Three Lives and Two Deaths
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 641 aired on December 17, 2017
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes, please stay with me. It will be a brief time of some motivation, some inspiration, a
whole lot of education, all designed to remind you of Biblical truths and introduce you to an in-
depth way of studying and learning God’s Word. My job is to verify and identify God’s plan for
your life. Hopefully, you will orient and adjust to the plan. It’s up to you. Thank you for listening.
Remember The FLOT Line is all about establishing a main line of resistance in your soul. FLOT
stands for the forward line of troops. We’re talking about learning God’s tremendous problem-
solving devices, using these problem-solving devices as the main line of resistance in your soul
so you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside sources of
stress. Adversity is inevitable but stress is optional. Adversity is what circumstances will do to
you. Stress, well that’s what you do to yourself. By learning these tremendous problem-solving
devices you can live a life free of stress. No worries, no fear, no guilt, no doubt, living like this is
the unique Christian life. It’s a wonderful way to live and I hope you stick with me and learn all
about these 10 unique problem-solving devices. It’s nothing new, these are age-old Biblical
doctrines that my pastor taught me many years ago. Today we want to talk about something that
is very interesting. We want to talk about three lives and two different deaths. I don’t know if
we’ll get to all of it but let’s see if we can start with the three lives and two deaths.
The three
lives are physical life, you live a physical life, spiritual life, you have a spiritual life and
eternal life if you are a Christian.
Where does our physical life start? Our parents copulated
and they produced biological life which God gave the soul to at birth. Only God can add the soul.
Man and woman can produce biological life, God adds the soul.
Biological life combined with
soul life is physical life.
We are physically alive. The Old Testament uses four words for the
work of God in creating life.
Bara
is one of the words and it’s used when God brings something
into being by a divine command. For example, God created the universe and the human soul
from nothing. There was no pattern. There was nothing that went before that He duplicated or
replicated.
Creatio ex nihilo
is the Latin term meaning from nothing. The term nothing refers to
God creating everything from nothing. Genesis 1:1,
“In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.”
Prior to this moment there was nothing. God didn’t make the universe from some
pre-existing building block. He started from scratch and we know this from
bara
the Hebrew
word. In Hebrews 11:3, in the New Testament, we read,
“By faith we understand that the worlds
were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are
visible.”
Scholars take this to mean that the universe came into existence by divine command
and it was not assembled from some pre-existing matter or some pre-existing energy, so
bara
is
the first word for creation. Then the second word for creation is
asah,
another Hebrew word, that
means to make. In his book
Creation, Chaos, and Restoration
Pastor R. B. Thieme Jr, former
pastor of Berachah Church in Houston Texas says this, “In some contexts this word
asah
has a
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more precise meaning which is to create something according to a pattern when used of the
creation of the atmosphere, the sun, the moon and the stars.
Asah
can describe the restoration of
the planet after the chaos that was found in Genesis 1:2 but more specifically
asah,
the Hebrew
word, describes the origin of the human soul to emphasize its creation based on the pattern of
God’s invisible essence.”
You were made in the pattern or the image of God.
This is why
asah
is used here as the word for create. In Genesis 1:26-27,
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make
[here’s the Hebrew word
asah,
creation based on the pattern of God’s invisible essence]
man in
Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the
birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps on the earth.’
God created man
[
bara
]
in His own image, in the image of God He created
[bara]
him, male and female he created them.”
The third word for creation is
yasar
and it’s used
for forming something as a potter molds a piece of clay. Isaiah 45:18 uses this word
yasar
to
describe the restoration of the earth after the chaos described in Genesis 1:2.
“For thus says the
Lord who created the heavens. He is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established
it and did not create it a waste place, but He formed it to be inhabited. ‘I am the Lord and there
is none else.’”
We learn that the world was created by God. The world became a wasteland and
then the Spirit of God moved over the face of the world and light came. This is called the Gap
Theory in theological terms. God created the earth and the earth was frozen for many years and
God unfroze it and put man here. This word
yasar
is also used to describe the forming of Adam’s
physical body from the dust or the chemicals of the soil, while the creation of the soul is depicted
by the word
bara
and
asah.
In Genesis 2:7,
“Then the Lord God formed
[
yasar
]
man of dust from
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
The fourth creation verb is the word
bana
and it means to build and it depicts the divine creation
of the woman’s body. In Genesis 2:22,
“The Lord God fashioned
[
bana
]
into a woman the rib
which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.”
The woman is the creation from
Adam’s rib. Thus, God created us by means of human copulation, biological life, and Him giving
the biological life a living soul and we became a physical life, having a body, a soul, and a dead
human spirit. In Psalm 139:14,
“I will give thanks to You for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.”
After God created man and
woman He commissioned them to procreate and to subdue and rule the earth. In Genesis 1:28,
“God blessed them and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue
it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that
moves on the earth.’”
