GRAVE SUBJECT

 

 

 

I remember a line from a song by James Taylor that says, “Tell me lies, but hold me tight.”   In other words, tell me what I want to hear and don’t ruin our good time. The Bible does not tell us just what we want to hear, and it sometimes disagrees with the popular view.  Most churches profess to follow what the Bible says; yet there are many different churches with differing teachings. As you read this study, try to forget what you may have heard about the state of the dead and just open your mind to what the Bible says.  Many suppositions have been made about what happens after we die, but we don’t have to guess.  Let God tell you the Truth right from His Word.

 

The confusion about death started with our first parents.  Eve had wandered off and found herself near the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The first lie was told there.

 

Genesis 3:1  

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden´?"  The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.´"  "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.

 

We know that Adam and Eve did not die right away. but they did die eventually. God intended that they live forever, but sin put a wrench in that plan.

 

The question is: what happens when we die?  In order to answer this we need to start with a look at what life is. The Bible makes this very clear.

 

Genesis 2:7

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

This is a simple math problem. Adam’s body plus God’s breath equals a living soul. In other words, Adam does not have a soul.  He is a soul. Then he was a living one but now he’s a dead one.  Anybody without the breath of life in him/herself is no longer living, and the body returns to the ground from which it was taken.

 

Genesis 3:19

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

 

Remember the serpent telling Eve that she would not die?  He’s perpetuating that lie by making us think that our soul lives on after we die.  Let’s look at the Bible and see what it says about the dead.

 

Ecclesiastes 9:5

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.

 

Psalms 146:1-4  

Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul.  While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.  Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.  His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

 

This doesn’t refer to the fact that we stop breathing when we die. It’s talking about the thing in us that gives us life, “The Breath of Life”. Think of it this way: This breath is like a video tape. By itself it is nothing but plug it into a VCR and the picture on our TV screen comes alive with color, animation and sound. What makes you who you are is not lost when you die. It simply returns to God and He keeps it safe in His video library. When Jesus returns He can put that information into our new body, and we can live again.

 

1 Corinthians 15:51-54

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound; the dead will be raised imperishable; and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

 

We will get new bodies that will last forever. We will be given immortality. We will not all sleep, it said.  When Jesus returns some will still be alive, and they will never see even the temporary death.  Sleep here refers to death just like Jesus did.

 

John 11:11-14

These things said He: and after that He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.  Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

 

I have heard it said that our dead loved ones are with Jesus in heaven right now. That sounds nice and it may be comforting in some way but God has an even better plan. When we die it will be like sleeping. We’ll go to sleep and the next thing we will know is the second coming of Jesus. We don’t have to watch our loved ones left behind on this earth hurting nor be able to take part in their happy times. Satan wants us to believe that we don’t die, but that’s a lie.  Besides, if we die and go to heaven right away, then why would Jesus promise to come back and raise us from the dead?

 

Now, we’ve seen what happens to us when we die and that we don’t have to live in these same old bodies forever, but what about the people who decided not to accept Jesus and the salvation He bought for us with His own life?

 

Remember it was the “dead in Christ” who are raised at His second coming. Those who are alive but have denied Jesus can’t stand to look at Him and they   are destroyed simply by the brightness of His Coming.

 

2 Thessalonians 2:8

And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming:

 

Revelation 6:12-17

I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.  Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.  They called to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.  For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who can stand?"

 

Those who have rejected God’s gift will not be able to look at Jesus. They will want to die and that is what will happen to them. The saints, or followers of God, will be taken to heaven for a thousand years and then the Bible says,

 

Revelation 20:5-9

(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.  Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.  When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth – Gog and Magog – to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.  They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city He loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

 

At the end of the thousand years those who were dead will be raised up again. Then Satan will be set free for a short time. Satan has not literally been chained up by his circumstance. You see, for a thousand years he has been wandering around this earth with no one to pick on. The only thing left on earth is destruction and death. When the wicked dead are raised they prove their wickedness by following Satan in a last ditch but hopeless attempt to overthrow God. This vast army attacks God’s wonderful city, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, but fire comes down and devours them all. This, my friends, is hell. Hell is not a place, but an event. If you’ve ever devoured something such as a piece of your favorite pie, when you are done devouring, there is nothing left but a well-cleaned plate. God is Love.  He would not be able to see people burning forever. The punishment will be forever but not the punishing. 

 

Now, I realize there are texts in the Bible that seem to be saying something different, especially where it comes to the question of our soul.  An exhaustive study of this would take quite a while, but if you consider this one thing I believe you will see what is causing the problem. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. The words for soul in these two languages have multiple meanings or ways of translating them. In the Bible the words; Spirit, Breath and soul can all come from the same Greek or Hebrew word. The modern understanding of what a soul is does not mean that it is the Bible definition. We need to trust God not the traditions of man. God says we are living souls and that life is made up of a body plus God’s breath.

 

I hope this study is clear and that you are encouraged by knowing there is no such place as hell and that if you accept Jesus, the first thing you will see when you wake from the sleep of death will be Jesus coming with your reward of eternal life.

 

In our study so far we have been talking a lot about death and what happens after that, but what about life. In the next two studies we will find out some of the things the Bible says about what we are to be doing with this life we have now. Let’s move on then and look at Our Day.