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What if the one thing that everyone fears the most actually holds the key to something far greater than we can imagine? How can a single Bible verse flip our entire understanding of life after death on its head, and what happens when that same change of thinking transforms an entire nation? This message reveals the surprising answers that will challenge how you see your own future and that of the world.
📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/hope-beyond-death
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📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/hope-beyond-death
#mlcc #church #churchonline
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LearningTranscript
00:00It's a pleasure to be here. Well, thank you, Seth and Mark, for allowing me the opportunity to be here
00:05with you guys and to share this church, for those of you who don't know me a lot.
00:09Well, I can introduce my family first. There's a picture up there, but since they're here in person, I can
00:14introduce them that way, too.
00:16My wife, Linda. Stand up. Sorry.
00:22That's my wife, Linda, and our two children, Aiden and Michaela.
00:25And, of course, we have a third, Josiah, and he's next door today, so we can have a little bit
00:29more peace and quiet this morning.
00:34But that's who we are.
00:38And just to give a little background, I'm not sure if some of you, or all of you, were here
00:41when I was here in February, or actually just before February, so the end of January, but we were here
00:46and shared a little bit about our history.
00:48But my name is Gail Quance. My parents are Mike and Gwen Quance.
00:51Some of you may know them as regional representatives for Utah's mission.
00:55They were also missionaries in Bolivia, South America, for about 15 years.
01:00So that's kind of where I grew up.
01:02I'll share a small story about my growing experience a little bit later this morning.
01:07But also one of the things my wife was a missionary kid as well.
01:10Her parents were missionaries in Venezuela, South America, with New College Mission as well, about 30 years.
01:15So that's where she grew up, and that's where she was raised.
01:17And so we both kind of had that history of missions.
01:20And one of the big questions that people say is, you both grew up in South America, why are you
01:24going to Italy?
01:25You know, it doesn't seem right.
01:27But, you know, the short answer, and I'll speak to it a little bit more later, is just that that's
01:32where God's called us.
01:33You know, God didn't call us in Venezuela or equal victory.
01:36And it's not an easy field.
01:38One of the things that's the biggest hindrances for missionaries going to Europe is financially.
01:42And that's where the Euro has gained just quite a bit in value, and it continues to rise.
01:48And as it does, you know, it makes the floods tighter and tighter.
01:52So it makes it so that missionaries have to raise quite a bit more support.
01:58Well, as I said, obviously, we started in just sharing a little bit about my trip in February.
02:04And I'll share, again, another story a little bit later.
02:06But for those who don't remember, in February, I took a trip to Italy.
02:09And I was here just before I was ready to leave to go on that trip.
02:13And I took the trip to basically see the work firsthand again and to be refreshed in the work,
02:19also to see where we might live, how much things will cost specifically, just to be sure that we were
02:26on track, on target.
02:27And one of the things that happened when I got there, we were over there for two Sundays, my friend
02:31and I.
02:32And as soon as we got there, the missionary that's there, that we're going to be joining,
02:35he asked me if I can preach on the second Sunday.
02:38And I said, well, sure, absolutely.
02:40It wasn't until a little later that I found out he preached for 45 minutes normally.
02:44That's what he plans for.
02:45So I'll try and keep it under 45 minutes.
02:47I was very thankful there that we were, I was able to look at my translator just because it kept
02:54things a little bit shorter for me.
02:57So I wasn't prepared for 45 minutes in one week's time.
03:00But anyway, kind of to give you a little bit of background, we're going to Trieste.
03:07I'm going to be speaking about hope for the living this morning and a little bit about hope.
03:11That's the Victory Lighthouse, and that was built for all the soldiers that lost their lights at sea there in
03:20Trieste during World War I.
03:24But that's a picture of Trieste over the background this morning.
03:26I grew up in Bolivia, like I said, and most of the time all I was in Bolivia was in
03:30a boarding school.
03:32And in a boarding school, lots of stories from that problem to talk all morning about that.
03:36But I had a really good friend who's name was Jared, and his name doesn't really matter, but I'll give
03:41it to you because I guess it does kind of matter.
