Subject: THE ASSURANCE OF IMMORTALITY
Text: 2 Corinthians 5:1: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
If a person dies, will he or she really live again? This is a question that almost every thoughtful person, at one time or another, gives some serious thought to.
When a person dies and the body is placed in a casket and buried in a cemetery, is that the end of that person, or does life for him or her continue on elsewhere? As we think of friends and loved ones whose bodies now lie beneath the sod, do we really expect to see them again someday and have a glad reunion in another world? As we travel the earthly pathway, do we do so as those who are travelling towards the end of life or as those who are on a journey to a better world?
Whether or not life continues on beyond the grave has a great deal to do with the meaning and purpose of life in the here and now. If life does end at the grave, then earthly life has no lasting meaning and purpose, and Edwin Arlington Robinson puts it pretty well in the lines:
"If after all that we have lived and thought,
All comes to Nought,
If there be nothing after Now,
And we be nothing anyhow
And we know that, - why live?"
Certainly whether or not we believe in life after death has a great deal to do with how we live, how we feel as we stand beside the graves of our loved ones, and how we feel as we approach the end of our own earthly journey.
Mark Twain was known not only as one of our country's greatest writers and humorists but also as one who, in his spiritual life, was cynical and unbelieving. Helen Keller, in telling of her last visit with him, said that he unburdened his soul to her. "I am very lonely sometimes," he said, "when I sit by the fire when my guests have departed. My thoughts train away into the past. I think of Livey and Susie and I seem to be fumbling in the dark folds of confused dreams." Then he repeated with tenderness the lines which were engraved on his wife's tombstone:
"Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here;
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
"Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light,
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night."
If only Mark Twain had had a genuine Christian faith and an assurance of the reality of life beyond the grave so that he could have written on his wife's tombstone, "We shall meet again" instead of "Good night, good night," what a difference it would have made in his life and in the way he felt about the passing of his loved ones! How dark the grave appears and how sad is the end of earthly life when one does not believe in life after death and when one has no confident hope for the future!
"If a person dies, shall he or she live again?" Down across the centuries there have been those who believed in life after death, and there have been those who did not.
In New Testament days, for example, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, and the Sadducees did not. The Sadducees, you remember, tried to argue their case against the resurrection with Jesus Himself, and He plainly told them that they did err, "not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God."
In our day, while there are many who do believe in the reality of life after death, there are also quite a few who do not. Most of us probably know some people personally who hold to the viewpoint that life ends at death, that there is only the here and no hereafter.
We know further that even among those of us who profess to believe that life continues on beyond the grave, there is not always the assurance or the certainity of the reality of immortality that we might like to have. It is one thing to stand up in church on Sunday morning and say that we believe in the resurrection with our lips. It may be another thing to stand beside the newly dug grave of a loved one and feel, deep within the soul, an assurance that we shall meet again in a better world.
It is one thing to say wistfully, "I hope there is life after death!" It is another thing to say, "I believe life continues on after death." And it is still another thing to be able to say truthfully, "I not only believe that life continues on after death; deep down in my soul, I know that it is so!"
Where does this blessed assurance of immortality come from, this assurance that enables a person to say not simply "I hope..." or "I believe..." but "I know..."?
Job said, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."
The Apostle Paul said, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain... I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day... 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 also that love His appearing... For we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ... For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality..." On and on we could go, quoting statements of the Apostle Paul that illustrate not simply his hope and his belief but his confident assurance of the reality of life beyond death.
Have you ever wondered where Paul got this assurance, this certainity, of the life eternal, that goes beyond hope, fine though hope may be, and that goes beyond belief, wonderful though the right Christian beliefs are? It might be well for us to find out where he got this assurance of immortality, for I have the feeling that some of us might well use some of it, too; and where he got it, perhaps we, too, may also get if we do not now have it!
Did Paul get this assurance of immortality by examining all of the evidence and thus building up a case strong enough to prove that life continues on after death? I think not. There is sufficient evidence for the immortality of the soul to prove the case logically to a fair-minded jury, I believe, but while evidences for life after death may strengthen our faith, they alone are not sufficient to enable a person to say, "I know!"
The story is told of a lawyer who told a minister friend of his that he would be a Christian if he could believe that Jesus Christ arose from the dead. The minister told him that he could provide him with the evidence of that fact, and he gave him a manuscript containing logical proofs of the resurrection. A few days later the lawyer brought the manuscript back. "I now believe beyond all reasonable doubt from the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead," he said. "But I am no more a Christian now than I was when I took the evidence from you a few days ago. I have found out that the chief trouble is not with my head, but with my heart."
