Meaning of Life

Part 1
The immortality of life is one that is full of misconceptions, especially by those who have blinded themselves by denominationalism. The thing most often heard concerns itself with the “furniture of Heaven” and the “temperature of Hell”. The source of all life must be considered. Think of a life force surging through the physical universe greater than anything ever before imagined. Something makes it tick and throb with life. As life is mysterious it can be seen to have force and this force pervades the entirety of the universe. This life-force is imperishable, the evidence forces the honest to see Him, and if this Force were to cease or be stopped all would come to nothingness. As some cannot conceive that there is a God, those who have considered both sides of the question cannot conceive of a complete state of nothingness! The “spark of Life” is from parent to parent. Before we become parents man can be traced all the way back to the original parents. As is often reasoned, life after death in this body is no more and no less mysterious than life before birth. Life is HERE, nobody I know or have read about believes otherwise; why doubt life hereafter??
The dissolution of the body is no barrier to logic; immortality is very logical. If the brain would seem to be the seat of life, it is not the SOURCE of it and for that matter the brain does not even enter into the subject of immortality, immortality leaves the brain with the body in the grave!! The brain does not produce thought (as the liver secretes bile), but is itself the means of transmission of that thought. From whence cometh the thought? They tell us that every 7 years we change completely in taste, chemical composition, and personalities. The body changes in every tissue. While we live in this body we then would have to understand we have worn out many a body, yet we are the same! The “I” and “you” that has worn out several bodies is really what we call this it, that is the ‘I’. If the personality survives bodily changes, why could it not ‘survive the grave’??!! If the spirit survives the shock of birth, why not the ordeal of death?
Life transcends physical limits. Life presents itself in spirit a thousand miles from where it abides in our human frame (the love of a military man for his wife and children, the love of an old man for his wife now deceased 30 years, for example). We live not only where we breathe, but where we love!! Since life is too big for the physical body, and that life is not the body or any of its parts, is it not too great for the grave??
A Creator which produces the mind, must possess reason, else the creature is greater that the Creator! Reason is not packaged, cannot be bought or sold, and is not a composite of all who live in this human frame. It is reasonable for a man who dreams of fulfillment to one day consider this possibility. It is reasonable for a man who loves another soul to one day reason eternity with that soul without separation. It is reasonable for a man to have lived and loved to know his only chance of complete fulfillment is an eternity together while a man who hated the wife of his life, fought, argued, and was vexed with every anxiety known to man would NOT want to look forward to her as part of his reward but would know she MUST be part of his Hell!! Such things are reasonable! It is also reasonable to know that if man cannot keep the love, joys, and brightness of his life in check or control he must look to one of greater might and magnitude than he who for him can accomplish these things!! God is not an invention of the mind of an incapable being, He only is the extension of all that man sees about him in the wonderful thing we call Creation! For in the Creation of all things nothing is left incomplete!! Life without God is incomplete, man never knows who he really is!!

 

