Tag Archives: Jesus

8 Things that Happen When you Die (Part 1)

When is the last time you’ve thought about what happens after you die? Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. If we are only physical creatures without any immaterial aspect to our existence, then there is only one thing that happens when we die. But if we are complex beings, made of both temporary and eternal elements, then we should spend a moment considering the potential of an afterlife.  

#1 – Our body dies and DECAYS.

Death is often defined as that moment our heart and brain stop. When my mom’s heart stopped, the doctor checked her pulse and declared her deceased.

As the heart ceases to pump blood, the brain shuts down, the body grows pale and begins a cooling process.

Over the next several hours, rigor mortis spreads throughout the entire body. The body has no more purpose in this life. No more talking, walking, running, kicking or eating. The body is finished. Solomon speaks of what happens at death: “the dust returns to the ground it came from” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Depending on how and where the body is buried (preservation, weather, etc.), the body could decompose into a skeleton within weeks or decades. My mom was placed into a coffin. Amazingly, the process of decomposition is quite long for someone laid to rest in a coffin. It could take fifty years for the body’s tissues to liquify and disappear, leaving behind mummified skin and tendons. Eventually the skin and tendons will also disintegrate, and after eighty years in the coffin, the body will be in skeleton form. After a hundred years, the last of the deceased bones will have collapsed into dust. Only the most durable part of the body, teeth, will remain.

That is what happens to our physical body when we die. But is this the end? Is there something inside the human body that lives on after the grave?

Just as Solomon explained that the body will eventually return to dust, he gives us hope that “the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

We have much evidence from the Bible that our spirit will exist far beyond death. Just as we spend time thinking about what happens to our physical body when it dies, it is vital that we consider what happens to our spirit when our bodies are finished. What can the Christian hope for when he or she breathes their last breath on this earth?

#2 – ANGELS carry you to heaven.

Jesus told us a story about a man named Lazarus who died and was carried to heaven by angels (Luke 16:22). We are not told how long our journey is to heaven.

The moment we die, we might instantly be in the presence of Jesus in heaven. On the other hand, our spirit might fly with the angels for a multitude of miles to heaven.

Maybe we will fly past planets and stars, through galaxies and the entire universe before we arrive at heaven. This might take several minutes, instead of being immediate. Could it take a few hours? We have no idea, and in many ways it does not matter.

Heaven is not here on this earth as it was during the early days when Adam and Eve were sinless. Heaven is “out there” somewhere and we are told that the only way to this paradise is through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

#3 – You see the glorious SIGHTS of heaven.

When Stephen was near death, God gave him a glimpse of what heaven looks like (Acts 7:59). As your spirit enters heaven, you will initially see Jesus and the glory that has been awaiting you. Here are just a few awe-inspiring things you will notice (from Revelation 21-22). 

The holy city, with an appearance of jasper, clear as crystal.

Massive, high walls with angels at all twelve gates.

The city streets will be pure gold, like glass.

Enormous pearls will be at every gate.

The river of life.

The tree of life.

You will see God’s face.

Try to imagine how spectacular this moment will be for every Christian. Your faith will become sight and you will see this glorious place that God made for your enjoyment for all eternity.

#4 – You hear the glorious SOUNDS of heaven.

The glory of heaven is not just about all the incredible sights, it also includes the new reality of absolute truth that will surround you in completeness.

Paul was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things that no one is permitted to tell (2 Cor 12:4).

This verse implies that there is knowledge in heaven that is too vast for our earthly brains to grasp. I am not sure how our new, heavenly minds will have this “inexpressible information” downloaded, but it will allow us to understand the mysteries of God to a fuller extent.

Right now, we only know part of the mysteries in this life.

The Bible addresses this reality:

We know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears…now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (1 Cor 13:9-12).

We desire the complete story in the tragedies and complexities of life. Why did someone die in a car accident? Why do healthy people die of cancer in their forties and smokers live past their eighties? Why was I infertile, but all my friends were able to have children? Why does more bad stuff happen to me, but other people seem to have an easy, blessed life? Why did two of my children become Christians but the other one rejected the faith?

These are a few questions out of the countless that cannot be answered this side of heaven. I am not sure if God is going to answer every single question we have ever had in our experience on earth, but we are given the promise that our minds will become complete when we are in heaven.

#5 – You will be PRESENT with Jesus.

