“The Walking Dead” by Steve Keeler
Ephesians 2:1-3
“1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
As you know, I’m a movie buff. Some time ago, they released a movie called “The Sixth Sense”. Pure fantasy. In the movie, a little boy seems crazy to every one but as it turns out, he’s not crazy, he just sees ghosts.
The ghosts he sees have a problem as well, they don’t know their dead. One of the ghost he meets is a psychologist who tries to help the boy overcome his problems. The climactic moment of the film is when the boy looks at him as says, “I see dead people!”
Seems people have an ever increasing fascination with death, dying and the dead. One of the biggest of these interests is zombies. Zombies are dead people who somehow have returned to the living. And for some reason, they have a hunger for human flesh. One of the top rated shows on TV is called “The Walking Dead” showing people are truly fascinated by the subject.
Just for the record, before anybody gets the wrong idea, I don’t believe zombies or ghost of the dead are real. The Bible is crystal clear on this matter. When someone dies, they don’t come back to haunt or eat the living. Thank you God!
Still, I have to agree with the little boy in the movie, I too see dead people. I look around me and see a world full of the living dead. The sad part is they don’t know they are dead. They’re born, they live, they marry and find pleasure, they hate, they give and receive and they even sit in churches sometimes. They live full lives yet they’re dead. We are literally surrounded by spiritual zombies.
Our Scripture today speaks to the desperate condition of the lost. It also reminds every Christ follower of what they were before God saved them by His amazing grace. We are reminded of who we were before we met Jesus and made Him Lord of our lives. This Scripture points to the hopeless circumstance, the helpless situation of those who don’t know Jesus. I see dead people! Today, I want to look at why those who are trapped in the bondage of sin are like the walking dead. If you have never been saved, this message, I hope, will show the truth about sin and it’s consequences on your life. If you’re saved, this message will remind you of what you once were and how thankful you should be that Jesus pursued you, transformed you and saved you by His grace.
I see dead people! I look around and I see people hopeless and helpless lost in their sin with no way out on their own.
Paul is writing to the Ephesian believers to remind them of where they came from, to remind them of the kind of folks they once were, to remind them that they were once lost and dead in their sins. He writes to them to remind them that it was through Jesus they had been made alive.
Paul was writing to the believers but there is a message for everyone that hears these words of truth. He’s writing to you and me today. So, today, I’m going to talk about your past. As I do, you should rejoice that Jesus has delivered you from death! If you don’t know the Lord, this will describe your life. The good news is, I’ll give you a way out today so you don’t have to remain part of the living dead! The way Paul describes his readers is “dead”. They were a bunch of corpses, dead bodies walking around. But it’s not physical death but spiritual death he’s talking about. He’s saying that the lost are dead within and need to turn and repent and come to the Lord.
We all have a pretty good idea of what “dead” means. When somebody is dead, they are unable to respond to stimuli, they are totally unable to function at all. They lack the power and ability. Their body is reduced to an empty, inanimate thing that can’t see, can’t hear, think or respond. The voices they once heard, they no longer hear. Their eyes that once saw such beauty can no longer see anything. Their body, once alive is now reduced to an empty shell.
Like Lazarus, they’re dead and buried in their tomb. Outside the tomb of Lazarus, loved ones wept and mourned his death. Lazarus was completely unaware of anything going on outside that tomb. Why? He was dead! Just as the daughter of Jairus was unaware of the cries of her broken hearted parents as she lay there dead!
Ecclesiastes 9:5 makes it pretty clear; “ For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten.” When the body dies, it loses the ability to respond to our physical world. This is a perfect picture as to illustrate what it’s like for those who don’t know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Paul says the lost are “dead”. Being dead is the opposite of being alive. In John 17:3 it was Jesus who said; “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
If you have chosen Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are alive. If you haven’t you’re part of the walking dead! John repeats this truth in 1 John 5:12 when he said; “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”
The lost, the walking dead are alive to this world. They live in it, move in it, love in it and seek it’s pleasures; but they are still dead even while they live. They’re not dead to the world, they are dead to God. They can’t see Him, feel Him within, sense Him or hear His voice. They have no spiritual life.
The really sad part of all of this is that folks choose to be part of the walking dead. Salvation is a gift, a free gift the Lord wants desperately to give, all they have to do is accept it. God pursues them relentlessly, but they must choose to surrender. They need to make the decision to turn from the life the world gives which is very temporary and come to the waiting arms of Jesus and receive life everlasting. Life beyond all this world has to offer.
God is the giver of life eternal and Satan and this world have nothing to offer but spiritual death. It’s sin and man’s pursuit of it that brings spiritual death. It’s the sin we cling to that makes us part of the walking dead. But when we come to Jesus, and turn from sin, we are resurrected to a new life, we become a new creation.
