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Physical death is something everyone has to pass through, and, regardless of how much faith we have, we don't know how we will act until that time arrives. I hate death. I don't like to talk about it. I go to as few funerals as possible, and I even put off writing about it for a long time. I am not the only one who feels this way. A funeral director once told me, "Most people will not face the reality of death unless they have to; then it is usually only for a few hours." I have been at wakes where people, standing in front of an open casket, were laughing, talking about business, the weather or sports, while trying to avoid looking at the corpse. I have done it myself.

An older woman, a dear friend of mine, died of cancer. The casket was to remain closed during the funeral, but the undertaker, beforehand, insisted that I let him lift the lid to show me how nice she looked. I reluctantly agreed, and, after viewing the body, told him he had done a good job. But, let's face it, there is nothing pretty about a cold, lifeless corpse!

I don't blame people for not wanting to face the reality of death. It is ugly! But wait, don't let these negative statements get you down. I have been speaking from the natural viewpoint, from what can be seen with the human eye. Praise God, Christians can view death from a different perspective.

The Bible says, "The just shall live by faith" (Rom.1:17). We can approach that big hurdle of death with confidence and joy if we look at it from God's point of view. We view it from below; He sees it from above. We see physical death as ugly; God sees it quite differently when it happens to His people: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Psalm 116:15).

Some of the things you have thought, said or done may come to your mind, and you may not feel much like a saint; but, regardless of what your feelings tell you (or what some religions classify as sainthood), if you have received Christ as Lord and Savior, you are a saint: ". . . ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God " (1Cor.6:11).

So how should we, as saints, using our spiritual vision, view physical death? As an opportunity, a door to heaven and something to really look forward to. From a faith viewpoint, we can truly say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1Cor.15:55). For us, death is not a vehicle that carries us to defeat; it is a chariot that brings us to glory!

Paul the apostle knew how to look at death. He said to the Philippians, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith" (Phil.1:21-25).

Death is a mysterious thing. It is understandable why it causes so much fear and confusion, but if we want to learn more about it, I believe the Lord will teach us. And we will learn that it is nothing like we imagined it to be in our natural way of thinking.

I remember, years ago, when I had to make frequent trips through a little town in Northern Massachusetts, I would often stop to visit an old man who lived alone. He had outlived all his relatives, including his children. He was lonely and enjoyed having company.

One time, while sitting in his kitchen, he said to me, "I want to tell you about something that happened to me over fifty years ago. I've never told this to anyone; you are the first to hear it." I had never seen this man so serious. His eyes were moist and his voice shaky. "Please tell me about it," I said. He regained his composure and began to talk about what he had experienced.

He said, "When my wife was alive, we had a good life together, but went through some hard times. The most difficult I can remember was when we discovered that our nine year old son had leukemia. We did all we could for him, but nothing seemed to help. Within a few years, we had to take him out of school and helplessly stand by and watch him get weaker and weaker, until he died at the age of twelve."

Now it was my turn to hold back the tears. He paused for a moment; then he went on to say, "Now, I'm a religious man; I believe in God, and I know there's life after death. But one night, shortly after my son died, I laid in bed and said to God, 'If only I could know for sure that my son is alive.' Then I noticed a little dot of light on the wall, which grew into a big ball as it came toward me and stopped beside my bed. There, in the middle of that light, was the most beautiful being I have ever seen. There are no words to describe it. Then this presence came closer, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, and I knew it was my son! Before I could speak, he disappeared."

I was overwhelmed and said, "Leo, why did you wait so long to tell about this? That was a wonderful answer from God, and you've kept it hidden for fifty years!" He then replied, "You are the only one I thought would not laugh at me if I told you about it."

How much do you think about death? Are you ready to face it? Time is slipping by; it is getting closer. Think how quickly the last ten years have passed. Would you want to be told if you had only a short while to live? Fear of the unknown is the reason many people are afraid to face death. Learning all we can about it will be helpful for us, because true knowledge overcomes much fear.

Man's first encounter with death was in an ideal setting: the Garden of Eden. Some would like proof that this garden was for real. Of course, there is no archaeological evidence because it existed long before the days of arrows and axe heads, but the Bible speaks very clearly about it.