Part 2
The order of physical life is reliable. The stars in their courses, the electrons in their motions all show the order of design. Gravity does not vary wherever its law is found, as far as we know gravity even keeps electricity in its current channel. A universe that keeps faith with its physical calculations does not play false to the inner, invisible parts of life. We are created to think, love, and hope. These are as essential to our nature as hunger and thirst. A world where there is air for lungs, food for the stomach but no answer to the deepest and highest hungers of the soul is not the world God created and placed man in. Any thinking man will rebel at such a conclusion. The integrity of the universe is at stake if man is here only by chance, for if there is no law that governs our existence and we came about without reason and intelligence, all that exist which allows anything else to exist could never be explained or understood. The longing for continuance of life is normal and extends from primitive people to cultured persons. That man before scientific discovery had no doubt about the life beyond the grave is a fact that calls loudly for explanation. As we grow old we are just getting fit to live! Just understanding the “how to” to live acomplishes no purpose if man dies and is no more! Who is animalistic enough to call a deceased loved one a few particles of matter that is no longer? That fair, beautiful spirit whom we loved and with whom we shared life is not excluded nor extinct just because they are no longer in a physical body we can see and touch!! In a law abiding universe, the hunger of the soul MUST have a response to what exist hereafter. Science in all its glory cannot and never has produced any answer suitable to understanding our beginning much more our end!!
Science affirms that nothing is wasted. Even the leaves blown by the wind are only transformed, not destroyed. Shall man with a mind, soul, and spirit fade into nothingness?? Having spent such painstaking efforts to design such a frame for us to inhabit will the designer annihilate such? If He were to so do, the ruler of the universe is far worse than man who waste all his time on this earth not preparing for eternity!! If life ends in death, this universe is not only irrational, it is immoral!! A benevolent life ends in a vicarious death in the flower of age. A malevolent, hardened old sinner lives a century. Where is the rationality of this, where is the compensation, the retribution, when is “right” ever rewarded? Where is justice? If life ends at death and man comes about by chance, not created, would it be better for man if he had never allowed his innocent children to breathe? The God of the universe is more than mere Energy, He is more than a Force, He waits to be a JUDGE. He is defined as a child-loving Father, Matthew 7:7-11, who does not give a stone for bread, He does not then give the stone of extinction to children who’s highest and noblest hunger asks for the bread of immortality and eternal life, those children who have made choice and desire to be with Him!!
If the soul is not immortal, human life is a farce!! If it is immortal, man is a fool to ignore it!! If not immortal, the moral nature is a lie, there would be no need, man could destroy man at will without ever considering justice. If not immortal, desire is a deception, aspiration a mocking falsehood, and hope a destructive illusion!! Death may separate soul and body, but the soul does not die. The tie that joins the soul and the body is untied, unfastened, and the soul is released from the frame that will inevitably decay and join one that has no possibility of decay!! Death becomes a merciful provision. The Innocent might tolerate physical maladies looking to something better, but to a fallen being, subject to age, decay, and injury; physical immortality would be an awful curse!!

 

Part 3
If the soul is not immortal, human life is a farce. If it is immortal, man is a fool to ignore it. To be an immortal being would require an immortal nature. Death separates the soul from the body, not the spirit. The tie that joins the two is loosed. The bondage that sin imposes on the body cannot be the bondage wrought by sin, it has to be the bondage brought about by decadence. Death, therefore, is a merciful provision, not a tool of some tyrannical being unhappy with our behavior. Christ destroyed the curse of death which is separation from His presence, but did not destroy death. To the Christian death is just another step in the epoch of continued existence. It relieves the soul of dominion of flesh. Flesh weighs heavily in the decisions made in the body. Care for unimportant things afforded our bodies and the pitfalls brought on by the desire to comfort and satisfy the body is no longer important. Many times I see even the members of the Lord’s Church who have seemed to have lost faith in immortality, or so it seems by the way they are living!! I see them living as though tomorrow will not bring eternity and today is all that matters. They ‘give up’ when the battle has not even begun to rage, settling for mediocrity instead of “the glory that shall be revealed in us”!! When considered from the eternal aspect, age is only counted in the babyhood of our existence. Here we become the children of eternity where ‘old as Methuselah’ is only an infant of days with millennial cycles unfolding and unending!! The grandeur of Heaven will erase any desire to ‘return to Egypt’ Our invested liberty, in a universe of unparalleled freedom, will cause us to be over-joyous because we followed the Master of the Universe instead of the Chief of the Failed creation of God!!
What is the meaning of “I”? What is this “I”? Who is it? Of all the words used this word is used more often than any other word in our vocabulary yet many don not even know what this “I” is!! Is it my Body? The body is only the outward garment worn by ME. The body can be measured and labeled as portions of lime, silica, iron, water and other elements. It changes every 7 years. The body “I” am in today is not the body of my birth, my teenage years, or that which “I” wore when I first became a Christian. “I” have worn several bodies since I first debuted on this planet, but, the “I” am the same!! “I”, the REAL MAN, stands behind the body looking through windows of eyes, receiving messages through portals called ears, and traveling about on one of the least considered parts of my anatomy, my feet! In all these bodies the “I” RULES . “I” possess this body, “I” make plans and dreams for this body as though it actually belongs to ME!!, and it most emphatically does not!! If “I” am not careful, “I” will become a thief, for “I” will take what is not mine, use it as though it is mine, mock it making it participate in sin and introduce things made up of chemical composition into it which will eat it away and destroy it’s ability to function; and “I” have not been given permission from its owner to do so!!! One thing I must remember as a Christian, this tabernacle “I” dwell in belongs to God!! “I” cannot mark it, burn it, color it with tattoos or epithets, eat it to oblivion, or join it to a harlot, this body “I” live in was a gift given, and I am expected to respect both the gift and the Giver!! “I” am not MY BODY”.
“I” am not my Brain (all have a brain even IF we do not use it!!). If “I” am my brain, which brain is “I”? Its tissues (cells) have changed repeatedly, but this “I” is the same in spite of all these changes of the brain. Like my body, my brain is something that belongs to its Creator and will not be in Eternity!! The brain decays, “I” remain!!