I have read a number of books containing evidences for the resurrection, and have found the evidences quite impressive and strengthening to faith. And I have tried to preach sermons setting forth some of those evidences. Yet, it takes more than second-hand evidence to enable one to go beyond "I hope" and "I believe" to "I know!"
Did Paul get his assurance of immortality simply by listening to the testimony of Christians who had been eye-witnesses of the resurrection of Christ? I think not, though the testimony of eye-witnesses can be tremendously convincing.
If we think that if only we could sit down and talk with Mary and Martha and some of the disciples who actually saw and talked with Jesus following His resurrection, we would thereby be brought to an assurance of immortality such as they and Paul had, we are perhaps very much mistaken.
When the women returned from the sepulchre that first Easter morning and told their experiences to the disciples, their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. That evening, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, they were glad when they saw the Lord. Thomas, however, was not with them. And what did Thomas say when the other disciples told him that they had seen the Lord, that the resurrection was a reality? He said, "Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hands into His side, I will not believe."
The witness of those who believe may stir up hope and even build up faith, but even the disciples demonstrated that it takes more than this to go beyond the realm of faith into the assurance of certainity and knowledge.
Did Paul get his assurance of life after death simply by reading what God has to say about the matter in the Scriptures? Tremendously important though the Scriptures are and accurate though the Scriptures are, yet we do well to remember that the Sadducees had the Scriptures and they did not believe in life after death, much less have an assurance of the reality of immortality. And there are no doubt many people in the world today who are familiar with the Scriptures and who believe in life after death who yet cannot say with the assurance of certainity, "I know there is life after death; I know that if my earthly house of this tabernacle - my physical body - is dissolved, I have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Where, then, did the Apostle Paul get the assurance of the reality of life after death, his assurance of immortality so great that he was able to say not simply "I hope" or "I believe" but "I know"? It seems to me that he got it in the realm of personal experience growing out of his relationship with the Lord and out of the things which the Lord revealed to him because of that relationship. The things that we know through experience have a ring of certainity about them and a reality that takes us beyond hope and faith. It is one thing to talk about what we have read or what we believe. It is another thing to be able to declare, as John does in his first epistle, that "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled..."
The Apostle Paul knew some things because he had not only heard, but he had also seen and felt and experienced their reality.
He knew the reality of the resurrection of Christ because he had met Jesus on the road to Damascus and had personal dealings with Him. When he preached Christ, he was preaching not simply about the One of Whom the Scriptures testify, but he was preaching about the One he had personally met and with Whom he had established a personal realtionship... One Whom he knew through personal experience.
Do we know Jesus in a personal way? Have we gone beyond hope and faith into an experience of personal knowledge of our Saviour and Lord?
Dr. John R. Church told me once of holding a meeting in a church where one of the fine men in the church had a boy of about nine or ten who was full of mischief and continually getting into something. One day, after a particularly moving service the night before, the man said to Dr. Church, "Something happened to Billy last night. He's like a different boy. Ordinarily, as soon as church is over, he darts out and starts running and playing, but last night, he was quiet and still, and came up to me and said, 'I'm ready to go home if you are.' On the way home he was real quiet, and when we got home, he said, 'Daddy, did you see Him. He was there.' 'See who, Billy? There were a lot of people there.' 'Him!! Did you see Him. He was really there.' 'See who, Billy? Who are you talking about?' 'Did you see JESUS, Daddy? He was really there! He stood beside me and looked at me, and He said, 'Billy, I love you.' And I was ashamed to look at Him, and I said, 'I love You, too, Jesus, and I'm sorry I've been such a mean boy.'"
Have we had and do we have an experience of the Presence of the Lord in our lives? Have we not only heard about but also experienced the love of God and sensed the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives?
Some of us remember the Sunday night service following the Lay Witness Mission here in 1973. There was an unusual sense of the Presence of God in the service, and Lillie West expressed the feelings of perhaps most of us present when she said, "I don't know of another place in all the world I'd rather be tonight than right here, because we know that God is here!"
None of us, perhaps, has seen the light on the Damascus Road that Paul saw or the vision in the temple that Isaiah saw, or the burning bush that was not consumed, that Moses saw; and most of us perhaps do not live on the spiritual mountaintop all of the time; but surely we can look back to those times in our lives when we experienced the Presence of the Lord, and, hopefully, all of us can sense the Presence of God's Spirit here in our midst even now!
How can we know that Christ lives? Not just because we hope it is true or even because we believe it is true or because we read it in the Bible or others tell us that He is alive: we can know He lives by Him living in our own hearts and lives!
One reason Paul could say "I know" was because he had experienced the reality of Christ not only on the Damascus Road but as a continuing Presence in his life.
