Body, Soul & Spirit: A Matter of Life & Death __________________________________________________

1998 Rev. James D. Cunningham Please contact the author for permission before reprinting any portion of this book.Comments or questions about this book are welcomed and should be directed to the author at KJV_Gods_Word@Yahoo.com For accuracys sake, all Scripture verses have been quoted from the AUTHORIZED KING JAMES BIBLE whose copyright belongs to the Lord God and protected by the British Crown

Portions of this book have been quoted from The Rich Man and Lazarus and Spirits of the Dead reprinted by generous permission of Amazing Facts Inc. PO Box 1058 Roseville CA 95678

Medical Consultant: Dr. D. Levitats Reading books ranks as the second most boring thing to do in the world, while reading theological books ranks as the most brain-numbingly boring thing to do in the whole of the known universe. This is probably because most writers of theology assume the authority of a prophet, thinking that theyve singlehandedly and exclusively unlocked the ancient secrets of the subject of which they must at all cost pursuade the reader to understand and accept. This isnt always a bad thing, for many such writers have helped bring the Scriptures to life for us. The problem with theology books is that they presume to teach us Truth regarding how God and Mankind relate and interact with each other, and no two people seem to agree on what that truth is, and nobody likes being told what to believe, and those who do want to know the Truth are either too afraid to discover that long-held old truths are actually traditional falsehoods or they are too afraid to let go of those old truths once they have been proven to be falsehoods. This conflict makes theological books booooooring! In the forthcoming pages I do not speak as a prophet of secret wisdoms and understandings, but of clear thinking, logic and common sense. I know youre thinking, Good grief, that sounds even more boring! But I promise you, what you are about to read is anything but boring.

Now, the facts about death and the soul presented in this book may leave some readers feeling a little uncomfortable, especially after years of indoctrination of just the opposite. But the question and bottom line is whether we, as believers in the God of the Holy Scriptures, seek the Truth of His Majestic Word, or the fallible words of men. To those who seek the Truth, no difficulty will be had in accepting that Truth, and discarding fables. This book came about as a result of comparing the doctrines held by the Church-at-large to the doctrines of the infallible Holy Scriptures on the subject of death, and finding, curiously enough, that neither agreed with the other. Since the Bible is the Power of the Final Word on all matters, it is therefore upon Its precepts that I present this book as a refutation against the blind doctrines of man. There is no struggle or debate among men, no matter how devoutly fought, which can overthrow the Word of God; therefore, as both clear logic and good theology dictates, it is vastly better to surrender tradition in favor of Gods Truth, thereby taking heed to Christs own warning that ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your traditions, Matthew 15:1-9. Beware when anyone tells you to have an open mind. The key to absorbing Truth comes in having open eyes and an open heart. It is not absorbed by an open mind; for an open mind will tolerate willingly or unwillingly falsehoods, there to mingle with half truths to create deception. Deception brings death, but Truth, which is found solely in the Word of God, brings everlasting life. May God close our loose minds, remove the scales from our eyes, and turn our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh, that we may see with our eyes, understand with our hearts, and be converted in our minds, and live. My advice, as with all things, is that the Reader pray first before proceeding, that the Holy Spirit of God will confirm with your spirit whether Truth is here being taught. Now sit back, relax, take a deep breath, and get ready to view life and death in a whole different perspective: The Bibles. No one has yet discovered the fountain of youth, and neither has anyone been through that veil of death to return and tell us what it is like on the "other side". The only authentic information we have on this subject is found in the Great Book of God, The Bible. Unfolded here are the answers to questions that have plagued Man down through the ages. Piercing through the froth of human emotion and superstition, it will bring satisfying assurance for those who fear the future and who wonder what happens to the soul after death. To introduce this subject, we must first find the answer to one great, basic question; and if we can answer it correctly, all the other questions about death and the soul will open up like flowers in the sun. The really important question is this: Did God create Man with the inherent nature of MORTALITY or IMMORTALITY? According to the dictionary, mortal means "subject to death", and immortal means "not subject to death". Simply stated, we are asking whether God created Man with a nature that could die, or with the power of an endless life that cannot die. The answer to this significant question is found in Job 4:17, "Shall MORTAL man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" There is the word we are looking for. Man is Mortal. He is subject to death. God did not make Man without the capacity to deteriorate and die. Only God Himself has that inherent power of eternal existence: he is IMMORTAL. And rightly so, because that is one of the foundational points that differentiates Man from God. In fact, the only time that the word immortal is used in the Bible is when it is used in reference to God, such as 1st Timothy 1:17, "Now unto the King eternal, IMMORTAL, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever." The human family was not invested with a natural immortality. The Word of God assures us that only God has that

kind of nature. He is the Author of Life, the Source of all existence, as it is written in 1st Timothy 6:15, "King of kings and Lord of lords who ONLY hath IMMORTALITY." At this point, someone may raise another question on the subject of immortality. Is it possible that man just has a mortal body but an immortal soul living in his tabernacle of flesh? For, perhaps the "real" person isnt the body at all but rather an undying soul entity dwelling within that mortal body. Thats a good question; however, as we have just seen from the Scriptures, though it may confound everything we have believed, no one and nothing has immortality but God Himself. We need not puzzle over this point, for it is concisely settled by a number of Biblical texts, such as this passage from Ezekiel 18:4, "Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sinneth, IT SHALL DIE." This quite firmly establishes that the soul in not immortal by nature or it could not experience death. Since the word immortal means "NOT subject to death", there would be no question of death for a soul possessing an innate immortality. If a soul were immortal, the above verse would have no meaning. Jesus Himself declared that the soul could die in Matthew 10:28, "Fear Him which is able to destroy both SOUL and body in hell." By this clear statement, Christ places the matter beyond all question. The soul can and will die in the Lake of Fire. Therefore it cannot be immortal by nature. This, no doubt, is shocking to many people. The traditional view has been exactly the opposite of this. But, in all of the many hundreds of biblical occurrences of the word SOUL, not once is it referred to as being immortal, undying or unending. So where then did the doctrine come from? Most of us have heard the "soul that never dies" doctrine from our earliest childhood. When all the facts are gathered, one thing is certain it did not originate in the Scriptures. It has come to us over the centuries directly from pagan tradition and mythology, mainly through the compromises of the church and synagogue. The ancient Chinese tradition of ancestor worship is rooted in the belief that the soul does not die. Egyptian pyramid hieroglyphics reveal that the doctrine of the "naturally immortal soul" was basic to the worship of their sun god, Ra/Horus. In India, the Hindus believe in the reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul. African and West Indies Voodoo and Santeria ceremonies are built around the concept of the undying soul as a direct result of this doctrine. But anyone can say that any doctrine came from paganism; talk is cheap, so lets continue on with what Gods Word has to say about this. There is not one biblical text that supports a doctrine of consciousness after death; nevertheless the Bible does tell us how this doctrine got started in the first place and whom it was that preached the first sermon on the subject. In Genesis 3:1-4 we read, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

but the fruit of the Tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye DIE." And the serpent said unto the woman, " Ye shall NOT surely die!" Please note that someone disagreed with Almighty God. The Creator had explicitly decreed that sin would bring death, but Satan said just the opposite: ye shall NOT surely die. That was the first great lie that was ever told, and the one who told it has been trying to uphold it ever since. That serpents first sermon on natural immortality has been repeated many times throughout the years, often by theologians who ought to know better. A few years ago, Readers Digest featured an article entitled "There is no Death" by one of Americas most popular Christian ministers. The great preacher said EXACTLY what the great deceiver said to Eve: You dont really die at all! It may seem like death, but you really keep on living and youll know more afterwards than you ever did before! Can this doctrine be dangerous? Indeed, it involves much more than promulgating a false statement. The implications of this satanic teaching are far-reaching and eternal in consequence. Many will be lost because they do not understand the Truth about the nature of Man. Deception on this point opens a door that can flood the soul with darkness. The only protection we have is in the Truth of Gods Holy Word. Psalm 22:29 also shows that the soul is not immortal with these words, "All they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him, and none can keep alive his own soul." The clearest and most concise, inspired definition of death was written by King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:7, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Immediately we are struck by the word return. After death, everything reverts to the source from which it came. The body returns to the dust of the earth from which it was taken, and the spirit returns to God who gave it in the first place. Death is just the reverse or opposite of creation. It is easy for us to picture the process of bodily decay and decomposition. We understand very well that the physical components of the body are the same as that of the earth itself. When it is buried, the body reverts to the chemical elements of the ground from which the Creator took it in the beginning. But what about the spirit which returns to God? That is not so easy to understand. There is not a man in the world that can explain it with human wisdom. It is with God's wisdom from the Holy Scriptures that we can comprehend this crucial point. We read in the Epistle of James 2:26, "For as the BODY WITHOUT THE SPIRIT IS DEAD, so faith without works is dead also." The word SPIRIT, from the Hebrew word Ruach and the Greek word Pneuma, literally means Breath. This is very important. We take our English word Pneumonia from this because it is a disease of the lungs and of breathing. We have Pneumatic tires on our cars, so called because they are filled with air. Look at these other examples:

Pneogaster the respiratory tract Pneograph instrument for gauging lung breaths Pneoscope instrument for measuring the movement of the thorax when breathing Pneumaticity character of being buoyant caused by air cavities or inflation Pneumatocele hernia of the lungs Pneumatacyst the air pocket in sea creatures that assists in floating The Greek Pneuma and Hebrew Ruach, meaning Breath, are translated in our Bibles as spirit. Ghost is the same word. The use of the two different words generally has to do with the state of the body before death it is called a "spirit" and after death it is called a "ghost" (which is why scary stories always depict the spirits of the dead as "ghosts"). The Spirit of God is referred to as both the Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost, attesting to the life/death/resurrection of Jesus. The Greek for Holy Spirit is Hagios Pneumatos, literally meaning Holy Breath. The words breath and spirit are used interchangeably throughout the Bible. But, you may ask, why didnt the Bible translators simply use the word breath? Because the translators want you to understand that when they translate Pneuma or Ruach as SPIRIT, they are conveying the fact that the Biblical text is referring to the Breath of Life not the simple air we breathe. That Breath of Life is the power of God in us that makes us a living being. Job 27:3 says, "All the while my BREATH is in me, and the SPIRIT of God is in my nostrils." Now, it doesnt take a high level of intelligence to know that Job was describing the same thing by the words BREATH and SPIRIT. Man only has breath in his nostrils. In fact, in Genesis 2:7, that is exactly what God breathed into mans nostrils at creation: "And the Lord God formed Man out of the dust of the ground, AND BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE, and man became a living soul." Earlier, when King Solomon described the SPIRIT returning to God at death, he was referring specifically and only to the BREATH OF LIFE, for that was what God gave in the beginning and is therefore the only thing that can "return" to Him. Psalm 104:29 and Job 33:4 say, "Thou takest away their BREATH and they die and return to the earth; Thou sendest forth Thy SPIRIT, they are created." "The SPIRIT of God hath made me, and the BREATH of the Almighty hath given me life." Here God gives the SPIRIT to create, but Genesis said that God gave the BREATH to create. It only makes sense when we understand that the two words are used interchangeably and mean the same thing. Again, please take note that this spirit/breath is not the same as the Holy Spirit Himself, and neither is it the same as

