Are You Afraid of Dying?
If there is one thing that is common between the rich and the poor; the old and the young; the strong and the weak; the king and the peasant, it has to be the breath in our nostrils. But one day that breath will stop and we will meet our graves. Statistics tell us that one out of one dies. So none of us can cheat death, but the good news I want to share with you is that you don’t have to be afraid of death. I hope that by the time you finish reading this article, you can say with confidence, “Oh death, where is your victory? Oh grave, where is your sting?”
Ignorance is Not Bliss
Steve had taken a vacation to Australia. On his stay there, Steve decided to swim in the beach. As he was enjoying his swim, he was attacked by a shark and very narrowly escaped with his life suffering minor injuries. Steve made a big mistake in not reading the warning board that said, “Shark-infested water. Do not swim”. Many of us think ignorance is bliss, but for Steve it nearly cost him his life. The ensuing passages are more like the sign board giving you information to choose, but the choice is yours.
(Although some of the sections might seem a bit disconnected, it will make sense as you read on.)
What You Can’t See Can Kill You
During the early 18th century surgery remained the last resort for the desperately ill. Surgeons did not know about germs. Without washing their hands, surgeons would wear operating garb, usually an old coat filled with pus and blood from the previous operations. Surgeons would pick up the scalpel, wiped with an old dirty cloth after the previous operation, and carry on with the surgery. Nearly 50% of those operated on died.
One scientist after another stumbled on the right sterile techniques. However, each was humiliated and scorned by fellow physicians. Professor Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis found that making physicians wash their hands drastically reduced the death rate in maternity wards. However his colleagues opposed Semmelweis. Although Semmelweis argued for hand washing all through his life, he passed away without seeing his ideas take fruition.
Why were doctors not willing to implement sterile procedures? The simple answer is this: germs had not been discovered during that time. Doctors could not fathom the idea that washing hands would make any difference. Then Louis Pasteur, under his microscope, discovered micro-organisms. Sterile techniques began to make sense. Physicians had a difficult time remembering that something invisible could be so devastating.
Is the Bible True?
For some people the Bible is nothing more than a history book and for some their whole life revolves around it. Is the Bible an authentic book? Can we really trust the contents of the Bible?
When we look at the manuscript evidence of the Bible, it is overwhelming to consider the sheer numbers of manuscripts. Today we have over 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. However, we have only 10 copies of Caesar’s writings and 5 copies of the writings of Aristotle.
Apart from the historical proof to back up the Bible, the prophecies (future predictions) contained in it have also proven to be very accurate. There are more than 300 Bible prophecies regarding the first coming of Jesus Christ and all of them were fulfilled to the dot.
Going by the historic evidence coupled with accurate prophetic fulfilments, it’s safe to conclude that the Bible is a book that can be trusted. It is imperative to establish the authenticity of the Bible as this article is based on the Bible.
The Suffering of Jesus Christ
I was pursuing my college degree when the movie, “The Passion of the Christ” was released here in Chennai. Some of my classmates who saw the movie wanted to know why Jesus was punished so severely (I will answer this question a little later). Although the actor in the movie did a great job in depicting the suffering of Jesus, what we saw in the movie was only a glimpse of what Jesus actually went through. They say that the Roman crucifixion is the most cruel, painful way to die.
The suffering of Jesus Christ began the night before He was executed when He was praying to God the Father in Gethsemane. Being in immense agony and emotional stress His sweat became as drops of blood falling to the ground. This is called hematohidrosis, a condition in which the capillaries in the sweat glands rupture, thereby mixing sweat with blood.
After a series of events Governor Pilate orders Jesus to be scourged. The Roman scourging/beating were designed to inflict extreme pain. After removing His clothes and tying His hands to a post above His head, Jesus was whipped many times. This whip consisted of several leather thongs with metal balls or sheep bones attached near the ends. The whipping is carried out with full force, ripping the flesh apart leaving it hanging like ribbons with blood gushing out. It is said that many victims die at this stage itself.
Then the soldiers force a crown of thorns into Jesus’ scalp. The soldiers struck Jesus across the head with a stick, thereby driving the thorns deeper into the scalp of Jesus.
