The Future State

In previous articles I have traced the prophetic history of time to its end. We are now to look at what lies beyond time, in eternity. Only revelation can speek here. Of that which is past, history may tell some broken and imperfect story. Of that which lies in the immediate future, the signs of the times may give us some premonition, but when we seek to pass beyond time and beyond signs; when we would know the eternal state, we can know only that which God has revealed.

Science cannot help us. The utmost word of science is that it is unscientific and irrational to infer that physical death is the cessation of all life. We see that other forces survive changes of form, and it is not according to analogy to say that the force which we call life, and which has its manifestation for a few years in the mortal body, ceases with the change which we call death. That is the message of science. How unsatisfactory it is after all. If we die we shall live again! But how shall we live, and where shall we live? Do our choices here affect our destiny there? These are the questions that spring to the lips and demand an answer; and these questions are not speculative merely; they have the most direct bearing upon character and conduct.

“If a man die, shall he live again?’ There is something in us that craves completeness. We do not go very far in this life before we find that incompleteness marks the most fortunate human life; defeated aspiration, imperfect achievement, the soul reaching out for things which the hand cannot grasp. So we ask, is there another sphere beyond where the incompleteness of this life may find there rounding out and fulness?

We follow our beloved dead down to the grave, and as we lay away all that is tangible and visible of them, we ask over each new made mound, “If a man die, shall he live again?” The affection, which we would fain believe to be of God, reaches out empty arms into the beyond. Love leaps over the little trench which we call a grave, and we stand there asking the question, is there life beyond? Is this the end, or may we presently take up the interrupted fellowship in some happier sphere?

“Where softer suns shed a serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night?”

There is another question which demands an answer: Is this life determinative of ‘the life beyond? If this life is determinative of the life beyond, then the eternal state takes rank at once as the mightiest of all influences in the formation of character and the determination of conduct. Everything -begins to take color from it, if we believe it. I repeat that the questions we ask concerning the hereafter are not speculative questions.

Is there, then, an answer? If we will turn to Scripture, friends, we shall find an answer. Not an answer which meets every idle curious surmise, but an answer which does satisfy, if it is received, every legitimate question of the soul. I am not aware that any who have come with a serious purpose to seek the Bible answer to the questions concerning the hereafter, have ever complained of its inadequacy.

It is true that “it doth not yet.appear what we shall be.” Numberless questions might be.asked concerning the future of saint or sinner which are not answered in Scripture. In a very real sense “it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” Very true. But, on the other hand, enough is told to give rest to the mind. “We know,” says John, “that when He shall appear, we shall be like

Him.” That is heaven anywhere; to be with Christ, and like Christ. Turning, then, to consider what is revealed concerning the hereafter, we shall find that the message of the Bible lies partly in its doctrinal statements, and partly in its prophetical unfoldings,

And here, as in former discourses in this series, the very volume of truth compels me to summarize. It would be impossible, even within the very liberal limit of time which you are accustomed to give me here on Sunday nights, to present to you in its detail all the testimony of Scripture concerning the future state. I shall, therefore, summarize it in a series of propositions, reading from the Scriptures which establish the truth of these propositions.

I. The first of these summary propositions is this: Death is neither the cessation of existence nor of consciousness.

Let me repeat that. The first answer which Scripture makes to the question as to what lies beyond death, is, that physical death — the death of the body — is neither the end of life nor of consciousness. That is, there is something which lives after the body dies, and that something is in full possession of consciousness. In proof of this, I will quote, first of all, from the xvi. chapter of Luke, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His own hand which lifts the veil here and permits us to see that which occurs beyond death, both to one who died unreconciled to God, and to one who was His child.

“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table; moreover, the aogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried, and in hades, he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.”

Perhaps you are saying: Yes, this is a parable. In the first place, I do not know of anything which authorizes you to call it a parable. There have been a good many rich men on the earth, and a good many beggars on the earth, and I do not know that any necessity was upon the Lord Jesus Christ to invent a rich man, or a beggar. A good many beggars have also been full of ’ sores, at the gates of rich men. But, granting that we have a parable here, the Lord Jesus Christ is surely incapable of teaching error, either by the statement of a fact, or by the method of teaching called parable. In either case, the teaching is the principal thing, and in either case the teaching is true because Jesus Christ said it.

“The beggar died.” Now we want to know where the beggar is. That is the question precisely. Well! beggars die now. That is not an uncommon phenomenon on this earth. Rich men also die. Death is the common fate of all mankind. Nothing remarkable about that. But what about the beggar after he died? That is what we want to know.

