A funeral can make you realize a lot of things.

One time, while I was at a funeral, something stuck out to me. Every person, no matter how rich or poor, smart or unlearned, loved or hated, each person has an appointment. It’s not enough to be a good person because that can’t take you to Heaven or keep you out of Hell. Everyone that is born, has an appointment.1 Corinthians 15:22. Hebrews 9:27. 

You have ONE appointment, but there are TWO deaths. 

You can fast as much as you like, pray as much as you want, but it doesn’t matter how good you live, you are going to die. If you don’t die, you can’t let go of the corruption of your flesh body. You must have that appointment with death; you can’t cancel it. When the body stops breathing and your soul goes back to God, that is the first death.

The second death is not momentary. It doesn’t last for just a second. It’s ongoing throughout all of eternity. It’s a death that will never end. You just keep dying and dying. The fear that comes with the first death, the second makes you feel that fear forever. If you go to Hell, a billion years can pass and you’ll still be dying.

“I’m a good person. Why would God let me go to Hell?”

He doesn’t let you go. You have to reject Him. He’s opened the door; you just have to walk through it. He’s paid the price, you just have to take the receipt. Revelation 2:11. If you will let Jesus into your heart, He will cancel that second death. 2 Samuel 14:14. 

1 Corinthians 15:21-22. If you keep the Adam name, you are going to die. But if you get the Christ name, death has to bow. Romans 5:12-21. If you hang on to that Adam name, eternal death and a burning Hell await you. So, say goodbye to the Adam family and take on your new name. 

Isaiah 62:2. Revelation 3:12. Is everyone just going to have a new name like when God changed Simon’s name to Peter? God says that He’s going to right upon us a name that no man will know. So, think about it more like this. Every person who lives in a house knows the code to the burglar alarm. God says, “I’m going to give you a name that they don’t know, but you will.” It’s not going to be Jim, Bob, or Larry. It’s going to be the name of Jesus.

When a baby is born, it takes the name of its father.

I am Paul Anthony Wynn. My father could have called me Peter or Harold, but he had to call me by my last name Wynn that I inherited from my father. My birth certificate could have said John or Henry, but it had to say Wynn.

Get your name changed.

You can’t just shake a preacher’s hand or join a church. You have to be born into the family. 

The U.S. Marshal service will take a person to use as a witness to lock up an enemy and then give the witness a new identity. It doesn’t matter how wicked your past was. Jesus has a U.S. Marshal’s office and He’ll use your witness to expose the works of the devil and then He’ll give you a new identity. 2 Corinthians 5:17. Isaiah 65:15. Jesus will kill the Adam nature and give you a new name. Revelation 2:17.

You can change your name through marriage. Surrendering your old identity to take on the name of your beloved.

You can get adopted. 

A woman can have a child, but the man she is with not be its father. That man can raise that child in his house and take care of that child, but that child does not have his last name. So, when he dies that child has no legal right to anything that man has. 

Wouldn’t it be sad to raise up in the house of God and on Judgment Day realize that you never took His name? 

That child has no legal right to anything that belongs to that man unless there is an adoption. Jesus came unto His own and they didn’t receive Him, so He looked at the Gentiles and said, “I want to give you my name.” Romans 8:23. 

This body has not been adopted back yet. We kneel at an altar and have a blister, we get saved and that blister will still be there. Godly people can suffer. This body can suffer because this body hasn’t been adopted back yet. But on that Day, when we put on incorruption, we will never be open to sickness and pain again.

So, questions for you: How are you and Jesus? Do you have that New Name?

– Pastor Anthony Wynn