Issued: 7/1/23

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

   Nowadays it is commonplace to hear about departed souls entering ‘tunnels of light’ which ostensibly lead to God; or revenants relating after-life experiences in ‘heaven or hell’; or saints/relatives ‘up there’ interceding on behalf of the living.  That these notions appear regularly in mainstream and social media, or have become religious dogma, do not make them true as long as the Bible contradicts them:  “To the law and to the testimony! If [people] do not speak according to [God’s instructions],”they are completely in the dark(Isaiah 8:20).

   What we do know is that ‘fables’ contrary to Judeo-Christian doctrine would eventually become ‘trendy’ (2Timothy 4:3-4); and those listed above—amongst many others—exemplify that shift.  Given Scriptural protocols, ‘light tunnels’ and reports of having been to and fro heaven or hell are impossible.¹  Hell, for example, does not exist except in Catholic dogma, for the “fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:42) references Armageddon, which has yet to take place after the Last Judgment plus the ensuing 1,000 years of rest (Revelation 20:4-10).  Unless alleged witnesses are time-travelling, what they are reporting upon returning to consciousness should raise red flags to those of us who know better.

   Neither, as we shall see, are there departed relatives or Catholic ‘saints’ perambulating in Heaven; so that whatever human expectations are attributed to them are nothing more than pipe-dreams.  Mind you, as in the case of heaven/hell travelers, there must be a modicum of ‘proof’ in order for belief to take hold—even Jesus understood this much about human nature (John 4:48).  Revenants talk about meeting people or recalling things the former were never privy to but are known to have existed—so hey, their after-life experiences must be the real McCoy!  But in a Gospel that posits the existence of a Deceiver given carte blanche to mislead men, could not memories contradicting Judeo-Christian doctrine be false implants?  Revenants have no way of knowing one way or the other, but those of us comparing Scripture to their claims most certainly can.

   The Bible plays many a role, one of the most vital being telling us who/what is true/false.  But another role is to ensnare unbelievers (Isaiah 28:13; Mark 4:12), so that if they do not “receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2Thessalonians 2:9-10), it boils down to believing falsehoods with Satan’s assist (2Corinthians 4:4).  We will be the first to admit that not all satanic deceptions are rebutted in detail by Scripture; some, like Darwinian-styled evolution or extraterrestrial life, are implied by creation accounts (Genesis 1) or prophecies regarding the disappearance and re-making of the cosmos (Psalms 102:25-26; Isaiah 34:4↔Revelation 6:13-14; Isaiah 30:26, 65:17↔Revelation 21:1; Joel 3:15↔Mark 13:24-25; 2Peter 3:7-12).    

   Mercifully when we come to death and life-after-death, the arguments are quite straightforward, so that there are no excuses for Judeo-Christians to fall prey to trendy ‘fables’.  Let us, then, approach the topic from three interrelated perspectives:  soul, body, and human remains—specifically bones.

Soul

   It will be noted that although all plant and animal life on earth appeared on command out of water and land (Genesis 1:11,20,24), man required a personal touch.  He was molded out of dust and placed in a garden with its own flora (Genesis 2:9) and fauna (Genesis 2:19)—species that appear not to have been part of the Genesis 1 creatures but more like those of Isaiah 11:6-9.  It may be—given the presence of the tree of life—that this Eden was some sort of archetypical kingdom of God foreshadowing the one to come.  Consider the presence of the tree of life in the midst of the as yet un-manifested Heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 22:2); the role the Euphrates River, one of Eden’s boundaries (Genesis 2:14), plays in prophecy as substance to the shadow of crossing the Jordan River (Joshua 3:14-17↔Revelation 16:12); and the return from the east of God’s people into the Promised Land²—east being the path blocked to Adam and Eve by the Cherubim (Genesis 2:24).  Finally notice the absence of marine life amongst Eden species.  Why?  The sea will no longer exist in the Kingdom of God (Revelation 21:1).

