11. IS THERE REALLY LIFE AFTER DEATH?
Yes life after death is a reality. But it is a new kind of life. It is the life that has never been experienced by anybody in human flesh. It is a spiritual kind of life.
All human beings are embodied spiritual beings. This truth is as plain as the truth that a mature human male has tiny living creatures inside his testicles. These creatures, the spermatozoa, do not know that one day they will be transferred to a female organ where one or more of them would enter the female womb and become human beings. In the womb they will experience a new life altogether. Life that is different from the life in male organs. A completely new life altogether. There, they will not swim around in schools gliding and touching, but they individually will stretch twist and turn getting all their nutrition from their mothers through umbilical cords. They are in a state of peace and tranquility as long as their mothers are healthy and eat the right kind of food. They will be like that for a period of nine months then they will be born. After birth new life starts all over again. This is life on earth. So far a human being has by now experienced three different types of lives.
Firstly life in the male reproductive organ.
Secondly life in the womb.
Thirdly life after birth.
What a father does with his life affects his spermatozoon positively or negatively. If it is negatively affected it may be deformed. Fortunately such spermatozoon usually fails to fertilise the female egg in the womb. If a woman is by any chance impregnated by it, the baby will be born deformed but in most cases the baby will be a stillborn. If the mother takes food that is harmful to the baby in her womb the baby will then be badly affected as well, resulting in the baby being born with a syndrome of some sort. Something the baby has to live with for the rest of his or her life, unless it is curable.
The fourth type of life one has to experience is life after death. This is spiritual life. Like mothers who have conceived, all human beings have souls inside them. The souls are affected, almost the same way the baby in the womb is - positively or negatively - by whatever human beings do with and to their bodies. A spirit needs to be fed the correct type of food just like a baby in the womb. Spiritual food is a correct type of life one has to lead according to his religious preference. All religions are good as long as they point to God Almighty as the Super Spiritual Being all people have to worship and adore. When people worship God they feed their spirits. The worship of God, simple as it looks with all the prayers and singing, is food for the soul. The good conduct and behaviour one has, purifies the soul. After death the soul will be released to start a new life once more, a spiritual life. What a person's spiritual life will be after death is in most cases determined by the life that particular person led while in human form.
If a person doubts these things he has also to doubt that he was ever a sperm cell. He must also doubt that from his father was transferred to his mother's womb where he was fed for nine months through a navel not mouth. He must also doubt that he was born.
What is most striking is the fact that no one remembers any of these things. So it will be when one is a spiritual being. No one will ever remember life as a human being. Read Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing. (NKJV)
Just look here; spermatozoa in the male organ are fully developed minute creatures. They are alive. Where they are they receive everything for their needs. In the male organ are no wars. They are in total tranquility. But their life there is for a very much short period of time. But they are not aware of it at all. Soon they will be out and forget all about life in the male organ and experience a new life in the womb. After birth they forget all about life in the womb and experience another completely new life outside the womb. Soon they breathe in air. They feel cold and warmth. They experience dark and light in their environment. They hear noises through their ears and so on and so forth. After sometime they will die and only their souls will continue with yet another new life in a spiritual world. It is just like that, regardless of how you take it.
Our merciful God has demonstrated this transformation of life to us through many living things we share life with here on earth, that life after death is a reality. Some small animals have the mystery of life after death hidden right in them. It sounds strange and untrue yet it is a plain truth.
Let us take a look at the life cycle of a butterfly, to clarify this point. A butterfly undergoes metamorphosis in its life cycle. It hatches out of its egg as a caterpillar. This creeping worm-like creature is complete in its structure. There is nothing amiss about it. It lives its life fully, enjoying itself as it feeds on tender juicy plants. It wishes for nothing else but the life it lives. It does not even think of reproduction. Its life is eating, eating and eating. To it this is the most splendid life one can ever think of. Nevertheless we cannot dispute the fact that unlucky ones get eaten up by birds or sprayed to death with poisonous substances by human beings. Despite all those hazards some keep on growing until they reach the stage of transformation. The last nap they take as caterpillars is not just an ordinary nap they are used to, but a nap of transformation. Their bodies will now be changed into pupae. A pupa is cloaked in the world of unconsciousness. Neither eating nor moving about occurs in this stage. Only the bottom side of the body shows some signs of life by keeping on turning this way and that periodically. As time goes on this pupa develops into a butterfly.