It is interesting to note that this place was not the first of God's creations. The Bible says, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed" (Gen.2:8). Therefore, Eden had to have been there first in order for the garden to have been put in it. I believe this place was created like man, both physical and spiritual; it had no dimensional curtain. Adam and Eve were able to live in the spiritual as well as the physical realm. It was like a piece of heaven placed here on earth. There was no need to worry about becoming sick, growing old or dying. They also enjoyed a good relationship with their Creator. They could walk and talk with him (Gen.3:8).

Included in the garden were two special trees. One was off limits to man. The Lord God commanded the man (before Eve was created) not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He warned him, "For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:17). At the time, Adam had a brilliant mind, undarkened by sin; he also had a free will. When he ate the forbidden fruit it was more than a physical act; it was making a willful decision to: become independent from God; rebel against His authority; ignore His great love; and take evil into his heart and soul (which, until then, had been pure and innocent). It was man's first taste of death.

The Bible says, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom.5:12). Eve was deceived by the devil; Adam knew what he was doing. However, we cannot place all the blame on him; he was our representative. I think that any one of us would have done the same if we had been in his place, because we "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God " (Rom.3:23).

There is a humanistic teaching that man is basically good. That would be true if it were stated in the following context: Man was basically good while in the Garden of Eden, before he ate the forbidden fruit, or man becomes basically good when he receives a cleansing by the blood of Christ. In any other condition, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked " (Jer.17:9).

Some people want to blame God for man's downfall as well as for everything else that goes wrong in this world. When we insisted on going away from God by sinning, what else could the Lord do other than let us go? After all, the garden was not a prison, and God is not a harsh warden as Satan led Eve to believe (Gen.3:1-5). Adam was not made in the image of a robot. He was not under remote control; he could make his own decisions. God wants sons and daughters who choose by their own free will to love, honor, worship and obey Him. But we have misused this freedom, and, with a rebellious, independent spirit like that of the prodigal son, have left our Heavenly Father to chase after sin. That's right! We left God. He didn't leave us.

The Bible says that ". . . the wages of sin is death" (Rom.6:23), and "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek.18:20). The Lord personally warned Adam that he would die on the day that he sinned by eating the forbidden fruit (Gen.2:17). Adam did sin but still lived to be 950 years old (physically). Still, as God had promised, he died that same day. His death was spiritual (separation from the living God). The paradise created for man to enjoy became the stage where the great rebellion of mankind against God took place, which ushered sin and death into the world.

The other special tree in the Garden of Eden was called the Tree of Life. I believe it represents our Lord Jesus Christ before the crucifixion. Adam and Eve had a unique opportunity to receive Christ by eating of the Tree of Life without first having to repent, because, for a time, they were innocent--as a child is before knowing right from wrong. That opportunity ended when they ate the forbidden fruit, which allowed evil to enter their hearts (spirits).

God is not a big, humanistic grandaddy up in the sky; He is not "Mr. Easy" who cannot say "No!" The Bible says, "So He drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims (angels), and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life" (Gen.3:24). In other words, God said "No!" to man. "You cannot eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in heaven with Me in your sinful condition."

There is a way to the Tree of Life, but it is still supernaturally guarded. One cannot sneak by those angelic sentries, and no amount of money can bribe them. Even with all the modern technology, no man made weapon will ever be powerful enough to destroy the flaming sword of the Lord, which guards the way to the Tree of Life. Right in the middle of that narrow pathway--between the angels and the flaming sword--is the cross of Calvary. There is no getting around it; one must pass through it and receive a cleansing from sin by the blood of Christ to get to the Tree of Life. And the first step on the pathway is true repentance.

I am sure you know some people who have gone to church for many years, have been baptized, have taken communion many times, and may have even repeated the sinner's prayer, yet are not born again because they don't want to take that first step. They don't think they need to repent.

Imagine, for a moment, if God had overlooked sin, if He had allowed Adam, in his sinful state, to ". . . put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen.3:22). It would mean no death and would eliminate the need for the crucifixion of the Son of God, but the results would be devastating. Hitler and every other murderer would still be around if the entrance to eternal life was left open to all. Heaven, as well as earth, would be filled with whoremongers, adulterers, perverts, fornicators, liars, and idolaters, just to name a few. There would be no freedom from sin, no new spiritual life available, and no filling of the Holy Spirit. If it was not for physical death, there would be no relief from sickness and suffering. And what a crowded place this planet would be!

