The Second Birth And The Second Death

Version1d, June 14, 2006. Copyright 2006 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr.

Street Tracts International - Truth For South Asia Series - Tract 4 - Original English Version

   Hindus and Buddhists exist in great numbers within the ancient lands of India, and they are all inclined to a common belief: These people conceive that each human spirit is destined to undergo an endless series of transformations in a great multitude of lifetimes spent on planet Earth. As it is taught in these ancient Indian religions, there is a transformation of each living spirit that comes about through a great multitude of deaths and a great multitude of rebirths.

   The Holy Bible of our planet’s Christian churches is equally ancient, however, and it contains sacred Scripture that teaches a very different idea. This ancient book is saying something else entirely. The Holy Bible says that “It is appointed unto Man once to die, and after that comes the Judgment.”

   But the New Testament of the Bible also speaks many times about a “second birth” and a “second death.” So, what is that all about? What does the Bible mean when it speaks of a “second birth” and a “second death” anyway?

   The Christian Bible teaches that a human being dies in a physical body only one time, and immediately after that one death comes a Judgment by God, Who will evaluate the works of that human’s single lifetime on Earth.

   If a dying person has done works on Earth that qualify him to spend all eternity with Almighty God, he will then gain an eternal lifetime in the glorious and Holy Presence of Christ and of God Almighty. He will at that moment enter into the Heaven that has been won by Jesus Christ and he will begin to experience a new existence that is promised for all the True Believers of God. This is guaranteed for all who have believed in the Father God of Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ.

   The Bible teaches that the gift of Heaven is given only to those humans who have experienced a “second birth” while they were still living on the surface of our Earth. It is a privilege reserved only for those who have been “born again” through a sincere faith in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You can be “born again” through the Holy Spirit only when you have become aware of your own sin, your own inability to measure up to the standards of a Holy and Righteous God Almighty.

   Every person on Earth has broken the Ten Commandments of God many times, so every person on Earth is extremely sinful in the Eye of God. You need to find some way to cover up your dirty and sinful appearance, so that you will not be so repugnant to the Eye of God!

   That covering will help conceal your dirty appearance, but it is possible only when you are finally ready to repent of your sinful ways. When you accept forgiveness through Jesus Christ as the Savior of your life, a wondrous transformation occurs in your life. The Holy Spirit of God (who reveals His Son Jesus Christ to the human mind) then comes into your heart and head, changing you into what is called a “new creature in Christ.” This is what happens when a person becomes “born again” in Jesus Christ, through God’s Holy Spirit.

   That is what the Bible means when it talks about the necessity of a “second birth.” Jesus Himself declared that “Unless a person has been born again, he can by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

   However, many dying persons have never been “born again,” and since they have never experienced the “second birth” in Jesus Christ, these persons will never see Heaven nor the Kingdom of God.

   Instead, they will be destined to experience what the Bible calls “the second death.”

   If the dying person has previously had any kind of sinful life on Earth that must separate him from the Holiness of God, then that person’s soul will be forever banished from the Presence of the Righteous and Holy God of All Creation.

   Banishment from God’s Presence means that the person will suffer endless remorse in a place of isolation and torment which the Bible calls Hell. Hell is rather like a Lunatic Asylum that is designed for all those humans who are so crazy and evil that they have decided to reject God’s offer of rescue. These are the damned souls of Hell, the ones who had repetitiously rejected the Holy Spirit of God and His Son Jesus Christ. They rejected the opportunity to receive Christ so many times that they finally became reprobates, so hardened and evil that God gave up on them, knowing that they would never repent.

   The “second death” of the Holy Bible is not a termination of existence and the end of a spirit’s lifetime. Instead, it is the beginning of an eternity of torment and remorse in the horrible confinement of Hell.

   Hell is rather like an Isolation Chamber for all the people who have been sinful and evil during their time on Earth, for those who have always rejected God’s free gift of salvation. God offers humanity an escape route only through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus... who died on a torturous cross for the sins of humanity.

   Jesus Christ suffered torture on a wooden cross by the will of His Father, in order that He might become a Holy Sacrifice for all of humanity. He suffered torture on a wooden cross so that YOU would not have to suffer an eternity of torture in Hell.

   It is only because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, made long ago on that wooden cross in Jerusalem, that God will ever give you access to His Holy Presence. Jesus is the Only Way to God, and Only He is able to be your Door to God’s Heaven. He has won for you the privilege of having your spirit enter God’s Holy Presence when your physical body dies. But Jesus is the Only Gateway by which you can ever reach God’s Heaven.