A second reason Paul could speak with such certainity about immortality and the life beyond this life and the world beyond this world was because of his own experience of that eternal realm.
In the 12th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, Paul speaks of his experience of being caught up into the third Heaven or Paradise and having things revealed to him that could not be put into human speech. He indicates that he does not know whether he was caught up physically into Paradise or only in the spirit, but at any rate, he had an experience of the world beyond this world while he was still an earthly pilgrim.
Now if you and I, who speak of the reality of life after death largely in terms of hope and faith, were actually caught up into the third Heaven or Paradise this morning - right now! - and were permitted to see and hear and experience the reality of it and something of what and who are there, I have an idea that when we got back here, we would speak with a lot more certainity about the reality of the world to come - or at least with a lot more knowledge.
After four days spent beyond the point of death, Lazarus no doubt knew some things through experience that he had only accepted by faith before his death.
Some of you may have heard Betty Malt tell her story at one time or another. I understand that now she and Catherine Marshall are preparing it for publication in book form. She had an attack of appendicitis. Her appendix ruptured, and due to a wrong diagnosis by some doctors, it was several days afterwards before she was operated on. When she was operated on, gangrene had set in and there was a mass of it perhaps the size of a person's head which had already caused some of the internal organs to begin to deteriorate. After days in the hospital and more operations, the doctors told the family that she could not possibly live. The night when the end came, the family had been sent home for some rest, and the doctor told the family it would be only a day or at most two days before she would pass on. Early the next morning, her father got up and drove to the hospital some 31 miles away to sit by her side until the end came. Just after he left the house, the phone rang. It was someone from the hospital calling to tell the family that she had just passed away and would they come in to see about making the necessary arrangements.
When her father arrived at her room, there was a nurse's aide there waiting with the body until the family arrived, and the sheet was drawn over Betty's face. But Betty was not in her body. She tells of how she, accompanied by her guardian angel, went up a beautiful hill to the city of Light. The angel asked her if she would like to go in. The angel touched the gate of pearl and it opened enough for her to feel what she describes as the most glorious light she had ever felt, which was coming from the Throne Room. She could not see Jesus' face, but she felt His Presence go all the way through her, and she straightened up and was made well in body and in spirit and felt a joy such as she had never known before and began to sing, her voice blending with the music that came over the wall and with the voice of the angel who also began to sing. She said that as the gate opened a little further, she started to step through, but then she asked the angel, "Can I just sing a little while and then go back down the beautiful hill to my husband, John, and Brenda?" He nodded, and sent me back to tell people that up there there are no tears and no sorrow and your body is perfect like He is perfect. Betty said that as she walked down the beautiful, grass-covered hill, it was around 5:30 A. M. and the sun was just coming up, and as she came back, she saw her body lying under the sheet on her bed, with the light coming in through the window. In the sunlight streaming in through the window, like dust particles in the air, she saw the words of Jesus, "I am the resurrection and the life, and he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." She said the words moved towards her, and when they touched her, warmth came into her feet and hands and body, and she sat up and pushed the sheet off her face. The aide cried out, "It's a ghost!" and ran out. Her family stood around the room, no one able to speak, and people began flooding into her room. It had been from twenty to twenty-eight minutes since she had been pronounced dead. Though she had not eaten a bit of food for thirty days, and the doctor said she would have to remain in the hospital for more surgery and for perhaps a long time, in two days she went home, perfectly healed, and is now telling her story and witnessing for Christ across our country.
Betty Malz has an assurance of the reality of life after death because she has, to some degree, an experience of it.
From the time of Stephen on down across the years to the present, it has apparently been a fairly common thing for people on the brink of eternity to catch a glimpse into the glory world before leaving this earthly life. Many of us probably know of individuals who have had this experience.
When Marian's Aunt Lillian was visiting with us some weeks ago, she told us of being with her father when he was leaving this world. He had been ill for some time, and his eyesight had been practically gone for a good bit. She and her sister had been sitting up with him through much of the night. Early the next morning as she sat beside him, his eyes opened wide, a wonderful expression came on his face, and he said, "This must be the place! Isn't it beautiful!" And he breathed his last. She said the way he said it made her realize that he must be talking about the other world that he caught a glimpse of as he was leaving this one.
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, in his book, LIFE BEGINS AT DEATH, tells of sitting by the bedside of a man who was dying and who was conscious to the end. Dr. Weatherhead said he was holding the man's hand and must have been gripping it more tightly than he realized for the man said, "Don't hold me back. I can see through the gates! It's marvelous!"