“And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried, and in hades he lift up his eyes, being in torment.”

And as we read on, we see that the man in hades is very much alive; he carries on conversations; he has a memory; he remembers that he has relatives still living on the earth who may come to that place, and he desires that someone be sent back to the earth to-warn them.

Bear in mind that I quote this~passage at this time, simply in support of that first proposition: that death is neither the cessation of existence nor of con- ‘sciousness, These beings — the beggar and richlman — are alike alive and alike conscious after death. We turn now to Revelation vi:9:.

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season.”

These souls then, under the altar are living; they are very conscious of whence they came, and of what is to occur on the earth; thoroughly alive; thoroughly conscious.

II. Second proposition: Death is eternal separation between the saved and the unsaved.

I will turn back to the xvi. chapter of Luke and read further from that passage, 26th verse:

“And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”

Hear also Matthew xxv :46:

“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”

You know that “eternal” and “everlasting” translate the same word in the original — expressing the duration of separation. I also refer you to Revelation xxi:1-8, where the eternal abode of the saved is said to be the heavenly Jerusalem; of the lost, the lake of fire.

The very basal idea, then, concerning the condition beyond death, is: first, conscious existence; secondly, the eternal separation. of the saved and the lost. Here, in this world, good and bad are mingled together. The wicked do not cease from troubling here, and the weary do not here find rest, but this mixed condition does not continue in the next world; the rule hereafter is separation — separation of the saved from the unsaved. Of course, I might bring scripture after scripture upon this point, but I pass on.

III. Third proposition: From the moment of death, the saved are with the Lord; the unsaved in hades awaiting the judgment.

I will read again from the xvi. chapter of Luke, necessarily the great foundation passage of all this line of truth:

“And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by

the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also died, and in hell (hades), he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.”

From this we see where the lost soul goes — immediately into hades. We shall see later on what becomes of the contents of hades. Let me read II. Corinthians v:6:

“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. (For we walk by faith, not by sight.) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

There are, then, two places, so to speak, for the saved man. He may be living in the body, and so far as the personal presence of the Lord is concerned, “absent from the Lord;” or he may be absent from the body and personally present with the Lord. But there is no intermediate place. There is no waiting place. It is either in the body and not in the personal presence of the Lord (of course, always under His living eye; always in His mighty hand), or absent from the body and present with the Lord — not yet with the resurrection body, but, so far as the conscience part of man is concerned, “present with the Lord.” Let me turn-to IJ. Peter ii:9:

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver. the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.”

The lost are not immediately judged, but‘are “reserved aunto the day of judgment to be punished.” There is no other possible prospect before a lost soul. And ‘that place of detention, as we know from many passages, iis called

q75 “hades,” and is to be distinguished from the “lake of fire,” which is the place of final punishment of the unsaved.

IV. Fourth proposition: At the second coming of Christ, the saved recewe their resurrection bodies and enter upon their eternal activities.

The state of the saved between death and resurrection is always said in Scripture to be one of rest. Not unconsciousness, but rest. The souls under the altar cry, “How long?” They are told to rest a little while. Glorious activities await the redeemed in eternity, but they are not entered upon until the resurrection has reunited spirit, soul and body. This occurs at the second coming of Christ. I will turn now to I. Corinthians xv :22, 23.

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Chrisi’s at His coming.”

Note this carefully, please. I do not know how there has crept into the thought of man, and somewhat into the books that men write, the idea of a simultaneous resurrection of the just and the unjust. The Scriptures never speak of one simultaneous, universal resurrection. It is expressly said that “all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth,” but two resurrections are immediately described. (See John v:28, 29.) Turn now to I. Thessalonians iv:15, 17:

“For 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. For 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.”

At the second coming of Christ, then, when He descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the’ archangel, and with the trump of God, the dead in Christ are raised.

“For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. iii:20, 21).

This passage, as you see, completes the teaching of the Thessalonian passage. The Christian dead are raised, the living Christians are changed, as to their bodies, into the likeness of the resurrection body of Jesus. Both classes, living believers and believers whose bodies are in the graves at the second advent of Christ, are in view in the well-known passage in I. Cor. xv:51, 52:

“Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

I will now read Revelation xx :4-6:

“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and which have not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither has received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the* first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

Between the resurrection of these two are Christ’s and “the rest of the dead,” who are not Christ’s, there intervenes, then, one thousand years of time — the millennial period.

V. Fifth proposition: At the end of the millennium the unsaved receive their resurrected bodies, are judged, and ‘cast into the lake of fire.

“And I saw a great white throne and Him that satlon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; andlthere was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.”