Since mankind made a choice to go his own way (away from God), what are the results? ". . . the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1John 5:19). Those who question the Bible can come to that conclusion just by reading the daily newspaper. The world is on a course of disaster. Everyone will try to escape. Some will bury their heads in unreality; others will look for a way back to God.

Of course, that way cannot be seen with the natural eye. One must look by faith, and the right direction in which to look is: East.

Remember how the garden was planted east in Eden? The sun, which gives light and warmth to the earth, rises in the east. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, in a prophecy, called Christ "the dayspring from on high" (Luke 1:78). By tracing the word "dayspring" back to its origin, we find it means "a light rising from the east and shining out into the whole world." The wise men who went to Bethlehem seeking the newborn King of the Jews said, "We have seen his star in the east" (Mat.2:2). In times past, the Hebrews would only give directions according to a man's position when his face was turned toward the east. So to find eternal life, one must look to the "east"; in other words, look to Christ!

Spiritual death, or separation from God, is an awesome thing. Man was not the first to experience it. The Bible teaches that angels (spiritual beings), who were created long before man, lived with God in heaven. Satan was one of them who was given great authority, but wanted to exalt himself above God (Isa.14:12-16). In the future, he will try this once more, not before angels, but, before men (2Thes.2:4). A severe judgment from God was declared upon Satan and one third of the angels who were aligned with him. The sentence was eternal damnation in hell--the ultimate death. The judgment was final with no provision for parole or repentance. Christ did not go to the cross for angels, but rather for you and me and all mankind. The ultimate folly of man is to refuse to repent and believe the gospel--to choose to dwell in hell with Satan and his fallen angels.

Jesus who is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2) said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18). The devil was cast out of heaven, destined for hell (which was prepared for him and his angels, not people [Mat.25:41]) with a short stopover here on earth. Some people who are cautious with fire are quite careless when they deal with Satan. They joke about him and think they can handle him in their own strength without getting burned.

Can you imagine how a convicted murderer would act if he were allowed to leave his prison cell and roam the streets for a time while waiting for his scheduled execution? You certainly would want to stay clear of him! Beware, Satan is on earth and he is mad! "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him"(Rev.12:7-9). And "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil has come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he has but a short time" (Rev.12:12).

Satan is out to steal, to kill and destroy everyone. The most tormented people I have ever met are those who have made a pact with the devil in hopes that he would go easy on them. He has many deceitful weapons, sin being the greatest, giving him the "power of death," but the devil was destroyed and his power of death broken at Calvary (Heb.2:14, 15).

You may think, If Satan is destroyed, how come he is still so active here on earth? The answer can be seen if we remember that God is not limited to time and space as we are; and reality is not always what we see and hear with our human capacities but rather what God has declared. For example, Christ, the Lamb of God, was crucified from the foundation of the world (Rev.13:8) when God ordained it, but we perceived it in time and space 2,000 years ago. Satan was sentenced to total destruction when he rebelled against God long before the world was created. This judgment has been and will be witnessed in our time and space dimension in the Garden of Eden, the cross of Calvary, the Second Coming of Christ, and the final lake of fire or hell as described in Revelations 20:10. But in one true sense it has already happened; there is no changing it because God has declared it.

Another great reality that God has declared is that spiritual death is abolished for all who belong to Christ (2Tim.1:10). Jesus said, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:26). If you belong to Christ, don't let the devil, your flesh, your feelings, or anyone else ever tell you that you will die spiritually (be separated from God). The Lord promised never to leave or forsake you (Heb.13:5).

Now, we all must die physically, which could be described as passing through that dimensional curtain. There is loss of a body but no loss of life. Your body is only a temporary vehicle that gets you around while you are here on earth. The real you is your spirit that lives within and moves on when physical death occurs. The Bible says, ". . . it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment"(Heb.9:27).

All will stand before God on Judgment Day. We, who belong to Jesus, will be there too, but will not be judged because we have already been declared innocent, even though we are guilty. Christ has taken our punishment through His death at Calvary. In other words, the whole of mankind has been given a pardon, but a gift must be accepted. People who are unwilling to repent (turn to God) cannot acquire it. How can anyone take possession of a gift if their back is turned, and they are walking away from the giver?