A man approached me after I conducted his wife’s memorial service. He is a Christian and has a deep, genuine faith as far as I can observe. He told me that his wife is now in a state of sleep and is awaiting the resurrection. He showed me a couple passages that seem to imply that Christians experience some sort of “soul sleep” when they die (Daniel 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Since they are sleeping, the time will seem to have passed quickly, and when they are awakened, it will only seem like a few seconds. But it might have been hundreds or even thousands of years.

This is a popular view among some Christians. But when you consider the context of all Scripture, “soul sleep” does not paint an accurate picture of what happens when we die. The apostle Paul was confident that when he died, he would be with Jesus in heaven:

We are confident and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8).

The logic is clear: if I am in my body, I am still alive on earth and away from the presence of God. If I die and my body turns to dust, I am with Jesus Christ.

Let’s look at what Jesus said to the thief on the cross:

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

The key word here is TODAY. In the present moment, not at a later time.

Did this thief deserve heaven? Absolutely not. But that is why we are saved by grace. The thief simply called out to Jesus for salvation and received it. The thief didn’t soul sleep. He didn’t have to deal with his past sins in purgatory. He was made righteous the moment he called upon Jesus and at his death immediately went to be with Jesus.

Now that we have made clear that we will be in the presence of Jesus after our death, it might be appropriate to think about what that will be like.

Every year, more than 50 million people die throughout the world.

That means that on an average day, more than 150,000 breathe their last breath.

Over 6,000 per hour.

More than a hundred a minute.

Every second, at least one person dies.

What does this have to do with our interactions with Jesus?

Have you ever considered how many of those people who die are Christians? Estimates say that there are about one billion Christians on planet earth out of about seven billion people.

That is a ratio of 1 of 7.

This number is probably high, because we are told that the way is narrow and only a few find it (Matthew 7:14). Let’s say the ratio is more like one out of twenty. If this is the case, then every single minute, there are at least five Christians entering heaven ready to see Jesus and walk around with Him and spend significant time with their Creator and Savior. Then, sixty seconds later, another five Christians are ready for their first interaction with Jesus. And then another five, and another five.

After only one hour, more than three hundred Christians have entered into heaven and all of them want Jesus’ attention.

Have you ever thought about the logistics of Jesus interacting with so many people at once as their personal savior in heaven? How will Jesus handle this? The Bible explains that He will interact with us personally. We are told that He will wipe away our tears, so He gets close to us in proximity.

And I am just discussing the new Christians here. What about all the others who have been there for a few days, years or centuries? Will they get any alone time with Jesus, or will everything be done in community? I do not have the answers to these questions, but I do know that God is able to do things that are very different from our limited mindset: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). It will not be impossible for Jesus to meet with thousands of people at a time, and yet each of those people feel as if Jesus is only meeting with them. We cannot understand this mystery, but we know that God is good, and so this will also be good.

I am not sure exactly what it will look like to have our first interaction with Jesus, but I know that Jesus gave love, joy, peace, wisdom, attentiveness, compassion and hospitality to so many when He walked this planet.

It is impossible to describe how life-giving our friendship will be with God. It will be the best part of heaven. Just imagine every good quality in a human, and then exponentially increase those virtues, and you are starting to get closer to how incredible God will treat you in heaven.

Part 2 will continue next week with the final 3 things that will happen to us when we die…

What to Say When a Jehovah’s Witness Knocks on Your Door

JW door(My wife took this picture of our interaction to remember to pray for them)

The doorbell rang on Saturday morning. As I walked to the door, my two middle daughters (ages 3 and 6) scampered along with me. As I opened the door, there were two females. One was in her mid to late forties, while the other was just starting her teen years. I knew exactly who they were the moment I locked eyes with them: Jehovah’s Witnesses!

Over the years, I have been approached by Jehovah’s Witnesses many different times. It was always groups of two or three people, usually an older person along with someone who was learning how to go “door to door” and reach the world for Jehovah. Before I opened my mouth, I prayed silently that this would be a moment for these two women that would change their eternal destiny.

“You’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, aren’t you?” This is how our conversation started. They did not know that they had knocked on the door of a pastor who had actually taught about their form of religion in a class called “Cults and other World Religions.” I was ready to “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).

Many people wonder whether or not Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians. The answer is a definite “no” when you ask them what they believe about basic, orthodox Christianity. Jehovah’s Witnesses and traditional, historical Christianity do not have much in common when you look at what is taught by each side. In this article, I am going to give you a few main topics to talk with Jehovah’s Witnesses about so that when you are approached by a JW, you will be comfortable interacting with them. You should burn with a desire for them to see the truth of the Bible so that they realize what they believe is not only false, but will send them to hell.

