JUST AS PEOPLE ARE DESTINED TO DIE ONCE, AND AFTER THAT …
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: Soos elke mens bestem is om net een keer te sterf en daarna …
Translator: Robin Barker
A person wrote to me to ask the question: “Must a funeral service be held at a person’s funeral?”
This is how I looked at the question:
A funeral service of any kind will have no impact, for or against, the deceased.
When you attend his/her funeral, he/she is already wherever they will spend eternity, be it in heaven or in hell.
In heaven he/she is with Jesus and will be judged on judgement day. Although, he/she will die and then be judged but not condemned, because, when you are a true follower of Jesus and you die, there is no further condemnation:
ROM 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
JHN 5:24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
If you pass from this life and you do this without Jesus, well, then you step into hells jail and will stay there until judgement day where you will hear your life sentence, which will be what you have already experienced in hell, but this will continue forever.
Just like someone who has been caught while committing a flagrant crime, and will then go to jail and wait to hear what is punishment will be.
A funeral and all that goes with it, except where we pray to our Lord, it is there just for the benefit of the mourners. Mainly to comfort, make peace and say their ‘goodbyes’ etcetera for themselves in their hearts.
A funeral service can indeed be a wonderful opportunity to lead people to our Lord Jesus and explain our eternal existence as I am explaining it here from the Word.
In conclusion I want to share with you a part out of the Bible where someone died and did not have a funeral, (normally because beggars and the poor, just to mention two, in those days would be taken to the rubbish dump, in today’s terms, and would be left there for nature to dispose of the body) but when the beggar, of which you will read now, opened his eyes on the other side of the grave, he found himself in heaven. In the same passage you will read of a man who did have a funeral, but this did not prevent this man from opening his eyes to find himself in hell.
LUK 16:19-24
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.
20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores
21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.
23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
24 “So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
Did you see?
Lazarus did not have a funeral, but the rich man did have one. Remember who told us of these two people.
So, as I understand the Word –
No, there does not have to be a funeral with everything that goes with it, but the remains must be disposed of in a legal manner, morally, to put it that way.
Recognize who is telling us about these two people –
Jesus Christ, the only person who has ever walked on this earth and who knows what will happen to us on the other side of the grave.
All the opportunities that both you and I will ever have to assure our place in Heaven, we will only get on this side of the grave.
Only by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour you will have access to the Father and eternal Life:
JOH 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
HEB 9:27 “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
HEB 9:28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him (for those of us who are still living when He comes again.)
Greetings,
Sakkie