back to the soul so long after a per son’s death? Of course, for science shows that matter, whatever its con tent, never goes out of existence. The story is told of a man who had received a beautiful golden tro phy because of his achievement in the field of science. He had it placed in his laboratory so that others could see the award. A friend hap pened in one day. He was intensely interested in one of the experiments, IF C H R IS T SHO U LD C O M E T O N IG H T Is my house set in order If Christ should come today? Am I really ready If I were called away? Suppose an angel told me A t early morning light, "Your Lord will come this evening. You shall go to Him tonight." Would ecstasy be clouded By thought of work undone, The seed I might have scattered, The crowns I might have won; The soul I meant to speak to. The purse I meant to share, And O, the wasted moments I meant to spend in prayer? The weight of unsaved millions Would press upon my heart. In their death am I certain That I had not a part? O- slothful soul and careless heart, O eyes which have no sight— Work, lest you reap but vain regrets! Your Lord may come tonight! — Martha Snell Nicholson and not as watchful as he should have been. Turning around too quick ly he bumped the golden vessel and it fell from the shelf into a vat of acid. Before the scientist was able to retrieve it, the powerful solution had reduced the gold to a shapeless mass. You can imagine the man’s sorrow for having caused the acci dent. The chem ist, seeing his friend’s dismay, encouraged him, 13
While, instinctively speaking, it is possible that there is life after death, and morally that it is prob able, scripturally we have the cer tainty of the answer to this age-old question. Think for a moment about the power of the Lord Jesus when He commanded Lazarus, His beloved friend, to come forth from the grave. Why, he had been dead for several days! Have you ever stopped to realize that if the Lord had not prefaced His command, “Come forth” with the name of Lazarus, no doubt that whole graveyard would have come alive at the sound of His voice. Christ constantly referred to the resurrection in His ministry. In John 11 we read that at the time of Lazarus’ resurrection, the Saviour told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and be lieveth in me shall never die.” Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of misunderstanding concern ing what happens at death. It is the body that dies, not the soul. Nor does the latter even “sleep” in the grave. There is no such thing as “soul sleeping.” The soul, if the in dividual is a believer, goes into the presence of Christ, for to be “absent from the body” means to “be present with the Lord.” The soul, or spirit of unbelievers, goes to the abode of the wicked dead, spoken of in Scripture as hades. The wicked will be resur rected to appear before the Great White Throne Judgment of God, while the believer will be resurrect ed to eternal life. In the coming hour the grave, whether it be in a lovely green cemetery or from the bottom of the ocean, the physique, long since stripped of its flesh by the denisons of the deep, will some day be reunited with the soul: the believer in Heaven, the unbeliever in Hell. Can God bring the body
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