03:43His first name doesn't matter, Jared Leon Frager.
03:44And he had discovered that his middle name was Leon, and he figured that knowing his name, he ought to
03:53figure out what his friend's names meant.
03:55So I knew I was pretty safe because Caleb, my parents had a plaque on the wall, and it said
03:59Caleb, and it said underneath, Bring Her of Light.
04:00I knew that Caleb had been Bring Her of Light.
04:05Well, it turns out that whoever had made the plaque had made it take a little bit of artistic license,
04:11because that's not really what Caleb means.
04:14See, the original root meaning of Caleb is not Bring Her of Light.
04:18No, Caleb means dog.
04:22You know, we all know that, you know, the fight between a dog and a lion, the lion's going to
04:26win, and so my friend used to, you know, kind of just pick on me, like the little kids do.
04:29He was sore on me, though.
04:31But not being the violent sort, I figured I'd wait and find something that I could use to let him
04:36know how I felt.
04:37And I did.
04:38I found a verse.
04:39Found a verse, and it says Ecclesiastes 9, 4b.
04:42It's part of the verse.
04:43That's where a living dog is better than a dead lion.
04:46Just to kind of know how I felt about the whole situation.
04:49But in all seriousness, God really began to use this passage in my life as I looked at it later
04:54on in life.
04:54And so that's where I'd really like to be this morning with you.
04:57We're going to be in Ecclesiastes 9, and I know that's kind of an interesting portion of the Bible to
05:03preach from, to speak from, the Old Testament.
05:07A little bit of history about it is just that the author of Ecclesiastes, many scholars say, is kind of
05:12looking at things from man's perspective.
05:15Probably the author of Proverbs as well.
05:17You see, Proverbs may look down from God's perspective.
05:20So we're kind of seeing a difference here.
05:23So it can be a little bit disheartening.
05:26We'll read this together this morning to begin with.
05:30Verse 3 says,
06:07It doesn't seem like a passage that has a lot of hope.
06:09I know the word hope is in there.
06:11But it's talking a lot about death and about being forgotten and things.
06:16But you know, the author gives us here in the first verse a certainty.
06:20He gives the certainty that all men are going to die.
06:24And we see that in a lot of places in the middle of the world of God.
06:27Aside from being believers, when the Lord comes back to take us, we're all going to die.
06:32It's the fate of all men, physically.
06:35And we see here in Hebrews 9.27, it says,
06:42And justice is appointed for a man once to die, and after that comes judgment.
06:48Death is something to be anticipated.
06:52Benjamin Franklin said,
06:54In this world, not the affinity is said to be certain, except death and taxes.
07:00May have heard it said before,
07:01The mankind's greatest fear next to public speaking is death.
07:07And I found this article, as I was doing some research,
07:10There's actually an article that I found in Natural Geographic entitled Ways to Go.
07:15It's a study done by the National Safety Council.
07:17It was done in actually 2002.
07:19And it lists the odds of dying, like what we're going to do on ways to go, basically.
07:24Here's a couple of them.
07:26The odds of dying by being described by lighting are 1 in 79,746.
07:33Odds of dying in a motorcycle accident are 1 in 1,020.
07:37Odds of dying in just a motor vehicle accident is 1 in 84.
07:42But here's the real, the real kick here to this whole thing that I found just really interesting.
07:47Up at the top, it says total odds of dying from any positive one in one.
07:51At least, at least they've got that figured out.
07:54But you see, mankind, mankind is afraid to die.
07:58It's no wonder.
07:59Because from man's perspective, it is one of the only certainties that we have.
08:06And it's a really good thing that the author doesn't leave us here in this passage.
08:11He continues on.
08:12And verse 4 says this, as before.
08:15But he who is joined to the living, or joined to all the living, has hope.
08:19For a living dog is better than a dead lion.
08:23And I think when we think about hope, we often get kind of a different idea of that word in
08:31our mind than what the biblical definition of hope is.
08:33And so I want to explore that word a little bit this morning.