   Notice too that whereas all water and land creatures appeared alive and kicking, Adam was lifeless until Yahweh of hosts, the appointed Creator (John 1:3; Hebrews 1:2), “breathed” into his nostrils the spirit of life (Genesis 2:7↔John 6:63)—i.e., a mortal soul to animate the body (John 6:63).³  So that this early on, the foundations of death and life-after-death protocols were being laid out:  Yahweh of hosts could not make men immortal pre-sinfulness; but on his second coming, Jesus could ‘breathe’ souls into righteous,  immortal bodies (Daniel 12:2; Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37:1-14; 1Corinthians 15:51-54; 1Thessalonians 4:14-17; 1John 3:2)—thus fulfilling the substance of Genesis 1:26.

   We should also realize that this ‘breathing into’ may signify the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as for example in John 20:22:  “When [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”  Here is a departure from the norm, for elsewhere in the Bible the Holy Spirit comes ‘over’ people (1 Samuel 11:6; 2Chronicles 20:14; Acts 7:55) or is received by the imposition of hands (Acts 9:17, 19:6).  It is obvious John 20:22 is meant to connect the ‘breathing’ Jesus with the Yahweh of hosts who ‘breathed’ life into Adam—the basis for Paul’s first Adam, last Adam argument in 1Corinthians 15:42-49.

   Tracing the soul-leaving-body connection we have Genesis 25:8,17 [Abraham and Ishmael]; Genesis 35:18,29 [Rachel and Isaac]; Genesis 49:33 [Jacob]; and Jesus himself (Luke 23:4).  Jacob starts the long-standing tradition of calling death a “sleep” (Genesis 47:30); continuing with 2Chronicles 28:27 [Ahaz]; Daniel 12:2 [those to partake of first and second resurrections]; Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:52); the righteous souls Jesus’ brings on his second coming (1Thessalonians 4:14); and those to be found ‘resting’ under the heavenly altar (Revelation 6:11).  In Luke 8:52 Jesus makes the crucial distinction of calling the girl not ‘dead’—which she technically was—but ‘asleep’; thus suggesting two states of non-existence:  Death that is final and irrevocable vis-à-vis ‘semblance’ of death under his control:  “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die,” I will rise up again at the last day (John 11:25, 6:40).

   Why equate death with sleep?  Let us extrapolate from our sleeping experience.  We fall asleep at night, and if we enjoy uninterrupted sleep, wake up in the morning with no awareness of the passing of time.  It can be argued that human sleep, irrespective of its beneficial effects on health, is shadow to Scripture’s concept [substance] of death.  This means that upon dying, there is neither awareness of nor further participation in the affairs of the living—Solomon’s argument in Ecclesiastes 9:5-6.  For example between the time Hitler died in his Berlin bunker and his return to life during the second resurrection, it will seem to him that he just blinked his eyes. 

   If we then add Solomon’s further contention that the soul goes back to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7) in this unconscious state, we find that this is exactly what Jesus experienced between committing his soul into God’s hands on the cross and his statement to Mary Magdalene on resurrection Sunday:  “Don’t hold on to me, because I haven’t yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17).  But his soul had, had it not?—yet he admits not having gone to God since dying on late Friday afternoon.   It was upon God returning Jesus’ soul on Sunday to his new immortal body (Colossians 1:18) that Jesus regained awareness of time.

   And when Peter made his argument regarding David (Acts 2:29), as did Paul later on (Acts 13:36), they intimated that David’s human remains laid buried while his soul had gone to God; so that no conscious David was to be found in Heaven amongst divine beings—unlike the resurrected Jesus, who was (Revelation 5:3-7↔Daniel 7:13-14).  In fact, no man except Enoch (Genesis 5:24), Moses [who died but was taken to Heaven (Deuteronomy 34:5-6; Zechariah 3:1-2↔Jude 1:9)], and Elijah (2Kings 2:11), have yet ascended to God;⁴ simply because the God Who made the same promise to every one of His children will fulfill that promise to all at the same time.  Paul bears witness to this fact by telling us that those “who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep”; but following their resurrection, both righteous dead-come-to-life and righteous then alive will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air (1Thessalonians 4:15,17).