In essence, man was given custodianship of God’s resources which were to
be responsibly developed and expanded for the benefit and the enjoyment of the human race that
would eventually come. In Genesis 1:29-30,
“Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every
plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding
seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to
everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food’; and it
was so.”
Our God in His omnipotence and omniscience, all power and all knowledge, He placed
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you and He placed me in this temporal life. He gave us a soul. Our parents procreated and
produced biological life, God instilled the soul and we have temporal life.
I say temporal
because we know that human life, physical life, does not go on forever. Our physical life is
an opportunity to glorify God during this stage of the angelic conflict but physical life must
end and will end.
In Hebrews 9:27,
“It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the
judgment.”
There are two deaths. You don’t have to die the second death. You will die the
first death, you have to because this body that we live in cannot function in heaven. It’s a
sin-infected body. The second death is anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus Christ as Savior
and is thrown into the Lake of Fire.
Revelation 20:15 says,
“This is the second death and
whoever’s name was not found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life was cast into the Lake of
Fire.”
We have a physical life. You do, I do, nobody just showed up as a miracle one day. Our
parents copulated, God added the soul and here we are. Now, when does the spiritual life begin?
We know physical life begins at birth but when does the spiritual life begin? In 2 Corinthians
5:17,
“If any man is in Christ he is a new creature
[a new species];
old things are passed away
and behold all things now become new.”
The moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior
you are born again, not physically, it’s not a physical birth. It’s a spiritual birth. The reason that
you have to be born again spiritually is because the moment you were born physically Adam’s
original sin was imputed to you and you died spiritually, simultaneously, at the same time that
you were born physically. Romans 5:12 says,
“For by one man sin entered into the world and
death by sin, and so death has passed upon all men for all have sinned.”
Even though we are
physically alive, we are spiritually dead, unable to have a relationship with God, unable to have
fellowship with God unless we have a new birth.
Without a spiritual life there can be no
fellowship with God. John 4:24 says,
“God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship Him in Spirit and in truth.”
If your human spirit is dead, spiritually dead from Adam’s
original sin, how can you have fellowship with God? This is a question that Nicodemus, a
distinguished member of the Jewish Pharisee community, had to get answered and so he sought
out Jesus in his curiosity. He was stunned to learn that in order to go to heaven there had to be a
spiritual rebirth. In John 3:1-20,
“There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, the same
as the ruler of the Jews. And he came to Jesus by night and he said unto Him, ‘Rabbi,
[he called
Him a teacher]
we know You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these miracles
You’re doing except God be with him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, except a
man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.’
[well that was a shock, born again].
Nicodemus said unto Him, ‘How can you be born again when you are old? Is it possible for you
to go a second time into your mother’s womb and be born?’ The Lord answered, ‘Most assuredly
I say unto you, except a man be born of water
[that’s the physical birth]
and of the Spirit
[that’s
the spiritual birth],
he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
[Nicodemus was quite stunned]
Nicodemus
said unto Him, ‘How could these things be?’ And our Lord said unto him, ‘Are you a master of
the word in Israel and you do not know these things?’
[Then our Lord explained it in verses 14
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through 17]
‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up.
[Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness is found in Numbers 21:9. We don’t have
time to go read it but it was a way for those bitten by a snake to be healed.]
So that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave
His uniquely born Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him
might be saved. And he that believes in Him is not condemned but he that believes not is
condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the uniquely born Son of God.’”
These are the words of our Lord and our Savior, the anointed Son of God, Jesus Christ. Did you
hear what He said?
“Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”
This is the
third life.
Then He went on to say the reason,
“God loved the world so much that He sacrificed
His uniquely born Son and whoever believes in Him
[there’s the word again]
will not perish but
have have everlasting life.
[Then to clarify it He said]
God did not send His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world by means of Him could be saved
[and then He simply
repeats it again].
He that believes on Him is not condemned but he that believes not is
condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the uniquely born Son of God.”
Anyone who hasn’t received Jesus Christ as Savior, if they are old enough to understand this
issue, is already under the condemnation of God and the Lake of Fire. They are because they
have rejected the forgiveness that God offers through the sacrificial death of Christ our Lord. The
question that has to be asked is this, have you been born again? Have you? Joining the church is
not being born again, that’s not a spiritual birth. People that get born again often join the church
but this is not how you get born again. Being a good guy is not being born again. Following
some church required mandates is not being born again.
Ephesians 2:8-9 is very clear about it.
“For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is a gift from God not
of works lest any man should boast.”
Without a spiritual birth there can be no spiritual life.
Are you walking around alive physically and dead spiritually unable to have fellowship with
God? This may be why your prayers are not answered. This might be why you’re having a hard
time in life as a disadvantaged person because you don’t have the advantage of knowing the
Father, knowing His Word, or having the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. You may be
religious but you might not have the relationship. Jesus warned when He said,
“Many will say to
Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did I not prophesy in Your name and in Your name did I not do many
wonderful works?’”
