by Pastor Mark Downey
Scripture Reading: John 1:1-5
Last September our church went to Indiana for a picnic lunch and to visit the wife of a dear friend of ours who died suddenly in a terrible auto accident about a year ago. Well, the womenfolk gravitated to the living room and the men were outside talking Christian Identity. I moseyed into the house and saw all the women, so I sat next to my wife and asked what have you been talking about and she said, “an interesting discussion about heaven,” to which I replied by putting my arm around her and saying, “Well, here's a little slice of heaven for ya.” And all of a sudden, they all broke out in hysterical laughter, much to my perplexing chagrin. I asked what are they laughing about? Evidently, they were into a serious subject and in walks a man who makes a rather flippant remark that breaks the ice. Later, my wife suggested I do a sermon on heaven and voila, I have a ready-made title ready to go. Many of us have lost loved ones in recent times so I think this message will not only help me with the loss of my mother and father, but others I know who are going through the same experience. I got to thinking that I haven't read anything in CI about heaven since Pastor Sheldon Emry. It's probably because the Bible doesn't say a whole lot about the heaven, which we know as God's abode, although heaven can mean many other things, in spite of a plethora of denominational garbage that takes way too much latitude in preying upon people's emotions, failing to rightly divide the word of truth. Heaven sometimes just means the sky or an elevated place of authority. And there's probably nothing more ingrained in people's psyche than what they think about the hereafter, other than perhaps Christmas. It's a tough nut to crack. And similarly, like the winter solstice, we are not to “learn the way of the heathen.”
Oh yes, the non-White religions of the world have their theologies about what comes after life; whether it's Valhalla; nirvana; reincarnation; purgatory; ancient Egyptians had their mummies; Mormons and Muslims have their own Club Paradise; Unitarian Universalists believe everybody goes to heaven; Zoroastrianism believes in the disembodied spirit that faces a final judgment and if you were good you go with a beautiful maiden, but if you were bad you go with an old ugly and naked hag; Spiritualism's afterlife, according to Edgar Cayce, is a cosmic realm of love having new sounds, colors and feelings; parapsychology tries to prove an immortal soul, which conjures up all sorts of permutations just in time for Halloween; Satanism rejects an afterlife and regards life as the great indulgence in the here and now (you would think they would want to spend eternity with their daddy in the perpetual shake 'n bake barbecue pit of subterranean hellfire, where it's always warm and fuzzy). Did I forget anybody? Oh yeah, what about the jews... apparently they have no more of a consensus than they did between the Pharisees and the Sadducees 2000 years ago and is not really as important as to what they can get out of this life. All of the above have found their way into the hybrid religion of judeo-Christianity. Christian Identity, for the most part, concentrates on the resurrection of the dead for the Kingdom of God on earth.
If we understand God as the Everliving and that He is omnipresent, then Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” we can surmise that this is telling us more about our finite mind than God's infinite wisdom, power and presence. William Finck makes this observation, “There are many Identity Christians who have been deceived by the ridiculous lie, often called the “gap theory”, which even Wesley Swift and Bertrand Comparet helped to preponderate, that somehow here the earth is described as having become void and formless, that there was a prior civilization on this earth and it was destroyed before the creation account of Genesis chapter 1. The “gap theory” was first made popular through the Scofield Bible reference notes. Yet if this were so, how is it necessary that heaven, defined in the fourth day of Genesis as the sun, the moon, and the stars, also had to be created here, or if one prefers, on the “fourth day” later in this chapter? Why did Light and Darkness not exist before the “gap” in the so-called “gap theory”?”
Don't get me wrong, God did create the universe, but could the preeminent teaching of Genesis be talking about the beginning of our race? The one sentence synopsis of “the beginning” in Gen 5:1 says, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” meaning only one race is the focus of the Bible. “The earth became formless and void and darkness was over the face of the deep” Gen. 1:2. Given the poetic nature and literary style of the book of Genesis, the template for Israel's behavior was established long before Jacob was born. In other words, Adamic man rebelled against their Creator by imagining evil thoughts continually (Gen. 6:5). Our thinking will get us into trouble every time unless it is in harmony with the Word of God. It's a blessing of the Holy Spirit to discern right from wrong. When we hear something good and true from the Bible we get a refreshing sense of righteousness; when we hear something unbiblical we get an uncomfortable stiffened neck. We are called a “stiff-necked” people (Acts 7:51). Nehemiah 9:17 tells us about the consequences, “They refused to listen, And did not remember Your wondrous deeds which You had performed among them; So they became stiff necked and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.”