Body and Bones

   Concern with human remains begins with Sarah’s burial arrangements (Genesis 23:1-20); Abraham was buried in the same plot (Genesis 25:9); as was the mummified Jacob (Genesis 49:33, 50:2,13).⁵  We find here not only a concern with safeguarding the body but also doing so in holy ground:  Jacob insisted his body not be left in Egypt (Genesis 47:30), but taken to Canaan, the land promised to Abraham’s descendants (Genesis 12:7).  If Canaan is shadow to God’s Kingdom to be, Egypt symbolizes the world of men now ruled by Satan, the reason why in Ezekiel 29:1-5, Satan is addressed as Pharaoh king of Egypt.  Note the correspondences:   Great dragon (Ezekiel 29:3↔Revelation 13:2,11, 20:2); references to aquatic monster and jaw hooks (Ezekiel 29:3-4↔Job 41:1-2,34↔Psalm 104:25-26); left unburied (Revelation 29:5↔Isaiah 14:20), while his dead minions are devoured by the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky (Ezekiel 29:5↔Jeremiah 7:33, 25:33; Revelation 19:17-18).

   Thus the Patriarchs knew their human remains needed to be in Canaan; so giving witness to their aspiration—or full certainty in faith—of inclusion amongst resurrected righteous.  Joseph followed suit, only that in his case he shifted focus to the specific bodily part that in Scripture provided the framework for immortal flesh:  bones.  “When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here [Egypt]” (Genesis 50:25)—a commission carried out by Moses and Joshua (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32).

   Then comes 2Kings 13:21:  “As a man was being buried, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha; as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life and stood on his feet.”  The message could not be clearer:  The mortal Elisha was dead, but for the God of the Living (Luke 20:38), Elisha’s bones were so potent with immanent life that only his soul was needed to rise out from the grave.  That Elisha will be part of the first resurrection is a foregone conclusion; Elisha, as Paul would say of himself, had fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith; so both stood to win the crown of righteousness that Jesus would award them on the day of his coming (2Timothy 4:7-8).  But talking about his soul, or perhaps the fate of his bodily remains over which he had no control once he was “sacrificed” (2Timothy 4:6↔Revelation  6:9,11), Paul held to the belief that God would be “able to guard that which I have entrusted to Him” (2 Timothy 1:12).

   Finally we have the entire first resurrection scenario in Ezekiel 37:1-15:

“Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, ‘O Lord Yahweh, You know.’  Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones…Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am Yahweh.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone.  And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.  Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath…Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel [Judeo-Christians worldwide]; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished.  We are completely cut off.’   Therefore prophesy and say to them, “Thus says the Lord Yahweh:  Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.  Then you will know that I am Yahweh, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people.  I will put [God’s] Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken and done it.”

   To which Paul and John added:  Mortal bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God… [Our perishable bodies] must put on the imperishable, and [our mortal bodies] must put on immortality…God will bring with Jesus [“from the four winds”—i.e., from all the corners of the world] those who fell asleep in him; [at the sound of the last trumpet] and Jesus’ voice, the righteous dead [who were ‘asleep’] will be raised imperishable [once souls are “breathed” into them], and [those of us still alive will also become immortal]…In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will all be changed; and we will see Jesus in his true form, for we will be like him (rephrasing of John 5:28; 1Corinthians 15:50-53; 1Thessalonians 4:14; 1John 3:2).

The Two Resurrections

   Hebrews 9:27 states that “it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment.”  The word ‘appointed’ implies God decreed one mortal lifespan per human being, followed by death and the ensuing Last Judgment.  Two things are clear:  1) between death and the Last Judgment, no spiritual existence is intimated—whether as disembodied ghosts, re-incarnated souls, or people gone to a ‘better place.’  Though we hear of such things, we must consider them fraudulent.  The Scriptures we have so far cited tell us so; yet readers are free to believe—hopefully what is true—as they wish (Romans 14:5), with the understanding that error leads to adverse consequences (Hebrews 12:25).  And 2) that between death and Last Judgment, people must come alive in order to be judged; hence the doctrine of two resurrections (Daniel 12:2; John 5:29; Acts 25:15; Revelation 20:6).