And He said,
“I will tell them, I never knew you”
(Matthew 7:22-23). It is
possible to be very religious and to be lost. The Pharisees were demonstrated proof of this. They
were lost in their sin and trespasses and they were the most religious people in all of Judea.
Without a spiritual birth there is no spiritual life. Do you remember your spiritual birth? Do you
remember when you received Jesus Christ as your Savior? Is there a day in your life when you
asked Him to save you? Romans 10:13 says,
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved.”
Why don’t you settle this issue? Why don’t you pray and ask God to save you?
Why don’t you pray and tell the Father the you believe Jesus Christ is His Son and you are
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willing to receive Christ as your Savior? It’s a simple act of faith. This is what Ephesians says,
“For by grace are you saved through faith, it’s a gift from God.”
You can’t earn it, you can’t buy
it, you don’t deserve it. It’s a free gift and it begins with you receiving Jesus Christ as your
Savior.
Now every newborn Christian starts out as a baby believer. 1 Peter 2:2 says,
“As
newborn babies desire the pure milk of the Word so that by it you may grow in respect to your
salvation.”
In 1 Corinthians 3:2 Paul wrote,
“I gave you milk, not solid food for you are not yet
ready for the solid food”
In other words they couldn’t concentrate for long periods of time, they
were easily distracted. In 2 Peter 3:18 we have a divine mandate
“Grow in the grace and the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All glory to Him both now and forever.”
We
must grow in our spiritual life. When we are born we are born babes in Christ, spiritual babies on
the bottle, the milk. We learn the Word of God, the basic principles, and then we advance to the
steak or the harder doctrines to learn and understand.
We are mandated to grow, we must
“Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Whoever wrote
the book of Hebrews talked about these new believers who don’t grow. This is what he said in
Hebrews 5:11-14.
“We have many things to say and they are hard to be uttered since you’re dull
of hearing. For the time you ought to be a teacher, you now have need that one teach you again
which be the first principles of the oracles of God and you have become such as have need of
milk and not strong meat. For everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness
[he’s a baby],
but strong meat belongs to them that are full of age, even those who by reason of
use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
The worst possible thing for you
to be is a born-again believer who’s been saved for 10 years, 20 years, and still be sucking on that
bottle, still be a baby. You haven’t grown. You haven’t learned. You should be teaching others but
you’re not. There’s only one way to fulfill the mandate of
“Grow in the grace and knowledge of
your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”
and that’s to sit under a well-qualified pastor that God
supplies. Ephesians 4:11 talks about this spiritual gift that He gives.
The objective of the pastor
is to teach you God’s Word and as you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will
guide you into all truth.
He will take what the pastor teaches you, plant it in your soul, nourish
it, and it will grow. Lack of spiritual growth results in many right things being done in a wrong
way. Religious people, maybe they are saved, maybe they have accepted Christ as their Savior,
but they haven’t grown. They haven’t gotten past the salvation doctrines. They haven’t gone past
believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. They haven’t even learned how to be consistently filled with
the Holy Spirit. They haven’t learned the essence of God which is sovereignty, righteousness,
justice, love, eternal life, immutability, veracity, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. I
know, that’s a lot of big words of things you should know.
How can you love God if you don’t
know Him?
If we don’t do the right thing in the right way then we produce human good. Human
good is opposed to divine good. Human good is energy of the flesh and divine good comes from
the filling of the Holy Spirit. If you’re a Christian and you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you
don’t even know how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then all of your good works could
possibly be what 1 Corinthians 3:12-13 describes as
“wood, hay and stubble”
and it will all be
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burned up at the Judgment Seat of Christ once the evaluation is made. Your foundation is solid.
You will go to heaven. You will be there but you will be there minus any rewards because
you never took time to learn the protocol plan of God.
The spiritual life that our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ gave us is called an abundant life and our Lord spoke about it in John 10:10.
He said,
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy but I came that you may have life and
have it abundantly.”
Having an abundant life means having a divine advantage over those in the
cosmic system. Your happiness will overflow, you will have peace and contentment, and your
life is fulfilling and it all starts with knowing wisdom and receiving instruction which leads to
understanding and discernment.
Proverbs 2:10,
“When wisdom enters your heart and
knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep
you.”
Wisdom, knowledge, discretion and understanding, these are the four fantastic things
in the mature believer’s life that garrison his soul and give him the advantage.
The ability to
have an advantage over anyone else in the world, the divine advantage of knowing Jesus Christ,
knowing God’s Word, being filled with the Holy Spirit, being able to understand who the enemy
is, what the tactics of the enemy are, and being able to replicate the life of Jesus Christ as you
represent Him in a lost and dying world. I hope this is making sense and I hope you’re listening.
There’s more to say and I hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place. Until then
this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The FLOT Line