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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Death and Soul

01 Death and Soul

02 Death and Soul


Multitudes believe that life continues in a higher form for those who die. If this is true, then there is no death at all. I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about the soul 5 minutes after death. Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you. I suppose almost every home has experienced the death of some loved 1, and because of it, the heart cry of millions all over the world is, where are our dead?

In heaven? In hell? In purgatory, limbo, or some other place? Are our departed ones asleep, or are they dead? What's been done with the millions of dead?

You know, friends, only as we get the whole story from the Book of God can we know the whole truth on this very vital subject. Grabbing a text here and plucking a text from over there and founding an entire doctrine on that text is 1 of the most dangerous things a person can do, and it might cost an individual his eternal salvation. And yet it's often done today. Whole doctrines are based on just 1 verse of the Bible. Did you ever hear the story of the 4 blind men and the elephant?

These 4 blind men were supposed to go and examine the elephant and then they were to report on its size, shape, and so forth. So the first 1 went over to the elephant and, groping around, caught hold of the elephant's tail. Afterwards, he said, My opinion is that the elephant is very much like a rope. When the next blind man had his opportunity, he happened to take hold of the elephant's leg, so he said, My opinion is the elephant is much like a log or a tree trunk. The third 1 had his opportunity, and he happened to lay hold of 1 of the elephant's ears, and he said, I believe the elephant is flat and limp, much like a pancake.

And the last 1 took hold of 1 of the elephant's tusks, and he believed the elephant was hard as smooch, as like a rock. Now it's methods just like these that cause the differences of opinion among scholars when it has to do with the Bible doctrine. Men taking 1 little item here and 1 little item there and making up a whole doctrine to fit it, or settling a whole doctrine on just 1 Scripture, 1 little 0.1 little viewpoint, and leaving out everything else the Bible has to say about it. Now that's where people get into trouble, and that's why so much confusion exists and why there are so many different opinions in regard to Bible doctrine in this world of ours. Today we want to examine the whole truth of God on this very vital subject and get a complete picture.

Now the first question we'll ask is this, and it's the 1 that Job asked in Job 14, 14. If a man die, shall he live again? Now there's a question that's haunted men for generations. That's 1 of the oldest questions that's ever been asked. If a man die, shall he live again?

What about the dead? Can we expect to see them living again? Well God gives the answer. You remember in 1 Corinthians 15, 16 to 22, how clearly God presents it when He says that the day will come when the trump of God will sound and the dead shall be raised? For if the dead rise not, we read, then is not Christ raised.

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Now really it tells us here in essence that Christ was risen from the dead, and this guarantees that all Christians who die could follow him and be raised also from the dead. You know, we ought to thank God right now that Christ's tomb is an empty tomb. Muhammad's tomb is not empty. The grave of Confucius is not an empty grave. Buddha, in fact the bones of Buddha, have been enshrined all over the Orient in various and sundry places, but the tomb of Christ is an empty tomb.

And that's what Paul's talking about. And then he adds this, that since Jesus had been raised, Satan's prison house was opened so that all the redeemed who have gone to sleep in Jesus will also be raised again. And so the question, if a man dies, shall he live again, has been forever settled on the authority of the Scriptures, and God's plain unqualified answer is yes. But you ask, how did it all come about? What happens to man between the time he dies and the time he is raised from the dead?

Let's see what God says on this. I'll read now from Ecclesiastes 12, verse 7. This is a statement made by the wise man Solomon. He's making a general statement here about death in verse 7. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Now notice there are 2 things that this text nails down. Point number 1, the body will return to the dust and the dust to the earth. Point number 2, the spirit, whatever that is, will return to God. Now those 2 things are made clear in the passage. But let's go a step further.

What is the Spirit? The Spirit that goes back to God when a man dies. What is it? I'd like to read a New Testament scripture now and then an Old Testament text after that. First James 2 26, For as the body without the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Now according to this scripture, the spirit is the thing that keeps the body alive.

In translating the Bible, the translators were not sure just how some of those words should be placed in the text. And there are several meanings of some words, and if they're not sure, they put 1 word in the text and the other word in the margin of the Bible. Now the word in the margin of this text makes it much clearer to us, because it says, OR BREATH. In other words, besides the word SPIRIT, it says or breath. So according to this text, the spirit that goes back to God is the thing that keeps the person alive, and it's also called the breath.

Let's see if the Old Testament writers agree with this. We turn to Job 27.3, all the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils. And the margin says here, by the Spirit of God, the breath which God gave him. Now I want you to notice what this text proves, friends. It proves that this breath which goes back to God is in man's nostrils, and the margin says it's the breath which God gave him.