08:37I think oftentimes we think of hope as maybe the child who at Christmas, you know, hopes for that Star
08:42Wars action figure or whatever.
08:43Or, you know, just sort of a, sort of a, a wishful thinking.
08:53Sort of a desire for something that may not come to pass.
08:56I found a few definitions for hope in the dictionary.
09:00And Brandon House on the Bridge Dictionary says this.
09:03It says, hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for
09:08the best.
09:10Another, another definition I found of modern day definition for hope is from the Mary Webster Dictionary.
09:17And it says, hope is to cherish the desire with anticipation.
09:22Yeah, the word here is a word found in the Hebrew, and I think it has a little bit more
09:26to it than that.
09:30It's this word, and I won't pronounce the word because I don't know Hebrew very well.
09:34I'm a little bit Greek, but it's a word that means trust or confidence, or it's translated as confidence or
09:40hope.
09:40And the interesting thing about the word is it's only found two other times in the Old Testament in this,
09:45in this form.
09:47Both other times is translated as confidence.
09:53If we look at the Saphogenic, which is the 28th Greek translation of the Old Testament,
09:59what was done around the 3rd to, the 3rd to 5th century or so you see, or 3rd to 1st
10:04century, you see, sorry.
10:07We find this word used here, and it's Elpis.
10:09It's from the root Elpo, which is a primary word.
10:13It's the primary root.
10:15It means to anticipate, usually with pleasure.
10:18It's a word that can be translated as expectation or confidence.
10:21Actually, in the New Testament, we see it translated as hope or hope.
10:25Interesting that those words can be kind of translated the same.
10:28They'll be translated as faith and hope.
10:30They're two separate things, but they're very, very similar, and you see that they're really tied together.
10:34And I found a passage that kind of was puzzling to me as I looked at it in different translations.
10:42It's this passage here in Hebrews, Hebrews 10, 23.
10:45The ESV says this.
10:48It says,
10:48Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
10:57In the King James, it says this.
11:00It says,
11:00Let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful to the promise.
11:05Do you see the difference?
11:07Just one word, really, in the actual thing.
11:09We see hope and we see faith.
11:13And we see here that the Greek can almost be used interchangeably in the Greek.
11:17And I think that based on both the Old Testament and the New Testament,
11:20we can come up with a kind of a working biblical definition for the word hope as this.
11:26Confident expectation based on the character of what is held in.
11:30It's really a lot like faith.
11:31What we place our faith in is really what we hold in.
11:36And I hope I'm not quite there yet, but I'd like to look just at the very beginning of verse
11:403.
11:40I mean verse 5, sorry.
11:43And it kind of echoes verse 3.
11:46Beginning of verse 5 says,
11:47For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.
11:52He kind of reiterates that certainty.
11:54The living know they're going to die.
11:58See, all mankind understands that death is imminent.
12:03And that no matter what we do to try to prolong our lives,
12:06there's one thing that's going to happen to us, we're going to die.
12:10And that knowledge can be frightening, it can be depressing.
12:13Yet the passage here says that for the living, there is hope.
12:20Mankind looks at death, and though he fears, he fears it, he holds out, he holds out hope.
12:31And he holds out hope that either there is something after death, or that there's nothing at all.
12:37See, all men have hope.
12:39They hope in something when they die.
12:42It's something or nothing, or yes.
12:46But they all have hope.
12:48Remember that like our faith, our hope is only as good as what we've placed it in.
12:56As believers, we have confidence in our hope.
12:59Because it's based on what?
13:01It's based on the promises of God.
13:03If we look at that verse, what does it say?
13:06It says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope, our faith, cloud wavering.
13:11For he who promised us faithfully.
13:13Who promised?
13:14It's God that promised.
13:16And that's why we can have confidence as believers.
13:20We have confidence in the end.
13:22That's what we're talking about.
13:23What we're talking about tonight.
13:24The signs of the times.
13:26And really, you know, even though these signs can be frightening,
13:29and they can be puzzled by,
13:34we can still have hope because we know that God is faithful.
