Where Are The Dead?

By Oscar M. Baker

Somebody asks where one will be 10 minutes after death. That is not too hard to answer. In the first 10 minutes after death, not many folks are moved very far. So they are pretty near the spot where they died. But some may persist and ask where they are some months or years after death. Again the question is not too hard. Unless they have been molested or there has been some upheaval, they are still right where they are buried; the dead don’t move very much.

Then again some will ask what death is like. The Word of God uses the figure of sleep to describe it in both the Old and New Testaments. There is no reference that will indicate that they dream while in this sleep. It is not that kind of sleep. In fact, they are dead; but sleep is the figure, not the fact.

An old saying is that dead men tell no lies. Neither do they tell the truth. Their tongues lie silent in the Grave (Psa. 6:5; 31:17).

There is no knowledge in the grave (Ecc. 9:10). At least the wicked are silent in the grave (Psa. 31:17). There is no memory in the grave (Psa. 6:5). No one gives thanks in the grave (ibid). David trusted God would redeem his soul from the power of the grave (Psa. 49:15). So the soul goes in the grave (hell). The dead sleep in the dust of the earth (Dan. 12:2). David is still in the grave (hell) (Acts 2:29, 34; 13:36,37).

Plato was much more logical than his present day followers. He reasoned that if a soul was to exist forever in the future, then it must have existed throughout all time in the past; that it had no beginning and no ending. But modern theology admits that the soul has a beginning, but that once it comes into being it is out of the control of the Creator and He cannot destroy it. All this in spite of the fact that our Lord said, “Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). The law had said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” But men still talk about never-dying souls! Religious leaders would not be able to get away with all this nonsense if people would read and study the Bible.

If any live forever, it is because they have received the gift of eternal life from God. And this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not (the) life. But today all this truth is denied. Instead of life and immortality being the Gift of God, men teach that we inherit them from our parents! Why? Because they still believe the lie, “Thou shalt not surely die.”

And so today men say death is not death, but is life and life more abundantly. They say death is a friend; the Word says it is the last enemy that shall be destroyed.

Most religious folks today have gotten their theology from hymn books. They are totally ignorant of what God has said about death and the grave and immortality. Ignorance neither will save them or excuse them.

Which have you chosen to believe, God’s TRUTH or Satan’s LIE?