the simple air that we breathe. This breath/spirit is the special life giving power of God, emanating expressly from His person, that makes the body a living and functioning organism. Read Genesis 2:7 again and try to visualize the act of creation: "The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground." We have no difficulty with this. We can see that lifeless body, perfectly formed and containing all of the elements necessary for life. But there was no life. The heart was there but it wasnt beating, the blood was there but it wasnt flowing, and the brain was there but it wasnt thinking. Then God added something to the body that He had made. He "breathed into his nostrils the BREATH OF LIFE, and man became a living soul". There are actually some that would insist that the soul and the spirit are basically the same thing. This is like saying that nitrogen and oxygen are the same simply because we cannot see them. The spirit and soul are quite different and have distinct functions, as different and distinct as the functions between the spirit and the body. In addition to the above verse in Genesis 2:7, which distinctly shows the individuality of the body and soul and spirit, the Apostle Paul also confirms their distinctiveness in 1st Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit AND soul AND body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul AND spirit, and of the joints and marrow.." Do not miss the significance of the words "and man became a living soul." They are often misconstrued. God did not put a soul into the body; He added only one thing breath/spirit. Then, as the result of that union of the body and spirit, man became a living soul. Many have accepted the traditional, but false, view that God put a soul into the body to create man. This is based entirely upon the common erroneous doctrine of all non-biblical religions. In the Bible, except in poetical usage, the soul does not wander in and out of the body, and neither can it have an independent existence outside of the body. Though the Greek word PSUCHE (pronounced sook), meaning life, is correctly translated in our Bibles as SOUL, some have drawn some very wrong conclusions, but only because they have applied a wrong definition to the word soul. People have been taught that the soul is naturally immortal, so each time they hear that word they presume something totally false and unbiblical. Only God is immortal. Isnt it just like Man to have the arrogance and presumption to lay claim to that which belongs to God alone? The soul is the conscious life that resulted when God added the breath/spirit to the body. It is that which makes the difference between something that is alive and something that is inanimate, between something that lives and something that is dead, between a human and, say, a nice hot cup of tea. A simple illustration may help us to see this truth more clearly. Let us liken the BODY to a light bulb. The electric current flowing into that bulb represents the BREATH/SPIRIT that God breathed into man at creation.

The light itself represents the SOUL which man became when the spirit entered the body. Now, turn off the light. What has happened? The current left the bulb and returned to its source, just as the SPIRIT returns to God. The bulb will eventually decay, just as the BODY will decay and return to dust. Where is the light? Did it go up into the electric socket? No, it simply ceased to exist when the power separated from the bulb. Then let us ask, where then is the SOUL when the spirit leaves the body at death? It ceases to exist until, at the resurrection, the Lord restores the breath of life to the body, as it is written in Psalm 49:7-9, "None of them can, by any means, redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him - (for the redemption of their SOUL is precious AND IT CEASETH FOR EVER ) - that he should still live forever and not see corruption." This should not sound so strange to us, now that we understand how everything "returns" at death to the way it was in the beginning. Before creation, Man did not exist in some Hindu-like disembodied form. Before creation, man had no personality, no consciousness, no existencenot until God created the body and added the spirit to it. AT THAT MOMENT man became a living soul; at that moment he came into existence. If man came to be as a result of the union of the body and the spirit, when does man cease to be? Surely at the breaking of that union of body and spirit by death. Suppose we have two things before us: Boards and nails. Drive the nails into the boards, making a box. Now we have three things before us: Boards, nails and a box Remove the nails from the boards Again we now only have two things before us: Boards and nails There is no box because it requires the union of the boards and nails for it to exist. The union of the spirit and body brings the soul into existence, and the separation of the spirit from the body causes the soul to once again cease to exist. The soul cannot exist if the power (the spirit) to live has been removed from the body. At death, the power is returned to Gods person (for it was His property), the body returns to the dust, and the state of that person is exactly as it was before its creation no life, no thought, no consciousness, no conscience, no emotion, no personality, no identity, no memory for it is dead. Even animals are referred to as souls in the Bible because they have the same power from God to make them live. They are given a spirit to live. In Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, King Solomon writes, "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts. Even one [the same] thing befalleth them: as one dieth, so dieth the other;

yea, they have all one [the same] breath. All go unto one [the same] place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" This does not mean, of course, that Man and animals have the same ultimate end. There will be a resurrection and judgment for Gods human creation, who are created in His Own image and who alone among the creations of God may be redeemed. But life comes from God, whether it be human or animal, and that life is referred to in the Bible as the SOUL. With this background, we are now ready to see what actually happens to the person who dies. In the Apostle Peters Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:34, he makes this strong statement about King David who had been dead for about a thousand years:

"For David is NOT ascended into the heavens." Now think of this for a moment. David had long ago died and, though often wayward, had received the assurance of forgiveness and salvation because of his faith. Why, then, was he not enjoying the bliss of heaven ten long centuries after his death? A few verses before this, in verse 29, Peter explains himself: "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried and his sepulcher [tomb] is with us unto this day." Peter clearly states that David has not ascended to heaven, but rather, he is right out there in his grave. If the "man after Gods own heart" had not yet received his reward 1000 years after his death, what about everyone else who has died? They too are right out there in their graves, awaiting the call of God in the resurrection. Jesus answered the people of His day in Luke 14:14, "Thou shalt be recompensed AT THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST." In Matthew 16:27 Jesus said, "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and THEN he shall reward every man according to his deeds." In simple, direct language, Jesus declared that NO ONE would be rewarded until the resurrection takes place at His

return. This means that none of the righteous dead has gone to heaven so far. More biblical proof on this is forthcoming, so read on. Please note in the previous verse by Matthew that it is the angels not we (as has been commonly taught in the church) who accompany Jesus at his return. All are waiting in their graves for the judgment at the end of the world. Almost the last words of the Bible, Revelation 22:12, confirm this fact, "Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his works shall be." In 1st Thessalonians 3:13 we read, "To the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God our Father AT THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST." 2 Thessalonians 1:7 tells us, "And you who are troubled, rest with us, WHEN THE LORD SHALL BE REVEALED FROM HEAVEN WITH HIS ANGELS." Again, in 1st Peter 5:4 we see, "And when the Chief Shepherd SHALL APPEAR, ye shall receive a crown of glory which fadeth not away." Also, in 1st Corinthians 4:5 it says, "Judge nothing before the time, UNTIL THE LORD COME, Who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart, AND THEN shall every man have praise of God." This Last Days reward is further described in 1st Corinthians 15:53, "And this mortal shall put on immortality" When does this happen? When we die? No, but instead, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, AT THE LAST TRUMP." This settles the issue of the time of the reward of the righteous, but what about the wicked? When will they be raised to give account and to receive judgment for their treason against God? Peter gives the answer in 2nd Peter 2:9, "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation,

AND TO RESERVE THE UNJUST UNTO THE DAY OF JUDGMENT TO BE PUNISHED." This verse tells us they are reserved somewhere.but where? In the fires of hell? In Purgatory? Jesus Himself gives the answer to that question in John 5:28-29, "Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are IN THE GRAVES shall hear His voice and come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Paul also tells us in Romans 2:56, "But after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasureth up unto thyself wrath against THE DAY OF WRATH AND REVELATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT OF GOD WHO WILL RENDER TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS." The Lord makes it quite plain that everyone would be reserved in their graves until called forth in the Resurrection to receive their just rewards. We know that the Resurrection of the Just takes place at the Lords return, but when are the wicked dead resurrected? This is told us by John in Revelation 20:4-5, who foresaw these events which occur at the end of the world, "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the Beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands BUT THE REST OF THE DEAD LIVED NOT AGAIN UNTIL THE THOUSAND YEARS WERE FINISHED." The "thousand years" spoken of here refers to the thousand year reign of Christ upon the earth after His physical return, during which time Lucifer is held a powerless prisoner in the Bottomless pit. According to Revelation, at the end of this time, Lucifer will be released, the physical universe will be brought to an end, Judgment will commence, and the wicked will be cast into the Lake of Fire along with their father Lucifer. It is at the end of this thousand years, Revelation tells us, that the wicked dead are resurrected to receive their judgment (the righteous dead had been resurrected at the beginning of the thousand years, when Jesus returned). So, to sum it up, when we die our bodies decay into the dust of the earth, our breath of life (spirit) returns to God who gave it, and our soul extinguishes until the Resurrection. The Resurrection of the Righteous occurs at Christs return, and the resurrection of the wicked commences 1000 years later, apparently so that they can be judged along with their father Lucifer when he is released from the Bottomless Pit.

The amazing message of the Bible, which is lacking in all of the other religions of the world, is that the saved and unsaved are resting in their graves until the Resurrection. No other religion has made such an astounding claim as the Bible has. We read in Job 14:12-13, "So man lieth down and raiseth not. TILL THE HEAVENS BE NO MORE they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that Thou wouldst hide me in THE GRAVE, that Thou wouldst keep me secret UNTIL THY WRATH BE PASSED, that Thou wouldst appoint me SET TIME AND REMEMBER ME! If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time WILL I WAIT UNTIL MY CHANGE COME. Thou shalt call and I will answer Thee. Thou shalt have a desire to the work of Thine hands." Such powerful words! Job has just described death. When we die, we wait in our graves until the Resurrection occurs after the Tribulation of the end times when "the heavens be no more" after "Thy wrath be passed" when "my change come". Job did not say that we would be up in heaven, or in hell, or in some Purgatory, when we die, but in our grave. He specifically describes a period - an "appointed time" - of unconscious sleep in the grave before awakening in the Resurrection to receive his reward after Gods wrath and indignation, the Tribulation, has swept across the earth. The great prophet Isaiah, 26:20-21, comes back with a resounding echo of this, "Come, My people! Enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee! Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until The Indignation be overpast! For, behold! the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain." Many biblically unlearned persons, who hold the same view as the Sadduccees, refer to this doctrine as the "Heresy of

Soul Sleep", and compare it to the blasphemous doctrines of the Jehovahs Witnesses. While it is true that the Jehovahs Witnesses have a vaguely similar teaching on this subject, their entire distorted concept of God and death are so far from the doctrines of Scripture that it cannot even compare, especially since they use a bible which they themselves created in order to support their invented doctrines. The Bible ITSELF refers to death as: SLEEP: 30 times SLEPT: 41 times SLEEPETH: 4 times SLEEPEST: 1 time ASLEEP: 7 times REST: 10 times If the doctrine of "soul sleep" is heresy, then the Bible has committed that heresy 93 times! However, as we all know, there is no error in Gods Word, therefore, the Bible is correct and the naysayers are the heretics. It is Gods Word that judges Man, it is not Man that judges Gods Word. In confirmation of this doctrine, Daniel 12:1-2 speaks of the coming of Messiah in these words, "At that time shall Thy people be deliveredand many of them that SLEEP IN THE DUST OF THE EARTH shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Job 17:16 says, "They shall go down to the bars of the pit WHEN OUR REST TOGETHER IS IN THE DUST." Isaiah 26:19 says, "The dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. AWAKE AND SING, YE THAT DWELL IN THE DUST!" There is a reason that the Bible writers so often spoke of death as sleep. "Sleep" is a perfect description of the state of the dead. When a tired person lies down at night he is soon wrapped in sleep. As far as he is concerned, from his perspective, the very next moment the rising sun awakens him. He is totally unconscious of anything that transpired while he slept. So it is with the sleep of death. The most explicit proof of this comes from Jesus Himself, when Lazarus had died in John 11:11-14. The disciples only knew that Lazarus was very ill and did not know that he had died yet. Jesus, knowing all things, told His disciples, "Our friend Lazarus SLEEPETH,

