“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23)

We started off in the Garden of Eden as friends of God, unashamed and living in fellowship with God and each other. But then sin entered the world, and all our relationships were broken. We became enemies of God, seeking our own ways and living in open hostility to Him. The whole of Scripture, then, is a record of God’s reconciling us to Himself. We ran away, and He pursued us. We were scattered as sheep, and He sent the Good Shepherd. We hid in darkness, and He sent the True Light. We were dying in a self-made drought, and He sent the Living Water.

Separated from God

“Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.” (John 9:31)

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:3)

The Two Deaths

Physical death
is when the spirit is separated from the body.

Spiritual death
is when the spirit is separated from God. (Mans spirit was separated from God the day that Adam and Eve sinned. The only way we can ever be united again with God, in spirit, is if we are spiritually “born again,” or “born from above.”)

The second death is when a person is physically and spiritually separated from God forever.

(If you die in your sins, that is without being born again you will stand before God at the Great White Throne Judgment where you will be judged by every idol thought, word and deed that you ever committed. No one is perfect, just one sin is enough to send a person to hell. The punishment is to be cast into the lake of fire to be separated from God forever.)