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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 52. Pleasing, But Not True
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Pleasing, But Not True
Death means death of the body. That is the common meaning, the plain everyday meaning. That is the biggest thing we're conscious of. It's the thing we feel most.
The body we loved so much lies lifeless. It is laid away under the sod. We do not see it. There is the utter absence of the loved one. The spirit that looked out of the bodily eyes has gone from, us. The break between body and spirit is complete. He is dead. The separation between him and us is entire.
That is the commonest meaning. And that meaning is quite correct so far as it goes. But it is a limited meaning. It's the thing that absorbs us most, if not to the exclusion of everything else. Yet there is more. And we want to talk in a purely practical way about that more.
There is a common teaching about death that is directly opposite to the Biblical teaching. It belittles death to the point of practically ignoring it. Though of course, the fact of bodily death cannot be ignored.
Death is pictured as a mere transition.. It is a natural step from one state of existence to another, it is said. It is not an enemy, and not a thing to be dreaded. This teaching is marked by vague looseness of statement. Clean-cut thinking, sharp distinctions, clear careful definitions are absent.
In their place is a mixture of partial truths expressed in beautiful language, with the clear-cut, sharp lines of truth blurred. Some-choice bits of literature have been produced. They have found their way freely into Christian circles.
Death is likened to certain changes of development that take place in the natural order. The caterpillar passes into the chrysalis form, and by and by emerges a rarely beautiful butterfly. And death among men is likened to these transitions.
The whole thing of death is made to appear as simple and natural a transition as these. This sounds very beautiful. And it is acceptable to many folks, if not most. They like it. But it entirely ignores certain facts. It is quite opposed to the plain teaching of the Book of God. And the practical effect is not only not good. It is, bad.
It tends to blur the fact that the time of death is a time of moral adjustment. And these adjustments hinge on our choices and on our character. It belittles or ignores what Jesus did for us when He died. It tends to keep us from putting choice of Christ as Saviour in the big place, where it belongs, in our thinking. And it lulls us into a sort of fool's paradise that every-thing is all right with us regardless of how we've lived, or what we've believed.