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JOHN 11:25-26

"THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE"

I. THERE ARE BASIC QUESTIONS BURIED DEEP IN THE SOUL OF EVERY MAN.
        A. We do not think about them every day, yet we never escape them.
                1. Our lives for the most part overcrowded with non-essentials.
                2. In our day of mass communication, we have become very broad, not very deep.
                        a. We know a little about everything.
                        b. We don't know much about anything.
                        c. "Man, poor man..."
        B. After the party is over, the crowd has gone and I lie alone on my bed, the question
           suddenly arises to conscious level.
                1. Why am I here?  What is life all about?
                2. Is this life all there is?
                3. The philosophers sought the answers to these questions.
                        a. They would gather daily in their sessions as they searched for
                           satisfactory answers.
                        b. The age of philosophy had passed its golden age and was dying and
                           the provided no adequate answers for man.

II. JESUS PROVIDED AN ANSWER FOR MAN. "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE  LIFE."
        A. This is a very radical claim.
                1. Can you imagine anyone else in history daring to make such a claim.
                2. It immediately marks the claimant as a madman or the Son of God.
                3. Jesus challenged Martha, "Do you believe this?"
                        a. This divides all men into two categories:
                                1. Those who believe.
                                2. Those who don't believe.
                                3. Those who have a hope of eternal life.
                                4. Those who have no hope.
        B. Age of science has superseded the age of philosophy.
                1. No man has been able to successfully challenge that claim.
                2. You can choose to believe it or not.
                        a. Your unbelief does not rise from intellectual difficulties.
                                1. Men far more intelligent than you are the greatest
                                   believers.
                                2. Belief is deeper than intellectual apprehension.
                                3. A matter of the heart (spirit).
                        b. Your unbelief rises from your choice to deny evidence and not
                           believe.

III. WHY DO CHRISTIANS DIE TODAY?
        A. What is true life?
                1. Eating, breathing?  I see a 90-year old man He's really living!
                2. There are various qualities of life.
                        a. A quality that cannot die "eternal."