Then Jesus is forced to carry the horizontal portion of the cross weighing around 50 kg to Golgotha – the place where He is to be crucified. The stress, cramps and loss of blood is too much as He stumbles and falls. An onlooker, Simon of Cyrene, is selected by the Roman centurion to carry the cross the rest of the way, with Jesus following him. On reaching Golgotha, Simon places the cross on the ground and Jesus was thrown backward with His shoulders against the wood. A heavy, square, long, wrought-iron nail is driven through the wrists of Jesus piercing the median nerve. Piercing this nerve can cause, “severe, excruciating, burning pain, like lightning bolts traversing the arm into the spinal cord” according to Dr. Frederick Zugibe. With both wrists firmly nailed into the wood, the horizontal section is lifted to fit into the vertical section of the cross which was already driven into the ground.
His left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven though the arch of each. As He sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists excruciating pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain. He places His entire body weight on the nail through His both feet. Air can be breathed into the lungs, however cannot be exhaled out. Jesus, with His energy-sapped body, fights to raise Himself just to get one short breath. Some of the words He uttered shortly before His death on the cross were powerful.
What did Jesus say to the ones who crucified them? He said in Luke 23:34 (NIV), “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. Isn’t that pure love? Where else can we find such love, but at the cross.
So why did Jesus have to go through this excruciating pain and die like the way He did? Certainly He who turned water into wine, He who opened blind eyes, He who healed various sicknesses, He who walked on water, He who raised the dead and He who healed the ear of the person who came to arrest Him could have easily found a way to escape from the ones who came to crucify Him and could have saved Himself all this trouble, right? Wrong!
You see, when God looked down from the balconies of heaven, He saw a world in need. If the world had needed a doctor, He would have sent one. If the world had needed a lawyer, He would have sent one. If the world had needed an engineer, He would have sent one. If the world had needed a super-hero, He would have sent one. But what the world really needed was a Savior, a person who can redeem people from their sins. And that is why God had to send His only Son to die on the cross for our sins.
Sin is very much like the deadly germs/microbes that I had mentioned in one of the sections above. Some examples of sin would be telling lies, stealing, murdering and having lustful desires. Simply because certain sins are invisible, intangible and non-quantifiable, it cannot be ignored as harmless. Rather it can have deadly consequences.
Jesus came to conquer sin and only way to do that is through the shedding of sinless blood. His blood was sinless as he never sinned. So He had to lay His life down for each and every one of us. There is no free lunch, somebody has to pay the price and Jesus chose to. The Bible says that the wages (consequences) of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
So what is sin? Well, there are many dictionary definitions for sin, but putting it in simple words, sin is missing the mark. If you will have to leap and cross a pit, you will have to leap across the full breadth of the pit. Even if you miss it by one foot, you are going under and have missed the mark.
When He hung on the cross, all of our sins were laid on Him. Let me now answer the question my friends asked. For the sinful thoughts we think in our minds, His head was pierced with a crown of thorns. For the wrong things we do with our hands, His hands were nailed to the cross. For the wrong places we go to, His legs were nailed. In fact, when He was on the cross, He was thinking about you and me. Dear reader, Jesus loves you so much that even if you were the only person on Earth who ever sinned, He would have still taken the path of the cross and died just for you. It is impossible to explain with words the full extent of the depth and the width and the height of His love.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Heaven Real?
On the 18th of February 2006, my brother-in-law (my cousin sister’s husband) passed away. I went to the funeral service the next day, and to my amazement, I saw his eleven-year-old daughter Pearly, running around and playing catching game with her friends. Initially I thought the girl is too young to comprehend what has happened. Later I came to realize that Pearly had an angelic encounter the night before her father stepped into eternity in heaven. The angels began singing to her and told her that they are going to take him home (heaven) the next day and that she needn’t worry. It was this angelic assurance that gave her comfort.
Don Piper, in his book “90 Minutes in Heaven”, shares about his visit to heaven after he died of a car accident on January 18, 1989 and had an out-of-body experience. Don Piper says that with earthly terms it is not possible to adequately describe the full extent of the warmth, excitement, happiness and joy he felt in heaven. His eyes had never feasted on such beauty before. And most importantly, he was able to see his loved ones again (the ones who had a relationship with Jesus).
Heaven is a place where there will be no more pain or death or crying or diseases or bidding farewell to anyone. It is a place of reunion. Personally, I look forward to the day when I am going to meet my grandmother and other loved ones again.
Is Hell Real?