We may not know exactly what drives us to feel good or bad about something, but we do the Berean thing to find out why; otherwise we're just a ball of knots, which are never untied from its own bondage. For example, I've never felt good about the Rapture, while others get quite animated about it. What's the difference? It doesn't have anything to do with salvation (my salvation is based on grace through faith); the Rapture makes the Christian complacent (it just becomes a waiting game to argue with other Rapturists whether they are pre-trib, mid-trib or post trib); and it takes extraordinary latitude in eschatology. Why do people waste their time with such drivel? While Rapturists have a preoccupation with the future and floating off to heaven, we live in an emerging police state, which cannot be made more explicit than the recent local ordinance issued in Houston, Texas, by the city's first lesbian mayor, Annise Parker; it's a subpoena demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or criticism of the mayor. I'll tell you what, I refuse to tear that page out of my Bible in Leviticus 20:13 that says, “If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court for refusing to produce all communications with members of their congregation. Where is their Rapture when things are going dark, going extremely dark with sodomite tyrants? I just have to shake my head, knowing that there is no Rapture, there is certainly no racial integration in Heaven and it's debilitating to our race to think so.
In fact, here's one that will make me an instant friend or enemy: no one is going to Heaven and everybody is going to hell. Now, if you don't know what the Hebrew and Greek words sheol, hades, gehenna, shanayim and ouranos mean, then you may think that you have a one-way ticket to Heaven, a far away place in the stars. But, God gives us His words to communicate the truth, not a license in which every man doeth what is right in their own mind. The Word is what is important, not the opinions of man. This explains why there are 35,000 denominations or opinions, rather than there being “no divisions among us” (I Cor. 1:10). “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” Eph. 4:4-6. There is one Christ in whom all believers hope, and one heaven they are all hoping for; therefore they should be of one heart. I think we dropped the ball somewhere along the way and took too many exits and wrong turns. “Because narrow is the gate and distressed the road which leads to life, then they are few who are finding it” Mt. 7:14 CNT. In almost every generation since the time of Christ, the real disciple has been looked upon as a non-conformist, a separatist and sometimes underground reformers like Christian Identity; while the majority of sheeple seek the safety of numbers and have gone down the broadest highways of self-destruction. “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” Hosea 4:6. What do you know and understand? What's your source? Is it the Bible?
Should we be in harmony with God or have a tolerance for other people's opinions? Listen to what John has to say about this, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were through Him, and without Him was not even one thing. That which was done in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness; yet the darkness comprehends it not” John 1:1-5. We are immediately struck with the idea that Jesus Christ is not a second God, but rather one and the same deity that created Adam. And is established in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Only Adam-man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), not that we would become Gods mimicking pagan mythologies, but that we would do God's will i.e. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10). We pray this because the Kingdom is coming. Part of it is here, but it's not here in total yet.
If light represents Adamkind, then darkness must represent those “human beings” who cannot fathom the depths of God's glory. What God created was declared “good” by Himself. Therefore, the life forms of hominids that God did not create, those who were not 'kind after kind,' who were mixed breeds, the multitude of mongrels, could never be declared “good.” This should not be confused with Isaiah 45:7 which says, “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” This is over a thousand years later when Israel dabbled in darkness and went whoring after strange gods; this verse is talking about judgments, catastrophic conditions, war and rampant ignorance, not about creating other so called races. It's what God would inflict upon our race for disobeying His Law. And the racial context is found in the last verse (25), “In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” Christ appeared in the flesh as one of us, as a Kinsman Redeemer, not a multicultural redeemer.
Our friends and relatives who call themselves Christians, but never read the Bible and only know and believe what they hear from religious mouthpieces, can't figure out why we object to so many of their mistaken concepts and can't comprehend a racial message from the Bible. My Bible says “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” Romans 10:17. Does it really matter what we believe... can't we all just get along? My Bible says, “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith [fight for it] that was once and for all entrusted to God's holy people. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into immorality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” Jude 1:3-4. Our beliefs matter, because what you believe about heaven and all the things surrounding it have a profound impact on what happens to you at the end of this age. A casual remark, not supported by Scripture, may plant the seeds of disinformation and cause a brother to stumble. There's no room for guessing or taking the word of man and that includes me; check everything out for yourself, whether the Word of God is true or not. For example, if I say, “No man has ascended up to heaven,” is that me just saying that or is it straight out of John 3:13? Every Christian should know that the only One in God's abode is God and His angels.
