What happens when we die? Do we have a soul inside of us that floats away? Can we come back and talk to our loved ones, or do we float on to a place called heaven or hell? Join us as we discover death’s surprising/silent truth.

<p>What happens when we die? Do we have a soul inside of us that floats away? Can we come back and talk to our loved ones, or do we float on to a place called heaven or hell? Join us as we discover death’s surprising/silent truth.</p>

North New South Wales Conference

Is Death the End?

Justin Torossian

01 Halloween’s Haunting History

Lyle Southwell

02 Spirits, Demons and the Dead

Charissa Fong Torossian

03 Who are the Spirits?

04 Death’s Surprising Truth

05 Your Questions Answered

09 Does Heaven Exist?

06 Is Death the End?

08 Hell Truth: Death of Death

Cathy Hookham

07 Cathy’s Story: Clairvoyant to Christianity


No 1 can run fast enough, climb high enough, swim far enough, or dig deep enough to escape it. Tonight, we're unmasking the mystery of death. A young boy was walking through a cemetery and noticed a tombstone which read, Stop my friend as you go by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you soon shall be, so prepare yourself to follow me." The little boy stopped and thought, and he pulled a crown out of his pocket, and under the words he added, to follow you I'm not content until I know just where you went. Death, absolutely unavoidable, All who live long enough will experience it.

But what is it actually? What happens when we die? Where do we go when we die? Is death the end of the journey or just the beginning of another 1? Different beliefs have led various cultures to approach burial in different ways.

Here in the Western world, a coffin is buried underground, typically. The Buddhists of Tibet prefer a sky burial, where the dead are given over to vultures. In Egypt, they mummified the pharaohs and buried them in the Great Pyramids. Hindus have open cremations on the Ganges River and the ancient Persians, some of them at least, buried the dead in cracks of a cliff face on what they called the Mountain of Mercy. Friends, The good news is that death is not the end for the friends of Jesus.

But do people live on immediately after death? Before we take a look at past history to understand today's world, we're going to fly through some Bible verses together. 52 different times the Bible calls death sleep. Here are just a few examples. In Psalm 13 verse 3, David prayed to God, Enlighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death.

In Daniel 12 verse 2 it reads, And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Jesus himself called death sleep on multiple occasions, like with Lazarus in John chapter 11. Later in the New Testament, After Stephen was stoned to death in Acts chapter 7, the Bible says that he fell asleep. And finally, in Ephesians 5 verse 14, Paul says, Awake you who sleep and rise from the dead. The other morning, my wife Charissa asked me, Do you remember what you did last night? Then she proceeded to tell me how I sleepwalked to the door of our room and she asked me, she woke up and she said, what are you doing?

And I evidently grouchily told her, I'm changing my wheels. I must have been working on my summer board in a dream. And you know, I told her later I probably would have gotten a lot accomplished if she hadn't stopped me. So is death a sleep where people dream and still have their brains partly functioning? The Bible says it's complete unconsciousness.

Here are a few verses. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 5. The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. Nothing means no thing. Nothing.

The verse goes on to say that their emotions are gone as well. Psalm 146 verse 4 says that when a man dies, his breath goes forth, he returns to his earth, in that day, in that very day, his thoughts perish. Another 1 that clarifies is Psalm 115 verse 17 that says, the dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down to silence." The Bible is painting a very clear picture, isn't it? Listen to the words of William Gladstone, a four-time Prime Minister of Great Britain. In spite of some of the confusion on this topic in most of Christianity, listen to this, And I quote, The doctrine of natural, as distinguished from Christian immortality, crept into the church by a back door.

The natural immortality of the soul is a doctrine wholly unknown to the holy scriptures and standing on no higher plane than that of philosophical speculations disguised as truths of divine revelation. Wow! He nailed it and we'll prove his words in just a little bit. But the Bible doesn't paint a picture without hope. It teaches that death is asleep until the resurrection.

David said in Psalm 17, verse 15, as for me, I will see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. Jesus also spoke of this great event in John 5 verses 28 and 29 where he said, do not marvel at this for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Speaking of himself here, he says those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. So when will the righteous awake and come back to life?

First Thessalonians 4.16 says, For The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. The followers of Jesus will be resurrected at his return to live forevermore. God plans for us to go to heaven, but the dead won't beat us there. He plans for us to go there together. So we've seen that the Bible says death is like an unconscious sleep that lasts until Jesus resurrects the dead back to life.

But what about this idea of humans having an immortal soul? Well, it's found nowhere in the Bible. Come with me to the Bible's first mention of death's existence, Genesis 3 verses 22 and 23. God said, Behold, the man has become like 1 of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden.

So Adam and Eve didn't naturally have immortality. God made it conditional upon eating from the tree of life. So in order for sin not to be immortalized, He banned them from the Garden of Eden. The Bible is crystal clear that humans don't have an immortal soul. Ezekiel 18 verse 20 says, the soul that sins it shall die.

As humans we're all mortal and 1st Timothy 6 verse 16 says that God alone has immortality. In Romans 2 verse 7, Paul exhorts Christian believers to seek for glory, honor, and immortality. If everyone already has immortality, then why would Paul encourage them to seek after it? The fact is, the words immortal and soul never appear next to each other in the Bible. So then where did this idea come from?

When we look at history, we see where and when the idea of an immortal soul crept into the mainstream church. As Lyle shared with us earlier in our series, the idea of humans having an immortal soul began with the devil's lie to Eve way back in Eden. God had said, if you eat of the forbidden fruit you shall surely die. Satan then said you shall not surely die. So this fact alone, the fact that it came from Satan, should cause us to be very cautious of the idea of innate immortality.