but I go that I may AWAKEN HIM OUT OF SLEEP. Then said His disciples, Lord, if he sleepeth he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his DEATH, but they thought that He had spoken of taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said unto them plainly: Lazarus is DEAD." Now, who will be the first in line to accuse Jesus of teaching heresy? Nobody? I thought not. This is a classic example of the true biblical teaching about death. It was Lucifer who said that we would not die. God said we would. The terror of death - the horror of the punishment which was decreed upon Adam and Eve for their defiance of Gods law - is that death is the state of non-existence. God brought us into existence and disobedience took us right back out of existence. The whole purpose of Christs death and resurrection is so that He would be able to BRING US BACK from non-existence. He could not simply call us back to existence, because His own law dictates that sin must be punished by death. Therefore, to appease His own law, the perfect and sinless Son of God surrendered His own life HE CEASED TO EXIST for three days. Jesus Himself said on the cross to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" When the sins of the world were placed on Jesus while He hung on that cross, the Father and the Holy Spirit BY HIS LAW had to literally separate, or disconnect, themselves from Jesus. Jesus, being a part of the Godhead, was MADE SIN for us, and since sin cannot be with God, Jesus was excised from the Godhead on our behalf for three days, during which time He the Creator of the Universe ceased His existence for His people. Then by the power of God, when the time was fulfilled and death was defeated, He RESURRECTED He returned to existence! And it is upon the belief in THAT DOCTRINE that He will resurrect us when He returns. What God is there who is like our God, to do such a mind boggling, breathtaking and courageous act! What love! What unspeakable glory! THAT is the act of a REAL God! Those that dare say that we do not die, that our souls are immortal, that we go on after death, are no more than the children of the father of lies; for they deny all the Wonder that Christ has done. So Jesus had called death "sleep". Later, as he stood by the tomb of Lazarus, He cried out, "Lazarus, come forth!" He did not say, "Lazarus, come DOWN!" Like King David, Lazarus was not up in heaven, nor anywhere else but inside the cage of his tomb. In response to the call of Jesus, the Author of Life, Lazarus awoke from his sleep of death and walked out into the sunlight. Many exaggerated tales have circulated about people who "come back from the dead", but this story and a few others like it in the Bible are the only authentic and legitimate stories on record. There is no doubt that Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus Himself had wept at his death, and Martha, the sister of Lazarus, had protested when Jesus ordered the stone to be removed from the door to the tomb, saying, "Lord, by this time he stinketh!" It is vital to understand why Jesus waited four whole days after Lazarus death to come to resurrect him. Jesus had received word that Lazarus was ill and near to death, but Jesus response was to go somewhere else and delay. Why? Why would He do that? Because there was a sickening doctrine going around Israel in those days which crept in from the surrounding pagan nations. That doctrine said that a soul hovers around a body for three days, trying to get back into the body; if it failed, it would then depart to some netherworld, or "Purgatory", as the Babylonian sorcerers called it. By waiting four days, the resurrection of Lazarus proved that God alone had absolute authority and control over matters of life and death. Many accounts of patients who resuscitate from, say, heart failure include dramatic recitals of glorious views of heaven. But here we have BIBLICAL PROOF of someone coming back from the dead. And what did Lazarus have to say about his four days of death. Did he report visions of heavenly reward? Did he speak of a tunnel of light, or of the glories of heaven, or of visitations from departed loved ones? He said not one word of such things. And why would he? He had been asleep, just as Jesus had said! It had been a moment of oblivion for him.

By the way, it is begged to be asked, if Lazarus was indeed in heaven, what kind of unspeakable terror would it have been for him to be ripped from the glory of the Fathers presence and brought back into this dark world again? Surely he would have pleaded to return, had he truly been there. A resumption of earthly life would have been worse than the horror of hell in comparison to 96 hours in Paradise! Certainly the Lord of all mercy would never play such a cruel and despicable trick on the friend He had only moments ago wept for. You have come almost halfway into this book. You will either have agreed with its content by now or you will be thinking that it is just a load of dingos kidneys. Maybe you are borderline on the issue and just arent quite sure. Regardless of your persuasion, let me give you a verse that will knock your socks off. A verse that confounds and refutes all doubt. A verse that is so profound that there is nothing you can do but agree with it or collapse in to relativism and say it cant be so. That verse is John 3:13, from the mouth of Jesus Himself. It says (are you ready.?), "NO MAN HATH ASCENDED UP TO HEAVEN BUT HE THAT CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, EVEN THE SON OF MAN, WHICH IS IN HEAVEN." No matter what your views, no matter your doctrine, no matter what your parent, pastor, priest, elder, or pope has told you, no matter what books youve read or what guru you have sought out NO ONE HAS ASCENDED UP TO HEAVEN but Jesus. Period. End of debate. God Himself has spoken it and no one can contest it. But I must sigh heavily here and explain that even this is not enough for some people who have filled themselves with doubt, rather than with the faith that Gods Word is true. Some will say that they still dont believe it because they have other verses that they think proves this verse to be a lie (for, after all, this verse is as straight forward as you can get, so therefore, if someone claims that there is something else that refutes this verse, they can do nothing less than call this verse a plain lie). So, let us continue and discuss these supposed contentious verses, shall we? Why do we find it so hard to believe the very simple terminology that the Bible writers use in describing death? Certainly we have no problem understanding the nature of sleep. Suppose a man lies fast asleep on a park bench. So soundly does he sleep that he is totally unaware of the stealthy approach of an attacker. In another moment the sleeping man lies dead in a pool of blood. Now, according to the traditional view of death, this man, who knew nothing while sleeping, suddenly knows everything as his soul floats away from his body like a helium balloon. But how can this be since the Bible says that it is - not the soul, in which lies the consciousness of man - but the SPIRIT which returns to God? If the man knew nothing while sleeping on that bench, he most certainly could not know anything more if he died in that sleep. He is dead, and therefore there is nothing for him to know further in this world until the Resurrection at the end of time when he will be returned to existence. He has perished, his mind and thoughts along with him, just as it is declared in Psalm 146:4, "His breath goeth forth, he returns to the earth: IN THAT VERY DAY HIS THOUGHTS PERISH." Once again the Bible defies the traditional view. The wise King Solomon spreads these incredible words of wisdom and light upon us in Ecclesiastes 9:5-6&10, "For the living know that they shall die, BUT THE DEAD KNOW NOT ANYTHING, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, hatred, and envy is NOW PERISHED. Neither have they any more a portion in ANYTHING that is done under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might: for there is NO work, NOR device, NOR knowledge, NOR wisdom IN THE GRAVE WITHER THOU GOEST." If one deliberately tried to produce stronger words to support a totally dreamless sleep in death, one would be hard pressed to match the words of Solomon, whom the Bible says is the wisest man to ever live AND that his wisdom came directly from God Himself. Suppose for a moment that the same forceful statement was made to assert CONSCIOUSNESS after death. In other words, suppose Solomon had instead said, "Their love, hatred and envy will CONTINUEfor there IS work, there IS device, there IS knowledge, there IS wisdom in the grave." Such a statement would silence this author and would be the total end of the issue. Such a statement would prove that there is in fact consciousness after death. But, not only does the Bible say no such thing, it repeatedly says the exact opposite. Isaiah, who gave us more prophecies about Jesus than any other single prophet, wrote in 38:18-19, "For the grave CANNOT praise Thee, death CANNOT celebrate Thee; they that go down to the pit CANNOT hope for Thy truth. The living! The living! HE shall praise Thee, as I do this day!" Would not the righteous dead praise God if they were truly ushered into heaven at death? The great king David answers in Psalm 115:17, "The dead PRAISE NOT the Lord, neither ANY that go down to the pit." And in Psalm 6:5 King David says, "For in death there is NO remembrance of Thee, In the grave, who shall give Thee thanks?" Yet again David says in Psalm 30:9, "What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it give Thee thanks?" There are many that sincerely believe that they have physical, eye witness proof that the dead appeared to them. They have the witness of their senses that they have actually conversed with departed loved ones. They can give the place, date and hour they were confronted by dead loved ones who are often reported to appear in the same form as when they were alive. What can be said about these manifestations?

First, let us imagine that the traditional life-after-death story is true, and we will see how contradictions nullify the possibility of it being reality. Under that doctrine, if a loved one which "appears" had received salvation from Christ, they would be worshipping at the feet of God and enjoying the bliss of heaven. If they had not received salvation, they would be burning in the fires of hell. Neither would be making deathbed cameo appearances. And since when has God stopped using His "ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels" to deliver messages on behalf of God to the living? There is not so much as one incident in the Bible of God sending a dead person to speak to the living. That duty is reserved for the ministering angels of God. And note these important verses in 1st John 4:2-3 and 2:22, which say, "Hereby know ye the spirit of God: Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, for this is the spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come and even now already is it in the world. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ; he is antichrist which denieth the Father and the Son." Rarely, if ever, is it claimed that departed loved ones spoke of Jesus Christ and salvation by Him. Although there are some that do turn to spiritualism and religion after seeing a vision, the apparition is never reported to have bared witness of Jesus to the dying person, and never have they fulfilled the requirement stated in the above verses. Therefore they cannot be whom they claim to be, and more importantly, they cannot be of God. Should we discount all such psychic appearances as mental apparitions of emotional and unstable individuals? Hardly. Sometimes forms DO appear and they have been verified countless times. In September of 1998, the worldwide pseudo-Christian TV network TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), issued an entire book filled to the brim with these near-death experiences with departed loved ones as a "love gift" for sending them money ("send us money and well love you"). But on the true and infallible Witness of God the Holy Scriptures we can categorically reject those stories as legitimate encounters between the living and the souls or spirits of the dead. King Solomon already told us earlier, "The dead know not anything, neither have they a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." The issue isnt whether or not someone actually encountered a vision; visions do occur! The issue is over WHO is appearing in those visions. Then who is appearing and making lying claims in the name of the innocent dead? From the biblical evidence, it could be only one of three things: angelic, demonic, or self-induced. The angels of God certainly would not waste their time impersonating the dead, and they wouldnt lie about it and say that they were someone from among the dead. Angels in the Bible from time to time appeared as humans to living men to give them a message or mission from God, but they never take on the form of the persons departed friends or family. More often than not, angels appear in the Bible in natural form which is anything but human. Nor were angels once human, and neither do humans become angels when they die, as a surprising number of people actually believe. Angels are separate creations of God which have great powers from God, powers that Man cannot understand, and one of those powers is the ability to take on other forms and appearances, especially that of Man. But angels who serve the Lord are not deceivers.

