HOW I CAN FACE DEATH With Hope and Peace

HOW I CAN FACE DEATH With Hope and Peace

In Genesis 2:17, God warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” In Revelation 21:4, the Apostle John heard a voice from heaven saying there will come a day when “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death.”  In between those two statements lie all of man’s efforts of man to avoid his inevitable date with death, but none have succeeded. The very moment a baby is born, it also begins to die. The delivery of a new baby from its mother’s womb will soon be matched with its burial in a grave or tomb. “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”  (Ecclesiastes 12: 7)

   The fear of death is the aggregate of all human fears. We do all we can to avoid it, we invest our time and energies fighting against it, and when it comes, we expend enormous resources trying to disguise the reality of it. Yet, as we walk away from the grave of our loved ones, we are reminded, “It is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27)

God never acts in judgment without cause. In Romans 6:23, the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death,” but this was not only the cessation of our physical life, but this death was the eternal separation from God.” Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned.”  One might complain that it is unfair to hold all men accountable for Adam’s sin, but in Romans 3:23, the Apostle Paul cleared that up with these words, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

The purpose of Christ’s death on the cross was to pay the wages God had established for man’s sin. In Isaiah 53:6, the prophet said it pleased God to lay upon the Lord the iniquity of us all. That was clarified by the Apostle in 1 Peter 3:18, where he said, Jesus was put to death for our sins, “that He might bring us to God.”

Therefore, though our human bodies will succumb to their scheduled expiration date, those who have put their faith in the Person and work of Jesus Christ; those who, by faith, have accepted Jesus’ death as the sufficient payment for their sins, will be carried into the very presence of God. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, the body returns to the dust from whence it came, but the spirit – that which gave that physical body its life, will return to the One who gave it.

Dutch pastor Abraham Kuyper wrote: “In the valley of the shadow of death, the great highway on which people walk divides itself, and continues on one side upward unto eternal life, and on the other with a declining path downward into eternal death.”

For those who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, their souls are taken to heaven. (John 3:16,18,36) In 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, and in Philippians 1:23, the Apostle Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.,” where they will join the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before them.

However, their physical bodies will remain in the grave – “sleeping,” if you will, until the day of the rapture. In 1 Corinthians 15:50-54, and in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, the Apostle Paul described how, on the day of the rapture of the Church, the bodies of all those who received Christ as their Savior since His resurrection, will then be resurrected, renewed into a glorified body, and reunited with their souls. The resurrection of the bodies of the Old Testament believers will occur at the end of the tribulation period when Jesus returns to earth to set up His millennial kingdom (Isaiah 26:19; Hosea 13:14).

The concept of “soul-sleep” – that after a person dies, their soul “sleeps” until the resurrection and final judgment, is not biblical. Sleeping is a way to describe physical death (John 11:11-13, Acts 7:60, 1 Corinthians 15:6).

But, even while asleep, our mental, emotional, spiritual, and often physical faculties are still active as we “dream!” In Hebrews 9:27, the writer made it clear, the moment a believer dies, they are in the presence of the Lord!

However, for those who do not receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, their souls are sent to a temporary holding place to await their final judgment. In Luke 16:22-23, Jesus described a rich man being tormented immediately after his death. In Revelation 20:11-15, the Apostle John saw the unbelieving dead being resurrected, judged at the Great White Throne, and then cast into the lake of fire.

Unbelievers, then, are not sent to hell (the lake of fire) immediately after death but rather are in a temporary realm of judgment and condemnation. However, even though unbelievers are not instantly sent to the lake of fire, their immediate fate after death is not a pleasant one. The rich man cried out, “I am in agony in this fire” (Luke 16:24).

Therefore, after death, everyone resides in a temporary heaven or hell.

• • The temporary heaven is called “Paradise” – Luke 23:43, 2 Corinthians 12:4.
  • The temporary hell is called “Hades” – Revelation 1:18, 20:13-14
  • However, souls aren’t “sleeping” in either place – physical bodies are.
  • Whether it is at the rapture of the Church or at the resurrection at the end of the Tribulation, all bodies will be awakened and transformed into eternal bodies, in which they will exist for eternity.
  • Those who were in Paradise will be sent to the new heaven and the new earth. Revelation 21:1.
  • Those who were in Hades will be thrown into the lack of fire. Revelation 20-11-15.
  • These are the eternal destinations of all people—based upon whether or not they trusted in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord – Matthew 25:46, John 3:36.

In John 5:28-29, the Apostle quoted Jesus as saying, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth!”  Without this promise, our Christian faith is in vain, and Jesus of Nazareth was the world’s greatest imposter. As the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”

Death may seem to triumph for a season as it enters into our homes and separates us from those nearest and dearest to us. However, death cannot be triumphant over a believer in Christ. The true child of God has lost all fear of death. We can face our graves unafraid, for we know that grave is our gateway to glory. For soon, and very soon, the graves shall be opened, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we will sing, “O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:55,57)

In John 11:26-26, Jesus walked up to the grave where Lazarus’ body laid, and He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Every person must search the Scriptures and come to their own conclusion of faith in what Jesus said. Those who believe in Him shall receive the power to live a victorious life on earth, as well as the promise of life after death.

Join us next week as we focus on “HOW HUSBANDS AND WIVES CAN STAY IN LOVE”.