Where do we get our ideas?

Seems like just about every issue of The New Yorker carries a cartoon picturing heaven. Invariably, the cartoon characters sport wings and live on clouds. They play harps. They wear white robes. That is the common, popular picture of heaven. And that's about it: wings, clouds, harps.

Just where did we get that picture?

Where did we get our religions that give us that picture?

What really happens when you die?

These are incredibly important questions.

Let's take the first one first.

Our picture of heaven -- here's how many people think it works:

You live your life. Somebody somewhere -- either God or his angels -- is keeping score. If you do enough good deeds along the way, when you die you'll be admitted to heaven. If you don't, you go to hell.

In the western world, probably since Peter was given the "keys to heaven",1 we have him standing "at the pearly gates" determining who gets in and who doesn't. If you're "good," you get in. If not, well . . . The main thought here is that we, by ourselves, earn -- or forfeit -- passage to heaven.

This is a very old picture -- pre-Jesus and not Christian.

The ancient Egyptians had it like this:

Cerberus is the guardian of the gates. The scales of justice are erected nearby. Anubis, the director of the weight, places a vase representing the good actions of the deceased in one scale, and the figure or emblem of truth in the other. He proceeds to ascertain his claims for admission. If, on being weighed, he is found wanting, he is rejected. Osiris, the judge of the dead, inclining his sceptre in token of condemnation, pronounces judgment upon him, and condemns his soul to return to earth under the form of a pig or some unclean animal. But if his virtues so far predominate as to entitle him to admission to the mansions of the blessed, Horus, taking in his hand the tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris, who, in his palace, attended by Isis and Nepthys, sits on his throne in the midst of the waters, from which rises the lotus, bearing expanded flowers.2

In the Parsee system, which borrowed extensively from the Babylonian, the story goes like this:

"For three days after dissolution, the soul is supposed to flit round its tenement of clay, in hopes of reunion; on the fourth, the Angel Seroch appears, and conducts it to the bridge of Chinevad. On this structure, which they assert connects heaven and earth, sits the Angel of Justice, to weigh the actions of mortals; when the good deeds prevail, the soul is met on the bridge by a dazzling figure, which says, 'I am thy good angel; I was pure originally, but thy good deeds have rendered me purer;' and passing his hand over the neck of the blessed soul, leads it to Paradise. If iniquities preponderate, the soul is met by a hideous spectre, which howls out, 'I am thy evil genius; I was impure from the first, but thy misdeeds have made me fouler; through thee we shall remain miserable until the resurrection;' the sinning soul is then dragged away to hell, where Ahriman sits to taunt it with its crimes."3

The same basic story may be found as part of folklore of ancient China and Greece.

Conclusion: The supposedly "Christian" conception of heaven started long before Christianity. But that's where we get the picture still popular today. It is not an accurate picture. The Bible says all have sinned,4 and that the wages of sin are death.5 Nobody gets into heaven on his own merits. But that's what our popular culture, and some churches, unfortunately, teach.

The next, logical question might be: Where do we get our religions?

Where do we get our religions?

Now that we have examined where we get our ideas on heaven, let's see where we get the religions that give us that picture.

Again, just as with our picture of heaven, the source is that first world empire, ancient Babylon: "Babylon the Great, mother of prostitutes and of idol worship everywhere around the world."6

The Babylonian system of idolatrous worship was established by a historical personage by the name of Semiramis, queen of Babylon, wife of Nimrod, only a few centuries after the Flood, about the year 2000 B.C.

Babylon was to become the foremost state of that day, and prevail until approximately 539 B.C. But the real God Jehovah was unknown in that land. Instead, the Satan-inspired "Mysteries" were established, chief features of which included: worshipping of the mother-divine child (Semiramis-and her son Tammuz), establishment of a celibate priesthood with extensive authority, licentious observance of festivals, and justification by works.

These features have been preserved and passed down to us substantially intact via the Roman Catholic Church.

Where do we get our holidays?

The clearest insight into the Babylonian mysteries, and how our modern-day religions have descended from them, may be had by quickly reviewing the festivals of the church.

Christmas. Christmas is regarded as the most joyous time of the year, the time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the time of peace and goodwill toward men. But "Christmas," as we know it, was celebrated long before Jesus Christ was born in 4 B.C. As many scholars note, Christ was actually much more likely born at the time of the feast of tabernacles in the autumn than on December 25. He was more likely conceived on December 25.

