The Christian’S Six-Fold Journey at Death

By Dick D. Christen

As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away (Ps. 90:10).

What? At death, the believer flies away? What does this mean? How does it happen? Does he or she sprout wings? Or does the departing soul obtain some kind of jet pack, which enables a swooshing, rapid upturn like a departing jet? Perhaps the Lord sends some kind of heavenly chariot to whisk us away like Elijah? How do Christians fly away?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512757286

Dick D. Christen

Through many years of pastoring, Dr. Dick Christen has often preached and taught the glories of heaven. He has counseled many bereaved persons. Delving into scripture has led to an informative and intriguing tracing of the Christian’s journey from earth to heaven.

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Copyright © 2016 Dick D. Christen.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-5727-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5728-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915687

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/03/2016

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Contents

More Miscellaneous Writings By Dick Christen

Is There Hope At Death?

God’s Guidance For Raising Children

Forgiveness – Both Once-For-All And Daily

Repentance, Essentially A Change Of Mind

Saved By Grace (Without Our Works); Kept By Grace (While We Work)

A Bright Faith In Life’s Darkest Hours

Old-Fashioned Worship

An Outline: When I Open My Bilbe, Psalm 119:9-16

Let’s call it a journey. Or we could use the terms ‘sojourn’, ‘adventure’ or ‘transmigration.’ This last word is defined secondarily in a dictionary as the passage of a soul after death into another body.

A believer in Jesus Christ has it from the lips of the Savior Himself that going from earth to heaven will effectively take place, either at the rapture of the Church or at one’s death.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 definitively describes the rapture as the sudden appearance of Jesus in the atmospheric heavens: For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words (vv 16-18). No date is assigned in Scripture. It could happen at any moment and will be an event of world-wide proportions. It will be an atmospheric drama choreographed by God Himself and witnessed by all! People on earth will gaze on it. When Jesus appears He will have with Him believers who already died. They will be reunited with their earthly bodies and, together with Christians then living on earth, will congregate in the heavens. At some point during this spectacular event the souls and bodies of those lifted from the earth will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. They will be freed from the troublesome miseries of sin’s curse. This amazing, God-wrought occurrence is also set forth in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58.

But in the meantime and until the rapture every believer dies at his or her appointed time. In spite of all the daily evidences in life, the graveyards and passing hearses, too many still remain in a state of denial concerning the inevitability of death. As a believer in Jesus Christ, I WILL DIE, unless first swept up in the rapture of the Church.

Some monks in the Middle Ages kept skulls in their rooms inscribed with the words memento mori, meaning remember your death. I wouldn’t recommend such an eerie practice today, but more openness about the reality of our common mortality should certainly be in vogue.

That people avoid the subject, never raising the issue, never asking a Christian about it, and never searching the Bible for answers, is most disconcerting. To such, ignorance apparently is deemed bliss. Nevertheless, the Word of God speaks forthrightly about death and tells us the Lord even sovereignly determines the when and the how. We may well struggle with God’s timing and even think it wrong, too soon or unfortunate (especially in the case of a child). And we may well question Him when anyone near and dear to us passes on. At times we may find ourselves hastily sympathizing with Carl Jung when he said, It (death) is a period placed before the end of a sentence. But, remember, dear hurting one, our days are numbered (Psalm 90:12), and this by the God who is too loving to be unkind and too wise to make a mistake. In His all-knowing overview of the beginning to the end of all things, He makes all such determinations perfectly so. He even sees horrible happenings that may await anyone if he or she lived additional days. Eternity will reveal just how