What Happens After We Die? Pt. 1 of 2 (John MacArthur)

"What happens after we die?...what happens to Christians who die?" I'm often asked that even by Christians, in fact usually by Christians. Questions like...after we die, do we go directly to heaven? Or, what happens to our bodies? The details of those kinds of questions are very very important to us and they can be troubling if we don't know the answer. We want to know what happens after we die and we would like to know what happens to the bodies of those we love when they go into the grave. Those are pressing issues... http://www.gty.org

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 1918-2008

John Piper @ http://www.desiringgod.org has a touching remembrance in life of yesterday's death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn who died at the age of 89.

No one did more than Solzhenitsyn to expose the horrors of the failed communist experiment in Russia. Hitler’s purge would pale, if such things could pale, when compared to ten times the carnage in Stalin’s gulags.

After his imprisonment in the Russian gulag of Joseph Stalin’s “corrective labor camps” Solzhenitsyn wrote:

It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.... That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!” I...have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Vol. 2, 615-617)

Piper concludes:

O that I would be done with murmuring against my tiny prisons. Lord, grant me greater faith to live in the coming day when I will say, “Bless you, all hardship and pain! You have cut me off from the death of prosperous idolatry again and again.”

See also:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Friend of Truth in the Face of Evil

Solzhenitsyn: Jeremiah Is Dead Only To This Age

"One Word of Truth Will Outweigh the Whole World" - The Death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn dead at 89

Father Raymond J. De Souza on the legacy of Alexander Solzhenitsyn: He taught that freedom must have a purpose

Jeremiah at Harvard

Gulags: Then and Now

George Carlin, and us

Since the death of Comedian George Carlin who died of a heart attack at age 71 Sunday evening, several commentators have mentioned his impact. Dan Phillips @ http://teampyro.blogspot.com mentions:

"Carlin's worldview took a toll on him, as drug-use reportedly started the heart-problems that eventually killed him. Five years before his death, the "funny-man" voiced a very dark view:

"I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago," he said a couple of years ago. "Divorced myself from it emotionally. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers. And I don't think it's fixable."

Commenting on the impact of this worldview: "Here you see a man who is confronted with the disaster which autonomy has brought on our race. Carlin sees some of the bitter fruits of man's rebellion against God. He longs for redemption. He sees that it will not arise from within us. Yet, like the classic definition of insanity, he has no prescription but more of the same. He was raised Roman Catholic, and probably thought (alas, wrongly) that this exposed him to Christianity, to Christ, to the Gospel. Thus he often expressed contempt for religion. Rejecting the fake, like so many he was inoculated against the real item. Thus apparently Carlin never seriously considered the actual cure whose absence he would later feel so keenly: Jesus Christ, the only hope and redeemer of mankind (John 1:29; 1 Timothy 1:1). As we all naturally do — in spite of his many keen insights — Carlin misdiagnoses the cause, and thus completely misses the cure".

If you are willing to consider the other radical side of the coin look at Michael Spencer @ http://www.internetmonk.com. He notes: "What strikes me as continually ironic is that Carlin and other comedians have become the truth-tellers of our time, while Christians, especially in their official capacities as preachers, etc., have become the embodiment of truth avoidance and truth obscuration. Or, if you’d like to get on the more cynical bus with me and the Ecclesiastes Band, we’re more known for being liars about the human journey than we are for telling the truth. In that sense, I can say a hardy Thank God for George Carlin, who wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was, even if it totally overturned the tables so nicely arranged by the orderers of society and the custodian of decent thought.

Carlin embodied Shakespeare’s ideal of the fool. (See King Lear for details.) The Fool was a truthteller wrapped in the costume of a clown. Because you had agreed to submit to his agenda of laughter, you opened yourself up to his agenda of truth. One of the first conversations between Lear and his fool includes a death threat, but the Fool is not intimidated, and soon Lear is begging his Fool to continue being the one person who will tell him the painful, but precious, truth.

Carlin was often plunged into controversy of his own making. He saw the hypocrisy of assigning shock value and criminal consequences to words and he played the trump card of the “7 Words You Can’t Say” routine and changed the culture. I know there are plenty of Christians who equate the Golden Age of morality with a lack of profanity, but I’ll have to differ on that one a bit. Behind Carlin’s crusade to use offensive words was another agenda: an understanding of words with social, political, racial and religious significance that were also dangerous to the status quo. Word control was a form of oppression, and Carlin was the liberator in Fool’s clothing. Christians should be verry careful before they side with the thought/word police. What you gonna do when they come for you?"

Wikipedia has a very complete Carlin entry.

Comedians and those who knew the man discuss Carlin’s life and contribution.

This all goes beyond the death of an entertainer. This impacts all of us in considering how any of us will be remembered when we pass away. It's worth our giving that a thought, regardless of the size of our circle of influence, fame, infamy.

In conclusion, Phillips notes: "I'm not asking that we convince the world to like us. Not going to happen — or we've messed up, somewhere (James 4:4). I'm not saying we should expect fairness from the MSM. I'm more thinking of what we make our emphasis. If the media noted our passing, and mischaracterized us, would our friends have abundant resources to show how ridiculous they are? Or would we have played right into their hands by poor judgment, poor priorities, over-fondness of applause, playing for laughs and roses?"

The memory of the righteous is a blessing,
but the name of the wicked will rot
(Proverbs 10:7)

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and favor is better than silver or gold
(Proverbs 22:1)

A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
(Ecclesiastes 7:1-4)

Net Worth

They Died Well. How Would We Handle the Plague?

DA Carson . . .

	The Puritans published sermons and books on how to die well; they cherished collected "last words" of Christians who had already gone to be with the Lord. But today we find it exceedingly difficult to look death squarely in the face and talk about it. Consider this 1593 poem, written by Thomas Nashe an Elizabethan author of no great repute who penned these lines, possibly his best, when he along with hundreds of thousands of others contracted the plague and lay on their deathbed. ADIEU, farewell earth's bliss! This world uncertain is: Fond are life's lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys. None from his darts can fly; I am sick, I must die-- ----Lord, have mercy on us! Rich men, trust not in wealth, Gold cannot buy you health; Physic himself must fade; All things to end are made; The plague full swift goes by; I am sick, I must die-- ----Lord, have mercy on us! Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour; Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen's eye; I am sick, I must die-- ----Lord, have mercy on us! Strength stoops unto the grave, Worms feed on Hector brave; Swords may not fight with fate; Earth still holds ope her gate; Come, come! the bells do cry; I am sick, I must die-- ----Lord, have mercy on us! Wit with his wantonness Tasteth death's bitterness; Hell's executioner Hath no ears for to hear What vain art can reply; I am sick, I must die-- ----Lord, have mercy on us! Haste therefore each degree To welcome destiny; Heaven is our heritage, Earth but a player's stage. Mount we unto the sky; I am sick, I must die-- ----Lord, have mercy on us! It is hard to imagine a modern writer facing death so openly. We are more likely to lionize Dylan Thomas's counsel to his dying father: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Indeed, after we have accepted our place in God's world and grasped the desperate realities of sin and it's consequences, rage may still be called for. But Dylan Thomas's rage is not called for. He still wants to be the center of the universe, and is frustrated to the point of rage that he cannot be. Contrast Nashe. His refrain faces openly: "I am sick, I must die". And he perceives that in God's universe there is only one possible prayer to follow this unavoidable reality: "Lord, have mercy on us!"
From:	How Long O Lord, Reflections on Suffering and Evil