Suppose you were guilty of a crime that, according to the law, demanded punishment by death. Picture yourself waiting in a cell on death row. Then the day comes when the guard, while taking you to the electric chair, opens, not the door of the death chamber, but a door leading outside--to freedom--and says, "You may go free; your death sentence has been paid. A man who was innocent of any crime came in earlier and volunteered to be executed in your place. The law has been kept." (Jesus said, "I am not come to destroy (the law), but to fulfill" [Mat.5:17]). The guard goes on to explain, "The man gave you life by giving up his." Would you let his death be in vain by refusing the pardon, or would you accept your freedom with a thankful heart?

Anyone who receives God's forgiveness through Christ has been pardoned from sin by the highest authority, the Supreme Judge of the universe. God acquits the guilty and remains just because the death penalty was imposed on a substitute instead of on you and me and the rest of sinful mankind. No one who was carrying their own sin could take the penalty of another. The substitute had to be someone who was in a human body, yet sinless. Only the Son of God could meet that requirement.

But Christ could not be punished for sin in His holy, righteous state. Something horrible had to happen to Him first. His agony in Gethsemane was caused by the thought of what lay ahead. He knew He was going to become sin--your sin, my sin, and the sin of the human race. The Bible says, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2Cor.5:21).

Christ died for us. He bore our sin at Calvary. He became separated from His Father for the first time in all eternity. That is why He cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"(Mat.27:46). It was not easy for Him to abolish death for us.

What a relief to be pardoned by God. Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). God will view us, standing before Him, covered with garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness (Isa.61:10). But our works will be judged, some of which will make it through the refining fire and count toward a reward, while others, that we think are so great, will go up in smoke (1Cor.3:13).

So how should God's people look at that hurdle called death? Let us view it with eyes of faith. The Bible says, ". . . the righteous hath hope in his death"(Prov.14:32). This glorious hope is an anchor for our soul; it keeps us secure throughout life. The most wonderful words ever heard were the ones that the angels spoke to the women at the sepulcher: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen" (Luke 24:5,6). We have hope because of the resurrection of Jesus.

If you were given a trip to a beautiful vacation paradise to be taken sometime in the future, wouldn't you want to know what airline or cruise ship you were scheduled to travel on? Wouldn't you want to set some money aside, plan your wardrobe, and make sure your responsibilities were fulfilled before leaving? Wouldn't you be excited about it and want to tell your friends where you were going? Well, if you are in Christ, you are going on a wonderful trip. You are not sure of your exact departure time, but you are assured that your destination is heaven. You already have the right clothes to wear: your garment of righteousness that was woven for you by Jesus on the cross of Calvary! Your place in heaven is waiting for you. It has been prepared by Jesus (John 14:1-3). Everyone there is expecting you! A great welcome is awaiting you.

Suppose you were to visit a foreign country for the first time. Wouldn't you want someone there to meet you when you arrived who knows the language and could show you around and introduce you to others? Don't worry. The Lord has some special guides waiting to assist you on your heavenly journey. They are called angels. They are accustomed to heaven's environment, and they will escort you into the holy presence of God (Luke 16:22).

Now, please do not feel as if you lack faith if you are a Christian and you are not looking forward to death. The natural part of you has to act negative because it can only see the physical side of death, which is ugly. Your spiritual eyes, by faith, can look at it from God's viewpoint, and it is beautiful.

In the meantime, while you are still here upon earth waiting, why not make good use of the time you have left by guiding others to the pathway of the Tree of Life by telling them about Jesus? You can do many other good works in the name of the Lord, and you can allow the Holy Spirit to produce His fruit in your life, which will glorify God.

Don't be conformed to this world. It is not your permanent home; you are just passing through. You have been scheduled on a great trip to meet the Lord in a new way in your promised, glorified body, and to live with Him forever where there is no death, sorrow, crying or pain (Rev.21:4); and, needless to say, no more Satan, which means it will even be better than the Garden of Eden!

As for the hurdle of physical death, try not to worry about it. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut.33:27), and when you are in the Lord's arms, He will easily lift you over that hurdle and make your trip through death most enjoyable. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me" (Psalm 23:4).

The Bible teaches that perfect love casts out fear (1John 4:18). If you just look at what God did for you on the cross of Calvary, you will never question His love for you; and when you are enjoying His perfect love, you will find that your fears are all gone . . . even the fear of death!