   All other roads lead only to Hell, and there is no other Door by which a human may be saved from damnation, because even the best of human beings is completely unable to measure up to the perfect standards of a Holy and Righteous God. Only the Son of God Himself, while Divinity was incarnated in the human body of Jesus Christ, has ever been able to measure up to the perfect standards of Almighty God.

   That’s why Jesus is called the Perfect and Spotless Lamb of God. Jesus was the only sacrifice that God could ever find acceptable, because He lived a completely sinless life while He was staying in Israel, long ago, here on the surface of our Earth.

   God the Father loves His Son Jesus and He is thus willing to blind Himself to the sins of any human who accepts God’s Salvation Plan for the Universe. You can do this by making Jesus Christ the Lord of your life. This is a special gift of God, a blessing that is reserved for any human who honors God The Father by acknowledging also the divinity of God The Son. A human being who truly acknowledges the painful sacrifice of God’s Holy Son, Who suffered on a cross for the sins of humanity, will feel a deep gratitude to Jesus and will thereafter regard Him as King and Lord of All. The True Believer can see the Father in the Son, and he can see the Son is from the Father in Heaven.

   But those who reject Jesus are rejecting His Father also, Who is the Almighty God of the Universe and the Father in Heaven.

   Those who reject God The Son reject also the Father In Heaven and the Holy Spirit of God. Those unbelieving persons who currently live on this Earth, and who yet endlessly deny that Jesus is the Christ of God, will one day be in for a big shock. When the physical body dies, each one will discover that God The Son likewise denies that He has ever known them. Jesus will then say to the unbeliever, “Go away from Me. I never knew you.”

   That person will then be cast forever into the “outer darkness,” which is another way that the Bible refers to Hell. In the “outer darkness,” Jesus says, “there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.” That’s Hell, the place of the “second death.”

   When trapped in Hell, a person will be forced to keep company with Satan and all his many devils, staying forever in a horrid habitation with a vast multitude of fallen angels. Angels that God cast out of Heaven long ago were transformed by their own inner evil and have become the demons and devils of Hell. The unforgiven person will likewise suffer eternal punishment, will be damned forever, and will never again have any chance of getting access to the glorious Presence of Jesus Christ.

   The people of India all believe that we live in a Universe where we are surrounded by countless millions of living spirits, both visible and invisible. The Bible declares that this idea is true in at least one way, because there are millions of spiritual beings who already reside in Heaven and in Hell, and these frequently visit our Earth and interact with humans. These spiritual beings that exist in such large numbers are both angels and demons.

   Some of these spiritual beings are forces for good and are agents of God. These are the Righteous Angels of God, who reside in Heaven with Almighty God, with Jesus Christ, and with those human spirits who have been saved by the salvation God offers in Jesus. The spirits of saved humans go to Heaven when they have already left the surface of the Earth, and these persons will henceforth be in the company of God and His Righteous Angels.

   But there are also millions of evil spirits active in our world, beings which are in the Bible called “demons” and “devils,” and these are likewise invisible to our eyes. Jesus speaks about devils many times in the Holy Scripture of the gospels, and Christians know His words are the reliable Truth of God about Heaven and Earth.

   Fallen angels are now at work in our world as demons and devils, and like Satan himself, they have always rebelled against the authority of the Triune God of Israel. These devils have no respect for any face or Person of the Triune God; they respect neither God The Father, nor God The Son, nor God The Holy Spirit. Satan and his demons wish to usurp the power of God, to steal away His authority over the peoples of the Earth, and so they have set themselves up as false gods of many kinds. These exist by the hundreds and thousands in many countries, and in India they exist as millions of such false gods.

   Satan is happy to see the people of India worshiping all these false gods and idols, because he knows that this idolatry will prevent many residents of India from ever finding salvation in Jesus Christ.

   Jesus was first God The Son, but when He was incarnated in the human form of Jesus, God The Son gained for Himself a new name as “the Son of Man” and “the Son of God.” In the Bible He is also called “the Only Begotten Son of God,” since God The Son was incarnated in the human form of a small baby when He was born of Mary in the town of Bethlehem.

   Satan doesn’t want people to know the Truth, which is that they should be worshiping Jesus Christ (God The Son) rather than all the many false gods and idols of India.