 

Part 4
The shortest word in the English language is “I”. The most used word in this language is “I”. “I” this, that, ought, will, can, do, remember; all of these expressions are used so-o-o many times we become complacent in its definition. What is this “I”? As we discussed last week it is not my brain. The brains tissues (cells) are the same in spite of all I can feed it in learning, memorizing, or trained response. Like my body, my brain is something that belongs to ME, but who am “I”? As the brain decays, I remain as strong, as vibrant, as disciplined, as energized with new ideas as ever. I must conclude that the brain is not the “I” for the brain is apart of the anatomy of everyone that is pronounced DEAD, yet the “I” dies not, but moves outside the house in which it resided for a time. I find the brain to be but an instrument of the “I”, the spiritual being behind the brain.
Everything involved in conscious personality is related to the brain, but from the brain, not originated!! The brain can be the seat of thought without being the source of it. “I” not only use the brain, but “I” educate, train, fit the brain for its work The brain itself has no knowledge or thought that is inherent, for children born without even a brain stem possess instincts of sucking, falling, hot and cold, and elimination of waste and more. Who taught them, from which ancestor in the evolutionary chain (JOKE!, HA,HA) did they get these?? The brain itself has no knowledge or thought-no power to originate thought. From whence cometh thought?? Which tree in the evolutionary tree shall we look to find this one?? The difference between the brain of a baboon and a man is in the being behind it, not the size!! The difference between the brain of a Gorilla and a man is not just that their skulls sit in a different position on their shoulders, again, it is in the being behind it!! It is not the brain that thinks, remembers, wills, loves, hates, or obeys. On the dissecting table the brain is a mass of cells, nerve centers suffused with blood. Do you think this bleeding organism originates thought?? Build a brain identical to the one inside your skull and see if the man-made works like the God-made!! You think heart transplants are popular!! Think if some wealthy man could transplant the brain of an Einstein or any other genius into his own body or that of his children. Soon we would only have designer children!! Cosmetic surgery would have a new rival!! What is it, what part of it, where in it does the brain think, remember, will, obey??
Can we take out of the brain those murderous impulses and replace them with intellectual, noble, pleasing thoughts?? NO!!, the “I” is not found in the brain. IF A BRAINLESS CHILD DOES NOT POSSESS THE REMEMBERING, OBEYING, MEMORIZING FUNCTIONS, WHEN DO THEY ORIGINATE AND FROM WHOM DO THEY COME?? No erudite student of true Science would ever think that what thinks, remembers, wills, and obeys is a bleeding mass of tissue called the brain!!
Is the “I” Thought? Feeling? Emotion? NO! the real “I” is the conscious or unconscious person behind them all, greater than they, even if all put and harnessed together. The “I” possesses all these and still is something MORE!! Thoughts, my will, fear, joy, pain is all mine and no other person of my species experiences them as do I!! These emotions, joys, pain, and obedience are a possession of “I” but they are not me!! These emotions are not co-dependent on each other. If “I” think it can “I” necessarily “feel” it? My emotions, feelings, obedience’s, desires change, yet “I” am the same!! I want to find out where in the brain we find conviction, we need a lot of this stuff!! Just think if we could bottle a little, we could save a lot of our families!!