If we are going to talk about heaven, then we are compelled to talk about heaven's antithesis i.e. hell. When the translators of the Septuagint came to the Hebrew word sheol, they always rendered it with the Greek word hades, which was rendered 'hell' in English; all it ever meant was the grave or pit of buriel.Churchianity has planted the seed in the minds of their flocks that one either goes to heaven or hell when they die, the latter depicted as a molten orange-red cavern of lava and fiery pyrotechnics. Death perhaps might be one of the most misunderstood subjects in our culture, because there's a culture war that has inculcated certain ideas that have become almost set in concrete in people's minds; the Bible calls it a hardened heart or a heart of stone. Sometimes the only way to break it in pieces is to blast it with the dynamite of Truth. For many, death is enshrouded in mystery and evokes feelings of fear, uncertainty and even hopelessness, and on the other extreme, death is a fantasy world of their own vivid imagination. A nice judeo lady once told me, “We won't even have to brush our teeth in heaven!” Others believe that their deceased loved ones are not dead at all, but instead are nearby in another realm of reality. Still others are completely confused about the interactions between body, soul and spirit and cavalierly make them interchangeable.
Jesus warned us, as this Church Age nears the end of its time and will be replaced by something “new” i.e. The Kingdom Age, that many would come in His name claiming they're the real deal (maybe something like 35,000 501c3 denominations) “and deceive many” (Mt. 24:5). That is, they would teach lies and the lies would be believed. If this is true, and we have no reason not to believe its clear language that it won't be a few miscreants, but rather a lot of false ministers betraying the Word, then what it is that they're teaching is probably false. In light of this predicament, let us consider what most ministers teach and what most churchgoers believe. Regarding our subject today, at the top of the list we can put down the notion that man remains conscious after death; secondly, that most men go to a region of fire and brimstone where they spend eternity burning in tortuous pain; thirdly, only an elite minority of men go to heaven to be with with Jesus; fourthly, the preceding beliefs are predicated on the belief that jews are God's chosen Israelite people and that it is incumbent upon the Christian to bless them, because fifthly, God loves everybody and we should too. Many people, not a few, believe these 5 elements, which when conjoined to a Rapture mentality brings forth another whopper of a lie, that after they are miraculously transported from earth to heaven, a great singular Antichrist comes to rule the earth during a seven year period of tribulation. If we curse the jew, we will be cursed and 'left behind.' Give me a break!!!
Who rules the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the 50 states, the economy, mainstream media and the entertainment industry; who is it that promotes the moral decline of western civilization through abortion, feminism, pornography, homosexuality, race mixing, illegal immigration, modern art, drugs and pharmaceuticals; who is it that is intent upon destroying us through the corrupt systems of medical health care, taxation, multinational corporations, military-industrial complex, agriculture/GMO's, the criminal justice prison growth industry, weather modification, seminaries/bible colleges, organized crime... well, doesn't that last one pretty much sum up all of them? Who are we talking about? We are talking about the biblically defined antichrists (as a plurality; I John 2:18)) of I John 4:3 who deny the deity of Jesus Christ and were in the world at the time of John's writing. Who? It's the jew and there's been great tribulations for the last 2000 years. Who says you're not going to die? Why it's that serpent fella who told Eve in Gen. 3:4, “Ye shall not surely die.” Evidently, there are many serpents in the world today, which corresponds to antichrists, who are saying the same damnable thing. You don't really die, it's just your flesh body.
Is death a package deal? Let's take a closer look at body, soul and spirit and see whether all three perish or not. Probably the best verse which addresses all three is Gen. 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground [body], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [spirit]; and man became a living soul [soul].” How does the Bible inform us about our status after death? “Then shall the dust [body] return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” Eccl. 12:7. What is this spirit that returns to God at death? James 2:26 says, “The body without the spirit is dead” and Job 27:3 confirms that it's the same breath of life breathed into the nostrils of Adam. We can also say the spirit without the body is dead. The Hebrew word for spirit is ruach and the Greek equivalent is pnuema. Both words literally mean breath (air in motion). We could liken this spirit to CPR directly from God; nowhere in Scripture does the “spirit” have any life, wisdom or feelings after a person dies; it's the animating feature of life where man becomes a living soul. Which begs the question: does the soul die? But, let's define what a soul is first. The Hebrew word is nephesh.