On the other hand, Lucifer and his fallen angels delight in deceiving Man through shape shifting and are described in Scripture as appearing in many guises such as a serpent, a cherub, an angel of light, a wolf, a lion, a whirlwind, a flood, a dragon, the Antichrist, and many other things to either mislead us or attack us. Who else but the Father of Lies would do such a thing, who built his first deception around the issue of death in the guise of a serpent. He boldly and defiantly contradicted Jesus, saying to the woman, "Ye shall NOT surely die." And if that old snake could deceive the perfect Adam and Eve, how much more will fallen Man be deceived by him! When death did follow, Satan made Adams descendents believe that it was just an illusion. By impersonating the dead, Satan has convinced Man that he was right and God was wrong. He certainly tricked King Saul when he appeared as the High Priest Samuel (1 Samuel 28:7-20), giving the God-forsaken king the idea that witches, mediums and necromancers have power to call up the dead and not just ANY dead, but the saints of the Almighty! Rest assured that Satan will pay for his treachery against the Word of God, but I fear that We the Church will have to answer to God for spreading Satans lies. Beware of anything that comes to you and claims to be from the dead! It is written that Jesus alone holds the keys to the grave and death; and to have keys to the grave and death implies that the grave and death is LOCKED. And now we also know that they will not be UNLOCKED until the resurrection. Jesus said in Revelation 1:18 & 3:7, "I Am He that liveth and was dead; and behold, I Am alive for evermore, Amen! And I have the Keys of Hell [the grave] and of Death. He that openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth." There are some other factors to consider as well, such as the high probability that an apparition is self-induced. Many people who have "Near Death Experiences" claim to have wondrous visions of the other side. But as a colleague of mine once said, "Being NEAR Chicago isnt the same as being IN Chicago." If you are NEAR death, you arent dead. If you were completely dead, your spirit would have departed from you, as it is clearly written, and therefore your body would have no conscious memory or thought, because there would be no mind there for you to even perceive such a vision. Remember we read earlier that King David said of the dead, "In that very day their thoughts perish," and King Solomon said, "The dead know not anything." So just what are these visions and apparitions? Most people who revive on their deathbeds, who claim to have had visions, arent gone very long. A doctor may declare you to be dead, but you may not necessarily be totally dead. Your brain and body can still be working off bits of oxygen it received when the heart stopped, like a car running on fumes when it runs out of gas. A stopped heart does not necessarily a dead person make, else they couldnt be revived to tell us of these "Near Death Experiences"! If you can be revived, that means that your spirit has not yet left you, which in turn means that you are not dead and you are still a living soul. In a distressed condition, medical research has proven time and again that the mind can imagine anything. Usually this is a defensive act of the body under extreme trauma. The sleep that we take every night is a shadow of death, a daily reminder of our mortality; and just as we dream up images that we cannot control while we sleep, so too may we envision things when we are comatose and moving toward the gates of death. Brain scans cannot be 100% effective in determining whether someone is dead because death is only half-physical. Death is also a spiritual event, and there is no tool on earth to measure that. Some people who have been jolted suddenly and without warning by a threat of death (such as a near miss by a car), will often say that their whole life flashed before their eyes. Instantly every memory of importance leaps to the forefront of their conscious mind at the same time as though it were trying to escape through their ear and rescue itself, like a log buoy containing a ships historical records which is jettisoned from a ship when there is eminent threat of destruction. Other people claim to see a tunnel of light or a tunnel with light at the end of it. This is often explained away as a person passing from this world into heaven. Thanks to both the Scriptures and to modern medical science (for Christ is the Chief Physician), we now know this to be merely an effect of the mind. So, though the visions and apparitions could easily be demonic, it could just as easily be self-induced. But either way,

dont blame the dead; they are resting peacefully in their graves awaiting the Resurrection. Now here is an incredible but true story as told by a minister "A woman who served with her husband as missionaries in Africa for many years was living in an isolated Mission Station. A fatal tropical disease killed their three-year-old daughter, and they buried her on the hillside across from the station. A few days later, the mother was sitting in the kitchen when suddenly the door burst open and her little girl ran across the room to throw herself into her mothers arms." Can you imagine yourself under that kind of traumatic horror? To make matters worse, the child cried out, "Mommy! Im not dead! Im not dead!" Fortunately that Christian mother knew the truth about death, and God gave her the extraordinary strength and power to pray instantly for deliverance from that satanic masquerade. When she called upon the name of the Lord Jesus, the form disappeared. It is instances such as this that the Bible warns us about when it commands us not to be ignorant of Satans devices. We must recognize his ability to manipulate the minds of men and women with deceit. God has given us a weapon against him a Sword, which is the Word of God, the Bible. Jesus and the prophets and apostles used the Scriptures in all instances when contending with the Devil because it is the Power of the Almighty, against which Satan is powerless. Satan knows this. We should not and cannot be a disgraceful soldier of Christ, with a rusty sword and armor. Satans loophole into your life is based on your ignorance of Gods Word. Knowledge of Gods Word is mandatory for your safety and sanity. There are certain, specific doctrines that are the foundation of our faith as Christians. Part of that foundation is the doctrine concerning death, because death is at the very heart of the whole message of the Scriptures. The whole purpose of why Jesus came was to defeat death and the power of Satan. All of eternity hinges on the issue of life and death. This is why it is so important to properly understand what death is. True, if you let it, the subject of death could appear to be a rather morbid and depressing one. But once you have solidly set your feet upon the Living Rock, death will appear rather puny. It is pain, not death, that people are usually afraid of; but once you have the Word of God reigning in your heart, you will be able to separate the fear of pain from the reality of death and you will realize that death, while not a good thing, is actually powerless over you, in the eternal sense, because Jesus Christ has conquered it and brought it into subjection. And if Christ has total power over death and it is subject to Him, so much so that He holds the keys to its doors, what then is there for a believer to fear? A dark tunnel is scary because you cannot see inside of it, you do not know what you will find in it, you do not know where the exit on the other side is, and you do not know where that exit will lead. But if the owner of the tunnel bears light with him as he traverses the entire length of it and then emerges with the assurance that you will be safe inside from all harm, then you know that you have nothing to fear when you enter it and that you will be completely safe while you sleep inside it. So it is with death; for Christ descended into it, conquered its darkness, and has come out of it alive with victory and power and ownership over it. To the wicked, that dark place of death will exit out into the condemnation of an eternal living death in the Lake of Fire. But for the righteous, the Lord will come and stand at the other side of death and call to you, and you will hear His voice and come out into the eternal presence of the Lord who will personally greet you when you emerge from it. THAT is the experience of the Resurrection. That is the true "light at the end of the tunnel." But understand now more fully the purpose of death. Death does more than just put an end to ones life; it also puts an end to SINNING. Death is not merely the end result of sin, it is the end of sin. The end of sins is the purpose for deaths existence, and when sin and sinners are finally wiped from creation, death itself will meet its end. When man sins, sin must be crushed along with its vessel. As it is written in the law, when a person sinned they had to be brought outside the camp of Israel and put to death so as not to contaminate the People of God and the camp. They are "cut off from among the people". God will not tolerate sin in His presence, and if He is to dwell with us then there can be no sin permitted among us either. But man is born in sin as the offspring of sinners, and therefore all men must die. There is nothing that can stop it. There is none that can escape it, from the most wretched sinner to the holiest man of God. But the gift of eternal life through faith in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus then guarantees us birth from death. Even as Jesus is called

"The first born from the dead," so too shall we be born from death, called out of oblivion by God Himself never to sin or be defiled again, in our regenerated body which cannot be corrupted and therefore can never die, as prophesied by Job 19:26, "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reigns be consumed within me." But if man must die because of sin in accordance with the law of God, how then can man obtain eternal life in his own body, even if it is transformed to be incorruptible? We cannot simply say, "Because God can do anything". There are in fact some things that God cannot do. God cannot sin and He cannot brake His own law. Why cant He brake His law, especially if He made it? Because Gods law and Gods identity are one and the same. God IS the law, just as Jesus IS the Word of God (the Word and the Law are the same, you see). God made man in His own image, therefore if it is a sin for man to break the law, it is a sin for God to break the law. Since God cannot sin, He therefore cannot break the law, especially since sin is specifically the breaking of the law. He can no sooner brake His law than He can cease to be God, which can never happen because He is and always will be God, as it is written, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever." So then, how can God circumvent His own Law and bestow eternal life on condemned Man? Actually, He cannot circumvent His law for the same reason He cannot brake His law; BUT, as Jesus pointed out when referring to marriage, death ends all covenants. Once man has died, his covenant with sin has ended. The Law no longer binds him to the covenant, as it is written in Isaiah 28:15&18, "You have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we in agreement [but] your covenant with death shall be disannulled and your agreement with hell shall not stand." However, there is still the complication of eternal reward/punishment. It is not merely enough that man should die, because death is just the end of SIN. The death of the entire human race as a whole is a curse that cannot be undone due to the inherent sin nature of man passed down from our first parents. Even if a man was perfect all his days and in all his ways, even if he kept every commandment and was totally righteous before God, he must still die because his very flesh his DNA, if you will - bares contamination FROM BIRTH. It is still in his blood, and should he have children, that same sin nature will pass to them. That is the law, and that is the curse bestowed upon Adam and Eve and all their children without exception. (We will discuss Elijah, who did not die, later in this discussion). Man must also be ACCOUNTABLE for his INDIVIDUAL sin, hence reward and punishment. So not only is man condemned to die a physical death for the sin passed on from Adam and Eve, but he is also condemned to eternal punishment for his own sins. Since the Bible tells us that all sins are equal before God, and equally condemned with a death sentence, then even if a man only breaks one law - that is, even if he commits only one sin - during his entire life, that one sin automatically condemns him by the Law to eternal separation from God. Committing a single white lie and committing mass murder are equal to each other because the same Law which says "thou shalt not bear false witness" also says "thou shalt not kill." Working on Saturday and committing rape are equal to each other because the same Law which says "remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy" also says "thou shalt not commit adultery." If you dont commit mass

murder but tell a white lie, you are still a violator of the Law; and if you work on the Lords Day and yet do not rape, you have still violated the Law. You are guilty, as James 2:10 profoundly tells us, as it is written in James 2:10 (yes, in the NEW Testament), "For whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said Do not commit adultery also said Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the Law." However, just as we issue different degrees of punishments to suit different crimes, so it would appear from the Scriptures that there are different degrees of punishments and rewards in the Final Judgment. We are given several examples of this in Scripture, for example, Matthew 10:14, "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment, than for that city." Matthew 11:11, "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Matthew 23:14, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites! For ye devour widows houses and for a pretense make long prayer; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." The Bible is rather silent about what these degrees of reward or punishment entail; but when I was a child my godly mother gave me an example to help me understand. Suppose you are in a room full of millions of people, and Jesus is seated at the head of the room. The room is heaven and the millions of people are the followers of Christ. Would you rather be right up front next to Him, or way in the back by the door? Sure, no matter where you are in the room it is still heaven, but wouldnt you rather be closer to Jesus than further away? Now of course this was a simple parable for a small child to understand, but nevertheless you can clearly see the point. Now let us continue. So, the question is, if Gods law condemns all of Mankind to physical death because of his sins, and, if God cannot break or circumvent that law by indefinitely stopping physical death, how then can man escape his punishment of eternal death in the Lake of Fire? By God relinquishing His immortality and standing in mans place as a man, and then taking all of mans sin upon Himself and sacrificing Himself to death, thereby ending the covenant of the Law of Sin and Death and making neither Man nor God subject any longer to it; and then, by bringing HIMSELF back to life, with the old covenant now dead because of His death, He can make a whole new covenant with man based on the Law

of the Spirit of Life. By believing in this act of God, the curse is deflected from the believing sinner to Jesus on the cross, and the righteousness of Jesus is bestowed on them, and their condemnation to eternal punishment is washed away by the proxy death that God accomplished to appease the old covenant, as it is written in Romans 8:1-2, "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit; for the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death."