Thomas Alva Edison, the great scientist of whom it has been said that he may have had the greatest mind that ever existed in our country and who was careful to be exact in reporting what he saw, when at death's door indicated that he wanted to say something. His wife and the doctor bent down to hear what it was he wanted to say, and with a smile on his face, he said, "It is very beautiful over there."
When a person actually has an experience of the other world as did Stephen and the Apostle Paul and Betty Malz and no doubt many others, then that which was perhaps only hope and faith moves over into the realm of personal knowledge that enables one to say with assurance, "I know!"
Then, there is the assurance of knowledge that comes through a personal revelation given by God to an individual. You remember, perhaps, what Jesus said when Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in Heaven." Peter knew that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, not just because he may have hoped or believed that He was, but because God had revealed it to him. When God desires, He can let us know the reality of things not known through human wisdom that leaves no room for doubt. God can bring us to an awareness of the reality of the things not seen, especially if we walk in the light He gives us; and He can and sometimes does make the things of the Spirit and the world eternal more real to some of His children than the passing things of this present world.
One of my dearest friends in the ministry, Brother Grady Dulin, once told me of an experience be had along this line. He said that on three different occasions he had travelled along the verge of Jordan, and the question was in doubt as to whether he would go on to be with the Lord or would be permitted to remain here in this life a while longer. He said there came to him a deep desire to have a word of personal assurance from the Lord Himself as to the reality of the resurrection and immortality. Across the years he had preached it and believed it, but he said there came to him a great hunger to know in such a way that all doubt would be forever removed from the truth of the reality of the resurrection. He made it an object of prayer, and in time came to have an assurance that the Lord had heard and would answer his prayer.
In January of 1969 the prayer was answered. He said that he was not asleep and his mind was as clear as it had ever been - that it was not a dream nor a vision - and that in a brief span of time, God gave him a glimpse into eternity. There before him, more real than the things of this world, he saw the great host that no man could number around the Throne, not only some of the great saints of the ages but also some of his loved ones who had gone on before being in that multitude. Their faces were so full of life and glory and feeling that words could not describe them and the reality of it could not be doubted. In comparison the things of this earthly life seemed dim. He said there was no sin, no sickness, no sorrow, no weeping there, but righteousness and beauty and glory beyond the ability of man to describe.
Yet most of us have not had such an experience, nor have we been to the gates of the City with our guardian angels nor have we yet seen the City not made with hands nor caught a glimpse of those now on the other shore. Are we destined, therefore, simply to hope there is life after death and to believe that there is but never really to know this side of the grave unless God should grant us a personal revelation of it? I think not!
There is such a thing as knowing something apart from experiencing it. In John 7:17 Jesus says that "if any man will do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine ..." If we are willing to do God's will and walk the Christian pathway by faith, as we do God's will, there comes the growing realization that God's way is indeed THE WAY, that the doctrines of God are indeed true, and that the kingdom eternal is indeed a reality! In 2 Corinthians 5:1, the Apostle Paul does not say simply, "I know..." but he reminds the Corinthian Christians of something that they, too, know even though they were not on the Damascus Road with him nor were they caught up into the third Heaven with him. "We know," he says, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens."
If you ask me if I know there is life after death, I say simply, "I believe that there is", though I am still walking by faith, not by sight, and I do have an increasing awareness, as the years go by, of the fact that what I accept by faith will eventually be confirmed by knowledge and experience. If you press the question and say, "But don't you know?", I suppose I could honestly say that, from time to time, there are those moments when, deep down within my soul, I do know; but I do not know yet as I believe someday I will know. As I walk the Christian pathway, however, the assurance of immortality keeps increasing, and years ago, praise God, it was sufficient to enable me to face the future with hope and expectation rather than fear! Perhaps someday before I reach the end of my earthly journey, God will give me a glimpse into the land beyond the grave; perhaps He will not. But whether He does or doesn't, the willingness to do His will and the pathway of obedient faith are sufficient to bring us all to the inner assurance of the reality of life after death.
Some years ago Dr. W.B. Hinson, of Portland, Oregon, was told by his doctor that he had a terminal illness. He told his congregation of the doctor's verdict and then said:
"I walked out where I live, and I looked at the river in which I rejoice, and I looked at the stately trees that are always God's Own poetry to my soul. Then, in the evening, I looked up into the great sky, where God was lighting His lamps, and I said: 'I may not see you many more times, but, Mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone; and, River, I shall be alive when you cease running to the sea; and, Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great down-pulling of the universe...'" (Ralph Taylor's Memorial Sermon at Annual Conference, 1975).
The immortality of the soul is a reality!
Life after death is a reality, regardless of what people believe about it.
And someday, sometime, somewhere, every child of God shall know beyond all doubt and through experience that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we do have an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. To God be the glory! Let us pray...