As real and wonderful as heaven is, so real is hell as well! In his book “23 Minutes in Hell”, Bill Wiese describes about his visit to hell, after he died on November 23, 1998 and had an out-of-body experience. The first thing that Bill Wiese noticed was the extreme temperature. It was so hot that there was no possibility of sustaining any life. Despite the intense heat, the flesh does not disintegrate. There was a constant sense of hopelessness, fear and total isolation from people. There is no place to get a nap and nothing to drink. The intense heat, foul smell and the constant screaming never stops.
Hell is a place of everlasting destruction, torment, fire, darkness, punishment, chains and weeping and gnashing of teeth. The other day I saw a young person wearing a T-shirt that read, “If they don’t serve Bacardi in heaven, I don’t want to go there”. Many people take the concept of hell very loosely, not understanding what it really is.
Does God Answer Prayers?
It was early 2011. I was working with a company which was located not more than 3 km from my home. So generally I would wake up at around 7 or 7:30 AM. It was pretty late in the night and I had just finished praying to God. As I was about to walk out of the room, I prayed this simple prayer, “Father wake me up early in the morning so I can seek Your face”. The next day morning I woke up and was looking at the clock. It was not 4:59 or was it 5:01 AM, but it was 5:00 AM on the dot. I sat on the bed in awe of God. Guess who woke me up?
The Bible says in Jeremiah 33:3 (NASB New American Standard Bible), “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” It’s not that He may answer, but He will answer.
Well, I can use all the powerful words in the English language and try to explain Jesus’ love, but might not be able to drive across the point. It’s like trying to explain the taste of ice cream; I can use all the adjectives I want to describe it, but it’s of no use until and unless you taste the ice cream for yourself. The Bible says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good”.
Does the Bible Have the Power to Change/Transform Lives?
This is a true story of a person named Antonio who lived in Brazil. Antonio had boarded a bus to reach a certain place. As Antonio was boarding the bus through the front door, the driver noticed that there was something wrong with Antonio as he was wearing a worried face. So the driver handed him a Bible. Many months later, through a strange coincidence the both of them happened to meet again. Antonio thanked the driver for the Bible and told him how it had saved two lives that day. On the day Antonio boarded the bus, he had in mind to kill his friend who betrayed him and then take his own life by committing suicide. After reading through the pages of the Bible, Antonio decided to forgive his friend and found peace with God. Two lives were saved that day by a very powerful book, the Bible.
Not only does the Bible have the power to change individuals, it also has the power to change an entire city, as in the case of Almolonga – a city in Guatemala. For many hundreds of years the residents of this city practiced idolatry and witchcraft. Men were generally drunken, wife-beaters, unruly, living barely for their next drink. The 4 jails were so packed that inmates had to be sent to a neighboring city’s jail. When people started embracing the teachings of Jesus, the city took a turn-around. In a city that had 36 bars, now has only 3 bars. Crime rates had dropped so much as a result of which the jails were closed. People began to work and God blessed their land. Agricultural productivity in Almolonga had increased by 1,000 percent. Rather than 4 truckloads a month, the city now exports 40 truckloads of vegetables every week, with carrots the size of a person’s forearm.
I am a Good Person, Would I go to Heaven?
People assume that by being good or by observing a set of rules they can enter heaven. This is not going to work. For instance, if I am new to town and I knock on a stranger’s house and tell him, “I am a good person and I am moving into your home”. Obviously, he won’t let me in. Why? It is because I don’t have a relationship with the person. While here on earth, people want nothing to do with God. They want to live the way they want to, create their own rules and really don’t care much about God or let alone take efforts to know His will for their lives. And when they die they want to go into heaven. It’s not going to work. God wants to have a personal relationship with you. He wants to commune with you. And one of the ways He speaks is through His word, the Bible. Again if living good lives can take a person to heaven then why did Jesus have to die the kind of death He died? He could have simply preached a message on ‘How to live a good life’.
Why Would a Loving God Send People to Suffer in an Eternity of Fire?
God does not send anyone into hell. People, by rejecting the love and forgiveness of God, send themselves into hell. God has always given man the freedom to make choices – right from Adam onwards. Choices have consequences.
I am an Atheist, I Don’t Believe in this God Stuff!
