Seek His Truth While It Can Be Found

Isaiah
{38:18} For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
{38:19} The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day
the father to the children shall make known thy truth

The grave cannot praise thee.
Death cannot celebrate thee.
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Tell me why is that people hope for life immediately after death. Why is they hope that death is nothing at all really, just a transition. Studies on life after death take place all the time. Out of body experiences convince people that there is life after death because they don't want to believe that their mind can have conscious thought after death for a short time and then nothingness. Their proof is in those first few moments when they see themselves out of their bodies, believing their conscience spirit is now moving on and yet...

They don't ultimately die do they? Those who have out of body experiences don't die, they miraculously live. They wake up from their unconscious state and live to tell about dying. They give hope to many with their words of rising out of their bodies. People believe that death isn't a place where there is nothingness, where there is no praising, no celebrating, no truth. They want an existence right after this one where they can rise up and look upon all those near their body, an existence where they can go to a 'light' walking there, moving there some how to where there is all goodness and even loved ones that have passed on before. Death is a transition, not an ending. Death isn't so bad really. Death frees us from our mortal bodies and allows us to live on in a spirit form.

How can any of that be true?

If death is all that, why is it something bad?

Why is death a punishment?

Why is death something to be overcome?

Why did Jesus come to sacrifice Himself, to conquer death?

What significance is there in Jesus rising again?

Why did Jesus lay in the grave and not transition out of His body upon death like so many believe happens? If that is death and he suffered the ultimate death? If he died and overcame death, what was he really conquering if death isn't a bad thing?

If we have another existence as spiritual forms that live on, why do we need to ever revert back to anything else?

Death.

Isaiah
{38:18} For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
{38:19} The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day
the father to the children shall make known thy truth

If we cannot praise and celebrate God upon death, in our transitional form that slips out of the fleshy one, what exactly CAN we do when we die?

The grave cannot praise thee.
Death cannot celebrate thee.
They that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Those in a grave pit can't even hope for truth.

There is no praising, no celebrating, no truth in death and yet many would have us believe that it's a wonderful thing- life after death. Tell me how it can be wonderful if we cannot have the truth? If God's truth isn't found in life after death it's pointless to believe we do go on with conscious thought after death.

The living...
The living shall praise God.
The fathers to their children will make known the truth.

Truth exists and is taught during life. You don't find it after death. You need to grasp it before death.

In reality, the out of body experiences can be a transition, they can. The transition however is much the same as one falling asleep. Do you lay your head down and immediately stop thinking? Very seldom to people just lay down and are instantly asleep. There is a thought process still occurring. Sometimes that thought process lulls us to sleep, other times we lay there and it is so bothersome we end up getting up for a bit and trying to get back to sleep again later. How often have you heard someone say, I couldn't get to sleep last night, I just kept thinking and thinking?

When we die it is quite possible that as we enter that sleep of death, that we are still thinking. That there is a consciousness about us that remains briefly as we go from life to death's sleep.

Honestly, I would hate to believe that I consciously go on living even in a spiritual floaty form if I can't praise and celebrate God in that state. If I can't have the truth of God after death, I really hope and pray that the mystery of death turns out to be a deep sleep and I know nothing again until Jesus rises me up from the grave upon His return to earth. Yes, I hope the spiritual part of me that brought me to life, that breath of life in me that goes back to God is kept by Him as I sleep waiting for that day I can praise and celebrate Him in all truth again.

God's truth, we need to learn it now, not think we can learn it later. No one knows when they'll die, and in death there is no hope of truth.

May God help us all to seek His truth while it can be found and not delay.

In the name of His all merciful, all powerful, all wonderful Son, by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Amen.