Nephesh is not an attached part of man, but man himself; the Hebrews didn’t believe they had a separate part of their being to connect to the spiritual realm – their very being is what had communion with God. On the other hand, the Greeks did not believe in this union of soul and body and thus related to two worlds in which soul and body belonged and thereby connected them to a spiritual realm where everything becomes spiritual and mystical; all their pantheon of gods had power to connect us to the earthly realm and they were connected to them because their soul or spirit could be impacted by their gods. From the Greek view comes the idea that the soul goes to heaven or hell, and opened the occult door for the idea of spiritism in which all sorts of so called paranormal activity can occur, such as séances, channeling, astral projection ad nauseum. Ezek. 18:20 sustains the true Christian doctrine, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” If anywhere in Scripture we are to believe that there is more than an earthly existence I have not found it in clear unmistakable language. But I do find the whereabouts of our manifest destiny: “His seed shall inherit the earth” Ps. 25:13; “The meek shall inherit the earth” Ps. 37:11; “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath He given to the children of men” Ps. 115:16. These citations are yet to be fulfilled and speak of the Kingdom Age when Israel, heirs of the promise, receive their inheritance here on earth. There are dozens of witnesses to that effect, besides the three quoted above.
We can glean a couple of things from the aforementioned: “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), therefore, just the opposite of the serpent's lie was God warning them in the garden, that if they disobeyed His command, “thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). If both the spirit and soul have left man and are no longer a part of his being, then there is no life, there is no state of consciousness or awareness of anything. It's a package deal, there are no immortal souls; you do not get to keep your spirit. There is absolutely no wiggle room to make a transition to some other form of life, with or without a body. The breath or spirit belongs to God not us, hence we did not give ourselves life, we are not God. Only God is Spirit (John 4:24); the article indicates the subject, and the predicate is here generic, and not an indefinite; therefore it should never be rendered "God is a Spirit". Only the spirit of Adam-man can commune with the Spirit of spirits. We do not die and then live in some kind of spirit world or another dimension reserved for scary ghosts. The wages of sin is the cessation of life. And if there is no life, there is no conscious. This is reaffirmed with many passages to wit: Ps. 146:4 describes death thusly, “His breath goes forth [stops], he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” and Ps. 115:17, “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence” and Eccl. 9:5 and 10, “For the living know they shall die; but the dead know not anything” and “there is no work, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, where you go.” All the more reason to prepare ourselves for meeting the Lord in the Kingdom on the day of resurrection, because after we die, there is nothing you can do to repent of the actions accrued while alive. You can't pray for the dead.
So why do people think that if they're good, they get to go to God's abode somewhere in outer space? One of our favorite Bible heroes, King David, “Is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day... For David did not ascend up to heaven” Acts 2:29, 34. Did you ever wonder how anybody could be resurrected from the dead if they're in alive in heaven, regardless of whatever form they assume? John 5:28-29 proclaims, “Do not be astonished at this, because the hour comes in which all those in the tombs [grave] shall hear His voice, and they shall go forth; those having done good things to a resurrection of life, but those having practiced wicked things to a resurrection of judgment” CNT. People go to neither God's abode or Dante's Infernal (a fictional hell of sadistic torture which the RCC adopted as doctrine and is quite fond of after a 500 year serial killing spree called the Inquisition and of which Protestants likewise emulate in senseless wars of Zionism); people go to their graves to await the day of resurrection (Job 14:14). Time is irrelevant; a person dead for 2000 years is no different than somebody who has been dead for 2 minutes; the resurrection is not incremental for each individual, it is one event for all. How can Jesus call us from the grave if the priestcraft are right? Which will you believe: the doctrines of man or the Word of God? The condition of the saved dead is the same as the unsaved dead.
Paul wrote this, about the resurrection of the dead, as if he were answering catholics and judeos, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ be not risen [from the grave], then our preaching means nothing, and your faith is empty. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that He raised Christ from the dead. But He did not raise Him if in fact the dead are not raised. Indeed if the dead are not raised [from the grave], neither has Christ been raised [from the grave]. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep [who have died] in Christ are perished” I Cor. 15:13-18. Secular White people who hear the superficial arguments of churchianity reject the Christian faith altogether, because of the absurd fantasies of a God who either tortures billions of people forever or a God that lavishes an opulent lifestyle of mansions and streets paved with gold. That's the crying shame of misplaced glory, when the words of man outflank the Word of God. But, as we know, “God is not mocked.”