So this Spirit which returns to God when man dies is simply the breath of life, the very same thing God put in him in the beginning. Now perhaps you would like to ask, can we be absolutely sure of this? Can we be positive that the Spirit that goes back to God when a man dies is the very breath of life? Well, let's establish and re-establish it, friends. We must remember that God in the beginning placed this spirit, or breath, in man's nostrils.

In order to see just what it was that God did place in man's nostrils, let's go back to Genesis 2, verse 7. Now remember, whatever this Spirit is, God gave it in the beginning and He put it in man's nostrils and then later on it was to return to God after death. But let's read the text. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now do you see how clear and plain it is, friends?

There's no room for question here. The Scripture plainly shows that the Spirit that returns to God when a man dies is the breath of life that God placed in his nostrils in the beginning when man was created. Now that's exactly what David also taught in the Psalms. In Psalm 146, verse 4, speaking of death, David wrote, "...his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. You see, there is perfect agreement here among the Bible writers.

Now, before we go further, there are several things we ought to establish in regard to the Spirit, and then we'll go on to another topic. Point number 1, the spirit or the breath of every person that dies, whether that person is good or evil, returns to God. That's found in Ecclesiastes 12.7. A lot of people have taken that scripture and they've said, Now, here's proof that something goes off to God from the righteous people when they die. But that isn't what the text says at all.

It has to do with all people, not just the righteous people. So this Spirit, the Breath of Life, goes back to God when any person dies, whether that man is good or evil. Now point No. 2. Men have the same spirit or breath as animals do.

Now we may not like to think of that, and I certainly wouldn't say it if I was just making it up. I might not be appreciated very much, but God actually says this in Ecclesiastes 3.19, For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beast, even 1 thing befalleth them. As the 1 dieth, so dieth the other. Yea, they have all 1 breath. All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

So there it is, God said it. There's no question about it. He has forever settled it. Man and beast have the same power from God, the life-giving Spirit or Breath that makes the body live and function. All right, now we come to point number 3.

Now this is a very interesting thing and I want to call upon you to consider this very carefully. This word translated spirit is used 948 times in the scripture And yet not 1 time is it ever shown to have life, personality, feeling, wisdom. In fact, not ever is it given any attribute of personality. Now I hope you got that point. Now you think of that for a moment.

If it's true, as people say today, that the Spirit is something you fear and it goes off and leaves the body and has wisdom, knowledge, and so forth, why is it that in 948 opportunities the Bible writers never 1 time spoke of it. There must be a reason for this, friends. There is a reason, of course. The Spirit is simply the breath which God gives to a body, making that body live. No more and no less.

That's what the Scriptures teach. It's the power of God, the touch of God's hand as He put life into that dead body. In other words, the body was lying there as God made it. He simply formed it out of the dust, And it was all there, but it wasn't alive. The heart was there, but it wasn't beating.

The blood was there, it wasn't flowing. The brain was there, it wasn't thinking. And then the Bible says that God put His breath into that body. Now notice, he did not put a soul into the body, he put in the breath, and the text says man became a living soul. Now there's a big difference in man becoming a living soul and God putting a soul into the body.

God only put the breath or spirit into the body, and when the body and breath got together, man became a living soul. Now I hope you'll remember this, friends. When death comes, that breath goes back to God. We found out that the breath and spirit are the same thing. Whatever God gave, now it returns, and it's called breath in 1 text and spirit in another.

But they are 1 and the same thing. The spirit returns to God, the body returns to the dust as it was, And so the life ends right there. Now let me clarify 1 point here. I spoke about the animals having the same breath or spirit that man has. I do not mean to imply here that man and animals are equal before God.

Animals are not going to be resurrected, of course. Their individuality will not be restored in the resurrection as far as we know. In fact, they won't even be resurrected, but man will. But it takes the same kind of creative power to make the body of an animal live as it takes to make the body of a person live. And so all we're saying is that God put in that breath of life or that spirit of life which is really the touch of His power to cause that body to begin living.

I think about it as maybe the same thing Jesus was referring to when he said to that woman when she touched the hem of his garment, Virtue hath gone out of me. Virtue, our power, hath gone out of him. And that's the power, I believe, that came into the body to make it live, and then that returns to God, of course, when man dies at the end of his life. Well we've only just introduced this subject really, and we'll be continuing in our next broadcast to talk about this same subject of the soul and life after death. In fact, we may spend several days on this very vital subject.

We must understand it. It's so important. Spiritualism and psychic phenomena have been claiming unusual attention later, and these are the things that get people involved in spiritualism. And now, this is Joe Cruz saying Goodbye for today. You

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Death and Soul

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