Does your church teach that when you die you go to heaven? hell? purgatory? reincarnation? to a state of limbo until God gets around to deciding your fate?
3. When you die, where do you go? To heaven? To Hell? To pergatory? To other planets? Do we become animals or plants? Do we just cease to exist?
Q: What happens when you die?
A: Genesis 3:1-5 says, ". . . "So it said to the woman: “Did God really say that you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” 2 At this the woman said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. 3 But God has said about the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden: ‘You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it; otherwise you will die.’” 4 At this the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die. 5 For God knows that in the very day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad.”
Q. Was man created by God to die? And where are the dead?
A. Genesis 2:17 God warned Adam against disobedience since being disobedient would cause his death. Satan challenged Jehovah’s right to rule and the necessity of mans dependency on him. He called God a liar. He said, “You positively will not die, but you will be like God.”
B. Fact: Since the time of Adam, all men have died. No man has survived death.
C. Logic would have it that if dead people were alive in any condition, such as a spirit, in another realm or even in an animal or plant someplace or any place, then Satan would have proved God a liar simply because the man was in fact alive in another form.
D. Genesis 3:19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return.
1. The punishment, sentence and judgment herein stated was levied against Adam and all his offspring due to his disobedience.
E. A few other scriptures to consider are: Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, Psalms 146:4, John 11:11-14, Ezekiel 18:4
F. If a known bad person died, have you ever heard where the pastor or priest said that the person who was bad is going to hell?
G. So . . . what is your churches position on this question? Are you being taught that when you die you go to heaven or some other spiritual realm?
Q: Do animals go to heaven?
A: From Pope Francis who recently weighed in on the topic, as reported here: “The Holy Scriptures teach us that the realization of this wonderful plan covers all that is around us, and that came out of the thought and the heart of God,” Pope Francis said, as quoted by Italian news site Resapubblica. The Pope then went on to say that “heaven is open to all creatures, and there [they] will be vested with the joy and love of God, without limits.”
Discussion: Did you ever wonder what the bible has to say on the subject? Ecclesiastes 9:4 says: “A live dog is better off than a dead lion.” Animals were not created with the hope of everlasting life. This was something reserved as a gift for humans. When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, this was a time when all things were perfect. Plant life, animal life and human life including the atmosphere and the earth were all perfect. Adam obviously saw animals die. He knew what death was because when Jehovah told him the penalty for disobedience was death, Adam knew what that meant. The concept of dying and going to heaven was a recent philosophy.
People simply have an enduring love for their pets and it's this emotional attachment that leads to their hope in seeing them again. Their hopes are based on emotion, not scriptural training.
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