13:37And he's promised very special things for us as believers.
13:42This kind of brings me to the last verse, which is kind of about the hopeless.
13:49It reads like this.
13:51I'll read it again.
13:52It says,
13:53For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.
13:56And they have no reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
14:02You know, as I spent some time in this passage,
14:07this verse kind of troubled me.
14:08You know, the second verse brings hope into the picture,
14:11and then this verse kind of just brings you back down off of that.
14:15And it didn't seem to me like this verse has much hope in it.
14:19But as I poured over the passage, I began to realize that
14:22that true hope, confident hope, real hope,
14:25can only come from faith in Jesus Christ.
14:28And from man's perspective,
14:31there really isn't a lot to hope for.
14:32Yeah, we all hope in something,
14:35but we don't all have true hope.
14:39And as I was thinking about it,
14:41I came across this passage.
14:43Here in Ephesians 2, 12-13, it says this.
14:46It says,
14:49Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ.
14:53It's talking about before we knew Christ.
14:55It says,
15:12Another verse, and we looked at,
15:13I mentioned the first verse that precedes it rather than about earlier.
15:18But it is Hebrews 2, 28.
15:20Now, we'll read verse 27 again,
15:22just to put it back in the context.
15:24It says this.
15:24It says,
15:52You see,
15:55And if you're sitting out here today,
15:57I don't know each one of you all that well,
16:00and it doesn't matter whether I do,
16:01I don't know your heart.
16:02Only the Lord does.
16:04But if you place your hope in anything
16:07other than faith in Jesus Christ,
16:10in His Spanish work on the cross,
16:11and I hate to tell you,
16:11the Bible says it's not hope.
16:14Maybe hope from man's perspective
16:17but it's not hope.
16:19And I would invite you,
16:21if you'd be interested,
16:22to talk to me later,
16:23even after the service,
16:24or talk to Pastor Mark,
16:27if you want to know more about that.
16:33For the rest of us,
16:34those of us who are believers,
16:37here this morning,
16:37I'm reminded of a hymn.
16:41This hymn,
16:42I hope is in the Lord.
16:43I want to read through it real quick.
16:45It says this,
16:46it says,
16:47My hope is in the Lord
16:47who gave Himself for me
16:49and paid the price
16:51of all my sin in Calvary.
16:54For me He died,
16:55for me He lives,
16:56and everlasting life
16:57and life He freely gives.
17:00For me He died,
17:01for me He lives.
17:03No merit of my own
17:04is anger to suppress.
17:06My only hope is found
17:08in Jesus' righteousness.
17:13And now for me He stands,
17:14before all His throne.
17:17He shows His wounded hands
17:18and names me as His own.
17:20His grace is planted off
17:22to His mind but to believe
17:23and recognize
17:24His work of love
17:25and Christ received.
17:28Do you believe it?
17:30Do you believe those words
17:31this morning?
17:32Do you believe that
17:33the only requirement
17:34for our salvation
17:35is faith in Jesus Christ
17:36and His finished work
17:37on the cross?
17:41Brothers and sisters,
17:42we live in a world
17:45where people place
17:46their faith
17:47in all sorts of things.
17:51They place
17:52their faith
17:53maybe in works,
17:54things they can do
17:55or assist them.
18:01But anything but faith
18:02in Jesus Christ
18:02produces false hope.
18:08We have hope
18:09and we are...
18:10The question really
18:11for us as believers
18:12is what are we doing
18:13to share that hope
18:13with that hopeless world?
18:17That really brings me
18:18to what we're doing
18:18and what God has called
18:19us to do personally.
18:22God has laid it
18:22on our hearts
18:23to go to Trieste, Italy.
18:25And I want you guys
18:26to for a minute
18:29lay aside
18:30whatever thoughts
18:32you might have
18:33on Italy
18:33and I want to explain
18:35a country to you
18:36or describe a country to you.
18:37If you need to do this
18:38you can close your eyes
18:39but I won't describe
18:40a country
18:43where less than
18:441% of 60 million people
18:45know Jesus Christ
18:46their personal Savior.