   Here is where things get murky.  We are being told that upon Jesus’ coming, the righteous will rise first (1Thessalonians 4:16), be cooped up by angels (Matthew 24:31) and meet Jesus in the air (1Thessalonians 4:17); what we are not told is when the unrighteous rise out of their graves.  By this time the cosmos will no longer exist (Matthew 24:29-30; Revelation 20:11); the topography of the world as we know it will have changed following an unprecedented earthquake (Revelation 16:18↔Isaiah 13:13); cities of the world will have crumbled (Revelation 16:19); islands and mountains will have disappeared (Revelation 16:20↔Psalms 18:15).  As Psalms 18:15 states, the “foundations of the earth” will be laid bare, which may be a reference to the land and sea pre-existing Creation (Genesis 1:20)—suggesting that the world as we perceive it is somehow superimposed on those foundations.

   In this vast ‘emptiness,’ thrones will be set up for God, Jesus, and those chosen to be ‘jurors’ (Daniel 7:9-10; Matthew 19:28↔1Corinthians 6:3).  Then men will be judged by their good or bad deeds recorded on books (Revelation 20:12); and if we interpret 1Corinthians 6:3 correctly, Paul seems to be suggesting that fallen angels awaiting Judgment (Jude 1:6) will be judged as well.  Jesus will then segregate righteous from unrighteous, rewarding the former with citizenship in God’s Kingdom and consigning the latter to the flames at Armageddon (Matthew 25:31-34,41↔Revelation 20:9-10,15; Revelation 14:11↔Isaiah 34:8-10, 66:24).

   In the absence of specific details, we now resort to conjecture.  How long this process will take is a moot point.  God can ‘undo or reinstall’ time at His discretion:  If everything is possible for Him (Luke 18:27), He can nullify the laws of physics He created.  The removal of the cosmos implies an end to the concept of space-time; after Armageddon is over and done, time will no longer exist.  And to the question of how humanity since Adam and all angels can fit in this undefined Judgment venue, we might as well ask how seven pairs of clean and one pair of unclean animals from all air-breathing life forms on earth fitted into Noah’s Ark.  As in the latter, Judgment Day will not be physics as usual; so there is no point in speculating further.

   Once Judgment is done, Jesus will take the redeemed to Heaven where they will reign with him for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:6).  Since Armageddon will take place at the conclusion of those 1,000 years (Revelation 20:7-8), we surmise that all the resurrected unrighteous, from Cain until the third of humanity killed by the final plagues (Revelation 9:18) plus those who are alive at Jesus’ coming (Revelation 9:20-21) will die.  Their dead bodies will lie unburied and be eaten by birds and wild animals (Isaiah 34:33; Jeremiah 8:2, 25:33; Revelation 19:17-18).  The maggots rising from their rotting corpses will be Satan’s ‘bed’ during his 1,000-year imprisonment on earth (Isaiah 14:11; Revelation 20:2-3).  As the redeemed from Heaven look down upon him and ponder at his fate, Isaiah 14:15-17 will become fulfilled.

   After those 1,000 years are completed, the unrighteous dead become alive again; whether conscious of their past experience or not, we cannot say; but we are told that Satan “deceives” them into one last war against God (Revelation 20:8-9).  Does the verb ‘deceives’ imply men do not remember Judgment and condemnation?  Is anybody aware the world is no longer as it used to be?  Or is the suggestion that they must do as Satan commands now that he exerts absolute control over them?  Are they even aware they cannot prevail against God—hence the ‘deception’?  While Scripture treats this narrative as fact-to-be, it also exemplifies the customary way humans blindly follow their leaders toward catastrophe.