As we have just seen, those who are Christ’s have already been raised from among the dead, and have been reigning with Christ one thousand years. It is after “the thousand years are expired” that this great white throne is set up, and it is “the dead” who stand before God.

I once supposed that, some time, I should stand in space, with the vast throng of all who had ever lived on this earth, before that great white throne, and that the books would be opened, and that all my sins would be read out of those books, and then that another book would be opened from which it might appear that I had been saved. If the man by my side had not been saved, he would pass on into the lake of fire, and thus the eternal parting would take place. There is not a line of Scripture for this thought. No Christian stands before the great white throne. Every Christian is a glorified saint then. The passage cited from Corinthians is clear that they that are Christ’s are raised at His coming, and there are left behind for the second resurrection only the bodies of the lost and the wicked dead.

“I saw the dead, small and great.” ‘Not the living who had been reigning with Christ one thousand years — His bride, but “the dead.” Think of it! You have received your glorious body, have stood before the judgment seat of Christ as your works (not sins) passed His scrutiny, have been married to Him, have returned with Him in glory to the earth, and have been enthroned with Him; and now you are to descend from that place, and stand with the dead who have just been raised from their graves — the great mass of the wicked — to have it determined whether you are saved or not! The idea, of course, is preposterous upon its face, and, what is more, there is not a word of Scripture, nor a syllable, to support it.

But God forbid that we should study this subject in cold blood. Try to think of this scene: to realize its measureless horror — the dead standing before God! The greater part will, I believe be speechless, but some will cry out in astonishment, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many wonderful works?” Poor deluded professors of religion! They trusted to religion and works rather than to Christ, and must hear Him who would have saved them say: “I never knew you.” The record, the damning record, will be there if any soul thinks to cry out against the justice of God in that awful scene. I, for one, can never read this xx chapter of Revelation without yearning over every soul that is putting off the question of salvation and staying out of Christ. You and I, oh marvel of grace! may write our names in the book of life. Think of it — is your name written there? That is the important question. Is it there?

And then we learn the result of this judgment.

“And death and hades’ — the contents of them — ‘“‘were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”

VI. Two questions now remain. (1) What is heaven, and why are the saved so happy there? (2) What is this lake of fire, or ““Gehenna,” as it is elsewhere called, and why are the lost so wretched there? Let us look at these questions briefly in the light of Scripture.

First of all, heaven-isa place. Get that very clearly in your minds. I used to think of it as a state of being, in a disembodied condition (perhaps here) and as a little boy I shuddered and shrank from becoming a ghost, and thought how cold and bleak and uncomfortable it must be! When I confided all this to some one, I was told that I should be an angel if I were good, and have wings and a harp. Let us get these unscriptural notions out of our minds. Heaven is a place, a “prepared” place, which means a suited place.

“Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John xiv :1-3).:

These words can convey to our minds only ideas of locality, and substantial entity. This at least, heaven is, spiritualize it as you please. On the other hand we are not to suppose that heaven is a place full of brown stone houses. That would be a very crude and fleshly conception of it. I don’t know what glorified architecture is like, but I do know that the Christ who has sown this earth with flowers, and lifted it into majestic mountains, and set the continents in the tossing seas, and filled the upper air with drifting clouds and azure depths, is the same Christ whose hand is shaping the eternal love-home for His bride. “I go to prepare a place for you;” that is enough for me.

Turn with me now to Revelation xxi:1:

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”

There was no end after all, but continuity, change, development, a new heaven and a new earth.

The chief conditions of happiness in this prepared place, according to Scripture, are two. Of course the co-operant conditions are almost innumerable, but, speaking broadly, the chief conditions are two. One of them I am perfectly willing to state in the exact language of science. Herbert Spencer, the agnostic® scientist, was asked what, from the scientific standpoint, would be required to make a heaven. His answer was: “A perfect being in a perfect environment.” I am willing to- give you that — the language of an agnostic — as expressing the heart of what the Scripture has to say about happiness in heaven.

In heaven, our bodies will be perfected into the image of Jesus Christ (Phil. iit:21; John iii:2). Every trace of sin and infirmity and weakness, and imperfection will be left behind, and we shall be changed into the glorious fulness of the image of Jesus Christ.

Then these perfected beings will be in a perfected environment. No taint of sin there; no death; no grave; no separation, no growing old and infirm. All these things banished for ever and ever.

The other condition of the blessedness of the saint is what might be called a negative one; it is the absence of the things which make misery here. We read that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death.” How perfectly so ever we might arrange an Eden here; however heavenly we might make some small portion of earth, we know that the stealthy tread of death will come there. Would it be a heaven where death is? I do not want any such heaven. I want to go to a better heaven than that.