Man will die physically for the reasons just stated, but by Christs death and his subsequent and explicit creation of a whole new covenant, Man can escape eternal death. God has literally cut death off at the pass. So now, consider for a moment how confusing and contradictory it would be if rewards and punishments were NOW being applied to the dead. What then would be the purpose of a resurrection or judgment at the end of time? Why even have them if each soul has already been sent to its fate? A final judgment would be meaningless. All the pious assurances heard at funerals about loved ones in heaven are simply repetitions of Satans first lie to the human family. The portrayal of imaginary, immaterial souls flying away from the body at death is certainly no source of comfort for me. How about you? Paul described the exact time when the righteous will be with the Lord in 1st Thessalonians 4:13-18, and concluded with the words, "Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Here Paul gives a perfect, inspired picture of true comfort, and we need to understand clearly what Paul was referring to that would bring about such comfort for us. It is THE comfort with which to console ALL believers on the matters of death, therefore it implies that there is no other version of comfort regarding death. The previous few verses before this give us the famous words, "I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air:

and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Paul here describes without limitation the way and means by which all believers will ever be with the Lord. Do not overlook the words and so in his statement. It means "in this way". By those two little words, Paul precludes EVERY OTHER WAY of being with the Lord. When he described the return of the Lord and the Resurrection as being the manner and means of being with the Lord, he automatically excluded ALL OTHER possible means. Then, he admonishes us to comfort each other with these words. There can be no comfort in the false concept that some invisible, intangible soul leaves the body at death to be punished or rewarded like something out of THE TWILIGHT ZONE or THE X-FILES sci-fi shows. Is it reassuring to you, is it a comfort, to think that your unsaved departed loved ones are at this moment suffering in the flames of unquenchable fire? Is there solace in the picture of saved loved ones looking down from heaven on the heart breaking circumstances of those left behind? No wonder Paul was so specific in describing the return of the Lord and the Resurrection as the ONLY way that ANYONE can be with the Lord. Yes, there will be an awakening from the sleep of death. The righteous will receive the gift of immortality promised when we accepted Jesus as Lord, Savior and Messiah and finally bestowed "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the LAST trump; for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed; for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality," 1st Corinthians 15:52-53. Please note that our beings become incorruptible and immortal at the Resurrection, which means that it is not incorruptible and immortal now, neither at our deaths. Remember that Jesus said in John 5:28-29, "For the hour is coming when all that are in THE GRAVES shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life, and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation." All the dead will rise to face the great decree of the Judgment of God. Whether they died a thousand years or five minutes before the Lords return, it will seem to them as though only a moment has passed; just as a sleeping person senses no time while he sleeps a full nights rest and appears to awake only moments after falling asleep; and just as the prophet Isaiah 26:20 says, "Come, My people! Enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee! Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until The Indignation be overpast! For, behold! the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain." I wrote a letter on this subject to a very well known San Antonio Texas minister who is seen worldwide on Christian television. Having always enjoyed his somewhat Southern style of preaching coupled with a solid fundamental foundation, I was quite shocked when I received a reply on his behalf from his Director of Ministry Services, who said, "We do not believe in a bodily resurrection, but in the resurrection

of an immortal body. Hopefully, most people can see the fact that a decomposed body cannot resurrect to be united with the soul Since the soul is spirit, I would not recognize your soul, but I would recognize you provided you had a body." What fresh unintelligible gobble-dee-gook is this?! This poor director speaks without knowledge, for first of all, how can you not believe in a bodily resurrection yet believe in the resurrection of an immortal body? He of course is implying that our present body will not be resurrected. But if an immortal body were in fact immortal, why then would it need to be resurrected? It would not have died in the first place if it were immortal. Only a mortal body can die, therefore it is our mortal body that is resurrected. It is in the act of Resurrection that the mortal body then puts on immortality. If a decomposed body cannot resurrect, then the Bible is lying when it says that Jesus resurrected Lazarus body after being buried for four days and had begun to stink. And if a mangled and mutilated body cannot be resurrected, then Jesus body, which Isaiah 52:14 says was mutilated worse than any other mans body, could not have been resurrected. And if Christ were not resurrected, then Moses, Isaiah, all of the prophets and apostles, and the entire Bible is a lie and we are lost and our faith is in vain. When we are resurrected, it is in this very body we occupy now. We see this proof by the resurrection of Jesus Himself, when He showed Thomas the nail prints that were still in His hands and the spear wound that was still in His side. It was the same body He died with, only now glorified and made spiritual and immortal. Did we not read earlier what Isaiah 26:19 said? "The dead shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise". And what Job19:26 said"And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God". The dear director was so off the mark that he missed the dart board completely! How this miracle of bodily resurrection can be is a great mystery of God. As a mere man I cannot fully grasp the magnitude of it. But I believe the best we can come to understanding the make-up of this resurrected body is to compare it somewhat to the make-up of angelic bodies. I do not say that it is the same as an angelic body, but possibly merely similar, as a way to express the concept. Angels are most definitely spirits. Yet they dwell in both the spiritual AND physical realm, having the ability to put on either a spiritual or a physical (solid and tangible) body. There are many times in the Scriptures where we see angels physically touching humans even slapping poor Jacob on the hip so hard that it dislocated it. Another angel had to slap Peter to wake him from his sleep in prison. We also see in Genesis 6:1-4 that angels, though forbidden to do so, have at least the ability to procreate with humans. Jesus Himself reflected this type of body when, after appearing to the disciples and 500 others beside, and after eating real food with them, and allowing them to touch his body, He then ascended up to heaven PHYSICALLY and VANISHED passing from the physical to the spiritual. Secondly, no ones body mortal or immortal - resurrects to be united with the soul, as he implies. The body is reunited with the SPIRIT, and the two TOGETHER by the express power of God calls the soul back into existence. Thirdly, the director states that the soul is spirit. Hopefully he is not implying and I do not believe that he is that the soul and spirit are the same. Rather, I believe he is saying that the soul is of a spirit nature. To that I disagree. A spirit is a spirit, and that which is not a spirit is not a spirit. Something cannot be a kinda-sorta spirit. It is or it isnt. What it is, in fact, is INVISIBLE. We have oxygen and other such things which are invisible, but that certainly does not make them spirit. The body is visible, the soul is invisible, and the breath of life is spirit. One is seen, one is not seen, and one is expressed. The body, soul and spirit are each unique and therefore are of a unique consistency. They each have their own make-up or "body", as it is written in 1st Corinthians 15:35, "But some will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare

grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain but [the point is that] God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but [rather] there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds; there are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption and it is raised in incorruption, it is sown in dishonor and it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness and it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body and it is raised a spiritual body there is a natural body AND there is a spiritual body." Bear in mind this extremely important fact. When the Resurrection takes place at Christs return, this is NOT the end of the world. The Book of Revelation clearly tells us that Christ, upon His return and after our resurrection, will immediately turn His attention to the Antichrist and his kingdom, which, at that moment, will be surrounding Israel in order to pounce on it. We will have risen up into the air to meet the Lord as He returns with all of His angels, and then He will fight against the Antichrist and his armies. There will be such a slaughter that the blood of the wicked "shall reach unto the horses bridle". At this time, we are told that Christ will pluck up the Antichrist and the False Prophet and cast them headlong into the Lake of Fire. Proceeding this, Christ will have Lucifer bound and cast into the Bottomless pit for one thousand years, during which time Christ will sit on the throne of David with the Resurrected at His side in Jerusalem, and the people of the earth outside of Jerusalem will bring Him tribute "year by year" throughout the Millennium. During all of this 1000 year time period, the resurrected believers, along with those faithful who were alive and remained and were caught up together with the Resurrected, will reign over THIS earth with Christ from Jerusalem. We are quite clearly in our resurrected bodies while dwelling on this planet with the other people of the earth. There will be enforced peace on earth during that thousand-year reign, during which time the nations of the earth will have

increased in population. When the thousand years are concluded, Lucifer is then released from the Pit, from whence he will immediately gather the nations of man against Christ and His resurrected Faithful in Jerusalem. Once again the enemy will be poised to pounce on Jerusalem and in one swift blow Christ destroys them all and brings the known universe to an end, at which time judgment commences. So this gives us some perspective as to what our resurrected bodies will be like. Our bodies will be both a physical AND a spiritual one. The director, in his letter, apparently has no concept of this when he finishes with the absurd notion that we may or may not be able to recognize one another depending on what body we have. Neither does he have a concept of what our relational status will be, both with God and with each other. We know from Christs words to the Sadduccees that we will NOT have traditional relations, such as marriage and procreation. Matthew 22:29 says, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God: for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." Recognition of one another will be irrelevant because in the Resurrection our various relationships with family and friends drastically alter to a single relationship with the entire Body of Christ which consists of all believers. Grasp this concept: we are going to be ONE BODY together, the Bride of Christ, so that our love for each other, though we were once strangers in the world, will be exceedingly superior to anything we ever felt for any relative or friend or spouse! It is a relationship that goes beyond anything we can comprehend in this world. There will be no "There is my mom" or "There is my wife" or "There are my children". There will be no shyness as among strangers. We will be and act as one unit and one mind, and we will be one with God, just as Jesus prayed at the Passover to the Father about His disciples and all they that would hear His Word at their mouths and be saved, in John 17:20, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one; as Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us and the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one even as We are one: I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one." Some have questioned the way in which Christ can restore the broken, decayed bodies of all the ages passed. Some were blown to bits, others were burned in fires, and some have gone down to the depths of the sea. Will it be any problem for the Supreme, Almighty, All Powerful, Omnipotent Creator of the universe to restore each personality? If God can restore that which was lost in Eden, then He most certainly can re-form that which He created in the first place, you can be sure. We may not be able to fully understand the process, but that doesnt mean that we cant believe it. There are many things, such as television, computers and microwave ovens, that are a complete mystery to the average person who benefits from them but that doesnt keep us from believing in them. In fact, Faith is the act of believing something real but which cannot be seen or understood. If mundane things baffle us, how then can we possibly expect to grasp resurrection power? Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:12,

"If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly thing?" We can have total faith that God will restore life to all the dead, for "without faith it is impossible to please God," and, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin," Hebrews 11:6 and Romans 14:23. Before we go on to review the chief objections people have raised against this doctrine on death, let us take a step back and review the 4 Rules that God has set down for reading His Word which the Church tends to neglect miserably when debating doctrine. 2nd Timothy 2:5, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING the Word of Truth." The Bible the "Word of Truth" - is a Book to be STUDIED. It is not a Book for the casual reader, as the promoters of the new bible versions would have us to believe. The Bible contains the majesty, the light, and the wisdom of the Almighty God and should be treated as such. Study requires in-depth digging, probing, research and concentration. NOT ONLY is the Bible inspired [that is, dictated word for word] by the Holy Spirit, but its comprehension is REVEALED by Him as well. Let me explain. As a person grows stronger in their walk with the Lord, the Bible comes alive in stages. Each person is different and progresses as their own pace depending on where they are in their life and in their walk with God, and the Holy Spirit devotes personal time to teach us individually. The Holy Spirit bars comprehension of certain parts of the Scriptures until He, as a Good Teacher, knows you are ready to move on from all that He has so far taught you. An example of this is grade school. All twelve years of education are packed into the Bible. As you begin reading as a new believer in Christ, you will generally find yourself at 1st grade level. As you mature in the Lord, the Holy Spirit graduates you to the next grade level. You will never comprehend 10th grade knowledge and wisdom in 3rd grade, because, as in any other area of life, experience is a key factor, which involves discipline, trial and error, and that alone takes time (it took the Hebrews 40 years of wandering through the desert before they got it right!). In the beginning of your relationship with God, it is required that you start on milk, and only the Holy Spirit knows when you are ready for meat. Romans 10:17, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The more we study Gods Word with the intent of seeking His kingdom and righteousness (for there are many who study the Bible without any intent of knowing God) the bolder our faith becomes. Faith is an integral part of the learning process. If you cannot trust God, then you cannot trust His Word or His promises, and you most certainly will not be able to trust in the profound and heavenly things of God that seem to be merely fairy tales to the heathen. Many people have "faith". They believe what their religion tells them. But only faith developed specifically by the study of the Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will keep you from the pitfalls of false doctrine. Isaiah 28:10, "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Echoing the first rules "rightly dividing the Word of Truth", Isaiah warns us that we can not pick and choose what to believe from the Bible, but rather, the entire Bible must be studied CIRCUMSPECTLY; that is, taking the whole Scriptures to form our doctrines. We must build doctrine in layers. Each bit of doctrine will be supported by the doctrine before it and will support the doctrine ahead of it. "Line upon line," he says. 2 Peter 1:20, "No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation." How many times have you tried sharing Scripture with someone and they gave you the tired old line, "Well, thats just YOUR interpretation"? I have heard this many times. Apparently some people are under the impression that the Bible