Jesus called the unconscious state of the dead, for lack of a better word, “sleep.” This analogy is used throughout the Bible and there is no disputing about its application to the dead among scholars, except for those priests that are hellbent on taking the fast track to Heaven. You know, there never would have been a Protestant Reformation had it not been for the religious corruption of the church in Rome emulating the ways of the heathen and making a fast buck on grieving families. O the love of mammon and Molech.
The 11th chapter of John contains an important episode, in which Jesus visited the sisters Mary and Martha and resurrected their dead brother, Lazarus. The Lazarus (and the rich man) in the parable of Luke 16:19-31 is not the same man. A lot of confusion ensues by linking the two in any discussion of death and heaven. John 11 is a real story about Jesus teaching His disciples in how to regard death and proving Himself Master even over death by way of resurrection, but resurrection could only be if the subject was indeed a body without life. Even His Disciples did not understand how perfect and complete was the gift of life He could give. Jesus had to exemplify how He was the way, the truth and the life (and “the life was the light of man”; the death of man is going dark and in sleep there is only darkness). Let's pick up the story in verse 11, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go to awaken him. His disciples said to Him, Lord, if he's sleeping, he'll get well. Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought He was speaking of literal sleep. So Jesus then told them plainly, Lazarus has died.”
There's nothing in this story to suggest that Lazarus went to Heaven or was suspended in a spiritual realm, still conscious, but rather he was laying in state (in a cave v. 38) and was deader than a doornail; smelling of death. This was not the prophetic resurrection of all mankind, but a demonstration that Jesus had the power to bring the dead back to life. Lazarus was brought back to life, but it was not time for the promise of eternal life and he eventually died just like everybody else. Jesus told Martha, “Thy brother shall rise again” (v. 23) meaning he would be raised from the dead to eternal life. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die” (v.25). Jesus performed a miracle for his friend Lazarus and was witnessed by many who instantaneously became believers. However, others went back to the Pharisees to report the miracle and the fix was in, they saw Jesus as a threat to their authority. So the jews met secretly and conspired to have the Messiah executed. Little did they realize that His death would bring Him untold glory and victory over the world of sin; it would be the greatest spiritual inertia in the history of mankind. Jesus has never waned in His challenge to the traditions of the jews and their fables that make the Word of God of none effect.
Today we have weak men who, for fear of the jews, will not wrestle against the rulers of darkness, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Our race blesses the jew with blood, fighting their wars and we are cursed. It should be for jew's fear of Christians reclaiming our battle axe and weapons of war, “For her sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she has rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works... so much torment and sorrow give her” Rev. 18:5-6. This does not exclude the priestcraft that sits with the bankers, living deliciously. For it is they who tells our soldier, that if they get blown to bits with an IED, they will be absent from the body, but in the presence of the Lord. This is a cruel adulteration of II Cor. 5:8, which might as well reiterate the lie of the serpent, “Surely thou shalt not die.” Furthermore, the subtle whisper “Ye shall be as God” (Gen. 3:5). So when you step on a land mine and your flesh rips in a thousand directions, just remember that you really don't die, you supernaturally become deified. Tell me that isn't jewish mind control for the gullible goyim. Jews are the offspring of slander and lies; their genetic flaw originates with race mixing mongrels who have no compunction to murder; it begins with being an adversary to God, hating the truth and despising life. Please remember the “gay” dark beast who resides in the White House and his contempt for those in the military who sacrifice their lives, “Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?” Do you think their families are content to believe the local pulpit pimp, that their loved one is now in the presence of the Lord? They get rich by making life cheap.
It's just so crazy to think the dead are alive. It's an oxymoron! This is such an affront to God's plan for the ages, His desire for the White race to be on the same page about life and death and resurrection. There's nothing new under the sun. Moses had the same problem with people who taught or thought that someone they knew or were familiar with, who died, was now a spirit in some kind of twilight zone. What did God command them to do? “A man also or woman that has a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be on them” Lev. 20:27. Today we call them mediums and channelers and psychics and televangelists.