“There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain” — mental pain or physical pain — “for the former things are passed away.”

What then, to come to the last question, is the lake of fire where the lost are, and why are they wretched there?

First of all, the lake of fire is a place, just as heaven is a place. Let me read Matthew xxv:41:

“Then shall He say unto them also on His left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his

angels.”: ae

Men tell me sometimes they would find it very difficult to believe in a God who had prepared such a place as the lake of fire for His creatures. He never did it! He prepared that awful place “for the devil and his angels.” If you go there, you will go there against the pleading of God. You will go past the cross to get there; you will go there over the dead body of God’s Son. You will go there because you resolve to go there. You will go there in spite of the fact that God has already paid the price of your redemption in the blood of His Son, and made a way of escape for you. He has taken away all the barriers that His holiness and justice might have interposed between you and heaven, and has swung wide the doors and said “Whosoever will may come.” He warns you that He has prepared a place for the devil and his angels, and implores you to be saved from it.

You do not have to do anything bad to go there; just keep neglecting to be saved; that is all.

If anyone goes there these will be the conditions of wretchedness.

(1). Eternal separation from God and the good.

What does that mean? Do not people get on fairly well without God here? My friends, you do not get on without Goda fleeting second of your lives. If God were to withhold His mercies from the wickedest man who walks tnis earth, he would fall into unspeakable torment at once. Every day God showers mercies upon the very men who will not have Him, and will not believe on His Son. O no, the vilest wretch, the coldest atheist, or the most immaculate moralist alive on this earth, is not without God, nor separate from God. God is filling his life with blessings every day, every one of which is designed to melt his heart and turn him to Jesus.

Some people take comfort now in saying, “Well! if we are pretty bad ourselves, we know a great many good people. They are very kind to us, and we would not like to live. in a place where there are no good people.” Many a man out of Christ would not have his wife out of Christ for anything in the world. He would not have his children without Christian training. .I am glad of that — but think of it!

But in hades first, and afterward in the lake of fire, there is eternal separation from God, and from the good. It means absolute hopelessness. The most wretched man who lives on this earth has some lingering ray of’ hope in his heart. The soul in hell hopes for nothing. There is his heart fixed in desperate hatred of God; there is the unchanged character fixed in love of evil. Look at the character of the rich man of Luke xvi. in hades. What does he want? He wants Lazarus, the poor beggar whose life was filled with disease and suffering, sent down into his place of torment that he may be comforted a little. He is the same swine of selfishness that he was on earth and it is hell enough to carry that kind of a character through eternity. When he cannot get Lazarus down there with him so that, at whatever cost to Lazarus, his tongue may be cooled, then he wants poor Lazarus sent back to the earth that a miracle may be wrought in behalf of his wicked brothers, who have already the word of God with its warnings. Think of the hellish selfishness of those two requests. There will be no man in hell who, would not tear God from His throne if he could. The black natural heart is there.

Lastly, Scripture makes it very clear that the natural emotions are there. Judas hanged himself out of remorse. Do you suppose that the remorse stopped when his life went out through the tightened noose about his neck? His remorse is yet gnawing at his heart. The man in hades remembered. He sat there in torment with memory and with consciousness. “Son, remember,” said Abraham. Oh! Te they could forget! What would they give if they could forget? But there is no forgetting. “Son, remember.” Remember God’s offer of mercy repeated again and again. Are any of you going to sit in hades.some time and remember that God offered to save you to-day, that it cost Him the blood of His Son to be able righteously to make that offer, and that you said: “I will put it off a little longer?”

The rich man said: “Father Abraham, I have five brothers.” Probably, he was the eldest of them, and he had lived the wrong kind of a life before them. They were on their way to hell and he had had a good deal to do with it. Think of the brothers in torment there saying, “You did it; you asked me to take my first drink; you led me into my first sin; you were an older man than I, and I thought I could do it. I saw you going into bar-rooms and other places worse than that; I thought it was smart and manly, and I went in also.”

Oh, turn ye! turn ye! my unbelieving friend, why will ye die? These things are awful realties. What is the great shining message that God sends out of heaven? Listen! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” ‘Will you have it now? Are you saying, well, what must I do? ‘I will tell you what to do. Bow low your head with me now, and let my words be your words.

“Lord Jesus, I have sinned; I have done evil. Thou hast died for me. I take Thee for my Saviour. I trust Thee, I put my soul into Thy care. I give myself to Thee to be cleansed of sin and to be eternally saved. Amen.”