Part 5
We are still looking for the “I” that is the lord of the soul and spirit of man. Everything involved in conscious personality is related to the brain, but not originated by it. The brain can be the seat of thought without being the source of it!! “I” not only uses the brain, but “I” educate and fit it for its work!! The brain itself has no knowledge or thought-no power to originate either. The difference between the brain of a baboon and a man is in the being behind it. It is not the brain that thinks, remembers, wills, obeys, or intends. If one could dissect the brain all they would find was a mass of cells, nerve centers suffused with blood. If the same brain is dissected when this individual dies, one would find the same mass of cells, nerve centers suffused with blood!! What learned, what grew, what became more wise?? ‘I’ do not die, cease, where does the “I” go?? “I” am not the brain and the brain is not the “I” that is me, in fact “I” control, possess, and use the brain as though it belongs to me (as I do my right hand or arm while “I” am in the body) for it is mine, but I am not the brain!!
The “I” is not thought, feelings or emotions, either!! No, the real “I” is the conscious person behind all I do, is greater than my earthly tabernacle, and cannot be produced by mankind (and he has tried). All that is of my tabernacle is mine. “I” have been allowed to use, abuse, or destroy what God prepared me. If ‘I’ think, ‘I’ feel, if ‘I’ desire, ‘I’ plan, if ‘I’ want, ‘I’ make plans to obtain, yet the “I” remains the permanent thing behind everything. Though my body constantly changes “I” constantly fuel my life as though I own it!! This “self” that is within me has conviction, opinions, duties, and desires. It knows, has a consciousness of right wrong stored in it that allows “me” to make proper decisions!! The “I” is a permanent-behind –the scenes, separate pre-existent totality who wanted a place to belong!! This self has conviction: “I” will always be, live forever, and if ‘I’ claim the right Lord, ‘I’ will spend eternity with my one true friend, from whom “I” began. Paul writes about “a law written in our hearts” Romans 2:15, and the apostle John calls this “I” the light in every man. John 1:9 ‘I’ am not of this Earth, ‘I’ am from above!
The “I” is not the Soul! Adam became a living soul. Instead of saying I have a soul, I should say I am a soul, a living soul. The Supreme Spirit touched with His finger the body of Adam and the true Adam began to be. As an electric spark flashing into his body, Adam becomes a living soul. I know the soul is not the “I” for “I” can lose it!! “For what is a man profited; if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:26 Gaining the world loses the “I”. “I” am the invisible immortal being clothed in a material body in this stage of existence on the planet Earth. “I” am the emanation from God’s nature intended to live in harmony with Deity for “I” was born to serve the Lord!
Can the “I” be destroyed? If “I” have survived the rigors of physical child birth, emergencies untold, and sustained all subsequent changes of every part of the body-will the “I” not survive the putting away of the whole body at death?? You, “I” must live forever and ever-whether exalted or degraded in character or station, you or the “I” are forever, never can we get away from Life. Let the soul feel its own dignity, measure its own worth, and know its importance for look what God did to show its value, He gave His only begotten Son!! He created it, stamped it with His own image; redeemed it by the incarnation and death of Christ. Just what is the “I” that it means so much to God? God’s value which He set on the soul is without comparison. Who, what am “I”?

Part 6
Whether exalted or degraded, you and I will exist forever and ever!! Never will we be able to get away from the being that is us. Let the soul feel its dignity, measure its value by what God has done to redeem it, and man for the first time will see his value. God created us, stamped us with His image, redeemed us by incarnating His Son, His Son died the cruelest death devised by man, entered the Strong Man’s house, and resurrected in glory. This man could never devise. God’s values the “I” immeasurably!! Again, the “I” is not the soul nor the spirit, it is the union of them. The “I” began at creation.
There are three stages of Life as we know it. The first stage of existence, that that is before the hereafter, is our existence on this physical planet called Earth. This life is but a single stage in God’s plan. What is called death is the end of this career and the beginning of a new life through which death is its birth. This new life is merely a new stage of our existence, a promotion, if you please, the prospects of which should stir the blood within us!! Here the “I” lives with a body woven around me. This stage is vastly more important than any other stage of my existence for it is on this stage all else depends. All future stages of existence depend on how this life is lived. In this stage-acts make habits; habits makes character; and character determines destiny!! This stage ends with the crisis of death. Death is the sundering of the soul and body. Because we have not experienced death we fear it. Because we cannot conceive of life outside this physical existence, we must depend on Him who was and has traveled here. He made known the direction to success. We fear, we shrink from the unknown. Yet, we had no more experience with this life at birth!! We entered this existence unafraid, unconcerned about tomorrow, innocent of any adjustment which would have to be made. How can we not face the fact of death without fear, as birth gave us much, death will give us more!!
“A leap into the dark”? This is how a renowned atheist described death but how does the God who created life describe death for His children? It is far less dark and less a leap than feared. I am reminded of many who have thought themselves hanging blindfolded from a window being told they are over a yawning abyss, in terror of an awful fall, when, no longer able to hold on, fall four inches!! There was no less terror, no less fear; but the reality was different than believed. We do not ignore sickness nor the pain associated with dieing, but these are but the birth pangs of our eternal existence. As the pangs of birth are not now remembered, will the pangs of death be any different, there?? The poet cries out; “There is no death, what seems so is transition.” God’s Word teaches us that death is birth, and what life conceals, death will reveal!!
As infant eyes open from the darkness of the womb to the sunlight of a new life, so our eyes that closed in the darkness of death will open to a “light that never was on sea or land.” This act of death, like the act of birth into this life will not be as the first birth!! No one will come into this “other” world to loneliness. On arrival, beaming eyes of joy await, love unbounded surrounds, and reaching out to receive us into eternal birth are the arms of parents/friends who are experienced in this new existence prepared (we hope!), and ready to guide us until we leave their moorings. Then we will become guides for those we love as the cycle continues until He who has conquered death will forever destroy it!! 1 Corinthians 15:24 All those who die in Christ are “carried by angels” to the other side. This indicates a saved soul’s passing into the unseen as attended, does it not? As they arrive at another temporary place (unless they are alive when our Lord returns) they will be greeted as in the first birth, in the arms of those who love them!!

