After We Leave This World

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After We Leave This World
by Pastor J. C. O'Hair

A well known author once wrote these words: “the path of glory leads but to the grave.” Then a more famous author once wrote a letter in which he stated that the path of special suffering leads to glory beyond the grave. They call him Saint Peter.

The path of most of the people who have gone on to the grave was anything but a path of glory. Only God knows how many people have left this world and have gone to the grave. But men have guessed the number to be over twenty billion. Of this number more that ten billion have been uncivilized, unevangelized and uneducated heathen. Most of them have died in poverty, and misery and degradation.

Perhaps you have read the first Book in the Bible, the Book of Genesis. In the first chapters of that first Book we read of a wonderful man, a man made in the image and likeness of God. That wonderful man was in a wonderful Paradise, communing with Almighty God. Then something happened. What was that something? Three letters tell us. S – I – N. Sin has played havoc with the human race. “The wages of sin is death.” As we come to the last chapter of that first Book we read the biography of another wonderful man. His name was Joseph. This is the way the chapter ends—“So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

What a contrast! Adam in the image of God in Paradise. Joseph in a coffin in Egypt. If Adam had not sinned, Joseph would not have been in Egypt or in a coffin. Yes, Joseph was about as fine and noble as any man who ever lived on this earth. But he went to the grave. “To the grave.” Not a very happy thought, but the funeral cars are constantly passing us on the way to the cemetery to keep us reminded that we, too, are on the way to the cemetery, whether we are numbered among the noble or just the ordinary.

There was another very noble man, a great king, in whose life there was much glory. But the time of his departure arrived. He said, “I go the way of all the earth.” “So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. (I Kings 2:10). Let’s read the account in I Kings 2:1 to 3—“Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments and His testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself.”

More that one thousand years after that great king died another great and noble man died; perhaps, with one exception, measured by true values, the greatest man who ever lived on this earth. Note his farewell message: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing.” (II Timothy 4:6 to 8.).

Where is this great man now? Is Paul forever dead? It was Paul who wrote—“Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” (I Timothy 4:8.).

But note again his words in I Corinthians 15:19—“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

As we think of David, and Paul, and our loved ones, who have gone to their graves, the old questions of Job are ever new: “Man giveth up the ghost and where is he?” “If a man die, shall he live again?” Who has the answer?

The first question, “Where are the dead?” causes us to think of these strange words, recorded in Ecclesiastes 12:3 to 7—“In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the door shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets; Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit return unto God Who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.”

Let us read with these words the story of a great Christian hero, Stephen. “And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” (Acts 7:59 and 60).

Paul might well have thought of Stephen when he wrote II Corinthians 5:8 and 9—“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him.”

There were times when Paul wanted to depart to be with Christ (Philippians 1:22 and 23). That meant that his path led to glory beyond the grave. Therefore he said: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18.). “When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:4).

Now let us compare the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ, when He was here on earth, with that wonderful truth He later revealed to Paul.

“ Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28 and 29.

“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” I Corinthians 15:51 and 52.

The grave is simply a stop on the way. We are all either on the way to eternal glory or to eternal perdition. The wonderful, startling news is, that some are going to eternal glory without going to the grave. Think of the joy of the redeemed ones who will be raptured in the twinkling of an eye. No funeral. No grave. But glory eternal.