Jehovah’s Witnesses will probably bring up all of these topics in the course of your conversation. Here is how I answered them from a biblical perspective. Please read through all four. The last one is the most important and has really shaken them to their core. Topic #4 is worth the entire read in this article. But all of these topics will come up with a JW if you talk long enough with them.

Topic #1: Who exactly is Jehovah?

JW cross

Jehovah’s Witness: We believe in Jehovah and only He is God.

Christian’s Response: I also believe in Jehovah (Yahweh), but I believe that Jesus and Jehovah are the same God. Let’s look at these verses that prove that Jesus is fully God:

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

Jesus even said that “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58).

“In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word [logos] was with God, and the Word [logos] was God” (John 1:1).

You will have a hard time convincing a Jehovah’s Witness with the verse in John 1:1 because their leadership has translated it “the Word was a god.” But this is an inappropriate translation. If you talk with any Greek scholar, you will find that one should never place an “a” before the word god in this context. As you can see, this is why it is difficult to really talk through truth with someone who has been misinformed about the Bible.

A response you will probably hear from a Jehovah’s Witness when you try to tell them that Jesus is God is this verse:

Jesus stated himself that “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).

Does this mean that Jesus is denying His godhood? No, it doesn’t. You cannot use just one verse to try to prove your point. That is why I presented several verses a few paragraphs above. But the lady that Saturday morning just kept repeating this one verse. She was taught this one verse and apparently none of the other ones. And too often, we forget to look at the context of the verse that becomes a proof text. In this context, Jesus is promising the Holy Spirit to the apostles after the resurrection. Jesus says repeatedly that He is doing the Father’s will, implying that He is somehow subservient to the Father. The question then becomes how can Jesus be equal to God when by His own admission He is subservient to the will of God? The answer lies within the nature of the incarnation (i.e. when Jesus became man and came to this earth).

During the incarnation, Jesus was temporarily “made lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:9), which refers to Jesus’ status. The doctrine of the incarnation says that Jesus took on human flesh. By taking on human nature, Jesus didn’t relinquish His divine nature. How do we reconcile the fact that the second Person (Jesus) of the Trinity is fully divine yet fully human and by definition lower than the angels? The answer is found in Philippians 2:5-11. When Jesus took on human form, something amazing and mysterious happened: “Christ made Himself nothing.” What does this mean? Jesus voluntarily made Himself different as He was on this earth. Somehow, someway, Jesus gave some things up to become a servant unto death on the cross. This “emptying” included following the will of His Father in heaven. And remember, subservience in role does not equate to subservience in essence.

You will most likely talk through this topic most of the time. You believe that Jesus is God, but they deny that Jesus is fully God. This is why topic #4 will put all of this together! Read the others first.

Topic #2: The Trinity

JW trinity

Jehovah’s Witness: We believe in one God called Jehovah and you believe in three gods.

Christian’s Response: I believe in the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit. All three persons are one God. They are mysteriously separate and yet one at the same time. Let’s look at these verses which teach the Trinity:

“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Thomas said to Him [Jesus], “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28)!

“You’ve lied to the Holy Spirit…You’ve not lied just to human beings but to God” (Acts 5:3-4).

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor [Holy Spirit; John 14:26], Mighty God, Everlasting Father [Father; 14:16], Prince of Peace [Jesus; John 14:27]” (Isaiah 9:6).

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).

“Baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

Jesus states that He is of the same essence of His heavenly Father. When Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus, he cried out that Jesus was now his God. And we see in the book of Acts that the Holy Spirit can be lied to and there is a direct reference to the Holy Spirit being referred to as God.

These last two verses don’t say the word Trinity, but they do present three distinct persons in the form of God. These first two topics connect with each other and one must accept the deity of Jesus before they will accept the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity can really trip up many people who want to believe. As Christians, we must be humble about this and state clearly that the Trinity is a mystery that we must accept in faith. There is biblical evidence, but we do not know exactly how it all works.

Topic #3: The 144,000

JW paradise

Jehovah’s Witness: We believe that only 144,000 believers will go to heaven. The rest of us will stay here on paradise earth.

