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We Want Heave, But We Don't Want To Die - Dr. Paul Levin · Bible Tract Echoes Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey friend, I'm Mike McCurrey, this is Bible Track Deco's.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, a little over a year ago, I had the opportunity to step into a nursing home and to walk to the room of a lady named Jeanette Heyslip.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a final time I would be there.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know it at the time, but she was about 100 and 7 years old.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be honest with you.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I truly think she could live to 110 or beyond, but she began to have just a little bit of a health issue and just some different things cascade and she passed away a little over a year ago.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: The reason I was there was not just talk about the fact that she was 177 years young, though that would by itself be enough to talk about.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to her because she knew Paul Living.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: The founder of this ministry, his name's Dr. Paul Living, back in 1938 Bible Tracks Incorporated, was birthed because this man followed the will of God.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now 85 years later, we're still reaping the benefits.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: But along the way, there were many people that
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: helped this ministry.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: That were a blessing this ministry, whether they were employees or volunteers or just people that came alongside partners of the ministry.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are many people listening right now.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You are a partner of this very ministry.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to you, I say thank you so much.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: but Miss Hayslip, she was here, not in this very building, but she was a part of Bible track.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: She may be still one of the longest tenured employees of this ministry.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was the secretary, the executive secretary, if you all want to say that for over two decades.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to God be the glory she was so faithful.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You realize two decades out of a hundred and seven year life was really maybe just a blip to her.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But no, and all seriousness, she was so sharp mentally.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a little heart of hearing had to speak up just a little bit and she would maybe read my lips a little bit.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But when she got the question understood it, she was so very sharp.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing, honestly.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was a little bit incredulous that she was at her age still so on the ball.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to sit there with her daughter, Miss Wheatley.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Miss Wheatley, if you're listening right now, we love you and your family.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So thankful for what you mean to us.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But as I think about Miss Hacelib, in the legacy she left,
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: She did leave it, because she's now in heaven.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think of Dr. Paul, 1995.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: He preached a message titled, Are You Afraid to Die?
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Dr. Paul was not.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: He passed away by a year later in 96, and we have the benefit of hearing this very message from 95 on the broadcast today.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna ask you, would you tune your ears?
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here we are in the middle of the week.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you listen to this man of God as he speaks to us about this very question, this thought?
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we want heaven, but we don't want to die, do we?
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Paul addresses that he also gives us a little peek behind the curtain.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: He tells us about a dreamy head where he dreamed about heaven.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen in.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's meet up with us anyhow.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to go to heaven.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course we want to go to heaven.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me ask you another question.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Suppose he... How many would like to have Jesus Christ come back tonight?
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take us all to heaven right now.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see your hands.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure you would, my hands up on that one boy.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Add some from the body present with the Lord, the dead and crushed, that shall rise in.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we were trying to live and remain so that it caught up together in a class to meet the Lord in the air.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if we could go to heaven, that week, we'd all like to go to night.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if we got to die, they get to heaven.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to wait a while.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's just the way we are.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know he was trying to be real pious and holy, say, no, that's not the way it is.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to die right now.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, we don't want to die right now if we think about it.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: We want to wait a while and forward die.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And suffer a little bit more and cry a little bit more.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Say, okay, now that's just a way to hard because death is an enemy.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember one time, I had a horrible dream.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like a nightmare.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I dreamed that I had died.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so my wife and I got in the car,
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was very real.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember driving up there at the front of the funeral parlors, they're long, sidewalks going up at a couple of glass doors, and doors the night walked up there, and what's with those doors?
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right straight ahead, we saw a casket.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we walked up there, that casket, and looked in there.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, there I was.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, line there.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I was smiling or not, but I was sure dead.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we said, we said they're looking at me a little while and I started to cry.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, the Dorothy, I said, you know, I cried.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, how come you're not crying?
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, don't you miss me?
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, yes, she said, yes, I miss you.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I have closer to the Lord than you do, and I can take this better and you can.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we said, there for a little while, decided to leave, and so we turned around, went down that side walking.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we got to the car, I'm always a good gentleman in my dreams, so I opened the car door for her, you know?
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she got in the car, and just as she's getting in the car, I said, I forgot something.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I went back and wake back that casket and I took my right hand and I moved my right hand over down here like this so I could get in his pocket and I reached in his pocket and it was a whole bunch of $1 bills in there and I got them all out of there and I stood up by the casket and I counted them
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this was way back in the early 50s.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, there was 63, I don't know why, but it was $63 one dollar bill.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: That would be to like $500 now.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Boy, that's one I knew I was dreaming.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I get all that money.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anybody know this?
