sail for seven unforgettable days with myself, Dr. Frank Turick, and special worship with Gia Lucid. It's going to be a breathtaking trip. This is more than a vacation. It's a time of rest, renewal, fellowship, and spiritual strength in the word of God, all centered around the Bible. You can reserve your spot by going to jackhibbs.com.
David Jay: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues with his series now called The Book of Ephesians and a message titled From Death to Life, Part 1. Ephesians is a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, showing every believer who they really are in Christ. And here Paul reminds us just how far God reached out to rescue us. You see, before we came to Christ, we were walking through life without purpose or really any real hope. But this dark truth is exactly what makes the good news shine so brightly. It's the backdrop that lets the light of God's grace shine through. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that a person can look fully alive and yet be spiritually dead inside. But that right there is the very reason the good news of Jesus Christ is so awesome. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells inside of us, bringing us new life. Now with his message called From Death to Life, Part 1, here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
Jack Hibbs: The title of the message tonight is From Death to Life. From Death to Life. And if you'll turn in your Bibles this evening to the Book of Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. If you missed last week, you missed something great. We finished chapter 1. And well, the miracles never cease. Chapter 2 tonight, and we'll be covering uh verses 1 through 3, although the the text is really The context of it is really down to verse 7. Uh but we'll be looking specifically at verses 1 to 3 tonight in Ephesians chapter 2. And the title is From Death to Life. Paul tells us here verse 1, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Let's just keep going and we'll pick this up next week. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love where with he's loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Great portion of scripture tonight looking at verses 1 through 3. And this is really part one of a two-part message called From Death to Life. If you, as I've told you before, you head up out of here on I-15, make a left hand turn on 395 and get up north what would be on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, not far from here. In just a matter of a few hours, you will be going by what's called Mount Whitney. It's the highest point in the state of California, 14,400 and some odd feet. It's way above the tree line. It's naked as a jaybird because the trees can't even breathe up there. And so it's this incredible peak that many of you on your way maybe going up to ski, you've seen the sun rising hitting Mount Whitney. It's brilliant. It looks like it's gold in the morning and in the evening because it's so high that it just attracts the sun from it. People I've never been there, but from it people say that it feels like you're on top of the world as you're looking down on California. And when the visibility is clear, you can see over 135 miles from that point. You can actually see to the uh end to where the earth would begin to curve from that vantage point. That's where your horizon is lost at the curvature as uh distance goes out. But just 80 miles from that high peak of Mount Whitney, you will be at the lowest point in California. In fact, it's the lowest point in America. It's the second lowest point on earth. The lowest point in the world is the Dead Sea. The second lowest point is Death Valley. And from Death Valley to Mount Whitney is less than 80 miles. And it is very unique in all the geo- geography and topography of the world because there is no other place on earth where where's there a greater uh differential in altitude than from the peak of Mount Whitney down to Death Valley right here in California, not far from us at all. Such a radical contrast, such a radical change. From one point you can be experiencing the wonderful blessings of a cool summer day at that altitude down to in the shade. Get this. I looked it up today. In the shade, Death Valley in the summer, 134° in the shade. The ground temperature recording up to 183° on the ground temperature itself. In other words, if you put your feet on the ground, you're going to be feeling sand and dirt at 183°. And just 80 miles difference. And uh the the difference makes all the difference in the world. It is literally from death to life. In between those two places is water. But you get down to the Death Valley and if you drink any of the water that's there, it can actually kill you. The water can become poisoned there. But we 're going to be looking in verses 1 through 3 and you're saying, why that introduction? Because to be quite honest with you, verses 1 through 3 are pretty boring in the way of hope. They're void of excitement for us in the way of having hope. Verses 1 through 3 will show us the black background that will really set the stage for verses 4 through 7 in this gem that 's going to shine forth. Ladies, remember when you went to go buy a a ring or I should say guys, remember when we went to go buy a ring? You know, part of the way of us getting snookered into the deal was the guy pulled it out and uh he laid this black velvet thing on the countertop and then he has this look at the ring. Well, behind the