Have you ever heard of someone whose last word was spoken with a line force? It is finished! Father, into your hands I commit my spirit! And he breathes his last and the centurion says, Surely he is the son of God. I never saw anyone die like that. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And Colin, what was so unique about Jesus’ death that it would have caused the centurion to react like that? Oh boy, we’re right at the centre of the gospel here. The death of Jesus, unlike any other death. He says, No one takes my life from me. I choose to lay it down and I choose to take it up again. And that’s the significance, I think, of him dying with this cry, with a loud voice. When did you ever hear of that? You know, we lose strength and eventually the voice goes altogether. But here’s Jesus, he’s laying down his life and nobody’s taking it from him. And so, because he laid down his life, what difference for the believer, for us? Well, one way that I like to see it is that Jesus actually died a double death. And we’re going to learn what that means today. So the Bible talks about death and then it talks about the second death, which is to enter the judgment of God. And Jesus experienced both at the same time on the cross. He entered into physical death. He came under the judgment of God as our sin bearer. We’re getting right to the heart of what Jesus accomplished on the cross today. Sometimes you hear it said that Jesus went to hell for us. What did Jesus actually do? Did he actually experience hell? Well, a lot of people say, you know, that Jesus went into hell after his suffering on the cross, after he died. The reformers were very clear about this. And I think they understood the Bible correctly in saying, no, he experienced hell on the cross. Because if you think of what hell is, that utter darkness, that bearing of sin, that alienation from God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That’s Christ in hell. And he went there so that we would never know what it’s like. Well, for the believer, that’s good news. But if you’ve ever wondered what hell is, we’re going to get into that in today’s message. So if you can, I hope you’ll join us and open your Bible in Luke chapter 23 as we continue the message, What Happens When You Die? Here’s Pastor Colin. Father, into your hands, into your hands, your hands, I commit my spirit. Now, the whole life of Jesus, of course, has been in the hands of the Father. But now at death, he commits his spirit into the Father’s hand. And here is what happens at the death of a believer, the separation of the spirit from the body. And that’s what’s happening. Jesus’ body has been the tortured instrument in which he has endured all the agonies of hell. And now he lays the body down. And he commits his spirit into the hands of the Father. And when you die, to be absent from the body, if you’re a believer, will be to be present with the Lord. Your spirit will go into the immediate presence of God, into the Father’s hands. Now, this is so important. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. You know, different things may happen to the box. Some of you will think of people you love and the body has been ravaged by cancer. And you’ve gone to see him or you’ve gone to see her and you say, I hardly recognized him, hardly recognized him. Look what this dreadful enemy, this awful disease has done to his body. Some of you may have had, as I have had, the awful experience of having to go and identify someone whose body has been horribly mutilated in a terrible accident so as to be almost unrecognizable. Think of folks who were lost at sea. You may have a loved one and you don’t know where the resting place of their body is. Think of folks who were involved in 9-11 and other circumstances that might be similar, a great fire or inferno, and there is nobody to bury. Many things may happen to the box. But for his people, God will always secure the jewel. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. And as you may think of loved ones in very different circumstances of death, for a person who is in Christ, this is the truth that you need to know and to hold on to. Whatever happens to your body, your spirit is safe in the Father’s hands. That’s what I want you to get today. Whatever should happen to your body in the future, whatever happens to your body, if you are in Christ and God is your Father, your spirit is safe, how? In the Father’s hands. The Father’s hands. What a marvelous place to be. Christ has been in the hands of sinners. And look at what that has been like. Betrayed, he says, into the hands of sinners. Now he says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. The Father’s hands are the place of eternal security. Remember, Jesus says, no one can snatch you out of my Father’s hands. Your loved ones in Christ who have died, whatever may have happened to the body, are safe in the Father’s hands. Earlier this month, Karen and I had the joy of welcoming a dear friend, Johnny Prime. He was my assistant in Enfield, North London, in the church that we served there for 16 years and has been my successor, and continues to have a marvelous ministry there, giving leadership to that church. In recent times, Johnny has experienced, and his family have experienced, a double loss. His mother died of cancer, and then also his sister, Cilla, his youngest sister, died of cancer at the age of 38. And many of you have someone within your family circle who has died early in life, perhaps a lot earlier than 38, and you know the grief of that loss, and it is with you still today. Well, as we had a week together, we got into many conversations, and on one evening particularly, we got into talking about this, and I said, Johnny, you know, you’ve been through a lot in this regard. What has helped you? And he said a couple of things, and then I said, I’d love to share that with the folks. He gave me his permission to do that. He said, one thing that has helped me is this. He said, no believer who has died has ever regretted it. I love that. See, here’s my little sister. She’s 38, and I miss her. But no believer who has ever died has ever regretted it. She’s not saying I miss him. She’s just looking forward to the rest of the family being there. So here’s sorrow. Here’s lost this side for us, but not for her. No believer who has died has ever regretted it. No one in heaven