Myth 2: God Takes People In Death To Be With Him

A 27 year - old mother who was dying and leaving three children behind told a Catholic nun: " Don't come in and tell me this is God's will for me.... I hate it when somebody else tells me this." Yet, this is what many religions teach about death - that God takes people to be near him.

Is the Creator really so cruel that he would callously inflict death on us, knowing that this breaks our hearts? No, not the God of the Bible. According to 1 John 4:8, "God is love." Note that it does not say that God has love or that God is loving, but it says that God is love. So intense, so pure, so perfect is God's love, so thoroughly does it permeate his personality and actions that he may rightly be spoken of as the very personification of love. This is not a God who takes people in death to be near him.

False religion has left many confused as to the whereabouts and condition of the dead. Heaven, hell, purgatory, limbo - these and various other destinations range from being incomprehensible to being downright terrifying. The Bible, on the other hand, tells us that the dead are unconscious; They are in a condition best compared to sleep. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; John 11:11-14) Thus, we need not worry about what happens to us after death, any more than we worry when we see someone sleeping soundly. Jesus spoke of a time when "all those in the memorial tombs" would "come out" to renewed life on a paradise earth. - John 5:28, 29; Luke 23:43.




Continued-Next time: Myth 3: God takes little children to become angels.