The Living Dead and The Walking Dead

This world is dead. It is full of death, people slaying one another, relationships collapsing, and people caught in their pollutions, passions, and pleasures that are eating away them like maggots. The more we yearn for celestial, the more we come to hate this world. We begin to see all around us are walking skeletons, dead men and women walking. The only ones who are alive are other Christian beleivers. Jesus spoke of this when He said, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." (Matthew 16:25). Christ saw what many cannot see, we are walking corpses on this earth, and there is only life if we give up our life to follow Christ and let Him breath life into us,"So Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." (John 20:21-22). Once we choose to "deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him," (Matthew 16:24) we discover how dead this world really is in its sin. The skeletons are easily seen, the shadows caste over most the works of men, save the ministry.

This awareness is natural, in fact we were never suppose to fall in love with this world. We are to consider ourselves pilgrims, sojourners, "Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." (1 Peter 2:10-11). The Apostle Peter tells us we foriegners and exiles in this world, that we must abstain from sinful desires such as the "For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world." (1 John 2:16, NLT). Those who do follow the lust of eyes, lust of flesh, and pride of life find themselves as walking dead, for while their sinful self grows and creates gallows as their spiritual self dries up and dies. If we could but see with Christ's eyes, we would see a boneyard, graves all around us called great ideas and corpses that are rotting called citizens of the earth. But we are not citizens of this earth any longer, but citizens of Heaven, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.." (Phillippians 3:20). We are awaiting the Lord of Life, the one who breathes on us and says, "live!" He is one that makes the Dry Bones stand and become clothed with life: "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord." (Ezekiel 37:4-6). That Word of the Lord is Jesus, for it is written, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1,14). The Word of Lord is Christ, who breaths life into dead bones and matter that is man! Without that breath, without Christ breathing on us, and we "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them." (John 5:54,56). We must us commune with Christ, or else we are dead men and women roaming a desolate earth soon to be destroyed! (Revelation 21:1).

This world is not our home, "For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come." (Hebrews 13:14). We who carry Christ in us and follow Him understand that this world is a wrecked ship that is sinking into worm filled abysss. For Jesus said, " My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence," (John 18:36). The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world, but Christ did not ask the Father to take us out of the world, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." (John 17:15-19). Why? Why does Christ send us out into this dead world? The answer is that we are to be reconcilers, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation," (2 Corinthians 5:18) and ambassadors, "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20). This is our ministry, to make God's appeal through us, to bring life, to show people the Light, to give them a chance to have resurrection life, and be set free from death. Like Ezekiel, we are called to prophecsy, to preach to the dry bones of the people of this earth, and speak to them of the gospel of eternal life (John 3:16). Diedtrich Bonhoffer said, "If the saints were pulled out of this world, God would smite and destroy it, the only reason the world is spared is because we who believers hold back God's wrath, and so while world hates us, it is because of us that is survives." (The Cost of Discipleship). We Christians carry salvation, the Gospel, and we are salvation (keeping the world from destruction). So the reason Christ delays is "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," (1 Timothy 2:3-4), and because we the saints, the beleivers are still many and so we are God's mercy to a deaf and dead world!

All are walking dead who do not know the Divine Son of God who is Jesus Christ. For life is only found in Him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," (John 14:6) and "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." (John 10:10). Life for this lifeless corpses can only be found in Christ Jesus. The Apostle Paul cried, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24), and the answer is, "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25). The only deliverance from the two deaths can be found in Divine Son of God, Jesus Christ. There is the spiritual death of this life that is sin and it can only be whipped away by Christ's sacrifice, blood, and death (). The Second Death, which is the burning lake of sulfur () cannot only be escaped by the same belief in Jesus Christ, His Blood, Death, and Ressurection (). This is why Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26). There is no death in Christ, and so by living for Him we are already Risen in our spiritual self, and in time our body will rise too after our death (), and even then we are not dead because to be with God is to be with Life because He is Life (John 14:6) and "Now He is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to Him." (Luke 20:28).

This is your chance. There are Zombies, they are real, they are people who do not know Christ and walk about this life as lifeless, sinful, and dead souls. They are not cannibals, though they are capable of such evil (see the Days of Noah). Christ is serum, the Salvation that can restore our humanity, because we lost it in Garden of Eden, when our ancestors sinned (). Since then men and women have been the walking dead, and only find life when they turn to the Author of Life and Life itself, Jesus Christ. This is the answer, the cure to our dead nature, and to death in this world. People cry and bemoan death, fearing their last breath, but what is worse is all the breaths they take that are really vapors of a skeleton boiling its bones in sin, and marching closer and closer to the Second Death, which is hell. Those who repose, and breath their last are blessed if they believe, trust, and know Christ Jesus, for they go where there is, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4). But I pity the walking dead, people who march in malls like the Day of Dead, and who think they are alive, but they are not. Like the Pirates in The Pirates of Caribbean the Curse of Black Pearl, people without Christ are cursed men, food turns to ash in their mouths, and their lusts never satisfy, they wander and plunder, but then hole inside grows larger consuming them. The answer is not Aztec gold, but the Almighty God who came in flesh that is Jesus Christ, only His blood can cleanse, not the drops of dead men like Will Turner.

The Lord says, "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." (Deuteronmoy 30:15). The Lord in bodily form clarifies this, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14"For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14). The narrow gate and narrow way is Jesus Christ, "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6). Choose life, who is Jesus Christ and rouse yourself from the grave of this life, and escape the fiery tomb of the next! This is your chance! Do not waste it! Pray this prayer,
"Lord Jesus Christ, I admit and confess I am sinner and I need a savior. I believe you died for my sins on cross, rose again from dead on third day, and that by believing in you I shall have eternal life. Save me, Son of God who is of the Trinity, Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit, three and yet one God. Restore life to these dry bones, and create in me a "clean heart" and "renew a right spirit within me." Amen." Now you need to get a Holy Bible (ESV, NIV 2016, NASB, NLT, NKJV), start reading the Gospel of John, 1 John (the letter), Colossians, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and then the rest of New Testament books. I recommend studying Bible a while, praying, asking for Baptism of Holy Spirit (ask Come Holy Spirit) and get the Gifts of Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12). Then I recommend finding some other Christians, those who are Trinitarian, avoid Mormons (Church of Latter Day Saints) who are not Christians but in error, Jehovah Witnesses who are not Christ followers but in error, and anyone who will not confess these verses: "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God," (1 John 4:2), "I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist," (2 John 1:7), "No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also," (1 John 4:2), and "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God." (1 John 4:15).