says, oh, I wish I could go back there. And then he said something else. He said, you know, I’ve thought a lot about this. He said, she died when she was 38. Suppose I live till I’m 90. He said, honestly, in the light of eternity, how much of a difference is that? Really? I mean, after 100 billion years, if you were in Christ and you died at 38, and you’re in Christ and you die at 90, and 100 billion years of eternity, how much difference does that make? He said, that’s really helped me. And, you know, that is profoundly helpful because it focuses us on this. What is your life? Well, Paul says, my life is hidden with Christ in God. And I have a tiny little sliver of life, even if I live to 90 or 120, or whatever is going to be the max out there. And then there’s eternity. What matters is that my life is in Christ. And he says, that has helped me. I have another dear friend whose wife died of a sudden illness, and he was so devastated. He used to speak about, oh, there are things I want to say to her, and I can’t, and so forth. And a kind Christian nurse said this to him, and it really helped him. She said, well, now, remember this. You can’t tell her the things that you want to say, but she’s in the Father’s hand, and you could always ask the Father to tell her for you. That’s beautiful. You see, well, that does it. Am I just thinking that she’s lost and that she’s sort of nowhere, or am I really grasping that she is in the Father’s hand? You see, that’s the comfort, both as we anticipate our own death, and as we think of the death of others we love. So, spirit, Father, hands. One more. Commit. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, What Happens When You Die? The message was originally part of a series called Seven Words from the Cross, but it was also one of the most listened-to messages of the past year. We went back and took a look at the most popular messages, and this was in the top ten. So now we’ve bundled all ten messages together in a series we’re calling Listener Favorites 2023. We’ll be broadcasting the series this month on the radio, but we’d also love to send you a copy of the series on CD as our way of saying thank you for supporting the work of Open the Bible. This program and the website is supported by our listeners, and it is your generosity that keeps Pastor Colin’s teaching out there. So, to get a CD set of Listener Favorites, go online and set up a monthly donation of £5 or more, and we’ll be very happy to send it to you. Back to the message now. Here’s Pastor Colin. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Now, here is an act of faith. And it is born out of the life of our Lord Jesus being lived for the Father’s glory. Now, read these words of Jesus. Remember how Stephen, the first Christian martyr, echoed them? And I thought to myself this week, I want to renew my resolve to live in such a way to know the Father so that when the point of death comes, it will be very natural to say, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. We trust what we know. And so it’s no use going through life, you see, saying, well, I have a belief in God, whoever he, she, or it may be. You know, you hear that phrase a lot these days. What use is that? An unknown God. What use is an unknown God to you at the moment of death? Whoever he, she, or it may be. No, you need to know God the Father. And the way to know God the Father is through faith in his Son. And you need to live in such a way that is for him, learning to worship him and to speak to him in prayer and to trust him in life so that it will not be strange to you at the moment of death to say, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. I am committing myself to you in death because I have committed myself to you in life. Is that how you’re living? Robert Louis Dabney was a pastor and a chaplain in the Confederate Army during the dark days of the American Civil War. And this week, anticipating Memorial Day, I read a sermon of his, preached. Can you imagine this? Preached to a group of soldiers in the woods just before they engaged in one of the battles in the Civil War. So here’s this pastor, here’s this chaplain, and he’s speaking to this gathered group of men, Confederate Army, and they’re in the woods and they’re about to go into battle and most of these men will be dead by the end of the day. So that’s a moment when a pastor speaks a pretty direct sermon, right? His title in speaking to these men in the woods for his sermon was, Our Comfort in Dying. Now that’s a good pastor, he’s speaking to the point, right? Let me read to you some of the things that he said. He opened up for them in this message what it would be for the spirit to go into these unknown worlds. And he says this, How could we endure to be launched out into the untried ocean of space, peopled by we know not what mysterious beings? How can we be certain that we will not lose our way in the pathless vacancy and wander up and down forever a bewildered, solitary, roving spirit amidst the wilderness of worlds? Truly will the trembling soul need someone on whom to lean, someone mighty, someone experienced, a tender guardian who will point the way to prepared mansions. And then he says, That guide is Christ. That guide is Christ. Therefore he says, Let us say in dying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then at the end of the message he goes on to add this, By way of a challenge, because not everyone who was listening to him had faith in Jesus Christ, just as not everyone listening to me right now has faith in Jesus Christ. And so with an intensity that you can understand was born of this moment, he says these words, On whom then will you call, you who have neglected this Saviour? When you pass down into this valley of great darkness, when death thrusts out your soul from its house, when you are launched forth into the immense void, a naked, shivering ghost, and you stand before the great white throne, can you bear these horrors alone? And then he says this, Call on Christ then today. Call on Christ today in repentance and faith in order that you may be entitled to call on him in the hour of your extremity. Own him now as your Lord, that he may confess you then as his people. And it’s no less important for you to do that today, because you do not know the day or the hour. Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. One story and then we’re through. What will it be like when your spirit leaves your body? What will that be like? The first time Karin and I ever visited the United States, we spent some time with friends. This guy is a pastor in California and the Lord has put him in a marvelous place. There were some folks in his congregation who flew small aircraft and after I preached in his church on a Sunday morning, these two guys come up and say, would you like to do a flight over the coast this afternoon? What? That’s a no-brainer, you know? So here we are, two pilots, two planes, our friends, Karin and myself, and the two pilots and their wives, four couples, eight people, two planes, and it was a magnificent afternoon. I will never forget it. Flying over the Pacific Ocean, right up the coast, and after about an hour, we landed on a small peninsula and we went into a restaurant there, enjoyed this marvelous meal, four couples together. The pilot of the first plane had been flying for about 30 years and when he told us about this, that prompted Karin to ask the guy who was flying the plane we were in how long he had been a pilot, to which he replied, well, just a few months, which was not so reassuring. Well, we enjoyed the meal, but after a while, after a while, the lead guy noticeably was becoming a bit agitated and then at one point, he got up from the table, he went out of the restaurant, and then a few moments later, he comes running back in, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go. Place on fire or what? Well, you know what was happening, there was a very heavy mist that was rolling in. We had not anticipated it, but it was thick and it was coming in at very, very great speed. And I want you to try and picture it. Here are these four couples on a Sunday afternoon, and we’re running down this cinder track towards two planes at the end. This mist is coming, rolling in, and the lead guy gets into his plane. It’s like a scramble. I tell you, this is good stuff for Memorial Day Sunday. As this mist is rolling in, the lead guy takes off. I tell you, I’ve never seen a plane take off so fast. And then as he took off into the mist, it was very obvious, because our guy was in a panic, and I was saying my prayers. And he revved up, and with the appropriate interval from the first plane going off, we left the ground. Some of you have been telling me that this should never have happened. I’m just telling you it did happen. And off we go into the mist. I tell you, we could not see a thing. And it was scary. It was really scary. And I will never forget the voice of the lead pilot on the radio, coming through into the cabin we had the earphones on. And he said, 10 seconds and you’ll be through. One, two. I’m telling you, he was as good as his word. Eight, nine, ten. I have never seen such brilliant sunlight. Listen. When the moment comes for your spirit to separate from your body, you will not be going into an abyss. God will not leave you in the mists of eternal darkness farther into your hands. I commit my spirit to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Listen to this hymn. Some of you know it very well and can help me with it. All the way my Savior leads me. Oh, the fullness of his love. Perfect rest to me is promised in my Father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, wings its flight to realms of day. This my song through endless ages. Say it with me. Jesus led me all the way. You’ve been listening to Pastor Colin Smith and Open the Bible. And I hope you’re encouraged as we finish our broadcast message, What Happens When You Die? If you know Jesus, I’m sure you’ll know that’s true. But if you’re not a Christian, you may feel that encouragement doesn’t apply to you. If you want to change that, you can do that today in a simple prayer admitting your need of his salvation and asking him to redirect your life. If you do that, I hope you’ll reach out to a trusted Christian friend or family member and tell them what’s happened to you. Doing that will confirm in your mind that your commitment is real. You can also visit a local church fellowship, talk to the pastor there, or ask to pray with the ministry team. And also, please tell us about it. Email us, hello at openthebible.org.uk We’d also love to hear your reaction to Pastor Colin’s message. You can also find us on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Use the tag at UK Open the Bible or for YouTube at Open the Bible UK or go to the website openthebible.org.uk and click on one of the social media links at the bottom of the page. This week, Pastor Colin Smith is in the UK and speaking at the Bournemouth Bible Week. If you live in the area of East Dorset or West Hampshire, why not go along and hear him speaking each evening from 3rd to 7th July at 7.30 at Citygate Centre, Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth. You can find out more details about Bournemouth Bible Week on the website www.bournemouthbibleweek.org That’s www.bournemouthbibleweek.org If you ever miss one of our programmes, you can always catch up by going to our website openthebible.org.uk There you can catch up on any of our previous messages by downloading an MP3 for free or by streaming the message directly off the website. The website address again is openthebible.org.uk Also on the website, you’ll find Open the Bible Daily. This is a series of short, three-minute reflections written by Pastor Colin and read by Sue MacLeish. There’s a new one on the website every day. It’s a great way to start the day. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners. We’re only able to stay on this station and on the internet because of the donations that you make. We’d like to thank you for that. If you’re able to start donating to Open the Bible, we’d like to thank you by sending you a free gift. In return for your donation of £5 per month or more, we’ll send you a CD set Listener Favourites 2023. It’s a set of 10 messages by Pastor Colin which have proved the most popular over the past 12 months. It’s our free gift to you in return for setting up a regular donation of £5 per month or more. For details, go to our website openthebible.org.uk For Pastor Colin Smith and Open the Bible, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us next time. What will sustain you when you feel overwhelmed? Find out what David said next time on Open the Bible.