Part 7
As the anxious eyes of an infant open to this life, we with bated breath open our eyes to life eternal on the morning of our graduation. A day that will never see an evening sunset. As the infants eyes open from the darkness of the womb to the sunlight on this earth, so will eyes that close in the darkness of death open to a “a light that never was on land or sea.” And “I”, the union of my soul and spirit WILL be there!!
The solemn responsibility of this earth life is understood to be probation. Here we prove ourselves “worthy of eternal life with Christ” or worthy of eternal misery. The possibility of clemency cannot be introduced to encourage the careless. Men often when given a loop hole use it to their own destruction. “It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah” is a warning against rejecting and ignoring the “mighty works” we have had the opportunity to study. “Beaten with a few stripes” is not a suspended sentence for any who have access or knowledge of the Master’s Will!! Often asked but not answered, in this passage our Lord deals with those who have family or friends that “never knew the way of righteousness”, not those who knew and would not obey!! In the Old Testament Law there was a distinction between sins committed through ignorance and presumptuous sins. Number 15: 29-30 Ignorance seems to allow mercy. He that knew not his Lord’s Will, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten (because he might have known his duty better) but with few stripes; his ignorance excused in part, but not wholly!! For example, “through ignorance the Jews crucified the Lord of Glory”. For them Christ pleaded ignorance: “Father, forgive them; they know what they do”! The knowledge of duty allows no clemency. Knowledge adds to the aggravation of sin. God will inflict more because of knowledge. It argues for a greater degree of willfulness and contempt. “For to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required” is no satisfying comfort to we who know!! This begs ability, learning, family acquaintance which would cause closed-mindedness, societal prejudice, and opportunity. That our Lord even mentioned this causes great hope for all the loved we “presume” would be as honest with the truth as we would hope. And why not hope!!
Outer darkness is absence of light resulting from blindness of sight. The Joy of Heaven will be as impossible to the unholy as music is to the deaf ear or the beauties of nature are to the blind. How can those who have spent all their time in sin on this earth ever develop an eye for the beauties of that that God has prepared for His Own?? Musical illiterates have no patience, nor appreciation for the masteries of music. They accept far more readily something that requires no training, diligence, or art. This so-called screaming and profanity from un-trained voices heard today should show us why denominationalism is so readily accepted and truth does not get much a chance!! Probation in this life simply means that in this first stage of his being a man either is or is not blind-hearted (and he makes that determination) making himself incapable of higher things in the life to come that are reserved for the faithful!! Recognize how awful Law is that will damn willful sin. Sin stands against light. Sin, tolerated, will lead to the darkening of that Light. There is no wonder that denominationalism is so readily accepted. Denominationalism is an indictment against Almighty God!! The “Deeds done in the body” will cause the “door to be shut” to those who have rejected the Magistrates Law. Reject Christ here, abandon hope in the hereafter!! Light cannot shine when we close the curtain or take out the window!! The inner sensitivity called the conscience can be so altered that it will not repudiate any error. This is very troubling!!