18:49A country
18:50that's less evangelized
18:52than India.
18:54A country that has
18:55over 100,000
18:56full-time practicing
18:57witches and warlocks.
19:00A country
19:01whose northern city
19:02of Turin
19:03or Turino
19:04from the Winter Olympics
19:05is one of the global
19:06centers for
19:07womanful practice.
19:09A country where
19:10depression
19:11especially among the youth
19:12just runs ramp
19:13than 400,000
19:14heroin addicts.
19:17It's just
19:19incredible to think about
19:21that this country
19:22could be
19:22the country of Italy
19:23but that's what statistics
19:24show us.
19:26I know statistics
19:26aren't always right
19:27but they give us
19:28a pretty good picture.
19:30We're going to the city
19:31of Trieste
19:32it's a city in the north
19:33it's bordering
19:34of the former
19:35of the U.S.
19:35and the former
19:36of the U.S.
19:36The City of U.S.
19:37generally
19:37Communist.
19:38and the other
19:39of the U.S.
19:39in the U.S.
19:41of the U.S.
19:42and the United States
19:45of the U.S.
19:45of the U.S.
20:06The whole time during the year at the International Private School doesn't leave a lot of time for
20:11religious prayer for me. And so he has his hands full. How do you teach full-time, prepare a message
20:19on Sunday, prepare for Thursday night Bible study, Tuesday morning have a prayer meeting, still have time for discipleship and
20:28evangelism. And then also try and teach English classes because English classes are one of the ways that we offer
20:34free English classes. It's one of the ways that we're able to connect with people. How do you do it?
20:39Oh, you can't.
20:40And he's told me that himself. He said, I can't do it all. That's when we need somebody to come
20:45here and help me. And he's invited me to do that.
20:47So that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be involved in evangelism and discipleship.
20:52Just working with people, mainly French and evangelism because there are a lot of barriers about opposition to the gospel.
20:59really in Italy.
21:02I want to share with you one story specifically about one couple that I met when I was in Italy
21:07in February.
21:09And it's this couple, Elio and Nicoletta.
21:11I'm not sure if I mentioned them as a prayer request that we've been praying for them before I'd like
21:16to.
21:17And Elio and Nicoletta came to the church last summer.
21:22They had been very Catholic.
21:24They'd been raised Catholic, traditional Catholics.
21:28And they had found, they somehow found gospel music, worship music really is what it is.
21:34And they, he calls it gospel music.
21:36But they had really come to love this worship music.
21:40And so they took this music back to their Catholic church.
21:43They said, man, can we incorporate this?
21:45This will bring life to the church.
21:47And the church said, no way, you know, you've got to be kidding me.
21:51And so, and so she said, you know what, I'm looking for something else.
21:55I'm going to look for somewhere else to go.
21:57And he, of course, was very opposed to that.
21:59And he explained to me when I was there, they weren't believers yet, just so you know.
22:04He explained to me this.
22:05He said, Caleb, to be Italian is to be Catholic.
22:09You understand, we're taught Catholicism.
22:11He said, just like you guys are taught, math, science, history.
22:16He said, it's a fact.
22:19He said, he was taught from a child that the only way that really he could be saved was to
22:24be baptized in the Catholic church.
22:25And then to continue to do things for the church to be saved.
22:31And guys, I know that there are churches in this country, Catholic churches in this country, that maybe don't preach
22:37that.
22:38You know, I've heard stories from lots of people about, about maverick parishes, really, that preach the gospel.
22:46And that's incredible.
22:47And I'm excited.
22:49But you know what?
22:50That's not the case in Italy.
22:52You don't believe me?
22:53You can, you can read the articles that the Pope has just recently released.
22:58You can read the catechism of the Catholic church.
23:01They're serious about it over there, guys.
23:09Anyway, back to the story of Elio and Nicoletta.
23:11They've come to the church.
23:13And we were there in February, and I was able to share with them, or share with him, just some
23:19things from the Word.