Why do we celebrate December 25 as the date of his birth in the first place, we might ask -- with not one word in the scriptures as to the actual date of his birth?

December 25 is when the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven was celebrated 2,000 years before Jesus was born. The name of the day itself -- "Yule" -- is the Chaldean (Babylon) name for "infant" or "little child," the pagan counterpart of Jesus Christ.

In ancient Babylon, drunken revels were held to celebrate the birth of this "divine" child. Our office Christmas party, and slightly more antiquated and genteel wassailling bowl, are the exact counterparts of the "drunken festival" of ancient Babylon. There is obviously no connection with the birth of Christ.

Our Christmas candles, too, had a forerunner in the lighted wax candles on the altar of the Babylonian god, Tammuz, lit on the eve of the festival in his honor.

The Christmas tree itself was also used in pagan Egypt (where it was a palm tree) and pagan Rome (where it was a fir). While the Christmas tree has become so beloved that many of us put them up immediately after Thanksgiving (especially retailers), it was not always so.

Traditionally, a yule log was burned in the fireplace on Christmas Eve and during the night as the log's embers died, there appeared in the room, as if by magic, a Christmas tree surrounded by gifts. The yule log represented the sun-god Nimrod and the Christmas tree represented himself resurrected as his own son Tammuz, the tree or "branch" that brings all divine gifts to men. This is a counterfeit of the story of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ.

So our Christmas tree -- and our yule log -- have tremendous meaning, but not a Christian meaning. The yule log is the dead Nimrod, human ruler of ancient Babylon, who was eventually deified as the sun incarnate, and hence a god. The Christmas tree is mystical Tammuz, the slain god come to life again.

The traditional feast of Christmas, at least in picture books that we all treasured as children, was a roasted boar garnished with an apple in its mouth. There's a reason for that, too. Tammuz was killed by a boar. So each year, the boar is 'sacrificed' to the gods to make propitiation for the loss of Tammuz.

The other traditional Christmas feast entree -- stuffed goose -- also was a favorite dish in Babylon at the occasion of the festival of the winter solstice. For the goose, too, was offered in sacrifice at this time.

Mistletoe, also, has Babylonian, not Christian origins, and represents the divine branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprang out of the earth. Thus heaven and earth, which sin had severed, were rejoined and the mistletoe bough became the token of God reconciled to man, with the kiss denoting pardon and reconciliation."7

So in Christmas, we have Satan counterfeiting the real truth of God. Mistletoe. Roasted boar and stuffed goose. The yule log and Christmas tree. The office Christmas party and wassailing bowl. All may be traced to ancient Babylon and the Mysteries of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz -- Satan's incredibly clever counterfeit of the true story of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Easter. This festival, of which we read in Church history in the third or fourth century, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ. That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent.8

The very name "Easter," however, is the name of a pagan god, Astarte, one of the names of Beltis, the queen of heaven, (Semiramis). The people of Nineveh pronounced it "Ishtar."

The dyed eggs of Easter Sunday are symbols of fertility that figured heavily in the ancient Babylonian rites.

Easter ham and sausage represents the sacrifice of a boar in appeasement to the queen of heaven for the loss of her son Tammuz.

Lent is directly borrowed from Babylon, too:

"This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the 'month of Tammuz;' in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity -- now far sunk into idolatry -- in this as in so many other things, to shake hands."9

Even if Easter was to be celebrated, and nowhere does the Bible command the observance of this day, it would not be kept as we do, because it did not happen as we observe it. Jesus Christ was crucified on a Wednesday, not a Friday, and rose at the end of the Sabbath (seventh day), not on Sunday morning.

How do we know that?

The religious officials of the day were, as usual, giving Jesus a difficult time of it. One said, "Master, give us a sign. Prove to us that you're really the Messiah."

Jesus replied, "Only an evil, faithless nation would ask for further proof; and none will be given except what happened to Jonah the prophet! For as Jonah was in the great fish for three days and three nights, so I, the Messiah, shall be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights."10

No matter how you count it out, there just aren't three days and three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

Some people say, "Well, that was just a Hebrew expression. It meant any part of three days -- it was an approximation."