is subjective, that it can be interpreted individually, so that ten people can read the same passage and come away with ten different interpretations. If those interpretations are harmonious, then it is good because Gods Word is in fact multi-dimensional; but if they contradict, then someones interpretation is wrong. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but no one has the right to their own Truth, because Truth is universal. Peter, in this verse, tries to explain that, when God revealed His Word to the prophets, they wrote what He said NOT what they thought He said. They did not write their own private interpretation of what God said. When we study Gods Word and then preach what we have learned, we must be sure that we are not preaching our own private interpretation. What if, for example, the whole Church believes in a specific doctrine, but you have fully explored the Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and have discovered that the Church believes a false doctrine? The church may turn on you and say that you are privately interpreting the Scriptures since everyone else disagrees with you. How do we safeguard against this? How do we know whether our understanding of Scripture is correct and someone elses is wrong, or vice versa? By rightly dividing the Word of Truth. To do so, you must ask these questions about a doctrine: What does the Church in general believe about it? Is there substantial biblical proof and confirmation for that doctrine? Is there any substantial biblical data that can contradict that doctrine? Are there biblical proofs that the evidence used in support of that doctrine is being taken out of context and used inappropriately? Take, for example, the Jehovahs Witnesses claim that blood transfusions are a sin. What does the Church in general believe about this? The church in general has never objected to blood transfusions and does not see it as sin; then again, the church also tends to act on personal feelings and opinions instead of referencing Gods Word. So we ask the second question: Is there substantial biblical proof and confirmation that blood transfusions are a sin? The Jehovahs Witnesses present their proof, that Acts 15:20 specifically commands us to abstain from blood, implying that taking blood into your body from an outside source is therefore forbidden. In fairness, regardless of what we might think of the Jehovahs Witnesses, we should give this doctrine due consideration and investigate it with the next question: Is there any substantial biblical data that can contradict that doctrine? Well, we find in several places in the Bible that "The life is in the blood", which would seem to almost be a cryptic message that would support blood transfusions, specifically because transfusions save lives. But that view, though logical, can be debated with other bits of logic, such as the argument that it is BECAUSE "the life is in the blood" that we should NOT do transfusions. So, we ask the final question: Are there any biblical proofs that their evidence of Act 15:20, which they use in support of the doctrine of banning transfusions, is being taken out of context and used inappropriately? To answer that question we must inspect their proposed evidence; in this case, Acts 15:20. Here we discover that the Apostles have gathered to discuss which of Old Testament laws the newly converted Gentiles must observe. The most important issue was circumcision, and they threw that one out the window almost immediately because circumcision was the seal of the Old Covenant and now baptism is the seal of the New Covenant. In fact, Paul was so disgusted with circumcision that he refers to those who continue to do it as "The Concision", meaning "The Mutilators." You are asking yourself what this has to do with blood transfusions. A lot. If you will examine what I just said about circumcision you will note that the Apostles were referencing the law which gave them the blood ordinance of circumcision. They went to the SOURCE of the law of circumcision the Old Covenant. So like wise, we must go to

the source of the law pertaining to blood in order to understand what they were referring to when they said "abstain from blood". When we inspect the Old Covenant we discover that the law only prohibited the eating of blood. Eating blood and receiving a blood transfusion have virtually no relation to each other. Blood that is eaten is dead blood and passes out as waste. Eating blood was something done in the rituals of pagans, representing life stolen from a victim. A blood transfusion on the other hand is living blood transferred from one body to another intravenously, giving life to someone who may have died without it. So then, a circumspect study of the Bible, line upon line and precept upon precept, having rightly divided the Word of Truth, shows that we cannot support the doctrine or the evidence proposed by Jehovahs Witnesses in regard to their condemnation of blood transfusions. They are therefore wrong. The information I have provided thus far about death and the soul will seem like Truth to some. But to others it will not seem like Truth because they have fairly applied to my data the question, "Are there biblical proofs that the evidence in support of this doctrine is being taken out of context and used inappropriately?" They have found other verses in the Bible that appear to contradict what I am teaching. So, we will review those verses to see whether or not they actually contradict. The first objection that we will study is the story of the two men on the cross beside Jesus in Luke 23:29-43. From this story it is claimed that we go directly to heaven (or hell) after death. The incident went like this: "And one of the malefactors, which was hanged, railed on Jesus, saying, If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us! But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we, indeed, justly! For we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man [Jesus] hath done nothing amiss! And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." To the unstudied eye, it would seem as though this verse does indeed contradict the doctrine I have presented in this book. The problem with this is that I have also provided dozens of biblical proofs for the doctrine I am presenting; therefore we should examine this verse to see why it apparently contradicts all of the other biblical evidence. First, we must understand what has just taken place in this story. One of the criminals mocked and berated Jesus, but the other one defended Christ, saying, "Hey, leave Him alone! We have sinned and are rightly receiving our due punishment. But Jesus is innocent; so, Lord, remember me when you enter into Your kingdom." What has this man done by saying these words? He has confessed that he is a sinner and worthy of death, and he acknowledged that Jesus is Lord and King which is exactly what is required to receive salvation! He has now become a believer and a member of the Body of Christ. In response, Jesus then turns to this man, who is the only person to acknowledge Him for who He truly is, and the only one who will receive the promise of eternal life on this hot and terrible Passover day as the mobs and the soldiers mock Him and all of His followers have run away to hide, and He says to this dear man hanging at His side.well, lets see exactly what He said. In the New Testament Textus Receptus Greek, Jesus said,

amen legw soi, shmeron met emu essh en tw paradeisw (Amen lego soy, saymeron met emoo essay en toe paradeheeso) This is translated in our Bibles as, "Verily I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in paradise." The word "saymeron" means now, to [the] day, henceforth, from this day onward. As an example I will use NOW in two different sentences: It is 6pm right NOW. Here is your diploma; NOW you will be able to get a good job. The Greek word "saymeron" means the same as the "now" in the second sentence. What Jesus said was "Amen I say to you, now / henceforth / to day you will be with me in Paradise! Good show old boy, you made it!" But, besides the Greek grammar, how do we know that I didnt just make that up to support my view? How do we know that it isnt merely my subjective interpretation? What biblical proof have I to back this up? The proof is this. Three days after the events of this story take place, Jesus arose from the dead and told Mary Magdalene, in John 20:17, "Do not touch Me, for I am not yet ascended to My Father!" If Jesus told the man that they would be in paradise together the very day they died, then why is He telling Mary that he hasnt even been to the father yet after three days? Because Jesus did not say that they would go to paradise that very day. The only place they went that day was to their graves. Jesus and the man had died, which means, as I have proven throughout this book, their breath/spirit returned to God who gave it, and their soul ceased to exist. But there are still objections. One objection is that I am presuming that the Father is in Paradise. But what if paradise is somewhere else. What if Jesus and the man went there when they died? How can I insist that their soul ceased to exist when I havent explored this possibility? I will explore it with you now and guarantee you that the Father is indeed in Paradise. As the real image of what the Garden of Eden only mirrored, Revelation 2:7 says that the Tree of Life is located in Paradise. Revelation 22:2 says that the Tree of Life grows from the shores of the River of Life flowing from the Fathers Throne. This clearly places the Fathers presence in Paradise. Since Jesus flatly stated that He had not yet been to the Father, this also means that He has not been to Paradise; and therefore by process of deduction, neither did the man on the cross. So, did Jesus lie then to the man? Not at all. Jesus simply told the man that he had achieved eternal reward; and that promise will be fulfilled in due time as foretold in the Scriptures when Jesus returns and the man is resurrected. Because the Church has started with the circular argument that we go directly to heaven after death, this story of the man on the cross has been taken out of context as a means of support. This story does not confirm the Churchs conclusions. Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles, anticipating his own death, said the following in 2nd Timothy 4:6-8, "For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.

HENCEFORTH there is LAID UP for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me AT THAT DAY; and not to me only, but unto all them that love HIS APPEARING." Paul did not say that he would receive his reward after he died. We receive our reward at the APPEARING of Jesus, when He will sit as JUDGE over all mankind "at that day", which is the Judgment Day at the end of the world. And just like the receptive criminal on the cross, Paul focused his hope of eternal reward upon the coming of Christs kingdom. The second objection used by many is the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, and much debate has taken place over whether Jesus intended for this to be understood literally or as a parable. Unfortunately, many modern religious teachers have isolated this story from its original context, violating Gods rules of Scripture study, using it as a device to scare people into heaven. Salvation is obtained by a true appreciation and understanding of Gods character and what He did for us, in addition to understanding our relationship to Him. Scare tactics does not obtain salvation. If someone can be frightened into heaven, he can be frightened right back out and sadly this happens all the time. Before we can study this section of Scripture, we must first decide finally whether this is a literal event or whether this is a parable. We do not need to actually read the story to discover the answer to this. Jesus knew the value of parables in teaching the people. He desired to stimulate their deepest thought and contemplation, and he knew that if he spoke too literally as the Pharisees and Sadduccees did, certain of His hearers would quickly become frustrated and forget His words. Not only that, but others for whom certain of His parables contained strong rebuke would be so angered by straight speaking that they would have tried to silence Him with violence. Jesus spoke to the people constantly in parables, fulfilling the Messianic prophecy of Psalm 78:2, "I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter dark sayings of old." Those who teach that this story of the rich man and Lazarus is a literal event stand contrary to the Scriptures, which say in Mark 4:33-34, "And with many such parables spake He the Word unto them as they were able to hear: BUT WITHOUT A PARABLE SPAKE HE NOT UNTO THEM." There we have it. This story MUST be a parable because it clearly states that Jesus did not speak to the people UNLESS it was by parable. Dont get mad at me, I didnt write the Bible. It is appropriate to first ask, to whom was Jesus speaking this parable? Which category of people was He dealing with? Just a few verses before the parable begins tell us, "And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard these things and derided Him." So, Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, a class of men who were notorious throughout the Scriptures for their refusal to deal honestly with Him and the Truth He taught. We can be sure that, of all the people that Jesus taught, none were handled more guardedly than the wily Pharisees were. They dealt in deception and subterfuge, but Jesus dealt with them wisely and truthfully. The safest way for Him to do this was by parable and allegory. Evidence that the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadduccees, rabbis and the Sanhedrin did not fully understand Him can be found in Jesus prayer to the Father in Luke 10:21, in which He said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Now we are ready to examine the parable itself and try to understand the meaning and message that Jesus was trying to convey. "There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day; and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich mans table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores." Given that this is a parable, who were the rich man and Lazarus meant to represent? The Hebrews had been blessed beyond measure with a knowledge of God and His plan of salvation for all mankind. They had, according to Paul in Romans 9:4, received "the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." Only the Hebrew people refer to Abraham as "Father Abraham", as we will see the rich man do shortly. The Hebrew nation is clearly represented by the character of the rich man, and the ever-wise Jesus boldly struck the Pharisees with it. By contrast, Lazarus personifies all those people in spiritual poverty the Gentiles with whom the Hebrews were commanded to share their heritage and inheritance. The words of the prophet Isaiah 49:6 were well known to them, "I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be My salvation unto the ends of the earth." Unfortunately, the Hebrews had not shared their spiritual wealth with the Gentiles at all. They prided themselves on the knowledge that they were "the chosen ones" which they most certainly were and are but they had forgotten just what it was that they had been chosen for. Moses told them clearly in Leviticus 25:10, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." Isaiah commanded them in 61:1 to "proclaim liberty to the captives." Instead, the Hebrews considered all the inhabitants thereof to be nothing more than dogs that would have to be satisfied with the mere crumbs which fell from their table. The metaphor was so well know that even the Gentiles themselves were aware of it, and Jesus used it when testing the faith of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:25, "Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me! But Jesus answered and said, It is not meet to take the childrens bread and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters table. In this parable it is quite plain that the Hebrews were the spiritually rich masters and the Gentiles were the begging