ring was this black velvet or dark blue velvet. Well, it never dawned on us. Whoa, what's what's the velvet? I'll take the velvet. Well, what's the velvet? He just lays it out there. It's part of the little routine and he holds up this ring. Well, if you move the velvet away, the ring still kind of looks okay. And it kind of looks okay on her finger, but it sure doesn't look as good as the day that the guy pulled it out and showed it to you. Especially uh 30 days later, it doesn't look nearly as good. And uh you know, what's the deal with the black velvet back there? And why is it when you when you open up that little thing, you know, they don't have white velvet back there. They have black velvet back there. Because it causes that gem to look so much better. So much more brilliant. And the the the black backing actually causes that diamond or that stone to catch the light and be the focal point of the light where the black would absorb the light, not reflecting it. It leaves this one focal point and it alone is shining back all of the light that's coming from the lights that make it look like it's a good diamond. And you're impressed. And so verses 1 through 3 paint to us a very black picture. And uh if you cannot remember how black the picture was in your life before you came to Jesus, then boy do you need to hear the next two weeks because do you guys remember Do you remember that we were sinners saved by the grace of God? I don't know about you, but Satan is so good. He reminds me every day about how bad of a sinner I was. And and even now he'll remind me about how bad of a sinner I am. But against this black background, God has a plan that will cause us to shine for all eternity. I can't wait to get to verse 7. That's what that's all about. But uh it'll be a couple weeks. The first thing I want you to note is in verses 1 through 3 of course, but right here in verse 1, we need to understand that we were all born in this valley, this this this Death Valley experience. And we're going to be seeing from death to life in a little bit. But verse 1 it says right here, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. Everybody in your Bible, look real close. Everybody look down. You got a Bible? If you don't, look at your neighbor's Bible. Do you see where it shows you in the Bible there where it says he made alive that's in italics? It should be in italics. Everybody okay with that? You there? Do you know why it's in italics? In 1610 it wasn't there. It's not in the original manuscripts of the Bible. What's the problem? There's no problem because it does appear further down uh in this uh scripture. We read it here uh tonight that he's caused us to sit together in Christ and he has made us alive. Uh it's there in verse 5 where it says even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive. You see that right there? That does appear in the original uh Greek manuscripts of the Bible. But up here in verse 2 it doesn't. It actually reads in the actual Bible in the Greek. It says, and you who were dead in trespasses and sins, period. And you know what? I like that. Why do the translators add it? Because they were afraid, I think, I wasn't there. I'm going to guess. Because it does appear in verse 5. Why do they put that? Because I think when you open it up and you read, and you were dead in trespasses and sins, shut the book and walk away, you could become suicidal. They took the truth that's in verse 5, kept it in verse 5 of course, and and brought it up to verse 1 just to give you a little bit of hope because it's so dark in this valley. But in the original it just flat out just takes a hard ball, winds up and delivers it right in your face. You were You who were dead in your trespasses and sins, blanket statement. By the way, it's a statement of absolute authority. There's no way around it. Can't change it. The Bible says right here that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, blanket statement, done deal. It's fact. We find that offensive if we're not a Christian. We find that offensive if we've been deceived. Cuz the bottom line is the Bible teaches us that we are dead in our sins. This word dead is the word nekros, where we get the word necromancy or necrophilia, sick words. But it's based upon this Greek root word necro. And it literally means dead, dead, dead. And you might be thinking, well, you know what? Um I saw the cat over here on the corner of Chino Hills Parkway and Peyton and that was dead. Well, you know what? Yeah, it was dead. But believe it or not, there is a meaning to this word dead that is far greater than what you and I are thinking right now. What can be more dead than that dead cat on the road? There is something more dead than that dead cat on the road. Are you ready for this according to the Bible? I'm not making it up. According to the Bible, there's something more dead than that dead cat. And that is a person who is alive right now, breathing without Jesus Christ. The Bible says that you can be absolutely alive right now, breathing, hair spray, deodorant, makeup, clothes, suit, dress on, driving your car, looking good. But the Bible says that there's a death that is greater than that and it is a death of the spirit. You can be fully alive according to the world's standard of life and be so dead and alienated from God and have absolutely no clue until you come, so to speak, to the end of your rope and you wind up crying out for Jesus Christ. And we hope that that, by the way, would happen in life for you.