Part 8
From this life we begin the Second Stage of Existence. This is not the Hereafter, it is the near Hereafter called in the religious community the “intermediate state”. This term is used for an arena of existence between life on this planet and life with the Lord. Second Corinthians 5:8 Waiting souls and spirits are separated from this life in every respect unless a report comes from home by one KNOWN who has departed this life. Ecclesiastes 9:6 This state and life, before the resurrection, is in two places. One is in the heart of the Earth, a place called in the Greek tongue Hades. This word is by definition “unseen”. It had two spheres. A place called Paradise and another called Tartarus. Dividing these places was a great Gulf that could not be bridged. Here, the saint and sinner resided until the coming of Christ to redeem those held in the bondage of sin in Paradise. When Christ “entered into the strong man’s house”, He spoiled his goods and took Satan’s captives held captive. Revelation 6:10 Because sin was so damning, there was no sacrifice God the Father would accept that would be considered worthy to remove sin. Matthew 12:25-32, Ephesians 4:8-10, Hebrews 2:14-15, Isaiah 14:9-20, Hebrews 10:4 Following death, Christ entered Hades. “He who knew no sin became sin” and because God “laid upon Him the iniquity of us all”, Isaiah 53:6, Christ, with His angelic guard, Matthew 26:53, approached the kingdom of Satan. Luke 10:18, Revelation 12:7-14. At His coming to the Hadean World “all Hell was stirred up”(the part where the righteous abode), Isaiah 14:9. Christ overthrew Satan, took Satan’s bounty held captive and resurrected. Those with Him came back to our arena of existence. Here, they waited for Christ ascension to the Father. Because of Christ, the perfect sacrifice, they, as well as we who are in Christ, are to reside and be with those who had died and had never sinned. Ephesians 2:10, 3:10-14, Matthew 16:18 They, as well as we, who are in Christ, will await the final Resurrection in Paradise, the third Heaven. 2 Corinthians 12:3-4 Ascended with Christ, some of them, whose bodies were not spoiled, would testify of His victory in the Hadean world. Matthew 27:53. Christ stayed on this Earth 40 days before ascending on a cloud to the Ancient of Days. Daniel 7:13-14
When our Lord said to the Thief; “Today, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”, He was speaking of the intermediate state in the heart of the Earth He was about to re-arrange. He was not speaking of the third Heaven, the abode of the sinless dead.
The wicked dead? They too have a temporary and eternal abode. Temporary, wherein is great pain, suffering, and thirst always conscious of their anguish, 2 Peter 3:7, a conscious reprieve at the Second Coming, then, a return to something worse: Eternal Damnation!!
This place is called Tartarus.. In Tartarus there is vivid remembrance, feeling, comfortless existence, where time is not counted. The rich man of Luke 16 keenly felt misery. The damned have a conscious and vivid existence, it is not a sleep of non-existence. (Death does not break our consciousness for there is no cessation of life). Jesus said; “I Am the God of the living, not the God of the dead”. Matthew 21:31-32 Paul said: “I knew a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I knew not.” Second Corinthians 12: 1-40. Death made no difference in consciousness. Again, Abraham lectured the rich man such: “Son, remember”. How could one unconscious know anything? Death provides no chasm of memory but proves that memory is something more than impressions on the gray matter of the brain!! Memory leaves with the soul. Death breaks no covenant with memory, pain, joy, or consciousness!! Part 9
From Hades to the side of the Ancient of Days, this is the trip Jesus made when on a cloud He rode out of His temptation. Luke 22:28 What a time of ecstasy for Him who had ‘endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself’. Abraham’s bosom, the name given the Paradise of the Hadean World, had been the place Christ had promised the ‘thief of the cross’ a reunion. “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” tells more in this declaration. All of the modern philosophers think Jesus meant “today shalt thou be with Me in Heaven”, and so they read this statement, but Christ had “not yet ascended to His Father”, John 20:17, therefore, Heaven, the place which is also called Paradise was not the destination of Christ and the thief that day!!
Hades is a ‘life of waiting souls’. It is clear they are conscious of their situation, have vivid remembrance and feelings about those whom they have left behind. Some are in pain, some in comfort. Lazarus and Dives were actively alive, each feeling, each knowing. Dives was keenly aware of his misery while Lazarus was clearly conscious of comfort. Luke 16:19-31 In this in-between-world men are living in a state of life as conscious and vivid as those of us who are alive on the atmospheric part of this earth; death does not break continued consciousness; there is no break, the soul and spirit continue in conscious existence.
While here, Christ had said: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living”. Matthew 22:31-32, Mark 12:26-27. The apostle Paul, when telling of his “out-of-the-body-experience” testified he did not know whether he was “in the body or out of the body”. John, in receiving the book of Revelation, knew he was “in the spirit”. Both knew they knew; they were not unconscious. The intermediate state of man is not a Rip van Winkle sleep we all take waiting to suddenly awake at the Judgment-in a moment- as if no interval of time had lapsed in between. We do not go unconscious at death and suddenly awake at the sounding of the last Trump. Enoch’s translation, Hebrews 11: 5, Moses and Elijah’s appearance on the mount of Transfiguration, Matthew 17:4, the seat beside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Matthew 8:11, John in the spirit, Revelation 4:2, Lazarus and Dives, Luke 16, and Paul in Paradise, 2 Corinthians 12, and the consciousness of the damned of 2 Peter 2:4 all testify to the conscious existence of a life beyond the pale of existence, here! Death provides no chasm of consciousness.
The Hadean world is a place of clear memory, unclouded by the events of our every-day activities. “Son, remember” were the words that rang out off the walls of that World that no longer can be communicated by the damned. What was it like for men like Abraham to be in a world with those who had rejected the God Abraham had served while on the earth? Sure, they could tell there was a difference, but was that all the righteous were to receive for service to the God they had served? How could that joy of being better off for having served God not have been dulled being separated from the unrighteous by only a great gulf? Did it make some cry out in despair or did they always know Christ was coming to redeem them from the domain of Satan? Memory is something MORE than impressions on the gray matter of the brain- memory is in man, the “I”, himself, who is behind the brain and directs it, and therefore MUST go on with him when-ever and where-ever the “I” goes!! “In thy lifetime, thou hadst good things and Lazarus evil”. Active memory will be as much a part of eternal Hell as temporary, it is far better to “try and fail to succeed, than to fail for never trying at all”!!
Running from God, here, will only make the torture of Hell worse!!