dogs. The Hebrews had hoarded the Truth, and in so doing had corrupted themselves as Paul states in Romans 1:18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, WHO HOLD THE TRUTH IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them." Only moments before Jesus related the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, He had rebuked the Pharisees for their spiritual conceit in Luke 16:15, "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your heart; for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." And as we saw before, we are specifically told that the Pharisees derided Jesus because they were covetous. And what was to be the end result of this terrible conceit they harbored? "and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried away into Abrahams bosom; the rich man died also and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame! But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and thou art tormented; and besides this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from here to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from there." To further illustrate how the rich man represents the Hebrew people, note that Abraham refers to the rich man as "son". Jesus, earlier, had brilliantly explained how this Gentile, Lazarus, could dwell with Abraham, while many of the Chosen People would not have that honor, in Matthew 8:11, "And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven;

but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Also notice that, even now in the flames of hell, the rich man still looks upon Lazarus as a mere dog by suggesting that Lazarus should run along like a good little servant and fetch him some water. The rich man requested that Abraham command him, still feeling too conceited to ask Lazarus directly. The Hebrews had enjoyed the good life on earth, but had done nothing to bless or enrich their spiritually starving neighbors, as they were commanded to do, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." No further reward was due them, as it is written in Luke 6:24, "Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation! Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger!" Conversely, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," as symbolized by Lazarus. The Gentiles who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be filled. The "dogs" which were so despised by the Pharisees would enter heaven before they did, as it is written in Mathew 21:31, "Verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you!" The parable concludes with the rich man begging for his brethren to be warned against sharing his fate. Asking Abraham to once more send the "dog" Lazarus on this mission, he alleges that "if one went unto them from the dead they will repent." But Abraham, knowing full well that miracles have never been enough to convince his people of the Truth, responded to the rich man, "if they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from dead!" Jesus thus rebukes the Pharisees for their gross disregard of the Scriptures, foreseeing that even a supernatural event would not change the hearts of those who persistently reject Moses and the Prophets. The point is further driven home when both the real Lazarus and Jesus Himself are raised from the dead, and they still refused to believe. Now, if this story were NOT referring to the Hebrews and the Gentiles, but to a literal event, then we have some very serious doctrinal problems on our hands. Scripture is very clear that salvation comes only through faith in Messiah Jesus, and not by deeds, financial status, or station in life. God is no respecter of persons. Yet Abrahams words in this story would imply, if it were a true story, that Lazarus EARNED his reward because he was poor in this world, and the rich man EARNED hell because he was rich in this world. Every pagan religion in the world promotes a doctrine of salvation through works and deeds, and the Bible vehemently denies it. Further problems arise with a literal interpretation of this event. Can we believe that the saints of either the New or Old Testaments are now or ever were truly in the bosom of Abraham? Abrahams Bosom is believed by many to be a literal spiritual realm where the deceased Old Testament believers went until Jesus rose from the dead, from there to be taken with Jesus up to heaven. But the parable clearly shows that the rich man saw the PERSON of Abraham and the PERSON of Lazarus and gives no indication that this is a realm called "Abrahams Bosom". And if they all are in Abrahams bosom, in whose bosom was Abraham, since obviously in this story he was not with God? And if there is a great gulf fixed between them, how then could they possibly hear one another across it? Perhaps even more disturbing to consider, how can the righteous enjoy the comforts of heaven while enduring the eternal "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth" of those being punished in hell? There is yet one more dilemma that comes from a literal view. If this parable is to be taken as a real event, apparently neither of the two men spent any time in their graves, having been whisked away rather quickly to their respective places of reward. Their bodies had to have gone along with them, for we find the rich man LIFTING HIS EYES, and desiring to have HIS TONGUE cooled by a drop of water from the FINGER TIP of Lazarus who was resting in the BOSOM of Abraham! Now enough graves have been exhumed in recent years to know that the bodies of the dead are carried neither to heaven or hell, or any other place, after burial. They finally turn to dust just as God said they would. Remember also that King David told us that, in the very day we die, our thoughts perish. If that is so, how then could Abraham and the rich man commune with one another?

What in fact is happening here is that Jesus has invented an example in the form of a parable, using the realities of Heaven and the Lake of Fire AT THE END OF TIME when everyone has been sent to their final destination. The fictional conversation between Abraham and the rich man was simply created to educate and reprimand the Pharisees, which is exactly what a parable is for. To take this parable literally is to call Peter a liar for saying that King David was still in his tomb and had not yet ascended to heaven. Peter, AFTER Jesus had resurrected, stated that David was still in his tomb; therefore Jesus did not go to some spiritual holding place during His three days of death to collect Old Testament believers and bring them to heaven. If He had, I wonder where all of those people were when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene three days later and told her that He hadnt yet been to the Father. If we are to believe in such things, then what is there to keep us from believing in the doctrine of Purgatory, which says that after death our souls go to a spiritual torture chamber of fire to burn for the sins which Jesus apparently was not powerful enough to overcome by His death and resurrection; and then, after enough people have paid the church enough money to say prayers for you (if you happened to be lucky enough to have people actually pay for prayers for you), then after a time you will be released to move on to heaven. That is not just ignorant, it is blasphemous. Interestingly enough, it was this very doctrine which caused the Protestant Reformation in the first place. The Catholic priest, Martin Luther, was distraught that Rome was charging people money to pray for souls in Purgatory, called "indulgences", even though the Bible said that the dead cease to exist until the Resurrection. Who then were they praying for? No one. The poor squandered their money on the prayers while the church indulged itself on every finery they could buy with it. Meanwhile the dead remained peacefully in their graves, just as God had said they were. Had they listened to the infallible Word of the Holy Father in heaven which was spoken at the mouth of Peter, it would have saved a lot of bloodshed and misery. It is sad to say that the lesson is stilled not learned, as millions light candles and kneel before statues, praying to dead people and asking them to bring other dead people out of Purgatory. But no one hears their prayers because only God is in heaven, and God does not hear prayers that are not to Him, as it is written, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him ONLY shalt thou serve." They pray to the Queen of Heaven, but she does not hear them because Jeremiah 44:16-28 tells us that God curses those who pray to her. The apparent confusion regarding the belief that Jesus went to a spiritual realm after His death comes from a misunderstanding of 1st Peter 3:18-20, "For Christ also hath suffered once for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit by which He also went and preached unto the spirits in prison, who sometimes were disobedient when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing, wherein few that is, eight souls were saved by water." By these verses it has been preached that Christ descended into the lower regions of the earth or a spiritual realm to preach to lost souls that were imprisoned in some Purgatory or limbo. But how can ones soul be preached to after death. We have already seen what happens to the soul after death. We also know that the lost ARE lost for eternity if they rejected Christ in this life. There is no second chance after the death of the body. Whats more, this verse says that it was to SPIRITS - not souls that He preached. These could not be human spirits because the spirits of the dead return to Gods possession at death. Lets examine this verse to see just what happened. It says "Christ hath once suffered for sin that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh". Us refers to those who accepted Christ, not the lost.

"but quickened by the Spirit by which He went and preached unto the spirits in prison". Notice HOW Christ preached to these spirits in prison: he did it by His Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit since it is capitalized in our Bibles. So, whatever preaching Jesus did here was not done literally by Himself but through the Holy Spirit. Just who are these spirits in prison, then, if they are not the spirits of men? The Bible mentions only three types of spirits: The Holy Spirit, the human spirit, and angels. The Holy Spirit can never be imprisoned, for He is God. The human SOUL is sometimes referred to as being in the prison house of sin while the person is still living, but never the spirit. That leaves us with angels. Angels of God willingly work in the service of the Lord and are not in any prison. It was the fallen angels, the devils, who turned against God to follow Lucifer, and they are OFTEN referred to as being bound in some form of prison. We are told in Revelation that there are devils bound at the bottom of the Euphrates River and that there are legions of devils bound in the Bottomless Pit. Jude 1:6 tells us that there are devils who "kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, whom God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the Great Day." But, lets look again to see WHEN the spirits were preached to, and this will help us better identify them. "When once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing". The preaching was done during Noahs day, as he was building the ark 4500 years ago. One explanation is that Christ through the Holy Spirit was present while Noah preached to speak conviction to the spirits of those wicked people and appeal to them to come into the ark. Ive no doubt that this is true, but there is something else more probable as it pertains to this verse. In Genesis 6 we see that the angelic Nephalim, meaning "the fallen ones" or "fallen angels", began to horribly corrupt the people by mating with human women. Verse 9 points out that Noah was chosen for two reasons: He was a just man who walked with God, and, he was perfect in his generations (that is, the ancestral line from Adam to Noah was uncontaminated by the Nephalim, and therefore he would bring none of their bloodline with him through the flood and into the new world afterward). In fact, so perfect was Noahs genealogy that the very meaning of the names of his ancestors bare a hidden prophecy about the mortality of man and the coming Messiah: Adam "Man" Seth "is appointed" Enos "to be mortal" Cainan "and fixed to it" Mahalaleel "The Great God" Jared "shall come down" Enoch "teaching" Methuselah "His death shall bring" Lamech "lamentations" Noah "and rest."

These wicked spirits, who mated with the women of Noahs day, were immediately banished and imprisoned by God, as told us in 2nd Peter 2:4-5, "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains to be reserved unto the Judgment, and spared not the Old World, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly." Furthermore, we cannot let religiosity get in the way of our thinking. "Preaching" involves much more than sharing the "Good News". Throughout the Bible, preaching specifically involved any pronouncement of punishment for sin or a warning of judgment to fall. It is likely that the Holy Spirit went to those demonic spirits in prison in Noahs day, declaring to them their defeat by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; time has no meaning to the Lord, for "a thousand years are but a day and a day but a thousand years" to Him. The Holy Spirit moves back and forth through time like we move through air. This is why the Scriptures can says in Revelation 13:8 that Christ is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." The beginning and the end are already complete from Gods view. To help us perceive this, here is an example I once heard. Say you are in a parade. You can only see a little ways behind you and in front of you. But say you are in a blimp flying over the parade route. From that vantage point, you can see the beginning AND the end of the entire parade, and at any given moment at any point along the parade you can see what is happening before anyone else. Add to that an ability to know the hearts and minds of everyone in and around the parade. You would then be able to send a signal to the people at any particular point of the parade route to tell them that you see an out-of-control automobile which will collide with them when they reach a certain place in the parade route. You would also be able to come down at any point along that parade route, deflect the maniacal car, return to the skies, and come down again in a totally different place, as often as you so chose to do. That is how God sees the past, present and future, albeit on a much grander scale because I am trying to use a finite one-dimensional example to explain an infinite multi-dimensional God. It is like trying to compare the surface of a flat pane of glass to the surface of a multifaceted diamond. The Holy Spirit can be at Jerusalem in the year AD 33 at one moment, then at Mt. Ararat in the year 2500 BC the next moment, and at the United States in the 21st Century the very next moment. What an awesome God. There is none like Him. To the point, there is nothing here to imply or indicate that Jesus left His body after death to take a joy ride somewhere to have tea and crumpets with some spirits. Jesus was DEAD for those three days, which means He could not go anywhere. That is the point and purpose of His sacrifice for us, to take on Himself what would and should have happened to US death and oblivion. Some people also believe and teach that Jesus was tormented by devils in hell during his time of death. This belief is a mish-mash of several doctrines, all of which has been made into confusion. First, remember that the devils are just as afraid of hell fire as anyone else (Matthew 8:29, Mark 5:7, Luke 8:28), if not more so because they know that there is no salvation for them and they cannot escape that destiny. Hell is not their natural habitat but their future place of damnation. They do not hover about hell torturing lost souls as they depict in Saturday morning cartoons. The devil does not dwell there, but instead he is "walking to and fro on the earth seeking whom he may devour" and deceiving mankind, leading the living away from Jesus to sin and death. Jesus did not descend into a fiery hell to take the keys of the grave and of death from Lucifer. Jesus has those keys by virtue of His having conquered death by His resurrection. He is the "first Begotten of the Dead." Death could not hold Him bound, and, in revulsion to the Life that Jesus is, Death vomited Him out after three days like the fish who gave up Jonah, and then Death died in childbirth (or more likely it committed suicide, for those with a good sense of