Guest (Male): You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And now, let's get back to today's message. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
Jack Hibbs: The Bible teaches us that there's a death, absolute truth. By the way, physicians tell us that death occurs when brain waves have flattened out and they've monitored and they've been gone for a while and that there's no longer any sustaining physiological functions to keep that body alive or to have it show signs of life. This person is quote dead. That's what the physicians tell us. But again, the Lord tells us that the human being that is a living in this world today outside of Jesus Christ is literally born dead. We are born dead in our sins, the scriptures teach. God is holy, and we're not holy. God loves us. We don't love him. He loves us. The Bible says he didn't We didn't first love him. He loved us. We didn't first choose him. He chose us. But God is holy. He's absolutely pure. He's sinless and he's eternal. We are finite. We are sinful and we're alienated from God. There's nothing that we can do to save ourselves. That's the beautiful news about the gospel. If people would sit long enough to hear it, they would find out that God has delivered them from their dilemma if they'll listen to the gospel. But we were absolutely alienated and Jesus came to the cross and on the cross he hung there on the cross and he quotes Psalm 20 2 and he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And you say, well, why did he say that? Well, because I believe he said that from 12:00 to 3:00 on that Good Friday, on God 's Friday. Because second Corinthians 5 21 was being accomplished upon him where God was laying upon him the sins of the world. And he who knew no sin was becoming sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And when that moment was taking place, Jesus says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was crying out as a man upon the cross. Just like we would have cried, just like a lot of people today are crying. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The reason why is because though Jesus was not a sinner, he was holy, God was laying on him your sin so that you and I would never have to cry out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The debt was paid in him. But until we come to Christ and receive that, we are alienated from God. Just the way that it is. Revelation chapter 20 verse 14. This alienation takes on an interesting scenario in the Book of Revelation 20 verse 14. It says then death and hell were cast into the lake of fire and this is the second death. And when Jesus says, when the Bible says there's this thing called a second death, it is not just the death that somebody experiences in this life. Listen, that's not all there is. We may die on this earth, but there's a death that's coming to people who don't know Christ after that. That's the second death. And in the end, Revelation 20 14 tells us that hell and death are going to be cast into the lake of fire and this is the second death. What does he mean by that? The Bible teaches that there's a second death. It is Listen, it sounds like a contradiction. It's not. It is a state of death in the spiritual realm where you're fully awake, you're fully conscious, you're totally uh very aware of everything that's going on, but you are living a never-ending death. Do you know right now, seriously, right now if if somebody walked up to me and put a 45 next to my head and pulled that trigger, do you know what would be a real blessing if that had happened or if that would happen? You know what would be a real blessing for me? Is that I die. And you say, well, that's stupid. Of course you're going to die. Read the Book of Revelation. During the great tribulation period, there will there will be people During the tribulation period when part of the plague and judgment of God is that God removes death from the earth and people will be crippled and maimed and injured from all the insanity and the war and they won't be able to die. Can you imagine laying there with your brains hanging out and you're not dead? Can you imagine getting your legs cut off and you're not dying? There's coming a time in the great tribulation period where that's true. They won't be able to die. Death is a blessing for the Christian. For us it opens up a brand new door. We're going to enter the presence of Jesus Christ. We only die once as a Christian. But if you die as a Christian die without Christ, not a Christian, the Bible teaches that you'll die twice. You'll die a physical death and you'll die a spiritual death for all for all eternity and you'll live in that spiritual death. That's a terrible thing. That's why Jesus went to the cross. He doesn't want you to go there. But the real you on the inside is the part that will live forever. Isn't that amazing? Jack, this is pretty depressing. I told you it was a black velvet background here. So next week can shine all