   Satan will be chained on earth, powerless and stewing in his juices; and though nothing is said about where his angelic minions might be during that millennium, his human ones have no existence of any kind until reawakened to partake of the second death.  Consequently, none of the unrighteous goes to roast in a Catholic-styled hell where Satan and demons gleefully torment them.  At the appointed time, Satan, demons and human minions will collectively burn in the lake of fiery sulfur (Revelation 20:10,14).

Loose Ends

   Ecclesiastes 3:21 and 12:7 tell us that human souls go back to God.  Does this hold true for both the souls of righteous and unrighteous men?  Martyrs for the Christian cause lie asleep under the Heavenly altar (Revelation 6:9-11), so we can account for them; however, no location is specified for righteous non-martyrs.  Other than having been told their souls have gone back to God, we cannot tell where specifically they might be.

   We know that Satan’s angelic minions are “kept in eternal chains in utter darkness, locked up for” Judgment Day (Jude 1:6) in the “pit of the abyss” (Revelation 9:1-2).  In Scripture ‘abyss’ refers to be separation between heaven and earth, alluded to in Genesis 1:6-8, 7:11, Luke 16:26, and Revelation 20:3—sort of an impassable no-man’s-land between realms at war.  Since fallen angels were cast down to earth (Revelation 12:9) the ‘pit’ must be somewhere in our world—presumably underground?  Consider Numbers 16:33:  The ground opened up under Korah, relatives and cohorts, so “with all that belonged to them, [they] went down alive into Sheol [and] the earth closed over them.”

   What is Sheol?  In Jewish tradition a subterranean place where all dead souls went after death in a conscious state; but as we have seen, Solomon argues for unconscious souls going back to God; and Paul argues for sleeping souls returning with Jesus from God in Heaven to partake of the first resurrection (1Thessalonians 4:14).  Does Jesus make an extra trip back to Heaven to collect unrighteous souls for the second resurrection prior to Judgment Day?  Were they ever up there?  Or did the Holy Spirit failed to ‘inspire’ some Biblical writer to tell us the scoop (2Peter 1:20-21)?  But that cannot be, can it?—since Spirit conveys from God what we must know to differentiate truth from error (Amos 3:7, 4:13; John 16:13).

   A bit of confusion arises with 1Samuel 28:8-19:  Saul asks the Endor medium to ‘bring up’ Samuel, who professes to have been ‘disturbed’ and later tells Saul that he and his sons would be with him ‘tomorrow.’  Was Samuel’s soul underground?  No, if we go by Solomon and Paul; and as Samuel intimates, he had been ‘asleep’ when he was summoned to appear.  Yet in the traditional Sheol—as in the Greek Hades—souls had awareness not amongst flames, but in utter darkness.  Far be it from us to imitate Biblical ‘editors’ who feel they must rephrase ‘contradictions’ in order to make God look good:  He could not care less about our reasoning.  But 1Samuel 8:13 contains an odd fact:  The Endor medium claimed to have seen “gods ascending out of the earth.”

   What gives if there are no gods except Yahweh?  Jesus himself called “gods to whom the word of God came” (John 10:35); and Jesus was quoting from Psalms 82:1 regarding Judgment Day:  “God presides in the divine assembly; He renders judgment among the gods.”  Which God?  Himself (Matthew 28:18), for the Father, Yahweh the King, though in attendance (Daniel 7:9↔Isaiah 45:22-23; Romans 14:11), will not judge anyone (John 5:22; Acts 10:42, 17:31).  So who are the ‘gods’ amongst whom Jesus renders Judgment?  The immortal redeemed watching the proceedings.

   What, then, did the Endor medium was made to see?  Apparently a vision of the first resurrection:  Righteous dead rising immortal out of their graves; and from amongst them, out stepped Samuel to address Saul.  Still Samuel claims to have been ‘disturbed,’ suggesting that his sleep was not yet over.  Was the medium’s vision a peek into future events or was the vision itself structured by God to validate John 10:35?  It sounds fanciful but better than the standard interpretation that Satan appeared to Saul in Samuel’s semblance—Scripture is in the habit of telling us when Satan is up to his trickery (Judges 9:23; 1Kings 22:21-22).  As to 1Samuel 28:19 there is no contradiction:  Saul and his sons would be killed in the immediate future and be buried as Samuel himself was (1Samuel 31).