But as Bullinger points out in Appendix 144 to his Companion Bible:

"The fact that 'three days' is used by Hebrew idiom for any part of three days and three nights is not disputed; because that was the common way of reckoning, just as it was when used of years. Three or any number of years was used inclusively of any part of those years, as may be seen in the reckoning of the reigns of any of the kings of Israel and Judah.

"But, when the number of 'nights' is stated as well as the number of 'days,' then the expression ceases to be an idiom, and becomes a literal statement of fact.

"Moreover, as the Hebrew day began at sunset the day was reckoned from one sunset to another, the 'twelve hours in the day,' (John ll:9) being reckoned from sunrise, and the twelve hours of the night from sunset. An evening-morning was thus used for a whole day of twenty-four hours, as in the first chapter of Genesis. Hence the expression 'a night and a day' in II Cor. 11:25 denotes a complete day (Gr. nuchthemeron).

"When Esther says (Est. 4:l6) 'fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days,' she defines her meaning as being three complete days, because she adds (being a Jewess) 'night or day.' And when it is written that the fast ended on "the third day" (5:l), 'the third day' must have succeeded and included the third night.

"In like manner the sacred record states that the young man (in I Sam. 30:l2) 'had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.' Hence, when the young man explains the reason, he says, 'because three days agone I fell sick.' He means therefore three complete days and nights, because, being an Egyptian (vv. ll, l3) he naturally reckoned his day as beginning at sunrise according to the Egyptian manner (see Encycl. Brit., llth Cambridge] ed., vol. xi, p. 77). His 'three days agone' refers to the beginning of his sickness, and includes the whole period, giving the reason for his having gone without food during the whole period stated.

"Hence, when it says that "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jonah l:l7) it means exactly what it says, and that this can be the only meaning of the expression in Matt. l2:40; l6:4, and Luke ll:30."

So if you count back from Sunday morning, starting the day at sunset as the Jews did, since all agree and the Scripture is plain that Jesus first appeared again on the morning of the first day of the week, he must have been crucified on Wednesday and placed in the tomb on Wednesday night. This particular Wednesday was the preparation day, the l4th of Nisan, when the passover lambs were sacrificed at the Temple from about l p.m. to 3 p.m. -- as Jesus himself was being sacrificed! He was buried in haste before the sabbath -- not the weekly Saturday sabbath, as many have believed, but the sabbath of the first day of unleavened bread, the l5th of Nisan, Thursday, which started at Wednesday sunset.

We also know this because the Bible tells us that Jesus spent the day that was six days before the passover in Jerusalem and records his activities there. Counting inclusively, as the Jews did, this would be then the 9th of Nisan. The next day was the weekly Sabbath. He spent it in Bethany. So the 9th of Nisan would correspond to our Friday. The l4th of Nisan would be a Wednesday. The 14th day of Nisan is Passover.11

So Jesus was dead Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights -- and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday days. He arose at the weekly sabbath's (Saturday's) sunset. He fulfilled this prophecy of Jonah as scrupulously as he fulfilled the other hundreds of prophecies about himself.

Look at the precision with which God works: the passover lambs were sacrificed in the temple at the same time that Christ, our Passover, was laying down his life on the cross. And the first fruits were being offered to God just as Jesus Christ stood before God. Indeed, the law, as Paul wrote, was but a shadow of the things that were to come.12

So we must conclude that observing the Wednesday crucifixion on a Friday, and then calling the supposed resurrection day by the name of a pagan goddess is something less than Biblically accurate.

Conclusion: Easter, with all its colored eggs, chocolate rabbits, hams and so forth, is Satan's counterfeit of the holy days of God, designed to obscure the tremendous meaning behind these days, and to obscure God's glorious plan for mankind.

A little more directly: Satan uses Christmas and Easter to keep you in the dark about the kingdom that's coming.

How God's own holy days foretell your future

Christians have adopted many traditions celebrating the ancient pagan holidays and are told simply that it's o.k. -- the church long ago "baptized" those days into Christian observance by focusing on Christ. But with closer scrutiny you will see that celebrating these holidays has helped us lose our focus on his plan for us. And, instead, we have unknowingly adopted Satan's counterfeit theology. Just as Satan hoped we would. This doesn't mean loss of salvation, just loss of understanding.