A Methodist Congregationalist clergyman, Dr. Amos Phelps, summarized it beautifully. The Protestants borrowed it from the Catholics, The Catholics from the Pharisees, the Pharisees from the pagans, and the pagans from the old serpent who first preached the doctrine amid the lowly bowels of paradise to an audience all too willing to hear and heed the new and fascinating theology, Ye Shall Not Surely Die. History makes clear that the immortality of the soul found its way into all ancient religions, ranging from India all the way across to the Americas. After ancient Egypt and Babylon, it took a deceptive form in Persian dualism, which taught that neither good or evil could ever defeat each other and must both always exist.

From there, it entered into Greek religion. The Greek philosopher Plato built off of this and taught, contrary to the Bible, that humans are dualistic, that we're comprised of 2 things, body and soul, and that death is actually a friend that liberates the immortal soul from the body. During these years, the Bible stood alone in the world in presenting humans as not naturally possessing immortality. Then, in a period between the writing of the Old and New Testaments, Judaism became penetrated by the pagan teaching of the immortality of the soul. Soon there were 2 schools of thought within Judaism.

First, the group that held to the Old Testament picture of death being an unconscious sleep from which people will be raised back to life at the resurrection. And secondly, a group that arose around 150 BC who fused the teachings of Plato with the Jewish faith. So Judaism stood divided on the issue when Jesus walked this earth. He came and clarified, reaffirming the Old Testament teaching that death is a sleep and that man will receive immortality at the second coming. This was amplified in the New Testament by its writers.

And for over 150 years, the early church held to the true biblical picture of death as an unconscious sleep. Notice the words of Justin Martyr, a church leader who died in AD 165. He said this, "'If you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but do not admit this truth of the resurrection, and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who say that there is no resurrection from the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven, do not imagine that they are Christians." Wow. He said, if someone believes that they go to heaven when they die, they are not a Christian. So clearly, for over a century, the early church had no confusion on the subject.

But then, about 25 years after Justin Martyr's death, a church leader named Athenagoras started teaching that old pagan idea that humans have an immortal soul. Tertullian took it from there and expanded it into a system of belief that included eternal torment by fire. From here, the belief spread through mainstream Christianity and then to the Church of the Dark Ages. When the Protestant Reformation began, some people, like Martin Luther, recognized the unbiblical origin of these false teachings. But through the influence of John Calvin and others the Protestant Reformers continued holding on to these pagan principles and hence they have come all the way down to today.

Go to the words of historians Check it out for yourself. So to summarize, we've seen first, the idea of the immortal soul doesn't come from the Bible, but from paganism. Secondly, God alone has immortality. Third, he promises immortality to everyone who accepts Christ by faith. And fourth and finally, soon Jesus will come and resurrect his people who have fallen asleep in death.

Remember Ecclesiastes 9 verse 5? It says, the dead know nothing. But listen to this. A spiritualist named E.W. Sprog said, and I quote, What?

Absolutely absurd! But nearly every Christian church today teaches the exact same thing. There are really only 2 options. Satan's words or God's. Spiritualism, which teaches an immortal soul, or the Bible, which calls death an unconscious sleep.

We cannot have both. They're as different as black is to white. As we've seen, the Bible is clear, convincing, and complete. And friend, the question is not whether or not you will die. If Jesus doesn't return first, it's literally just a matter of time.

The question is, what will be your eternal destiny? Will you be raised back to life when Christ returns by him? Or will you be eternally lost instead? Before raising Lazarus back to life in John 11, Jesus told Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.

And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." Immortality. Jesus promised that he will give it to us if we accept it. And then he asked Martha 4 words that make all the difference. Do you believe this? That's his question to you right now.

Do you believe this? He asks, are you willing to accept my word as it reads? Are you willing to reconsider what you may have believed your whole life? Are you willing to accept that you don't have an immortal soul, but that it's something I desperately want to give you. Friend, my hope and my prayer is that along with me you'll say, Lord, I believe.

You're the only source of immortality. You are the resurrection and the life. Friends, I hope you enjoyed that brief Bible study on this all-important truth about what happens when we die. Just a reminder, you're not going to want to miss the highlight of our series on Tuesday night. Kathy's going to be sharing her story of how she went from being a psychic and clairvoyant to a Bible-believing Christian.

So be sure to tune back in. Also, if you haven't yet, message us the number 704 and sign up for the Try Jesus course that has an entire study guide on the topic of death and goes to some Bible verses that we didn't get to cover here together tonight. We'll also, if you text us 704, send you this book, Beyond Death's Door. As you can see from the thickness, it goes into more depth than we were able to tonight, and you will be enriched. So God bless you, friends, and we hope to see you tomorrow night.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ If you honestly think that you're going to find peace and love and a better life at the bottom of Satan's shoe, then you're sadly mistaken. It is a world of deception and deceit. Satan is a liar and he lies about what he will offer you, you will search for a peace you will never find. You will be given a look into a world that he knows about. He knows about heaven, he's been there.

He knows about, He's been beside God. He knows what to counterfeit. He knows what it looks like. He knows the things that we wish we could do. But demons can't read your mind.

They can plant thoughts into your mind, but they can't read them. You

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Series

Is Death the End?

04 Death’s Surprising Truth

Description

Parent Series

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Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 Halloween’s Haunting History

14m

02 Spirits, Demons and the Dead

17m

03 Who are the Spirits?

19m

04 Death’s Surprising Truth

15m

05 Your Questions Answered

49m

09 Does Heaven Exist?

18m

06 Is Death the End?

17m

08 Hell Truth: Death of Death

14m

07 Cathy’s Story: Clairvoyant to Christianity

25m

Sound Doctrine