   Now Jesus was certain that his soul would not go to Sheol (Psalms 16:10); hence his last words on the cross:  “Into [God’s] hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  Presumably this held true for all righteous Judeo-Christians, though unlike Jesus, their bodies would remain buried and would decompose—Peter’s argument in connection to David’s remains (Acts 2:29).  Thus Sheol could be a repository for the souls of dead unrighteous and living demons within Satan’s empire of death (Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 6:8):  The world at large.  He is, after all, Abbadon [Hebrew for ‘destruction personified’], the angel of the Abyss always associated with places bereft of God (Proverbs 15:11, 27:20↔Job 26:6; Psalms 88:11; Revelation 6:8, 9:11).

   Please note that when Satan is given the key to open the pit of the abyss—presumably given to him by order of key-holder Jesus (Revelation 1:18, 9:1-2,11), what come out are not the souls of the unrighteous dead, but his living angelic minions to torment end-times evildoers for five months during which death will be denied them (Revelation 9:2-6↔Joel 2:1-11).  And we know this torment takes place centuries before Armageddon.

   So it seems that after the first resurrection, a second resurrection of unrighteous immediately follows—arising from the earth in reconstituted though not immortal bodies—in order to be judged jointly; which would account for Matthew 25:31-34,41↔Ezekiel 34:17.  After that the redeemed go to Heaven with Jesus and the unrighteous are put to sleep to await their second death:  Extermination at Armageddon (Revelation 20:6,14).

Conclusions

   As mankind sinks deeper into apostasy and the end of God’s period of grace nears (Zephaniah 2:2; 2Corinthians 6:2), Satan’s deceptions have grown bolder and larger in scope.  While it is true that God allows such deceptions, they seem to be suited to the tenor of the times during which they take place.  Belief in the existence of ghosts is ancient; even before being anointed with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4), the Apostles believed in them (Matthew 14:25-26 and Luke 24:36-37).  But though forbidding consulting the dead (Deuteronomy 18:11), we should not believe Yahweh meant departed, human souls but spiritual forces pretending to be them.  If after death men’s souls are no longer able to intervene in human affairs (Ecclesiastes 9:6), we must determine who can; and that only leaves demons who live on from generation to generation, who are privy to human details they pass on to the living as ‘evidence’ of the beyond.

   With all due respect to the late and ‘enlightened’ Carl Sagan, our world is ‘demon-haunted,’ as not only the Old Testament shows (1Samuel 16:14,23, 18:10), but as Jesus confirmed (Mark 5:2,9-12; Luke 8:2); the Apostles gave witness to (Acts 5:16, 10:38↔Luke 13:16, 16:16-18; 1Corinthians 10:20; 1Timothy 4:1); and Revelation 18:2 geo-located.  If there is something we know about Satan, it is that he runs circles around men when they believe they are most enlightened; and this happens because the God they have no use for is all for ensnaring them in their craftiness (1Corinthians 3:19↔Job 5:13) via the Satan who is more than happy to pied-pipe them into annihilation.

    Nevertheless, false dogmas like departed souls in heaven, hell or even ‘purgatory,’ can be rebutted with Scriptures like those presented above—even if human myths and history are chock-full of such ‘fables.’  Jeremiah 46 undermined Mariology, since Marian ‘apparitions’ were foreknown to reintroduce the idolatry and shrines in high places God abhorred in the Old Testament.  More perversely, Gospel narratives were twisted to add credibility to these apparitions.  Though children—except for 12-year-old Jesus exchanges with Temple priests (Luke 2:42-47)—never play active roles as disseminators of divine will, major Marian apparitions targeted child-like adults (Juan Diego at Guadalupe), or young people like Bernadette at Lourdes, the Fatima trio, and the Medjugorje youngsters—a spin on Mark 10:14-15.