   Satan’s demons are quite happy to be worshiped as a big multitude of “gods,” because in this way they can feel powerful and very influential over the peoples of Earth. These demons will even perform magical wonders on various occasions to impress the people of India and other countries, because these actions give them an appearance of godlike power and importance. Such occurrences are intended to convince the people of India that there are millions of little gods in existence, instead of just the One True God of the Universe.

   These little gods are impostors, and Satan has designed this system to take your eyes off the reality of the Triune God of Israel. God The Father, God The Son, and God The Holy Spirit form a Holy Trinity; they are Three Persons in One God, and there is no other God but this. This is the True God that is made known to us through Jesus Christ. All the others are just pretenders and impostors— they are nothing more than false gods. They are either lifeless idols or demons in disguise. It is very important to stay away from them.

   Why is it so important to reject all the false gods of India? Because that’s the very first and most important of all the Ten Commandments of God! God says in that First Commandment, “I AM the Lord Your God. You will have no other gods before me.”

   There are other things which can also become false gods. Some people let sexual pleasure become an obsession, and this can become a false god for them. Some are guilty of sexual perversion, and this can be a false god too. Some people worship Science, and this scientism becomes a false god. Some obsessed people actually worship Evolution or Humanity, and this may become like a religion and a false god. Some obsessed people worship Money, and money can become a false god. Others may worship luxury, fun, and entertainment, which can also become a false god.

   Many immoral movies come forth from Hollywood, Australia, Japan, Europe, and other countries, and these often promote an anti-God, anti-Christian viewpoint. For the obsessed fans of the movie industry, the film actors and the script-writers may likewise become false gods!

   In such immoral movies as these, we see many wild-hearted characters who defy the laws of God frequently, even incessantly, and with apparent impunity. But in the real world, sinful behavior does not go unnoticed by God... nor does it go unpunished. The Bible says that God is not mocked with impunity. It says that “The wage of sin is death... but the free gift of God is Eternal Life in Heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

   You must give no place in your mind to other gods, and you must never place a false god or an idol before the True God of Jesus Christ!

   So how do you get to experience the “second birth” for yourself? Here’s some happy news: You can experience the “second birth” at any moment in your present lifetime, whenever you choose to repent of your sins and to seek forgiveness of your sins from God The Father in Heaven. You do this by first acknowledging that Jesus Christ was God The Son when He appeared on Earth, and then you just confess with your mouth that you need salvation in Jesus!

   You need to speak the words aloud. You must admit that you have lived a sinful life during your time on Earth, doing many wrong things, even things that are terribly evil in the Mind of God. You must admit that you have worshiped false gods rather than honoring God The Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

   You need to speak the words aloud. You must admit that you need rescue from all your sinful habits and from the punishment that will come in the Judgment Day, that time in which God will someday evaluate your lifetime on Earth. You must admit that you need rescue from all your unbelief, and you must ask the Holy Spirit of God to come inside you, so that you will begin to understand the Truth of Jesus Christ, Who is the Light of the World.

   When the Holy Spirit of God comes inside your heart, you will begin to understand the Holy Scriptures of the Christian Bible far better than you ever did before. The Holy Spirit Himself will stay inside you and give you guidance as you begin your study of the Bible.

   You need to ask for God’s forgiveness through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. You need to speak the words aloud. You must ask God to wash you in the Holy Blood of His Son Jesus Christ and make you clean with the Purity of Christ, so that you will become a “new creature” in Jesus Christ.

   You need to be born again, so that you can ultimately see the Kingdom of God with your own eyes. You need the “second birth” that Jesus described to His followers, so that you will never live to see the horrible conditions of the “second death,” which Jesus has described as an eternity of torment in Hell.

   You start by speaking aloud and admitting to yourself that you have broken the Ten Commandments of God. You know that you have done this many times.

   How many times have you worshiped false gods and idols? That makes you an idolater. How many times have you told lies in your life? That makes you a liar, a person who has given false testimony. There are likewise plenty of times when you have broken God’s commandment against stealing, and there are even more times when you have coveted the property of a neighbor!

   So you start out by acknowledging that you are a sinner and an idolater. You ask God’s forgiveness for all the sin in your life and for your habit of worshiping false gods. You ask him to forgive you for all the time in the past when you have been bowing down to demons, idols, and graven images.

   This is how you choose the “second birth” of Jesus, instead of the “second death” of Hell!