If you’ve never accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are part of the walking dead. Dead in your trespasses, dead in your sin. That’s why you sit there and say none of this means anything to me.
That could be why you don’t “feel” anything when you come to church. That’s why the things that stir the hearts of Christ followers never stir your heart. You are part of the walking dead and need to be resurrected! The lost are unmoved by the things of God.
God’s Word means nothing to the lost, it is nothing but foolishness to them says 1 Corinthians 1:18; “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Boy, I can tell you I remember a time when I was among the walking dead. It was in my dark days of being spiritually dead. I was alive in this world but dead to God. God held no interest to my dead heart. I had no interest in His Word, His church, His people, none of it mattered I was dead to all that Christian stuff.
Nothing mattered to me but the pleasure I sought in my favorite sins. I was a zombie; a dead man walking. I was part of the walking dead, helpless and hopeless without God in my life.
Ephesians 2:12 reminds us; “Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
Before I met God, I was dead in my sin. But God reached down and snatched me out of my tomb of sin and took me in His arms when I cried out to Him.
Jesus heard my cry and responded. He made me a new creature. Things that couldn’t touch me before now arrested my heart. Now I glory and rejoice in my soul. Now I thank God for His Word, His church, His presence in my life and all that He is. Has that happened in your life? Have you been brought back from the spiritually dead? If you have than you know exactly what I’m saying. If not, you don’t need rehab, you don’t need religion, you need resurrection! You must be born again if you would like life everlasting.
Listen to me, we are born with a sin nature. The first word child learn is “no”, this is a sin of rebellion. It’s natural for us to sin while we are lost.
A man doesn’t become a liar because he lies, he lies because he’s already a liar in his heart. A man doesn’t become a killer because he kills, he kills because he’s already a killer in his heart.
To get even simpler, people don’t become sinners because they sin, they sin because the are already sinners in their heart and that’s what must be overcome! David said in Psalm 51:5; “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”
We aren’t born with knowledge of good and evil, or God and the world. We are born in bondage to sin, all of us. We all come into the world as sworn enemies of God. We are all part of the walking dead. I tell you, you can look around today and you will see dead people everywhere. And it makes no difference how long they’ve been dead, dead is dead! Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus after she had been dead for a few minutes. Her body was probably still warm when Jesus arrived. He raised Lazarus from the dead after 4 days. His body was probably in the beginning process of decay. Martha said don’t go in there Jesus, I’m sure he stinketh.
Though one was dead longer than the other, they were both just as dead! When we speak of spiritual death, one is no more dead than the other, the lost are simply dead in their sin. The little boy who steals a candy bar is just as dead as the drunk laying in the gutter. That lost preach is just as dead as the drug addict. That lost church member is just as dead as the mass murderer. Dead is dead!
And folks, our sin separates us from God. And before you start thinking that’s not me listen to what Romans 3:23 has to say; “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We have all been in the same situation, the same circumstance at one point or another. We were at one time all lost and in need of a Savior. We were all part of the walking dead until we came to Jesus as He called out to us.
Remember Lazarus? He was dead and buried in that tomb. He was unable to hear the cries of grief because he was dead. He couldn’t see the tears that flowed as he lay there dead in that tomb. He didn’t even hear as Jesus spoke peace to his family or prayed to His Heavenly Father because he was in bondage among the dead.
But then the Lord called out his name and brought him out of death! Lazarus heard that call and his chains were broken and he was made free. He was resurrected by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was raised to life anew in Jesus.
That same thing can happen to you if you have never responded to His voice calling out to you. Come to Him today and He will bring you from the walking dead to life everlasting.
This is great news, but how does all this happen? It already happened. Jesus died on the cross to save the lost. He entered into death that He might offer life to all those who cry out to Him for salvation.
Jesus died so you might be saved from your sin. He was resurrected from the dead to defeat both sin and death so you could be spiritually resurrected today.
If you are not saved and you have become aware of your need for a Savior; today is the day of your salvation; Jesus is calling your name. Will you hear His call? He is ready to bring you out of darkness and death to light and life everlasting. Won’t you come to Jesus today?
If you are saved, you need to come into His presence everyday and thank Him for resurrecting you and bringing you out of bondage and making you free. Speak to Him today and give Him the glory and honor that is so due Him for His amazing grace and mercy that reached down and pulled you up out of the miry clay.
Ask Him to put a burden on your heart for the lost in this place. Ask that He puts them in your path so you can tell them how to be lifted out of the sin that has them trapped. Let’s see if we can reduce the number of dead people we see!
Amen!
