Billy Graham - Death And The Life After

DEATH AND THE
LIFE AFTER

OTHER BOOKS BY BILLY GRAHAM

Angels: Gods Secret Agents
The Holy Spirit
Hope for the Troubled Heart
How to Be Born Again
The Journey
Peace with God
The Secret of Happiness
Unto the Hills

DEATH AND THE
LIFE AFTER

BILLY GRAHAM

DEATH AND THE LIFE AFTER

1987 by Billy Graham.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For more information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible, published by the Zondervan Corporation, 1973 by the New York Bible Society. Used by permission. Those marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971 by the Lockman Foundation. Those marked KJV are from the King James Version. Those marked TLB are from The Living Bible, 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers. Used by permission.

Excerpt from Lament by Edna St. Vincent Millay. From Collected Poems, Harper & Row. 1921, 1948 by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Reprinted by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Graham, Billy, 1918
Death and the life after/Billy Graham
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8499-1123-1 (TP)
ISBN 978-0-8499-3520-6 (MMPB)
1. DeathReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Future lifeChristianity. 1. Title.
bt825.c64 1987 236'.1 8715930

Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 12 BTY 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.

HEBREWS 9:27

T he 563 men, women, and children who boarded The Herald of Free Enterprise ferry on March 6, 1987, in Zeebrugge, Belgium, for a trip across the English Channel to Dover, England, had no inkling of what awaited them shortly after leaving the harbor.

Without warning, the four-thousand-ton vessel began to list, and within seconds the happy passengers were transformed into desperate, terrified people as they plunged beneath the icy cold waters and began to battle for their lives.

Two hundred passengers and crew members went to a watery grave. The only reason the toll was not much higher was the quick work by rescue crews who risked their own lives to save others.

More recently, thirty-seven men lost their lives on the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf, and some twenty-nine people died when a tornado struck the little town of Saragosa in West Texas. We have grown used to hearing about (and even seeing) such tragedies reported on our television newscasts and tend to treat them as mere statistics unless one of our loved ones is involved.

It is an axiom that there are just two certainties in life: death and taxes, but that is not true. With the right deductions and a good accountant, millionaires have managed to avoid paying any taxes at all. But everyonemillionaires and pauperswill face the ultimate certainty: death.

It is doubtful that any of the passengers aboard the ferry thought about the possibility of their being dead within minutes after boarding the vessel. That is largely because we live in a death-denying society.

Even the language and atmosphere of funeral homes denies death. A person who has died is said to have departed. The person is stripped of his or her name and referred to as a loved one. There are persons who are specialists in applying makeup to a dead body to make it appear as if the person is only sleeping.

Advertisers do all they can to help us deny the ultimate fact of life. Billions of dollars are spent on a cosmetic industry that promises creams and lotions will slow the aging process and make the user look younger. Joggers line the roads, often before dawn, and workouts at health clubs have become popular ways to keep the body in shape to prolong life. Fiber is an increasingly prevalent part of some peoples diets as physicians tell us of its ability to reduce the risk of cancer. Many people are giving up smoking to reduce the possibility of heart and lung disease.

But the irreversible fact is that no matter what your diet, no matter how much you exercise, no matter how many vitamins or health foods you eat, no matter how low your cholesterol, you will still diesomeday, some way. You may add a year, or even a few years, to a life that could be shorter had you not been concerned about your health, but in the end death will conquer you as it has every person who has ever lived.

If you knew the moment and manner of your death in advance, would you order your life differently? If so, when would you do it... right now, or would you wait until the day before? And then what would you do to right the mistakes you made during your life?

Unfortunately, no one knows the day or the hour of his death, which is why it is best, in the words of the scout motto, to be prepared.

It is my prayer that this book may be a source of support and blessing for every reader and that each of us will have the comfort of Gods love as we face the issues discussed here. For those who do not know Christ, I pray they will meet Him in these pages.

Naturally, I have not written this book alone. Others have helped immensely. Especially do I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my longtime friend Carole Carlson. She did so much research for the first of many drafts of the manuscript. Without her, this book would have been almost impossible to finish on time. Then, as always, I want to thank my wife, Ruth, for her part in helping to plan and shape this book and for sharing a number of touching moments from her own life. For years she has kept a file of material on the subject of death (as she does on many subjects, to help me in my preaching and writing). Some of the stories and statistics in this book came from her files. I also want to thank Dr. John Akers, the Reverend Jack Black, Mrs. Millie Dienert, and Dr. Harold Lindsell, who read and made helpful comments and additions to sections of the book.

Further, I want to thank each of the other men and women who have supported me in researching and developing this work and in preparing it for publication. Likewise, a word of appreciation to my publisher, Ernie Owen, and my editors, Al Bryant and Dr. Jim Black of Word. And, last but not least, a special thank-you to my secretary, Stephanie Wills, for her tireless effort and unflagging support.

1
THE LAST ENEMY

If we are in a battle with this enemy called Death, I believe we
should learn about it, in order to know how to confront the dying
experience. We need to know how to face that enemy on our own behalf,
and how to deal with the inevitable deaths of loved ones and friends.
The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:26, NASB

A twisted pile of metal and shattered glass lay like a broken toy in the left lane of the freeway. The flares, police cars, ambulances, and flashing red lights created a scene of sudden and ominous dread. An expensive sports car, once an object of pride, now lay twisted beyond repair. A limp body sprawled in the front seat, wedged beneath the steering wheel. Was the victim alive or dead? Could the mangled body be stitched together by the hands of a skilled surgeon, or would it be hastily covered with a plastic sheet and transported unceremoniously to the city morgue, DOA, dead on arrival?