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DOTHEDEAD
KNOW
What the Living Are Doing?
by
Patrick A. Parnell
What happens to loved ones at death? Is there hope of life after death?
''1
'M IN
deep trouble," said
Chuck as he entered my
office.
I had often helped him solve
various difficulties relating to
his family operated business.
But this morning was different.
Chuck entered rny office and told
me about a serious problem he had,
one beyond my ability to help him
solve. Thougb the type never to be
sick a· day in bis life, now be had
lung cancer.
The cancer was spreading
throughout bis body. He explained
all about a recent hospital stay and
series of medica) tests. He would
have to go back to the hospital for
more tests in a few days, he told
me.
Chuck died two weeks later.
Last month in our town Micbael
and Ricki, both only 24, were
instantly k:illed. A sports car, run–
ning a red light, said the report,
traveling at an estimated 100 mph,
smashed into thei r van. The trage–
dy left their two young sons,
Andrew, 5, and Scott, 3, orphans.
"Why, why? It was so senseless,"
larnented the grandparents of the
now orphaned boys.
For Chuck, and for the two
unfortunate young parents, death is
real. Death, of course, is a fact of
all our lives, something each of us
must come to face sooner or later.
Everybody ls Terminal
"We are all terminal and we are all
going to die sometime," said Jacob
J . Javits, former U .S. senator from
February 1985
New York, active lawyer, army
offi.cer and onetime state attorney
general. He is now suffering a ter–
minal illness, popularly known as
Lou Gehrig's disease. "Everybody
is terminal," he emphasizes in his
article "When Should Doctors Let
a Patient Di e?" in
Discover,
August 1984.
Proper health measures, includ–
ing a healthful diet and the avoid–
ance of contagious diseases, may
prolong life substantially. But the
natural aging processes do not
stop.
Beauty techniques such as plas–
tic surgery, skin stretching, the lav–
ish use of cosmetics and bair dyes
may give a more youthful appear–
ance for a time, but they are merely
temporary. The inner process of
aging, Ieading to certain death_,
relentlessly continues.
All of man 's technology and
scientific research, coupled with all
the money in the world, can't stop
humans from dying.
"lt
is
appointed unto men once to die,"
we read in tbe Bible (Heb. 9:27).
The Desire to Know
Almost everybody has an opmwn
about death. There are about as
many ideas about death and wbat
happens afterward as people to give
them.
Said one young man, when asked
if he believed in -an afterlife, " I
believe my inner being will be
transmitted to different planes of
existence as
1
approach perfec–
tion."
A Lat ín mother's quick response
when asked the same question was:
"Of course there's an afterlife. It's
in heaven-otherwise what's the
sense of living? "
Commented a young black man
in bis early 20s, "I don't think
there is any life after death because
you don't really die-your body
dies, but your soul lives on."
Said another man:
"1
believe in a
spiritual afterlife, that you have a
soul and that the soul goés to a
hereafter. But asto where the here–
after is, I'm not sure."
Why are there so many di tferent
and varied opinions about such an
important question? Where is the
source that can make plain the
answer to what really happens after
death?
Isn't it time to understand the
truth abou t this vital subject?
There is only one revealed source of
knowledge available for discovering
the truth about what happens after
death. That source is the Creator's
revelation to man of essential
knowledge without which we can–
not know why we are
h~re,
or
where we are going. We call that
revelation of spiritual knowledge
the Holy Bible.
Truth versus Error
Without revealed trutb we could
not know what man is or why we
humans are here on earth.
Did you know that man
is
a
soul?
The Bible clearly reveals that
manis a living soul: "And the Lord
God formed man of the dust of tbe
ground, and breatbed into bis nos-
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