23:20And, you know, I was excited to be there.
23:22You know, we left, and we didn't know, you know, what would happen in his life and what God would
23:27do.
23:30But, but in April, we received an email, April 23rd, my friend and I received this email, and it says
23:39this.
23:40And I actually, I think I have it up here so you guys can read along if you want to.
23:43It's kind of broken in English, but I'll read it to you.
23:46He does, he doesn't know English.
23:47He said this.
23:48He said,
23:48Hi, yesterday in Nicoletta and me testified to the church we love Jesus.
23:53And we believe he is the Son of God.
23:55He died for our sins, and we are justified by faith.
24:00It was a great moment for me, full of the presence of the Lord.
24:05I had a broken voice, but I hope somebody understood my speech.
24:10There is no more fear, no more worries.
24:13I pray my parents can understand, and I can help them to understand the truth.
24:17I pray my Catholic friends can follow this Holy Word and see what I see now.
24:23But I don't care what people think, if what they think bring me away from his presence.
24:30There is no fear, no more worries, only his Holy Grace.
24:34We are saved if we believe in Jesus' sacrifice.
24:37How sweet the sound of these words.
24:40My heart is like, no more compressed by the sense of sin I always had.
24:44We need you to come and help us to say everyone the good news.
24:48Say to your church hello.
24:49God bless you, Elio.
24:54Guys, Elio and Nicoletta were baptized this month.
24:58Public baptism.
24:59July 8th.
25:00And guys, for a Catholic, that's a big deal.
25:04Because that states that their baptism in the Catholic Church as an infant wasn't salvation.
25:09And they don't believe this baptism was either.
25:12But it shows that connection with Jesus Christ.
25:18You know what else it does over in Italy?
25:20It cuts them off from their family most of the time.
25:24Because it means that they're denying everything that they've been taught.
25:28And he knows that.
25:29But they did it anyway in public.
25:31And I was looking at some of the pictures of it.
25:32Actually, I've got a few of the pictures that I think did.
25:35And the people behind there, guys, that's not all people from the church.
25:38So I noticed that his friends and family were there.
25:40And that's a big deal.
25:43Elio was so excited that he's written me twice since his baptism.
25:49Asking what he can do to help us to get there and help him to work.
25:53And that's exciting.
25:55But you know what?
25:56It's not our work.
25:56It's not the work we're doing.
25:58It's God's work.
25:59This is a testimony that we've just been privileged.
26:02We've been traveling around the countryside.
26:04Sharing with people.
26:05What God is doing over in Italy.
26:07What God is doing in our lives.
26:09One of the neat things that we get to do when we travel around is we get to see what
26:12God is doing in other parts of the country.
26:15Just like the video we saw this morning.
26:16That was just incredible.
26:17See God in working lives, transforming lives.
26:20That's incredible.
26:21We know his desire to see it happen in Italy as well.
26:25And so we want to eat it and see that.
26:28We have been traveling on the countryside raising support.
26:30Right about 65% of our support now.
26:34As the year rises, it seems like the percentage comes down.
26:37So it makes it a little bit more difficult to raise support for us.
26:42But we have been seeing God work in that area.
26:46We've put about 10,000 miles on ourselves, I guess, on our cars in the last, well, the last three
26:53months.
26:54So we've been around.
26:55We've got more to go.
26:57We'll be up in Canada and back up to Illinois again before we're done.
27:00So we just invite you guys to join us in praying to God to raise up people, to be part
27:06of our team, our churches, like this church, be interested.
27:11And we thank you for that.
27:16Really, I guess that's about all I have for this morning.
27:19We'll be around, of course, afterwards to answer any questions.
27:22If you've got questions personally, I think that Paula, Paula in the second service as well, will be there to
27:28answer your questions.
27:29We've got a display board.
27:30I've got some pictures from my trip in February.
27:32If you have any questions or if you'd like any more information on what we're doing, if you'd like to
27:36be signed up on our newsletter list, we'd love to be able to add you to that as well.
27:42Thank you, General.
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