Why is it so hard to believe that the time between death and the resurrection is simply an interim of lifeless silent darkness? Why is this time period filled with an imaginary reality that the Bible does not speak of? Our physical body goes into rigor mortis, the spirit returns to God and our soul or personality is no more. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that if all three components of life disappear, then there can be no consciousness. Our hope is found in the promises of God, not the word of man. What's the promise? “But those who are deemed worthy to obtain that age [the Kingdom Age] and the resurrection from the dead... For neither can they die again... they are the children of God because they are the children of the resurrection” Luke 20:35-36. Jesus answered the Sadducees and today's obfuscated destiny of man this way, “You are deceived, not knowing the writings nor the power of God” (Mt. 22:29), the context being the resurrection found in the next verse. The racial context is verse 32, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaak and Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but the living.” This can only mean that not everybody on earth is going to be resurrected. No wonder non-White cultures believe in an afterlife immediately upon dying. We are not them, and they are not us. It is plainly stated, “all Israel shall be saved” Romans 11:26. There is no provision for the sophistry of a “human race”; the heathens “shall be as though they had never been” Obadiah 1:16.
Speaking of sophistry, the art of clever reasoning, nothing impregnates one's thinking like comedy. There must be a million jokes about dying and going to the pearly gates of St. Peter to enter Heaven.
The day finally arrived. Forrest Gump dies and goes to Heaven. He's at the Pearly Gates, met by St. Peter himself. However, the gates are closed, and so Forrest approaches the gatekeeper.
St. Peter said, “Well, Forrest, it is certainly good to see you. We have heard a lot about you. I must tell you, though, that the place is filling up fast, and we have been administering an entrance examination for everyone. The test is short, but you have to pass it before you can get into Heaven.”
Forrest responds, '”It sure is good to be here, St. Peter, sir. But mama never told me about any entrance exam. I sure hope that the test ain't too hard. Life was a big enough test as it was.”
St. Peter continued, “Yes, I know, Forrest, but the test is only three questions.
First: What two days of the week begin with the letter T?
Second: How many seconds are there in a year?
Third: What is God's first name?
Forrest leaves to think the questions over. He returns the next day and sees St. Peter, who waves him up to the gate, and says, “Now that you've had a chance to think the questions over, tell me the answers.”
Forrest replied, “Well, the first one, which days in the week begins with the letter T? That one's easy, it's today and tomorrow.”
Peter's eyes opened wide and he exclaimed, “Forrest, that's not what I was thinking, but you do have a point and I guess I didn't specify, so I will give you credit for that answer. How about the next one? How many seconds in a year?”
“Now that one is harder” replied Forrest, “But I thunk and thunk about that one and I guess the only answer can be twelve.”
Astounded, St. Peter said, “Twelve? Twelve? Forrest, how in Heaven's name could you come up with twelve seconds in a year?”
Forrest replied, “Shucks, there's got to be twelve: January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd..” “Hold on, hold on here,' interrupts St.Peter. “I think I see where you're going with this, and I see your point, though that was not quite what I had in mind, but I will have to give you credit for that one, too. Let us go on with the third and final question
“Can you tell me God's first name?” “Sure” said Forrest, “It's Andy.” “Andy?'” exclaimed an exasperated and frustrated St Peter. “Ok, I can understand how you came up with your answers to my first two questions, but just how in the world did you come up with the name Andy as the first name of God?' “Heck, that was the easiest one of all,” Forrest replied. “I learnt it from the song, “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am His own.” St. Peter opened the Pearly Gates. Wasn't that cute?
Well, there's all kinds of rabbit holes about heaven and death that have taken centuries for man to invent. I can't possibly begin to address them all and jam them into one message. My primary objective was to explain God's plan for eternal life and the Kingdom of heaven on earth from a Christian Identity perspective. John's Revelation speaks of the saints being beheaded; in 20:4 they are called “souls,” but they were never called headless souls in an afterlife. Because they did not worship the beast or his image, “They came to life and reigned with Christ” meaning they were resurrected from the grave. Does the Bible tell us the plan as to where and when and for what purpose? Yes, “We shall reign on earth” Rev. 5:10; at the end of the Church Age, “To the one who overcomes [conquers, prevails] and who keeps My will to the end, I shall give to him the authority over the nations” (Rev. 2:26), how many nations are in heaven? None; the Kingdom of God will never be destroyed and it will stand forever, but all other people will vanish (Daniel 2:44), Israel will “break them with a rod of iron” (Ps. 2:9) and will bury the dead for 7 months (Ezek. 39:13-14).
On that happy note, we have the only hope available, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits; thereafter they that are Christ's at His coming... For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” I Cor. 15:22-23, 25-26. The Lord is coming from Heaven to earth and earth is where people die; there aren't any enemies in God's abode. Our hope is beyond this life and beyond the grave. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new things have come” II Cor. 5:17. It's a whole new ball game; the ball of knots have been untied and we are free.