Indeed, the early Christian church did not observe pagan, Babylonian rituals, but the Jewish Christians, especially, observed the feasts of Jehovah outlined in Leviticus 23. The New Testament references to some of these holy days being observed by the early Church are as follows:

I. Sabbath: Acts l3:44, l7:2, and l8:4.
II. Passover: Acts l2:4.
III. Days of unleavened bread: Acts l2:3, 20:6.
IV. Pentecost: Acts 2:1, 20:16
V. Day of atonement: Acts 27:9.
VI. Feast of tabernacles: Acts l8:21.

The feasts of Jehovah, and their meanings, culminate in the kingdom.

In brief, they are:

Passover. The sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, as payment once and for all time, for all the sins of mankind.

The days of unleavened bread. Repentance: The putting out of vanity and sin -- symbolized by leavened bread -- from our lives by Jesus Christ, and eating unleavened bread, representing this sinless Christ pierced by holes, and striped just as Christ, in sacrifice, was. Follows the Passover and foreshadows the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Firstfruits. Jesus Christ, firstfruits of the dead, resurrected as our High Priest and Intercessor.

Pentecost. The gift of the Holy Spirit to the firstfruits, or church of the firstborn.

Feast of trumpets. The return of Jesus Christ, heralded by powerful trumpet blasts.

Day of atonement. The binding and imprisonment of the originator of sin, Satan the Devil.

Feast of tabernacles. The earthly l,000-year reign of the Messiah, the kingdom of God on this earth.

Weekly Sabbath. The earthly 1,000-year reign of Messiah. The 'rest' of the Lord.

The beauty of God's own system of holy days is that they tell us, year after year, and week after week, as faithful witnesses, God's plans for us. They do it more clearly than modern-day Christian holidays which are laden with pagan rites and rituals, and which tell us nothing of the return of Christ and the establishment of his kingdom.

Does the keeping of God's holy days, or any others, earn salvation for us?

No, nothing we might do can earn our salvation. Furthermore, the apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, did not require Gentile converts to keep the Mosaic law.13

Salvation comes only by faith -- believing God -- not by our own good works. It has been that way from the time of Abraham, before the law was given; it has never been any other way. But, at the least, the knowledge and understanding of these days does add a dimension of vision to our worship.
Where do we get our ideas?

And the observation of the Mysteries muddies our vision of God's plans for us. And this is what Paul feared: "Let no man deceive you by any means . . . for the mystery of iniquity does already work . . . and then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming."14

Indeed, after the brightness of his coming, to set up his kingdom on earth, a new order of holy days shall be established, based on the original holy days of Jehovah.15 More on that later.

What really happens when you die?

One last operational question remains: What really happens when you die?

There are two schools of thought on this. One says: surprisingly, nothing happens. You go to a nice long sleep . . . to await the resurrection. The thinking here goes like this:

No less an authority than Jesus Christ himself said that no man has ascended to heaven.16 So, too, did the writer of the Proverbs.17 In fact, after Jesus Christ had laid down his life for his friends, laid in the rich man's tomb for three days and three nights, awoke, arose, and neatly folded his shroud, and appeared the next day to Mary, he specifically said he had not yet ascended to his Father.18

He afterwards allowed the women to hold him by the feet.19 On this day, the day after the Sabbath, the high priest would be waving the sheaf of the firstfruits before the Lord20 while he, the firstfruits from the dead21 would be fulfilling the symbol by presenting himself before the Father. (Just as he fulfilled the type of the Passover Lamb, being crucified at the exact moment the High Priest was slaying the passover lamb.)

Christ had lain unconscious in the grave. For the dead know nothing, nor remember anything.22, 23 At death, one's thoughts perish.24

The Bible is just as specific about the great King of Israel, David. After he served his own generation by the will of God, he fell asleep.25 He did not ascend to heaven at that time and the Bible says it specifically.26 Indeed, scholars of this school of thought maintain he is still sleeping and will sleep until the time Jesus Christ returns.

Stephen, too, after being martyred, the Bible says, fell asleep.27

Jesus Christ said it Himself: "And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, that where I am there you may be also."28 29

Paul expounds on that sequence in an absolutely explicit fashion: the resurrection has an order, first Christ and then they that are Christ's at his coming.30 We won't all sleep, he told the Church at Corinth, but we'll be changed! In a moment! In the twinkling of an eye! At the trumpet sound when Jesus Christ returns. That's when the dead shall be raised incorruptible.31

He explained this to the Church at Thessalonica, because he didn't want them to be in ignorance.32

Jesus slept.

