WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

What Happens When We Die?

Part I 

 

Over the years of teaching, many have asked me what happens when we die.  Of course not having experienced this event, it was difficult to answer.  I love to study the Word of God, so I’ve spent a lot of time searching for answers.  I read many books by different preachers and not all agreed with one another. 

            I have noticed most pastors, when giving a funeral service; say the same thing, “Your loved one is now in heaven”.  Of course that is not always true, even if it makes those remaining feel good about it. I want to share some of the miraculous things the Bible tells us, along with some insights from Perry Stone and myself.
            There are four (4) things we know for sure:

1.               All people must die (except for Elijah and Enoch and those taken in the Rapture).

Heb. 9:27 “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,”

                       Notice we are ‘appointed’; we have an appointment with death and it’s one we can’t    
                       call up and cancel.  We don’t know our appointed time, but we all have one.  It was
                       this way from the beginning.  Turn to Genesis 3:19 “In the sweat of your face you shall
                       eat bread until you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken; for dust you are,
                       and to dust you shall return.” 

2.         Every one who ever lived will be resurrected some day.  Romans 6:5 “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.”

            When Jesus rose from the dead He defeated the enemy, Satan.  This scripture tells us those who are born again will also rise from the dead.  I Thess. 4:16-17 “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. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

 

                       Dead or alive, we will be resurrected, “Acts 24:15 “I have hope in God, which they
                       themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just
                       and the unjust.”  There it is; all that died, the good and the bad, will be resurrected on
                       that great day.

3.         Where will they go when they are resurrected?  Let’s take a look at Matt. 25:46 “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."  This tells us that some will enter eternal life with God and others damnation.  I know there are those who believe everyone will go to heaven when they die, but the Bible tells us differently.

             Matt. 25:32  "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.”  There is not much more to be said about this.

4.         Every person will be judged.  John 5:26-29 “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 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; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”

 

Let’s look at what the bible tells us about judgment after death.  There are two judgment events: 

1) The judgment seat of Christ which is for the Believer and 2) The Great White Throne Judgment which is for the unbeliever.

            1)  Romans 14:10 “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”

 
            2)  Revelation 20:11 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.” Who are ‘them’ this speaks of?  These are the ones who never accepted Jesus as their Savior.
 

Resurrection is both a physical and a spiritual thing.  Gen. 2:7 “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 being.”  Here we see a physical side to it.  We can see that dust is a physical thing and what
is created from it returns to it.

Daniel 12:2 explains it even further.  “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.”   

I Cor. 15:53 “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”   What does this mean?  Is it physical or spiritual?  It seems quite clear that it is both.  We will change physically from dust to an immortal body and spiritually from our sinful thought life to pure spirituality.

            Our body is the ‘Temple of the Holy Spirit’ and that makes it invaluable, but in the physical it only worth about $14.00.  It has enough sulfur to make a box of matches, enough salt to fill a salt shaker and enough iron to make a 3” nail among other things.  It’s almost ridiculous that you put $50 shoes on ten cent feet; a $40 hairdo on a fifty cent head and $400 teeth in a five cent mouth.
 

Think of this; a $14 dollar man gets up and puts on $20 dollar slippers; takes a shower and puts on a $200 suit; a $25 dollar tie and $85 dollar dress shoes.  He leaves a $400,000 dollar house and drives a $40,000 car.  He gets to work and sets behind a $1,500 desk and turns on a $2,000 computer. 

 
He works 8 hours a day to make some money and eventually goes home to his $14 wife and his two $7.50 dollar kids.  He sets down and eats a $10 meal, picks up a $1.00 newspaper and sits in a $450 recliner.

Suddenly he has a heart attack and dies.  Then they buy a new $300 suit to put on him and lay him in a $2,000 coffin and bury him in a $3,000 cemetery plot.  Then they cover him up with the same thing he’s made out of – DIRT!  [Perry Stone]

If he, or she, is serving God, two angels will descend and lift the spirit out of his $14 dollar body and take him to Paradise.  He has the promise to someday be resurrected.  I Cor. 15: 21-22  “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”)