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of know all those 63 one dollar bills.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You put it in my pocket, put my hand back or belong back out.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just as I'm getting in the car, I woke up.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say something.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't sleep all night after that.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the way death is.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The death is an enemy, and if you fear death, don't think that there's something wrong with you.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, we're gonna get to another verse here in just a minute.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me want more illustration first.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I grew up on the farm, so you don't blame me if I use this colonial illustrations.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's what Paul said, Paul says, I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, first of all, remember something.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was not talking about the rapture.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was not talking about when Jesus Christ comes to take us to be with himself.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about dying in those pastries.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said, I know that because he says, I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, but I also have another desire, not to depart and be with Christ, and be here with you.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now if he's been talking about the rapture that come in Christ, they'd all been gone.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, he just talking about himself dying, say, now he says, I have the authority part, and be with Christ, which is far better.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what he said.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's imagine what we're back on the farm, and there's a cow standing in the field.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this cow is looking over the fence into another field, and the cow is talking to herself.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's imagine now, you can understand car language.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you can hear this, car top and dirt self.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this car says, I have a desire to depart from this field and go into that field over there where the grass is greener and longer.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this car really has a desire to get another field.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's say that, too.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I was a kid, instead of having days around the field, all they'd have to do is dig a little trench where the gate would be and put some iron bars across there and bossy the cow wouldn't cross it.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now the cows may be different in this county, but that's the way they were in Rock Island County.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, where I lived as a boy, they dig a ditch.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or if the ditch was or is there, they just put some iron bars and grating of any kind.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the cause wouldn't cross it.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just wouldn't do it, I'm sorry.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't talk a minute to it.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this causes, I have a desire to depart.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And from this field and being that field, which is,
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Far better.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you say to the cow, that's my field over there.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mind a few go over there.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to lead this field and go over to that field, you just go right on over there.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's the opening in the fence.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go right on there.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the cows just thank you, sir.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the cows start out and comes to this grading and the cows stops.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: The cows got four wheel breaks and the cows stop immediately.
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll not cross that grading.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now what's matter of that cow?
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does that cow want to get another field?
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does that cow want to get another field right now?
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the car says if I, no matter how much I want to get in, I feel, right now, if I've got the cross that thing to get there, I'll stay right over here with a few listens of nice.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the way we are.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we could go to heaven tonight, but not dying, we all want to go to heaven.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if we all want to go to heaven, and we all want to go to heaven now, but if we have to go across death to get there, we'll just stay here a while.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the way we are.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's turn to another person.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me show you something.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians chapter 12.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians chapter four, this is tremendous for me.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to be for you, but yes, yours helped me.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I preach every preach this year before you let to pardon me, I'm getting a little old now.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like 2,000, they're talking.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to help them set the other.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I, they show Kansas.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: They said, no, listen, I'm, I'm a little bit forgetful.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was that you, who guide?
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was at your brother.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I forgot.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a blessing it is to hear from a man like Dr. Paul.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, to know him was to love him, I never had the opportunity personally to meet him, but that's what I'm told by so many, not just those on the outside, not just those that howdy with him at conferences and camps, but by his very own family, those that knew him best, remember him so fondly.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a legacy to leave.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's an example.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hard to live up to, but worth the effort.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I recall a man whose pulpit ministry honestly I'd modeled myself after a phenomenal speaker, but he was just a young man many years ago at Bill Rice Ranch and...
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Paul looked up, he was working on something, maybe silence someone's a Bible or something, and he looked up this young 20-something-year-old and said, oh, hello sir, I sit down here, I've been mean to talk to you and he made to realize Dr. Paul, he was the man, he was the guy, he was people that so much respect for him and rightly so, especially towards the end of his life, but Dr. Paul made this guy feel like a million bucks.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: just by taking a few moments, just by investing in him.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a test to mone, and this man, now into his 60s, remembers that interaction from 40 plus years ago, and in small part, has modeled himself after Dr. Paul.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you like to see?
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a heritage.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's something we're trying, we're endeavoring to continue here at BTI.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to just be known for classy and high-quality gospel tracks.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: We want to be known for a classy, compassionate, and high-quality interactions with you.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, by the way, to each and every one of you that has tuned in today.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited about the fact that we get to continue this discussion, this message, are you afraid to die throughout the remainder of this week, just two more segments left.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I must ask you, as I already have the previous two days, are you afraid to die?
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you're Christian, and I haven't made this plea yet.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you're Christian, and you'd say, I believe I'm saved, I know I'm saved, but I still have doubts.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm afraid to die.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to speak to you about that.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I can be a helping anyway, honestly, if you're listening right now and you have a question about your eternal destiny, whether you consider yourself a Christian or not, or maybe you're listening and you have a question for me as the director of this ministry, if you can't get up and answer for me, I don't know who you can, so I'm not afraid of your questions and all sincerity, I want them.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you have a question, a comment, even a critique, I love criticism, you know why?
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause it's there to make you better.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's always a grain of truth in every critique and every correction.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'd love to hear from you.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can text me at 309-316-724-0 again that number is 309-316-724-0.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mike and we're curried this.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Has been Bible-tracked echoes joins tomorrow.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have a great day for his glory.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: God bless.
• 13:12
  [UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in to Bible Tract Echoes, the radio ministry of Bible Tracts Incorporated.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Want to see our gospel tracks and other resources?
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Visit us online at BibleTracksInk.org that's BibleTracksInk.org or follow us on social media to learn how you can partner with this ministry.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks again for listening.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: May the Lord richly bless you as you live for Him.