By The Editor
After Death
CANON LIDDON, in one of his great sermons, recounts the following:— “An Indian officer, who had seen in his time a great deal of service, and had taken part in more than one of those decisive struggles in the East Indies, had returned to end his days in this country, and was talking with his friends about the most striking experiences of his professional career. As he described skirmishes, battles, sieges, personal encounters, hairbreadth escapes, outbreaks of mutiny and suppressions of mutiny, reverses, victories-their interest in his story became keener, and more exacting; and at last he paused, and then said: ‘I expect to see something much more remarkable than anything I have been describing.’ As he was some seventy years of age, and was understood to have retired from active service, his listeners failed to catch his meaning. There was a pause—and then he said in an undertone, ‘I mean in the first five minutes after death.’”
“The first five minutes after death” —surely the expression is worth remembering, if only as that of a man to whom the life to come was evidently a great and solemn reality.
Charles Kingsley, towards the end of his life, spoke of a great and a reverent curiosity as to what he should see and know after death.
One thing we know, our dead have passed into eternity. For them time shall be no more. There is no rising or setting sun where they have gone. They never watch the clock to see the passing of the hours. They are outside all the accidents and incidents of time. To them there is no tomorrow, “All my possessions for a moment of time,” cried the dying Queen, in the last moments of earthly existence; but there was none to sell, and she was too poor, with all her riches, to buy. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
“Death ends all,” some tell us. Scripture says, “After death the judgment,” so all is not ended with death. Others tell us the soul sleeps after death, and some say it is an eternal sleep. What is the sleep of death? You have all seen death, the closed eyes, the cold brow, the solemn hush that broods around the form that has ceased to breathe or move, and lies rigid in the sleep of death. Jesus said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.” The body sleeps, and all its wonderful and mysterious powers have ceased to be. Thought no longer travels along the accustomed paths, the brain has ceased to inspire and to dominate the will; the personality that reigned triumphantly in that silent form has gone from earth forever. The sleep of death has eliminated all the forces of living, and we weep over cold unconscious clay.
But the soul is awake, though the body sleeps. There is immediate existence after death. We do not want to listen to the “Munchausen” tales about “the worlds to which we pass at death.” “Messages from beyond the veil,” apart from the Word of God, are either the fantastic dreams of a debased and debasing human intelligence, or the result of “giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:11Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; (1 Timothy 4:1)). If the Spirit of God is not the dominant factor in our lives, it is easy to be led captive by the devil at his will. Moreover, if a man has traffic with demons he has virtually abandoned the Lord Himself. Behind all these so-called trances, and mediums, and occult messages, table rappings, spirit writing, etc., are the false spirits who inspire them. It is easy to get in touch with the demons that personate the dead, and to believe the “doctrines of devils,” that emanate from the powers of darkness.
There is only one true medium between God and man, and that is the Spirit of truth, sent down from heaven by the ascended Christ. He guides the believer into all truth, and there is no true guide but Him (John 16). He unfolds to us, through the written Word, the mysteries of God, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the heights and depths of God. He reveals to faith the past, the present, and the future. He fulfills the mission for which He is expressly sent. “For He will not speak from Himself, but whatever He shall hear, He will speak; and He will announce to you the things to come.” He speaks of the glories of the risen and ascended Jesus; He unfolds the vast panorama of the future, and tells us about the dead, even as the Lord Himself had done when on earth. The Holy Spirit announced the things to come, in the inspired teaching of the Gospels and the Epistles, but in fullest measure in that marvelous Book of Revelation.
“Absent from the body, at home with the Lord.” This is what happens when a Christian dies. Stephen died facing Christ in heaven, and immediately passed into His presence. The thief who died by the side of Christ went, when he died, immediately to Paradise. A martyr on his way to death, when he saw in the distance the stake where he was to be burnt to death, said, “I never felt better, for now I know I am almost at home.” Then, gazing at the meadows between him and the place, he said, “Only two more stiles to get over, and I am at my Father’s house.” Another Christian, when dying, said, “I am going home as fast as I can, and I bless God I have a good home to go to.”
If you died in five minutes, where would you be, and what would you see?
If you are an unbeliever, I ask you to study what our Lord says in Luke 16 about Dives and Lazarus. The veil that hides eternity from us was drawn aside by the Creator of eternity, and the conditions in which men live after death is shown.
1. There is existence after death. The souls of Dives and Lazarus are alive in eternity. Their earth life is over, but we see them as they will be while eternity lasts. One in the place of rest; the other in the place of torment. Read Luke 16.
2. There is sight after death. The soul can see. The unbelieving Balaam said in his awful prophecy, “I shall see Him but not now, I shall behold Him but not nigh.” In hell Dives lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. What will you see five minutes after death?
3. There is torment after death. Dives said, “I am tormented in this flame.” It is fashionable now to decry eternal punishment, but it is the Saviour Himself who speaks of “a furnace of fire,” weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth,” “the outer darkness,” “the worm that never dies, and the fire that is not quenched,” “the damnation of hell.” You may mock as you will, but the fiat of God is unalterable, and although the Rev. Vale Owen and others may speak of the worlds to which we pass after death as just a happier continuation of this, no matter how we live or die, the Scripture cannot be broken, and it says, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” It also says, “Flee from the wrath to come,” and the Saviour says, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” A young man, when dying, said, “I would give all I possess if I could buy exemption from a quarter of an hour’s suffering in hell.” Where will you be five minutes after death?
4. There is prayer after death. If you never prayed on earth, you may have to pray in hell when you are dead. “Have mercy on me,” the rich man cried, but mercy never comes to those in torment. The prayer will be unanswered for all eternity. Prayer will be answered now if you say to God as a sinner, “Have mercy upon me.” God delights in mercy, judgment is His strange work; but if you despise the mercy of God, you must suffer His judgments.
5. There is a great gulf fixed after death. Oh ye who believe in the dead returning to speak to those on earth, listen to this solemn verse (Luke 16:2626And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. (Luke 16:26)): “Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”
An impassable gulf between time and eternity-the blessed dead with Christ in heaven, the lost in the dark abodes of despair.
According to the inspired Word of God it is impossible for the living to communicate with the dead, and all we can know of what there is after death the Spirit of God will teach us, by opening out to us the Scriptures.
One word of warning to those who are attracted to spiritualism as practiced today. Dr. A. T. Schofield, in his book called “Modern Spiritism,” tells us of seven dangers to which these people are exposed:—
1.The moral and religious dangers.
2.The dangers to reason.
3.The dangers of “possession.”
4.The loss of will power.
5.The dangers associated with necromancy.
6. The physical dangers.
7. The dangers of imposition.
All these are spoken of fully in his book.
Now let me close with this solemn question:
Where will you spend eternity?