The Wicked Dead Are Not in Torments—Dead Christian Mothers Are Not Sorrowing over Their Wayward Sons—Death Compared to Sleep—The Resurrection Breaks the Tomb
By L. D. SANTEE
I DO not want to believe that the dead are conscious between death and the resurrection. It brings in so many unhappy features, that with all my heart I thank Him who has said, “The dead know not anything” (Eccl. 9:5)—who has assured us, in His word, of their unconsciousness.
Those who find comfort in the belief that the dead retain their faculties, have not considered all that it involves. Ever since my earliest memory, friends have been dropping out of my life. Like broken urns, they strew the pathway of the years. “God’s acre” holds them, and I mourn their loss.
NOT NOW IN PAIN
Some died Christians; but by far the greater number were lovers of sinful pleasures, and unconverted. I do not wish to think that they are now in unutterable pain, the nerves quivering in untold agony—that while life is sweet to me, their condition holds horrors that language can not tell or heart imagine.
The larger number of my friends were not Christians. Is not your experience the same? Go out into the graveyard. Visit the familiar mounds. Affection has chiseled their names on the marble. Love calls them up one by one; but while fond memory fills the eyes with tears, and your heart holds them all, you know, of the most of them, that they are peacefully sleeping and unconscious, or that they are now in agonizing torment. Which had you rather believe?
While we hope that our friends are in heaven, we think of those only who are saved, and forget the condition of the rest. Do you not prefer that Christ should say of them as He said of Lazarus, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth”? John 11:11.
NOT BEWAILING THEIR WAYWARD SONS
Have you thought of the real condition of those even who you hope are in heaven? There joy is supreme. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Ps. 16:11. My imagination shows me the battlements of heaven lined with the blessed, their beautiful eyes dark with the shadow of an infinite sorrow as they look earthward. The mother who has toiled for her children until the vital cord was loosed, sees, from on high, her lessons forgotten, while neglect, degradation, and evil influences are ruining those whom she loves better than her life. Other little ones suffer from cruelty and brutality, while the mother is in glory, and sees it all.
THE MOTHER SEES IT NOT
Such a condition can not be. The woes of earth would darken heaven if the dead were conscious and knew what is transpiring here on the earth. Thank God, this picture will never be realized.
How much better is God’s way! “He giveth His beloved sleep.” Ps. 127:2. Job says of those in their graves, “There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.” Job 3:17. Inspiration generally speaks of death as a sleep.
The book of Job is supposed to be the first book written by inspiration, and it speaks of death in these words: “They shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Job 14:12. The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.” Deut. 31:16. I will copy some expressions from the record of the kings of Israel: “Solomon slept with his fathers.” I Kings 11:43. “Rehoboam slept with his fathers.” I Kings 14:31. “Abijam slept with his fathers.” I Kings 15:8. “Asa slept with his fathers.” I Kings 15:24.
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Daniel uses the same expression in Dan. 12:2: “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” The New Testament is full of evidence that death is a sleep. Nothing could be plainer than the account of the death of Stephen: “And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” Acts 7:60. Again we repeat the words of the Saviour in John 11:11, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.” The fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians is full of the sleep of the dead, and of the awaking, or the resurrection. Verse 6: “Some are fallen asleep.” Verse 18: “Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” Read verse 20: “Them that slept.” Again, verse 51: “We shall not all sleep.”
WOULD NOT HAVE US IGNORANT ABOUT THE DEAD
1 Thess. 4:13: “I would not have to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” Further proof is unnecessary. If the subject is not already plain, language can not teach it. In death we, like Stephen, fall asleep. “This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.” 1 Thess. 4:15. Those who are here said to be asleep, in the next verse are called “the dead in Christ.” In sleep we are unconscious. Read Eccl. 9:6: “Their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished.” The preceding verse declares, “The dead know not anything.”
When I walk in the quiet cemetery, I think: “Of all that lie here, not one is suffering. They are sleeping until God shall awaken them in the resurrection.” The psalmist says, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.” Ps. 17:15. No sainted mother in heaven, grieving over the woes of earth! She rests from her labors. Rev. 14:13. Truly God’s way is best.
