When a Person Dies . . . What Then?

WAYNE STOOD beside the bed of his brother, Dale. Dale’s lungs and heart had been failing and had weakened to the point where he didn’t have much time left. Dale opened his eyes and said, “I’m dying, aren’t I? I don’t want to die, but it will be OK. I have Jesus.”

Death is the common enemy of people everywhere. We not only fear dying ourselves, but we also rebel at the thought of someone we love dying. When facing death, the question is always there: “What does it mean to die? When a person dies . . . what then?”

What are the answers to the hard questions about death? Are we born only to die? Is death the end of the story? Or is there life after death? What is the experience of those in the grave? Can we help them? Can we talk with them? Will we ever see our dead loved ones again? Where are the dead right now?

Conflicting voices clamor to give us answers. Psychic mediums teach that the spirits who speak to them are dead beings who have evolved to a higher state. Hinduism teaches reincarnation, which involves a whole series of lifetimes in which we work off our bad karma and keep progressing to a greater degree of perfection. Buddhists believe in the god within us, enlightening us and moving us into a higher state. Atheists deny all hope of a future life and declare that death is the eternal end of everything. Many Christians believe that the dead are not really dead—that they go to heaven, hell, or some intermediate place of conscious existence.

In a matter so important, so universal, so packed with emotion, where can we learn the truth about what happens when we die? The answer is: the Bible. In God’s Word, He who knows all about life and death will instruct us with comforting messages of hope.