January 28, 2021 — When The Dead Hear His Voice

What kind of Person can interrupt funerals, and ask a dead man to join him for dinner? Jesus can!

They say, in a world full of statistics, this is the ultimate statistic: 1 out of 1 dies. But when God told Adam, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die,” what did He mean? It was not primarily physical, but spiritual, death. Man died to God. Now some Christians believe this means that human beings are so dead to God that they are incapable of hearing His voice or believing in Him. First, God, by His Spirit, must quicken, or make alive, a person so they can then believe. This is called “total inability.” But is that what the Word of God teaches? What about Adam after he sinned? When God showed up, did the now dead Adam and Eve hear His voice? Yes, they did. Could they understand what He said when He spoke the conditions of the curse to them? Yes, they did. So spiritual death does NOT mean that people are insensible to God and His Word. Some use the example of Lazarus in the tomb, but this is a picture of believers and their physical death and resurrection by the power of the One who said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” If you want to see a biblical example of a spiritually dead person, look at the prodigal. Did he understand his need and “come to himself”? Yes, he did. Did he come home to the father? Yes, he did. And what did the father say? “This my son was dead and is alive again.” John 5:24-25 could not be clearer: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.” Notice the order: hear and believe. This is Jesus speaking. Most assuredly!