DEATH AND AFTER THAT
by
Becky Rene
Introduction
1. Some of you girls have been talking about what happens when we die and asking questions about heaven and hell.
2. Now, this is a very hard subject for me to understand and it makes my brain go fizzy. So I do not understand everything yet but I will tell you what I think I understand.
3. Now I will give you all a copy of this lesson so you can look at those Scriptures and study about it for yourself.
I. So What Happens When You Die?
A. We will start by looking at what God said to Adam. Now God put two trees in the middle of the garden and one was the Tree of Life and one was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:8-9). Now look what God said to Adam:
"The LORD God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17 NASBR)
1. Now what did God say would happen if he ate from that tree? He said he would die didn’t he?
2. Now I think Alison must read her Bible very carefully because she said, “Oh, it says he would die that day but he didn’t!” Now that is very good that you saw that but “surely die” means that he would start to die that day and end up dead. Look at this…
“The key to the solution of our difficulty lies in the notable expression which our translators have rendered ‘surely die.’ In the Hebrew it is unlike anything which we have in English. It reads literally, if we accept current standards of translation, ‘to die shall you be dying.’ That is, the verb ‘die’ is repeated in two different forms. First it is in the so-called ‘construct infinitive.’ Our infinitive is ‘to die.’ Being in the ‘construct state’ shows that it is limited or restricted in its meaning by the following word. In the phrase ‘the word of the Lord,’ for instance, the word ‘word’ is in the construct state because not every one’s word is intended, but only the Lord’s. So here, the thought of dying is restricted by the following verb ‘you shall be dying.’ From this we gather that it is only in a restricted sense that Adam would die that day. ‘To die shall you be dying’ brings before us a process of death, culminating, indeed, in actual death, but of indefinite duration in its operation”
(www.concordant.org/expohtml/DeathAndJudgment/WhatIsDeath.html).
3. So Adam and Eve began dying in the day they ate of that fruit (I do not know what fruit that was). It was eating from the Tree of Life that kept them alive, so that is why they were not allowed to eat from that tree anymore or they might live forever (Genesis 3:22-24).
"So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died" (Genesis 5:5 NASBR)
B. So where do we go when we die?
1. Where did God say Adam would go?
"By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19 NASBR)
2. All people and all animals will return to the dust…
"For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, And to the house appointed for all living" (Job 30:23 ASV)
"What man is he that shall live and not see death, That shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah" (Psalms 89:48 ASV)
"For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust" (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 NASBR)
a. Everyone has to die (Job 30:23; Psalms 89:48).
b. People and animals will all go to the same place; they will all return to the dust. That is what God says would happen (Genesis 3:19). That is not hard to understand is it?
II. What Does The Bible Say About Those Who Are Dead?
A. Can dead people praise the Lord? No.
"For in death there is no remembrance of thee: In Sheol who shall give thee thanks?" (Psalms 6:5 ASV)
"The dead praise not Jehovah, Neither any that go down into silence" (Psalms 115:17 ASV)
B. Do dead people know anything? No.
"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" (Ecclesiastes 9:5 ASV)
C. Is there anything going on in Sheol? No.
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10 NASBR)
III. So What Happens After That?
A. Now this is hard to explain but I will try by a story.
1. My story…
There was an 8 year girl called Beck and she was crossing the road one day but she was a silly girl because she did not even check the road and so she was hit by an automobile and everything went black. Now the time she got hit was June 6, 1966. So she opened her eyes and there was her mommy and daddy standing there at the foot of the bed looking at her. So Becky says, “Oh, where am I? How did I get here? I just got hit by an automobile.” So her mom says, “Oh, that happened 8 years ago and you have been in a coma all those years.” But Becky could not believe that because it only happened just that second ago!!! So she looked in the mirror and she could see she was 16 years old now. She was so shocked because she did not even know or understand how all those years went by without even knowing about it and to her it was just 1 second that went by.
2. So maybe you will understand now what it is like when you die. Everything will go all black and then you will open your eyes back up and you will be standing somewhere and you will be able to see Jesus because it will be judgment day. You will not have to wait at all.
B. Now maybe you think I just made that up but that is what the Bible says.
1. Look what Paul says: "But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better" (Philippians 1:23). Now if Paul was to die then it would go all black and then he would open his eyes and he would be standing there in a new body looking at Jesus. That is what happens when we die.
2. Now read this carefully: "And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27 NASBR). So, you die and everything goes black and then you open your eyes and there you are standing there and you can see Jesus. Now why can you see Jesus? Because Jesus said He would come back and that would be the judgment day.
C. Now some of you girls might say, “Oh, those preachers said we are going to Hades first and that is like a waiting room where you wait with everyone that has died until the judgment day. That is what Jesus shows us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.” Well, I will say something about that…
1. Now what did Paul say? "But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better" (Philippians 1:23). Christ was not in a place called Hades was He? Where was He? Jesus is where he has always been, in heaven! So that means that Paul was not expecting to go to some place called Hades first was he?
2. So what is that story in Luke 16:19-31 all about then? I do not know what that is all about but it does not really fit in with much else does it? Maybe I will study some about that.
Summary
So now let us review what we have been studying…
1. God told Adam that if he ate that forbidden fruit then he would start dying the day he ate it and end up dead (Genesis 2:16-17). That is what happened: he was stopped from eating from the tree of life; so he would start dying (Genesis 3:24) and he ended up dead (Genesis 5:5). Where did Adam go? He returned to the ground (Genesis 3:19), that is where he went and that is where everyone goes and that is where animals go as well (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20; Job 34:15).
"For the wages of sin is death…" (Romans 6:23 NASBR)
2. When you are dead you do not go anywhere because you are dead. You cannot do anything (Ecclesiastes 9:10) or even think when you are dead (Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalms 146:4).
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10 NASBR)
3. So there you are in the grave unconscious and you might be there a long, long time. But it really does not matter because you will not even know it. Do you remember that story I told you? Well, it will seem to you that you die one minute and then your eyes will open again and there you are brought back to life. Now that is called being resurrected. That is what Jesus promised to everyone.
"Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies," (John 11:25 NASBR)
"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22 NASBR)
"Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:51-54 NASBR)
"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2 NASBR)
4. So here is what happens…
a. You are born (Job 14:1).
b. You die (1 Corinthians 15:22).
c. You are resurrected (Romans 8:11).
d. You are judged (2 Corinthians 5:10).
e. You may get an eternal reward or an eternal punishment (Matthew 25:31-46).
Now you girls are not the only ones who will see this lesson and so what I am saying now is for everyone…
Now, maybe you do not believe everything the same way as me but I think we all believe that we are born, we die, we are resurrected, we are judged, and we are rewarded or punished. So we can all be brothers and sisters in Jesus and not get into ugly fights about our opinions about those things.