humor). The Hebrews are under the impression that Messiah will only come once, in all of His glory, to stamp out the enemies of Israel. They have a very difficult time understanding that Messiah is foretold by the prophets to come twice; the first time in a lowly state to die for our sins and destroy the works of Satan, and the second time in all His glory to destroy the wicked and reign over the earth. This same confusion reigns in the Church regarding the first and second Hell. The church is under the impression that, after death, the Righteous goes to heaven and the wicked burn in hell until the resurrection where they are judged and sent to the Lake of Fire to burn some more. Anyone with eyes can see how totally contradictory this is. The word "hell" literally means "the grave" or "the place of the dead", and is the relative English equivalent of the Greek word Hades. Like the mythology of Hades among the pagans of Greece, the Church has managed to attribute consciousness to those in hell, as though it were an underworld of tormented lost souls. The Bible refutes this and instead refers specifically to two different deaths and two different hells/graves: The first death is the human death we all will encounter, which is a temporary banishment from existence and separation from God (as Jesus cried "My God My God, why hast thou forsaken Me!"). Death is the separation of man from God; in the case of the first death, it lasts until the resurrection the first resurrection being the raising of the believers at the beginning of Christs thousand year reign, and the second resurrection being the raising of the wicked at the end of Christs thousand year reign. The first hell is the grave we are buried in, or rather, the state of being dead regardless of whether your body is in a grave or blown to a million pieces. There is no consciousness in that hell as was made quite plain earlier in this book. There is no spirit there to maintain life, for it has returned to God; therefore, as Solomon clearly stated, there is no thought, no pain, no joy or anything conscious whatsoever in that hell/grave. It is where the soul perishes and is the resting-place of the body. The first hell is the grave of oblivion for the lost and saved. There is no fire of torment here. The second death comes at the Great Judgment at the end of time, when the wicked are condemned to eternity apart from God. As we saw earlier, the wicked are resurrected which means their body and soul has returned to existence at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ for judgment. Eternity will be a literal living death; they will be conscious without the breath of God in them, as it is written, "Fear Him who hath power to cast both soul and body into hell." Notice there is no mention of the spirit being thrown into hell, because the spirit belongs to God and has returned to Gods person. Because of this fact, they will never again feel God, an everlasting agony of loneliness and terror and pain. Revelation 2:11 promises that "he that overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death." Revelation 20:6 says, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the 1st Resurrection: on such the 2nd death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years." The reason that those in the 1st resurrection will be blessed is because the second resurrection, occurring at the end of the thousand years, will consist only of the wicked who will be raised for judgment. The second hell/grave is the Lake of Fire. Here the fire of God Himself consumes the wicked, as it is written in Hebrews 12:29, "the Lord our God is a consuming fire." It is not merely fire, but the wrath of God itself. In its flames the Scriptures tell us that the wicked will curse God and there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is the second grave. We are told that, when God and His Bride begin eternity together, the realm of the Lake of Fire and all that is within it will be forgotten by all, including God, forever. There will never be a remembrance of sin nor of sinners. How terrifying it will be. Imagine how heartbroken the Lord will be to have to consign anyone there, knowing that throughout eternity He must forsake them and will them out of His memory. To the puny minds of men this may seem like an extreme punishment, but one must understand that the greatness of a sin is equal to the greatness of the One against whom it is committed. If an ant dares to strike at the foot of a man, the ant will be crushed in vengeance. And if a man dares affront the Almighty God his Creator, justice demands that such an unrepentant and impudent sinner be crushed. God, being perfect, is Just in His judgment, as the angel in Revelation 16:5 said, "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art and wast and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus! For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy!" Paul loved his people so much

and was so terrified at the thought of the Hebrews having to spend eternity in the hell of the Lake of Fire, that he said that he wished that he himself could go there in their place if there was the chance that it could spare his people from that fate. He could not, of course, because Jesus loved them even more than Paul and that sacrifice was already made by Messiah, and they rejected it; but do you see the magnitude of the whole picture? Do you see why it is so vital that we obey the great commission of Christ, to preach the Gospel unto every creature, to give everyone the opportunity to escape the eternal nightmare? Do you love your neighbor like Paul did, to the extent that you would be willing to spend eternity in Hell if you could, if it would save someone else from it? Think on it. So Jesus did not descend into a fiery hell to be tormented by devils because the first hell does not involve fire and the devils do not dwell there. The devils dwell in the spiritual death that all men dwell in who have not been born again through faith in Jesus Christ by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Another verse taken out of context, turned upside down, and abused beyond belief in support of the false "life-inheaven-or-hell-after-death" doctrine, is 2nd Corinthians 5:8, "We are confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." First, Paul did not say, "To be absent from the body IS to be present with the Lord." But since most Christians somehow see the word "IS" instead of the word "and", well work from that perspective. You may refill your teacup at this time before we continue. I am. As we have seen earlier, and after applying Gods "line upon line" rules, we know that, from the perspective of the dead, a mere moment will pass from the time they died to the time they will see Jesus face to face in either the first or second resurrections. But those who quote this verse ignore the verses that accompany it. Those verses explain EXACTLY when we will be with the Lord after being absent from the body. Bare in mind that Paul had already said "and SO shall we ever be with the Lord" after He explained the resurrection at Christs second coming. So why then would he suddenly throw out that major doctrine and say instead that we will be with the Lord when we die, as the Church insists? Examination of his whole statement will show that he made no claim to being present with the Lord immediately upon death. Here now are his words, "We are confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. WHEREFORE we labor, that WHETHER PRESENT OR ABSENT, we may be accepted of Him; FOR WE MUST ALL APPEAR BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST that EVERYONE may receive the things done in his body according to that which he hath done, whether good or bad." Paul is stating again what he has always said before, that rewards are issued at the Judgment after the Resurrection not at our deaths. Just how, pray tell, can you be with the Lord BEFORE the Judgment if Jesus said in Matthew 25 that it is AT the Judgment that the Lord says to the righteous, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of the Lord"? Another objection raised is in regard to the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the Mt. of Transfiguration centuries after their historical lifetimes. There of course is no problem with Elijah being there because the Bible says that he

never died, (where he is now only God knows, as He said in Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong unto the Lord" God has a right to His secrets). But Moses? True, Deuteronomy says that he died before the Hebrews entered the Promised Land. But in a curious move, God Himself buried Moses and no one knows where. The mystery is a bit foggy, but the Bible does shed the slightest bit of light on the subject. In Jude 1:9 we read a bizarre but spectacular event, "Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke thee!" Is it possible that Moses may have been resurrected? It would seem a logical conclusion. Why else would Lucifer and Michael be fighting over the body of Moses? Surely the resurrection of Moses is something that Satan would try to put a stop to, though it would be as futile as trying to stop Christs resurrection. But why would Satan want to stop Moses resurrection? Because of prophecy. There are several Scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments which seem to indicate that it will be Moses and Elijah who are to be the two great prophets of God foretold to come and withstand the Antichrist just before the return of Jesus. During their three and a half year ministry on earth, they will stand in Jerusalem and unleash plagues against the Antichrist and his followers. In Revelation, we see that neither of them has yet received their immortality, for they are both killed by the Antichrist. Looking at all of the other Scriptures regarding death, the resurrection of Moses is the only logical explanation currently available. How about the 24 Elders upon the thrones in Revelation, and what are they doing there if we do not ascend to heaven after death? You must understand that John was recording future events, not current ones. The whole of Revelation is about the end of time and that which follows. According to the evidence available to us in the Scriptures, it would appear that the 24 Elders are: THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS OF ISRAEL Judah Simeon Reuben Levi Gad Issachar Asshur Zebulon Nephthali

Benjamin Mannassah Joseph THE TWELVE APOSTLES OF JESUS Peter Bartholomew James Matthew Levi John James the Less Andrew Thaddeus Judas Philip Simon Thomas Paul This is supported by a number of verses, such as Luke 22:29-30, "And I appoint unto you a kingdom as My Father hath appointed unto Me, that ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit upon 12 Thrones judging the 12 Tribes of Israel." And Matthew 19:28 which tells us, "Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 Tribes of Israel." Revelation 21 indicates their eternal importance by stating that the very names of the 12 Apostles and the 12 Patriarchs will be inscribed over the pearl doors and in the gemstone foundations of New Jerusalem. If John had looked closely enough, he would have seen himself sitting in one of those thrones, for it was the future that he saw. But, you may ask, what of the souls under the altar in heaven crying for revenge in Revelation 6:9-11? Earlier in this

book I mentioned that the Greek word "Psuche", meaning "life" is translated in our Bibles as "SOUL". This same word is "Nephesh" in Hebrew. You can verify all of these words and their definitions in your Strongs concordance. This is going to get a little complicated, so hang in there and try your best to follow. If youll remember Genesis 4:10, God told Cain, "What hast thou done! The voice of thy brothers BLOOD crieth unto Me from the ground!" Leviticus 17:11&14 says, "The LIFE of the flesh is in the BLOOD for it is the LIFE of all flesh; the BLOOD of it is for the LIFE thereof." In Revelation we see the souls, or lives [psuche/nephesh], of the martyrs under the altar crying, "How long, O Lord Holy and True, dost thou not avenge our BLOOD on them that dwelleth on the earth?" These souls were crying out the same way that Abels blood did. In Revelation 8:3-7, we see an angel of the Lord come to that very same altar from which the souls are crying out, and he takes incense from this altar "which is the prayers of the saints" and he throws it at the earth. What follows is hail and fire mingled with BLOOD. And, just as Abels blood cried out for justice, so too does the blood of the saints who, like Abel, were martyred by persecution. The reference to souls here is entirely symbolic. ____________________________________________________ So why is any of this important? What does it matter whether you believe that we go to heaven or hell after death or if you believe that we go to heaven or hell after the Judgment? First, and most importantly, it is a matter of TRUTH. Second, it is a matter of allegiance vs. treason; Adam and Eve betrayed God on this very issue because they believed the serpents lie that they would not die, instead of Gods Word which said they would. Third, what you believe about death determines what you believe Jesus did for you on the cross, and that is directly tied to your salvation. Fourth, what you believe about death drastically alters your perception of life and how you live. Fifth, what you believe about death effects your religious views; with wrong information you will lead people to Christ in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons, and they can easily fall by the wayside because of it. Sixth, your bank account; for example, Catholics shell out tons of money to Rome for prayers because they incorrectly believe their dead loved ones are alive in Purgatory. Learn the truth about death and you can use that money to actually do something useful for the ministry of God. For all of these reasons and more, it is a matter of life and death for you to understand the true nature of the body, the soul and the spirit.

I hope this lesson has been of some help to you in your studies and in your walk with the Lord. If you have questions or comments regarding the material in this book, please contact me about it at the address listed on the copyright page and I will gladly reply. I may be able to include your comments in the next edition of this book if it is something I havent already covered. God bless the Body of Christ. Remember, your life matters, as it is written in the Psalms, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."