   The healing waters at Lourdes echo cures at the Bethesda pool, where faith was not the criterion for healing, but rather ‘first dipped, first healed’ athleticism (John 5:2-4)—suggesting that the angel whose wings stirred up the water was not on the side of the God Who deplores such biased shenanigans.  Let us remember that the epithet “angel of God” does not necessarily mean ‘good angel,’ for Satan himself and all his angelic minions are God’s creations; and that an equitable God would never have favored the agile over the slowpoke.  In point of fact the man Jesus did cure at Bethesda without dipping was the one who would have never made it to the pool in time (John 5:7-9).

   As science, the antithesis of faith, has become rooted in men’s minds and hearts, deceptions to disprove the Bible have grown more sophisticated.  Readings from cosmic microwave background and cosmological redshift ‘show’ an expanding universe that began about 13.7 billion years ago; radioactive dating support eons of planetary evolution; and ice cores from polar regions ‘map’ climactic variations over hundreds of thousands of years.  Yet Biblical chronologies, which are there for a purpose, paint a different timeline.

   Dinosaurs supposedly went extinct 66 millions year ago; more and more of their remains keep being found; even DNA in mosquitoes trapped in amber.  More and more UFOs are currently being reported, despite prophecies of a vanishing cosmos which begs the question of what will happen to civilizations ‘out there.’  Did they also transgress against God?  Where in the Bible do we find any record of them?  And if indeed existing, will they relocate to the Kingdom of God?  UFOs are certainly in no ‘rescue’ mode; and if coming to ‘save us,’ as science fiction posits, why do not aliens get on with it?

   Like the trickster he is, Satan’s bag of deceptions is limitless. It goes without saying that the purpose of deceptions are to undermine what is and ‘prove’ what is not. A UFO or alien sighting is ‘proof’ of life in other worlds; so that the Bible’s perspective that ours is the only viable and inhabited world cannot be right. If we drive our planet into extinction like human greed and unconcern are doing, humanity can always prospect for new planets to terraform and eventually squeeze them dry of life/resources before moving on to others. If such habitable worlds are lifetimes away, wormholes can be used as shortcuts to get there. And if traveling at the speed of light makes us age slower, we can improve longevity odds by sleeping in hibernation pods. Satan is clever, in point of fact the seal of perfection full of wisdom (Ezekiel 28:12-15), and so more than capable of seeding human brains with fanciful theories in order to make God irrelevant to men. While God entreats men to change their ways for the better (Ezekiel 33:11), Satan plays them like violins as he pied-pipes them toward incineration; for having failed him in his putsch for power, they are of no use and deserve to be brought down with him.

   It is always bad policy to mix faith with science; but the purpose of the above sampling is to show how compelling deceptions are getting to seduce us.  If anything they illustrate the out-of-control fires of satanic lies vis-à-vis the smouldering embers of God’s truths.  The human Christian experiment was never meant to succeed except to rescue God’s ‘remnant’ (Isaiah 10:16-23); never designed to transform the whole of mankind or introduce an era of revivalism.  Jesus pooh-poohed such notions:  Evil would proliferate so exponentially during end-times that the issue of finding faith on earth upon his return was a moot point (Matthew 24:11-12,24; Luke 18:8).  Even time had to be shortened so that the chosen could be saved (Matthew 24:22↔Psalms 125:3).

   While past is prelude (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11), and previous generations ignored warnings until destruction swept them away (Luke 17:26-30), we need not follow mindlessly in their footsteps.  It is true that no human being living during the last plagues will escape the horrors of either witnessing or enduring ordeals to come; so that our objective should be to read, assimilate, believe and fortify ourselves with the patience that tips the scales in our favor (Matthew 24:13; Luke 21:19).  Only thus we may perhaps improve the odds of receiving God’s protective seal and be spared unthinkable suffering (Revelation 7:1-3↔Ezekiel 9:6; 1Peter 4:13).