the better. We're not talking about a kind of dead. We're not talking about a symbolic dead or a positional dead. We're talking about in fact the truest meaning of the word biblical terms death to the spirit. Men are born dead. And let's study this a little bit. What is the the mode of death for us? For all who are born into the world, watch this. Look at verse 2. It says Oh, I'm sorry, verse 1. And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses in sins, trespasses in sins. Mark those down for a moment. The word trespass trespass means a deviation of an intentional error to willfully sin. That's the word trespass. It's pretty direct. It's willful sinning. To transgress is to premeditate the sin. Watch this. Um get up tomorrow morning and you say, hmm, you know what? Um I am going to uh go knock on you know, my neighbor's door the the wife or the husband, depending upon who you are. They're away on a business trip and I'm going to go over there tomorrow, knock on their door and flirt with that girl or flirt with that guy. And you say, that's terrible. That's transgression. It's to say, I'm going to go do this thing next Sunday. Hmm. And you plan it. It's premeditated sin. It is called transgression. It's a All sin is totally unacceptable to God. It's horrible and hideous. But in a sense it's worse. It's premeditated sin. Why? Because the Holy Spirit says don't do that. But you still make plans to do it. Don't go Don't do that. Go through and you And you just blow them off and you do it. Transgression. Willful sinning. The word sin here means to sin by missing the mark of the standard. You know the term. You've heard it before. It's a It's an Olympic term. It's an archery term. The guy sets up an uh uh target. It's got the yellow, the blue, and the red. The guy pulls an arrow out of the quiver, draws it back, shoots his arrow, and he misses the bull's eye and he lands right on the yellow spot and the guy would yell back at the archer, sinner. Meant that he missed the mark. That's all the word means. You missed the mark. And it's not intentional. This is what the word means. The word means to know what's right and to put every bit of effort to do what's right. And you still miss it. I mean, you got that, baby. You're just like right there. You got the Yes. Lick the feathers on the arrow and you know. Get that baby line down there. Got the sights on that thing. I got it. Steady as a rock. Let it go. And you miss. You had absolutely 100% intentions of hitting that bull's eye. And you missed it. You had great intentions. And you can even say, I'm not like this bonehead over here next to me. That guy turned around shot the judge. That's transgression. God's standard is don't miss the mark. Who's guilty, the sinner or the transgressor? Both are. They've missed the mark. They've missed the mark. The Bible tells us that we are all guilty of being sinners. You know what? The truth is we're all guilty of being transgressors, too. How many of you How many of you driver's license? Raise your hand. I should say how many of you drive without your driver's license. That guy, put your hand down. There's There's a couple of policemen in here right now. I just saw your hand. They saw your hand right now. He's over here. He's got the hat on. I'm kidding. Kid's not going to come back. He's Listen, if we've gone over the posted speed limit, we said, oh oh my goodness, oh 35, I'm doing 45, I better slow down. That's sinning. To transgress is It's 35. Oh man. That's transgression. We're guilty. All of us. And that's our dilemma.
David Jay: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called From Death to Life, Part 1. Thanks for spending part of your day with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of Ephesians. It's a series through Paul's letter to the Ephesians, discovering the riches, the walk, and the triumph of every believer. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
Jack Hibbs: Hey, I'm very excited to promote this new book by Dr. Tim LaHaye, not only a mentor of mine, but a precious friend. He has written a book, How to Study Bible Prophecy for Yourself. Remember, Dr. Tim LaHaye is the one that brought you the remarkable Left Behind series. I bet with all of your knowledge of Bible prophecy, there's still a hole somewhere. And this book is going to help you as you walk you through How to Study Bible Prophecy for Yourself.
Guest (Male): How to Study Bible Prophecy for Yourself. Get it for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com.
Jack Hibbs: Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you'd like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what's going on with this ministry. And please, if you're ever in the Southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. We'd love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode.
David Jay: This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in his word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.