A butterfly is a completely different creature altogether. It also lives a completely different life from that of a caterpillar. Soon after being transformed into a butterfly, it starts flying. It does not need any lessons in flying skills. It just flies. Its food now is nectar from flowers of different plants. It has no idea that the plants that bear flowers with such delicious nectar were lucky not to be cut down and devoured by it when it was still a caterpillar and these plants were still young and tender.
The same transformation will take place in human beings. As the butterfly could not tell of life as a caterpillar, so would human beings be unable to tell of life on earth after their transformation to spiritual beings. Let us confirm this with what Jesus Christ told us. Matthew 22:29-30 Jesus answered them, How wrong you are! It is because you don't know the Scriptures or God's power. For when the dead rise to life, they will be like the angels in heaven and will not marry.
Those who feed their souls spiritual food which is the word of God and live a way of life acceptable to Him are definitely going to be transformed into angels after death. Let us hear what Paul has to say about this. 1 Corinthians 15:40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies.(GNB) The book of Revelation 7:13-14 says: One of the elders asked me, “Who are these people dressed in white robes, and where do they come from?” “I don't know, sir. You do,” I answered. He said to me, “These are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb.”.(GNB) Now you see that it will not only be the bodies that will be transformed, but the clothes as well.
Most people do not like this idea that people turn into spiritual beings with no connection with people on earth, yet it is true. That is why they do all they can to get connected with them even after death. What a person thinks she is connected to when invoking the spirits of the dead is in fact something else not her dead relatives' spirits.
One may ask; What about Samuel whose spirit was conjured up by a diviner? Was it or was it not Samuel's spirit? The answer here is a big No! It was not Samuel's spirit. Why do I say so? The bible says the medium brought up an old man covered with a mantle. 1Samuel 28:14 And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.” And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down. The medium never said so, but it was Saul who perceived that it was Samuel. Saul never saw that old man only the medium saw him. Secondly that medium knew that Samuel died an old man. So it was easy for her to say an old man was coming up. It would have been better if Saul never told her what he wanted from her. The medium through her power of clairvoyance should just have told Saul before getting any information from him, that he wanted to consult with Samuel. After that whoever she would have brought up would without doubts be taken as Samuel. It would have been more credible to us all that that old man was really Samuel. The medium was able to recognize Saul the king of Israel that is why she asked: 1Samuel 28:12 “Why have you tricked me? You are King Saul.”(GNB) Yet it was difficult for her to recognize Samuel. What that old man said to Saul was the repetition of what God Almighty had told Saul through Samuel previously. Everyone in the kingdom knew about it. So it was easy for that old man of the medium to repeat it. Read 1Samuel 15 26-28 But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and then Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. So Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.”(NKJV)
People should know that the world is full of all sorts of spirits moving up and down in it. If a person is busy with incantations he will end up conjuring up one or more of these wandering opportunistic spirits. These spirits are wise. If a person dies they may easily frequent his home and people will say it is his apparition. They are very much mischievous. They toy around with those who are receptive to them. They frustrate the soul. The soul of a person will neither fight back nor go on strike. Going on strike of the soul would mean death to a person involved. After that person had died the naughty spirit which had been inside him will wander about in the world in search of another victim. People who become willful receivers of such spirits are the relatives of the deceased.
Every cloud has a silver lining. Sometimes these spirits can be of great help to people. They can reveal things to people or teach a person to be a herbalist. They are also naughty for they would also cause that person to do some silly things as well. A person with strong faith has a power to repel such spirits. Such a person will die and no longer be seen or heard of again unless he or she left something behind on earth in the form of innovations, literature and outstanding performance in any field here on earth.