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Is* JIM *in* HEAVEN?

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California, U. S. A. · Jul 8, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 26.

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Is JIM in HEAVEN?

By Floyd O. Sanders

FLOYD O. SANDERS
“Poor Jim!” half sobbed Helen as she stood watching the glowing sun sink behind the crimson clouds. “Poor brother Jim! No, I mustn’t say that; he’s happier than we are. The preacher says he’s enjoying the pleasures of heaven now.”
These words, wrung from her broken heart, happened to be overheard by her husband as he entered the room. “That’s right, Helen,” he said, “sometimes I almost wish it were I instead of Jim. Think of the misery of this old world. He won’t have to suffer any more.”
Supper over and the dishes finished, Helen seated herself by the table with her Bible in her hands. For a while she sat gazing off into space, thinking of her brother’s funeral the day before. Half unconsciously, she opened her Bible and began to read.
Suddenly, with an audible gasp, she roused herself.
“What’s wrong?” questioned her husband.
“Listen to this: ‘The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.’ That’s in Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6. Can that be true? If it is, Jim isn’t in heaven. He couldn’t be!”
“Rather sounds that way. You’d better ask the preacher, though. He knows the Bible better than we.”
Helen read on, pausing now and then to look up a few references; but, still unsatisfied and puzzled, she resolved that early the next day she would call on the Reverend Mr. Sullivan and talk the matter over.

DEAD NOT IN HEAVEN

The visit next day proved to be a failure. The text still remained puzzling. On returning home, Mrs. South, her nearest neighbor, called to her. “We have had the queerest letter from John’s cousin Harry,” she said. “I wish you’d look at it. He has a whole list of texts that say the dead don’t go to heaven.”
“Don’t go to heaven! Well, that is strange!” replied Helen.
“That’s what I thought. I haven’t studied the subject much. Suppose you folks come over sometime, and we’ll study it together. I want to know more about it. Don’t you?”
“Why,” exclaimed Helen, “I’ve been puzzled over this very question. We’ll come over to-night.”
“I’m really anxious to hear about this,” remarked Helen when they were seated in the South home. “It seems so different; but really I believe Jim would be better off unconscious than in heaven. His wife and children are going to suffer many hardships, and it would pain him to know of it.”
“Well,” ventured Mr. South, “it does seem that way; but I hope mother is in heaven.”
“Now, John,” broke in his wife, “she’d be worried to death over the way some of the children have turned out. But why wait? Let’s start our study. Here’s the first text, First Thessalonians chapter five and verse twenty-three. Helen, you read.”
“The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” read Helen.
“It seems there are three parts to a person, and not just the soul and body, as the preacher said,” added her husband.
“Yes, I read last night in Ecclesiastes the twelfth chapter and verse seven that it is the spirit that goes back to God,” remarked Helen.
“It mentions that here,” put in Mrs. South. “But the chapter refers to all men, both good and bad. And, after all, that’s not the soul. Psalm one hundred four and verse twenty-nine says it is the breath that God takes away. So the spirit and the breath are often spoken of as being the same. But we’re interested in the soul. Let’s see what happens to that. I’ll read Ezekiel the eighteenth chapter and verse four, the last part.”
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” Mrs. South read. “And it says here in the letter that Psalm eighty-nine, verse forty-eight, shows that the soul goes to the grave.”
The United States Government is sending groups of “gold star” mothers to France this summer to visit the graves of their sons killed in the World War. Here is a mother from Cincinnati kneeling at the grave of her son, killed twelve years ago, and buried in Suresnes Cemetery.
The United States Government is sending groups of “gold star” mothers to France this summer to visit the graves of their sons killed in the World War. Here is a mother from Cincinnati kneeling at the grave of her son, killed twelve years ago, and buried in Suresnes Cemetery.
“The soul doesn’t go to heaven, then, does it?” questioned Mr. South. “Oh, look here, Genesis the second chapter and verse seven says ‘man became a living soul’ by the union of the breath and the body. So the soul isn’t a separate part after all.”
“I read only to-day,” remarked Helen, “in Acts the second chapter and verses twenty-nine and thirty-four that the good man David didn’t go to heaven. That seems to fit with that text in Psalms and also with the one in the ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes, doesn’t it?”
“What is death, then?” queried Helen’s husband.
“Right here is your answer,” began Mrs. South. “John, the eleventh chapter, tells of Lazarus. Jesus said he was ‘asleep,’ in verse eleven; but in verses thirteen and fourteen. He tells the disciples that he is dead. This letter says Jesus called Lazarus ‘forth,’ and not down from heaven.”

ASLEEP IN JESUS

“Asleep,” thought Helen aloud, “that’s like the song they sang at Jim’s funeral, ‘Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep.’ Say, I never thought of that. Jim couldn’t be asleep and awake at the same time, that’s certain.”
“Well, that’s the Bible all right,” began Mr. South; “but don’t people ever go to heaven?”
“Let’s see,” said Mrs. South, looking over the list. “Here is First Thessalonians the fourth chapter and verses sixteen and seventeen. Let’s read that.”
“ ‘The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord,’ read Helen. “Say, Jim will be there then.”
“Now, I can see that’s the best way after all. Mother is just sleeping, and if I’m ready, she and I can go to heaven at the same time,” Mr. South said slowly.
“There’s another side to it too,” added Helen’s husband. “Old Mr. Brown surely was a sinner. He killed his mother, his wife, and his children. But according to most people, Cain, the first murderer, gets six thousand years more punishment than Brown. But according to what the Bible says, they begin together.”
“Well, this certainly is a new thought to me; but after all the problem now is so to live that we can meet our loved ones when Jesus comes. Something to strive for, isn’t it?” concluded Mrs. South.