Part 10
Death makes NO break in consciousness, memory, or me; the only difference is where I live. Unlike birth, death does not discontinue or begin anything, it just continues what has already been. For the Christian the next stage of existence begins the fulfillment of a long awaited reality, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. When the prophet Stephen was in the act of leaving his physical body he cried out; “Lord Jesus receive my spirit”. Many have thought this a prayer when in fact it was the next step. Paul reminds us “being absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8 On the Mount of Transfiguration we were privileged with knowledge some have not gleaned. On this occasion we see man in his three states of existence. Peter, in the physical state , Moses, in his spiritual state (called the house from heaven, 2 Corinthians 5:2), and Jesus in His glorified body (that for which we all await the resurrection, Philippians 3:21, 1 John 3:1). Having seen this over and over man has not recognized it. The butterfly is a representative of the three bodies shown in God’s nature. The worm changes into its transitional body, the cocoon, and finally blossoms into a beautiful butterfly and yet it is the SAME animal all the time!! Would anyone want the worm to remain in its physical state and miss the beauty for which his Creator intended?
Shall we be greater fools in Paradise than we are here? If “far better”, as described by the apostle Paul, better than what?? The only thing with which we can compare our existence in Paradise would be the life lived in this present realm. If conscious: conscious in what type of body? Is the “house from heaven” not always present when we are at home in this body? In the Greek language, this body is our oikadonen, our permanent home. We are made with two different bodies, the mortal house or skenos from the word tent a temporary dwelling, and the house from heaven, the oikadomen, a far more permanent house. It is like the stages of a space ship. There is the initial rocket which burns for a while and is thrown off. Another rocket then burns until the ship gets into orbit. Neither rocket is the pay-load or the important part. The mortal house will be “taken down” when death occurs as God loosens all the parts. This “loosening of all the parts” is called DEATH. When this happens, we will not become extinct, we will just throw off the first rocket!! We possess memory, and we all will have memory; but how can we remember when our brains remain in the tomb? Shown in nature, confirmed by scripture, man, the “I”, has all these without any human body available!! We are a continuation of the same being, just as the worm!! Now you can understand a child with no brain stem or one that is retarded.
Abraham was buried and “gathered to his people”, Moses was told to “Get thee up into the mountain and die, and be gathered to his people”, and David said; “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me,” but Jesus told the thief; “Today, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”. How could this be? If they did not recognize, then they could not have known any of these things. What is apparent but not discussed is that souls recognize souls!! How else could this be explained? Samuel, Saul, Moses, and Elijah all are on record as seeing a spiritual vision apart from bodily form or shape. The great apostle John writes: “we know not what we shall be like, but we shall see Him as He is and we shall be like Him.” 1 John 3:2 HOW COULD THIS BE?? Many things we are not told by God how He shall do things, we are not to worry about the how. We had better leave that up to God!! He probably has already got it all worked out!!

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