   In the Holy Bible, God says, “All those who hate Me love death.” The followers of Jesus ask that you make the right choice today. Choose life rather than death.

   Make the decision to honor Jesus Christ as the Divine and Ever-Holy Son of God. Make the decision to serve Him and to lift up His name before your friends and neighbors.

   We hope you will choose an Eternal Lifetime with God in Heaven, because that is a great and desirable goal. The alternative is unpleasant even to consider.

   No one who is in a sane state of mind would consciously and deliberately choose an eternity of dying in Hell and the permanent separation from God that awaits those who reject Jesus Christ. But that is what some people ultimately choose for themselves through ignorance and misconceptions... or through endless delays that result in years of inaction and uncertainty. Don’t miss your chance to honor God.

   Right now is the best time for a new commitment to spiritual enlightenment! Right now there is an acceptable day for salvation. You have before you an opportunity to know that your soul is saved, an opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.

   Wouldn’t you rather serve a God Who loved you enough to even die for you? Can’t you trust a Father God Who would even sacrifice a beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, so that you would never have to experience the torments of Hell?

   His Son was tortured on a wooden cross so that you would never have to know the torments of Hell. Don’t be so ungrateful that you toss His gift right back at Him, saying to God Almighty, “No thanks. I have no use for Your gift, and no interest in Your Plan of Salvation.” Instead, give praise and honor to God’s Holy Son, as you know you should.

   You gain Eternal Life with God by placing Jesus Christ, Who in the Trinity of God created our Universe, upon a throne at the center of your heart! He deserves that position and that kind of respect. He was first God The Son, but when born in human flesh He became the only sinless and righteous person who ever lived. Yet He sacrificed Himself on a cross for your sake, taking all guilt and sins upon Himself— for you and for me, and for all people everywhere on Earth— that whoever wishes for salvation might be rescued from the due punishment of sins.

   If you will do this, you will gain a new contentment and peace as you accept God's organizational plan for the Universe. . . because you'll be letting God be the Ruler of All Things in this world. . . and in your own life.

   All it really takes is a simple but sincere little prayer— one that you should make up in your own words. The prayer for deliverance and for God's leadership should come from your own heart!

   Some important elements that you might include are:

   1) your desire to turn away from all the wrongness or evil of your past life, and your remorse over all the sins of your previous life,

   2) your desire for God's forgiveness and mercy through the act of sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son (Jesus Christ),

   3) your desire to know God's leadership in your life,

   4) your desire to learn more of God's truth through Bible study,

   5) your desire to find fellowship with genuine believers.

   When you’re saved, you’ll know Jesus is King of the Universe and the Lord of your life.

   You’ll know the three faces of God Almighty: God The Father, God The Son, and God The Spirit. His Holy Light will start to be visible in your own face and actions!

   Jesus said of the people of God that "The kingdom of heaven is like a net that God has cast into the sea, and it gathers of every kind: When it is full, it will be pulled up on the shore, where they will sit down to sort the catch, and they will collect the good fish in baskets, but the bad things will be thrown away. This is the way it will be at the end of the world: The angels shall come forth, and they will separate the unrighteous persons from among those justified by God. . ."

           Excerpt from the book of Matthew, who was a constant companion of Jesus and his devoted disciple [13:47-50].

   Jesus spoke of the people of God as being like a seed that is growing secretly, saying, "As for the kingdom of God, it is as if a person should cast seed into the ground; and then he sleeps, and he rises up night and day to see that the seed is springing forth and always growing up, although he knows not exactly how. The Earth is bringing forth fruit from itself; first the blade, then the ears of corn, and after that the fullness of the ears of corn. And when all the fruit of the Earth has come forth, immediately God will use the sickle to reap the fields, because the harvest-time has come."

                                                     Excerpt from the book of Mark [4:26-29].

   It's also important for all of us to remember this:

   1) WE SPEAK TO GOD by our prayers.

   2) GOD SPEAKS TO US by the words of Holy Scripture.

   So we must try to read His words and His Book just as often as we possibly can!!

   God wants to bless you for all your long efforts to understand this very confusing and difficult Universe in which we live— so let Him reward your search with the grace of His forgiveness and enlightenment!

THIS GUIDE WAS WRITTEN FOR YOU BY. . .

Ken Street, a baptized follower of the Way.

                 Copyright 2006 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr.

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God is continuously harvesting the Earth... as His long-range plan for the Earth's transformation goes ever forward...!