¹ Paul’s comments in 2Corinthians 12:2-4 lack the customary two or three witnesses validation; so we are not empowered to discuss them. Whoever that man was, only Paul knew; and why he merited a privilege not granted to anyone else in Scripture, God knows. At least Paul admitted not knowing whether this ‘third-heaven’ traveler’s experience was in-body or out-of-body. As to the ‘third heaven’ designation, another imponderable not addressed in the Biblical canon.

² “And Yahweh will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt; and He will wave His hand over the River [Euphrates] with His scorching wind.  And He will strike it into seven streams and make men walk over dry-shod.  And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant of His people who will be left, just as there was for Israel in the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt” (Isaiah 11:15-16).  Obviously Egypt’s Sea is the Red Sea, being referenced here to compare forces at work during the Israelite Exodus with those operational during the entrance of the redeemed into the Promised Land (Exodus 14:21-22,29).  And just as obviously, what was Assyria lies to the east of Israel.

   Other points related to these events:  “I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob.  I will surely gather the remnant of Israel…He who breaks open the way goes up before them. They break through the gate and go out. Their King [Jesus↔Revelation 19:16] passes on before them, with Yahweh [the Most High] at their head” (Micah 2:12-13).

   Because the modern Euphrates is drying up thanks to dams and irrigation projects across Middle Eastern nations, prophets of doom are floating around the idea that Revelation 16:12 is being fulfilled to facilitate the crossing of some massive Far Eastern army en route to the valley of Armageddon to wage war on Israel.  “Kings of the east” in Revelation 16:12 refers to God’s multi-ethnic nation (Revelation 5:9-10), not to Far Eastern potentates.

   The conflict known as Armageddon will not take place in a now-existing geographic setting.  The so-called Valley of Slaughter (Jeremiah 7:32) will be tailor-made (Zechariah 14:2-4) to accommodate Satan’s world-wide army before their destruction not by weapons of war, but by fire from Heaven deployed by God Himself (Revelation 20:7-9).  The “camp of the saints/beloved city” therein referenced is not the earthly Jerusalem but the Heavenly City, which suggests Satan’s army will be incinerated around it—or if aloft—below it while Jesus and the City’s inhabitants watch (Revelation 14:10↔Psalms 58:10; Luke 16:26).  Please note that the Jeremiah quote references Tophet and the Valley of Hinnom, which were locations adjacent to the earthly Jerusalem.

   What is being portrayed here is a replay of 2Chronicles 20:1-25:  A great multitude had mobilized against Jerusalem; but King Jehoshaphat and his people were told by Yahweh of hosts [sender of the Holy Spirit that came over Jahaziel] that the Most High God would do battle for them, causing enemy forces to turn against and decimate one another until all fighters were dead.  This is why Jeremiah’s ‘Valley of Slaughter’ is renamed Valley of Jehoshaphat in Joel 3:2,12.  Similar allusions can be found in Jeremiah 46:7-11,15-16 and Zechariah 14:13.

   It should be obvious to us that having been cleansed of sin, God’s nation cannot engage in killing others; so that only God, Who is exempt from such constraints (Deuteronomy 32:39; Daniel 4:35), can do so. 

³ This ‘extra step’ in man’s creation would seem to suggest that animals, none of which was ‘breathed into’, do not have souls; yet Ecclesiastes 3:21 seems to argue against such a conclusion.  We cannot expect the Holy Spirit to dwell in animals; for what purpose and to what avail?  But animals must have some sort of divine spark that animates their bodies; so if not equal to a human soul, according to Solomon’s observation, it constitutes a ‘spiritual’ self of some sort.

  The notion of divine manifestations in clean and unclean animals is entrenched in non-Abrahamic religions, perhaps one more proof of Satan’s human campaign (Romans 1:23,25) to debase God’s image.

⁴ Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke with Jesus during his transfiguration on the mount (Matthew 17:1-3).

⁵ From what is known about Egyptian mummification practices, Jacob’s brain and viscera may have been removed, but his bones, the important part, were kept inside the mummified body.