Dear Adventist Friends, Why the Fear of Dying?

Image by Frank Kehren via Flickr

Afraid to Die?

Being that I am friends with a great many former Adventists and have plenty of Adventist connections I often hear of Adventist friends of someone or another that need prayer for healing. Or in some cases an Adventist friend has been diagnosed with some kind of terminal illness, they don’t have much time left on this earth. This should be a time of anticipation, a time of confirmation, at time of final preparations for those who are going to be affected by your absence, it should be a time of joy because soon God is going to call your home to be with Him.

However more often than not the primary reaction of Adventists when they relay these messages to me is that their loved on is AFRAID of dying, they are beside themselves in fear and trepidation. Which is the total opposite of what a true believer, a Christ-Follower, feels as their life is coming to a close. Certainly there is some awe, perhaps a feeling of butterflies in the tummy, after all after you die you will be facing God- the creator of all things. However as a Christ-Follower you have chosen the path that leads through the Cross at Golgotha, you have been Born from Heaven by Grace through Faith and sealed by the Holy Spirit. You are a Christian.

Perhaps the fact that you’re afraid, really really afraid, is a symptom of a larger problem. Perhaps you haven’t really come to the end of yourself, and been purchased by the Saviors blood. Perhaps the problem really is that you are still your own, you haven’t surrendered. You are God’s creation, but until you are Born From Heaven you are NOT a child of God.

Dangerous Symptoms

Being born and raised an Adventist I found myself simply accepting at face value the beliefs of those who had gone before me, I was too lazy in the beginning to seek things out for myself. This is the most dangerous reality of being born into Adventism if you will, because you are born into a false gospel, false reading of scripture, because of a false prophet- but you are conditioned into believing that all that is false is true. And if God doesn’t guide you by the gentle movement of the Holy Spirit to Him, and Jesus on the Cross and a Salvation relationship- then because of your standing you will believe and defend this false gospel and sink under it’s waves of confusion. As you’re drowning in your sin and incapability of not being good enough, as you’re gagging on the waters of Legalism and putting the Law in the place of God, as you’re being dragged under kicking and screaming- on the surface you have a smile on your face and pretending that everything’s just fine.

And you might even be proselytizing Christians into doubt and fear, there’s a reason God through Christ, the God-man, had such condemnation for the Legalistic of the time. God’s opinion has not changed, God put the Law there to show us how impossible it was to try and keep the Law. God gave us the Law the reflect and magnify our sin and to point us towards our only help of salvation, Jesus Christ. And yet Adventism would saddle us with a yoke we weren’t designed to wear, they knit up the Veil that God tore down Himself so that the can have a part in their own salvation.

True Reality

We are Born Spiritually dead folks, sin is not genetically passed down, we are Born in the Domain of Darkness, and because of God’s grace some of us wake up to that fact. And then we fall at the foot of the Cross and make our only contribution to our own salvation, laying our sins on Christ and accepting God’s free gift of eternal life.

We Repent of our Sins and are our Spirit is Reborn from Heaven, we are transferred from the Domain of Darkness to the Kingdom of the Son He loves. (Colossians Chapter One)

No probation. No doubt. No questions. It is finished. We are His. Nothing can take us out of His hand. Period.

There is no Investigative Judgment, why would Jesus need to investigate those who have been Born of the Spirit and who have God the Holy Spirit living in them. Such a teaching is abhorrent and heretical and it leads to FEAR and PANIC.

Since you’ve been Born of Heaven you can KNOW and are told to Proclaim that you have been saved. You HAVE present tense, Eternal Life. First John 5:11-13 says:

11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
12 The one who has the Son has life.The one who doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life. 
13 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may 
know that you have eternal life.

Eternal life is not something we eventually inherit, God has already given it to us.

If you have a true personal relationship with Christ, a Reborn Spirit, and Have Christ (God the Holy Spirit)  in you...you HAVE life…eternal life.

If you only acknowledge God and Christ but attempt to keep the Law for Salvation, do good works for Salvation, in other words bring about you own salvation. Your Spirit is still dead, you do NOT have the Son, you DO NOT HAVE eternal life.

This is important, this is the most important decision you can make, and it’s entirely up to you.

Living Without Fear

I’m no longer living in fear. At the start of the article I mentioned that I used to take everything at face value and not even look into the claims of my Adventist teachers, preachers, and friends. That ended when I was Born of the Spirit, that ended when I was transferred from the Domain of Darkness into Kingdom of the Beloved Son. Since that day I have trusted the Lord, and done Bible study through the Holy Spirit who lives in me. He has taken away my fear and trepidation, He has taken away the worry and the pain, and replaced it with a peace that passes understanding.

As a Christian, as a Christ-Follower, I no longer fear death. My start and finish were know by God my Father long before creation, it is God who is going to release my reborn Spirit from my earthly tent at the time of my death. And then I will be with Him for eternity.

In closing I want to tell you a true story that happened two days ago. I was on the last leg of my trip down from a wonderful family get together in Oregon, and I was just about asleep when I heard our bus driver shout in a calm but authoritative voice.

“Jesus save us! Jesus be with us! Hold on everybody!”

Within moments there was mayhem, the screeching of brakes, the rending of metal, as we watched open mouthed as the big rig in front of us lost control and flipped. Giant crates of Lemons were flung all over the freeway and when the dust settled, and the calls were made, and the rescuers did all that they could, they could not save his life.

Please Pray for those Involved and Touched by this Accident

Was he ready to go? I can’t answer that question, I’ve prayed for his (it may have been a lady) family and friends because as a Christian that is what I’m called to do. I also prayed over all those of us on the bus, I don’t know of their salvation status, but once again that’s what I as a Christ-Follower am called to do.

At that moment, when the rig was whipsawing in front of us, when it should have by all accounts hit us in some way, was I afraid, was I terrified about facing death?

No, I was at peace. My life is not my own, it was purchased at the cross, my life if Christ’s to use whenever and however he needs to. I was ready to go, but it was not God’s time for me to go yet.

I am not afraid, there is no reason to be afraid, and there is no reason not to give your life over to the Lord right now and enter the promised Rest of God.

There is nothing at all to fear about death when you have conquered it through Christ by being Born from Heaven and adopted into God’s family.

Undercover Adventist.

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• Midnight Musings Ep. 2: Putting On Christ (undercoveradventist.wordpress.com)