My question to you is this: do you want to explore the thought that there could be a God. In other words, do you want to give God a chance? Or you don’t believe in the concept of God because you don’t want it to be true. If you say there is no evidence. Well, just look around. All creation cries out that there has to be a God. You can pluck a leaf from your garden and go around the whole world to find an exact replica of that leaf. The odds of finding one are very slim. Why? It’s because of the grand, unique design. If there is a grand design then there has to be a Grand Designer – and that would be God. For many people, their picture of a God is someone sitting in the clouds with a whip in His hands, waiting to punish His children for their mistakes. This is far from the truth. If this were true, why would God send His only Son to die on the cross?
You might say, “I can’t believe in someone or something I cannot see”. Well, simply because I cannot see electricity, I can’t dismiss that it does not exist. Although I cannot see it, I can see the effects of electricity. That is how God is. And more than that, it takes faith to believe in an unseen God. In a certain sense, we all live by faith every day. We drive our vehicles, hoping every component will work fine. We take the public transport, hoping that the driver is not drunk and will take us to our destination safely. However, when it comes to believing in an unseen God, we tend to doubt.
Do All Roads Lead to Rome?
Most people assume that all religions are the same and that religions are fundamentally same and superficially different. But the contrary is true. Religions are fundamentally different and superficially the same. On a superficial level, all religions have similar teachings such as be kind to others, do good works, give alms to the poor and so on. But when you look at the foundational beliefs of one religion, it is very different from another. For instance, some religions believe in the concept of reincarnation, whereas the Bible says, “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment”. Here we have two contradictory statements, but two contradictory statements cannot be true. For instance, if a lady were to tell that she is pregnant and next moment changes her mind and says she is not. She either is or she is not. She can’t be both. So when a person dies he is either going to stand before God and give an account for his life or he is going to be reincarnated. Both can’t happen. Therefore all religions cannot be true, only one can be true.
Closing Thoughts
Let me connect all the dots. Why did Jesus have to suffer the way He did, when He could have easily pointed His finger at other religions and said follow them. If the other religions had the solution to the sin problem, Jesus would not have needed to go to the cross and could have certainly avoided all the pain. It is evident when we read through the New Testament that Jesus never sought the limelight. Let’s look at a few verses. Matthew 8:3-4 (NIV) says, “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone”. John 6:15 (NIV) says, “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself”. So if any of the other religions had the solution, Jesus would have been the first person to promote that religion as He never wanted to become famous. In John 14:6 (NIV) Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. Essentially He is saying that He is the only way to Heaven. In fact Jesus spoke more about hell than He did about heaven, because He knew about the dangers of hell. If being a good person or following the Ten Commandments were sufficient then His death and resurrection wasn’t necessary.
I can choose to or choose not to believe in gravity. Irrespective of my belief, if I were to drop something it will fall down. My belief or unbelief in gravity is not going to change the reality. A person can choose not to believe in afterlife. But when he dies, either he is going to be right or he is going to be wrong. Well, if he finds out that he is right, then there is nothing to be lost, but if he is wrong then there is everything to be lost as it is going to be an eternity in hell. The Bible says in Mark 8:36 (NIV), “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” Dear reader, I don’t know what your beliefs are, but when you close your eyes for the very last time and step into eternity and realize that you were wrong, it’s too late. One can be absolutely believe something to be true and yet can be wrong. In ancient times, people believed absolutely that the world was flat but were wrong. In Matthew 12:30 (NIV) Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me”. Whose side are you on?
Honestly, all of us carry baggage, don’t we? We have done certain things and said certain things that we regret. We wish we can have an eraser that can erase away the past and give us a fresh beginning. And that is what confessing and renouncing our sins to God does. It is one of the most liberating feelings to know that our past is forgiven. 1 John 1:9 (NIV) says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”. Not only does God forgive sins, but He also forgets sins that are confessed to Him. Hebrews 8:12 (NIV) says, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”. Jesus loves you so much that He wants to have an intimate relationship with you and spend eternity with you in heaven. Jesus on the cross cried out, “It is finished”. Essentially He is saying that your ticket to heaven has been purchased and that the victory over sin and death has been won, all you will have to do is accept His offer. If you want to have this relationship, pray this simple prayer and ask Jesus to come into your life. Say, “Abba Father, I admit that I am a sinner. I repent of my sins. I ask you to forgive me, and wash me with the blood of Jesus. I proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for me in Calvary and rose again. I accept His substitutionary death. Now, I make you my Lord and Savior.” It’s as simple as this. Now you don’t have to worry about death.