Christian’s Response: It appears that the 144,000 in Revelation 7 are referring to actual tribes of Israel. Each of the tribes represents 12,000, possibly hinting towards the idea that this number is symbolic and that during the Great Tribulation God will save a large number of Jews who rejected Jesus earlier in their life. There also seems to be another group of people who are believers and this multitude cannot even be counted (Revelation 7:9). To say that there are only 144,000 individuals going to heaven totally disregards the rules of biblical interpretation.

I would like to talk about your three main leaders and their false prophecies. Here are four examples:

False Prophesy #1: The return of Jesus Christ in 1914. Charles T. Russell, the man who founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses, calculated when Jesus Christ was going to return to this earth: 1874. When Jesus didn’t show up, he changed the year to 1914. When 1914 came and went, he redefined the second coming of Jesus to mean that Jesus came invisibly as a spirit in 1914 to help set up his organization.

False Prophesy #2: Return of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob between 1925-1929. Joseph Franklin Rutherford, the second main leader of Jehovah’s Witnesses, prophesied that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would return to this earth to promote the kingdom of God between 1925-1929. He built a large mansion in San Diego for these three patriarchs to live in when they arrived. But by the end of 1929, they never showed up, so Rutherford moved into the mansion himself and lived there until he died in 1942.

False Prophesy #3: The 144,000. After Rutherford became president of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1917, he started prophesying that Armageddon was right around the corner. To increase membership, he taught that only 144,000 people were going to make it to heaven. By 1935 they grew larger than 144,000 people. Heaven was filled and Armageddon had yet to occur. Another revelation came to Rutherford: everyone who became a Jehovah’s Witness before 1935 would go to heaven, while everyone who became a Jehovah’s Witness after 1935 would stay here on earth and live in a new paradise.

False Prophesy #4: Armageddon is coming in 1975. Nathan H. Knorr, the third main leader, prophesied that in 1975 Armageddon would come to usher in the end of the age. In 1976 and 1977 over one million Jehovah’s Witnesses left the organization because of this false prophecy.

The first three leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization were all false prophets. This would be like having Paul, John and Peter give specific predictions in the early church and none of them are fulfilled. It would dishearten all the followers to the point of asking: “Is this really the right way to God and heaven?” If your main leaders have falsely predicted future events that have not come to pass, then how can you trust them with other teachings? Try your best to help them see that their own leaders are deceiving them. It will feel like it is impossible, but you have God on your side who wants these wonderful people to see the light so that they will no longer be led astray by falsehood.

Topic #4: The Book of Revelation

Christian: Can I show you a few verses in the book of Revelation?

Jehovah’s Witness: Sure, I love that book!

After talking through the first three topics, I felt like it was time to use a few verses in Revelation. I knew that this would make these two ladies run from my house, but it was time to present to them some powerful truth about Jesus. I asked the forty-something lady to turn in her Bible to Revelation 1:8. I always use their New World Translation because they will be much more comfortable with that. I even asked her to read it:

JW alpha omega“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I asked her who was speaking. Who is the Alpha and Omega? She responded with a resounding, “Jehovah God.” I told her that she was right and I asked her to turn to Revelation 21:5-7.

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

“Who is this?” I asked. Once again, she stated that Alpha and Omega is Jehovah God. “Could you turn to Revelation 22:13 and read it?”

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

By this time, she was losing patience with me, but told me again that the Alpha and Omega refers to Jehovah God. I asked her if she could turn to one last passage. I had her read it out loud. It is Revelation 1:17.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.”

I had her stop at verse 17 and asked her, “Who is the First and the Last? She said that the First and the Last is Alpha and Omega, who is Jehovah God. Then I had her read verse 18:

“I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

“When did Jehovah die?” I looked her in the eye and asked her this question. She just stared at the page and then looked at me. And then she kept repeating, “Jehovah never died! Jehovah never died!” I told her that this is referring to Jesus and that Jesus is Jehovah God and that He died on the cross for our sins! She had no answer. She told me that she was not familiar with these passages and that it was time for her to go. I could tell that she was frazzled. She gave a bewildered and concern look to her daughter as they walked away. As she was walking away, I pleaded with her to study the verses and ask God to show her the truth about Jesus. I shut the door and that was it. I had won the argument, but I also had a sick feeling in my stomach. Here was a wonderful lady and a young girl who were headed in the wrong direction. Their blindness kept them from understanding the truth. I prayed for them, that this interaction might shake them in such a way that they will find the truth and the truth will set them free!