David sleeps.

Stephen sleeps.

And all those holy men of old and fellow brethren in Christ sleep.

The Greek word for this sleep is koimaomai. It means to fall asleep unintentionally. The Greek word kathendo means to fall asleep voluntarily. Koimaomei occurs l8 times in the Bible, and it always denotes death, except a very few cases where an individual slept unintentionally due to fatigue.

In Matthew 28:13, the unintentional sleep here describes what happened to the Roman soldiers who were overcome by fatigue while guarding the tomb of Jesus. In Gethsemane, the disciples with Jesus were also overcome with fatigue;33 they thought Lazarus was, too,34 and the bound Peter was indeed, overcome with fatigue, chained between two soldiers.35

That's one school of thought. Some call it "soul-sleep."

The other school of thought says that you go to heaven when you die -- that is, your soul does, if you're a believer. And later at the resurrection, soul and body are re-united on earth. This is, by far, the most traditional and accepted view. There are several major verses quoted by proponents of this classic view:

1. "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment and seeth Abraham."36 Speaking of death, the Pharisees would say "this day he sits in Abraham's bosom."37

2. "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: For we walk by faith, not by sight: We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."38

3. And Jesus said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise."39

4. "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I... desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; . . . nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."40

Paradise and the place of torment used to be in the heart of the earth,41 the lower parts separated there one from another by a great gulf. Both believers and non-believers were 'captives' there. But Christ descended into that place (called Sheol Hadis), led captivity captive, meaning he led his believers up into heaven.42 That's where the believing dead are now, awaiting the return of Christ to establish his kingdom on the earth.

This present conscious state of the dead is not the future resurrected state of the dead. It has been described as a "soulish" state. It's conscious . . . recognizable. An individual can converse, be comforted, remember earthly events. But he or she is without the eternal glorified body. That will be received when Christ returns to the earth, Paul tells us. So this "soulish" state is temporary.

So with either school of thought, when you boil it all down, you come up with the interesting fact that heaven is man's temporary home, and earth (and then the new earth) is his eternal home. Just sort of backwards from the way many teach it! But true, nonetheless.

Special note: So in either case, whether you go to heaven in a "soulish" state when you die, or whether you just have a nice, long anesthetizing sleep until he returns, it is important to note that when we die the immediate reality for our conscious mind is to be with Christ.

All of us at any moment could be just one breath away from meeting the Lord face to face. What a thought.

 

FOOTNOTES
Chapter 4
WHERE DO WE GET OUR IDEAS?

1. Matt. 16:19
2. Paraphrased from Wilkinson, Egyptians, vol. v. p. 447.
3. Vaux, Nineveh and Persepolis, P. 113.
4. Rom. 3:23
5. Rom. 6:23
6. Rev. l7:5
7. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, (Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1959), p. 99.
8. Hislop, Op. Cit., p. 104.
9. IBID., p. 105
10. Matt. 12:40
11. Lev. 23:5
12. Col. 2:17
13. Acts 15
14. II Thess. 2:7
15. Zech. 14
16. John 3:13 "And no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."
17. Proverbs 30:4 "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended?"
18. John 20:17 "Jesus saith unto her, 'Touch me not for I am not ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.'"
19. Matt. 28:9
20. Lev. 23:10, 11
21. I Cor. l5:23
22. Ecc. 9:5 "For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
23. Psalm 6:5 "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee. In the grave who shall give thee thanks?"
24. Psalm l46:4 "At death, one's thoughts perish."
25. Acts l3:36 "For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption."
26. Acts 2:34 "For David is not ascended into the heavens; but he saith himself, 'The Lord said unto my (cont.) Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool.'" Bullinger: "Is not ascended = went not up. Therefore still sleeping."
27. Acts 7:60
28. John 14:1-3 "And If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also."
29. John 8:22, 13:33, 14:2-3 "Whither I go, you cannot come."
30. I Cor. l5:22, 23 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming."
31. I Cor. l5 all, especially v. 5l, 52: "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
32. I Thess. 4:13-18 "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the LORD, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
33. Luke 22:45
34. John ll:12
35. Acts 12:6
36. Luke l6:22
37. Lightfoot, vol. xi, pp. l65-7.
38. II Cor. 5:1-8
39. Luke 23:43
40. Phil. 1:21-24
41. Eph. 4:9
42. Eph. 4:8