Question: The family of a gospel friend died, he is now very sad. How should I comfort him?

Answer: Taking a look at the answer to this question, first of all, we have to understand why a person dies. Each one of us carries a mission God gives us when we come into this world. If someone finishes his mission, he will depart from the world. What’s more, when a person dies physically, in fact he just falls asleep. It’s recorded in the Bible about the death of Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter and the Lord Jesus said they fell asleep. Why did the Lord Jesus say like that? Because the real death is not the physical death but the spiritual death as man is sustained by his spiritual life. When a person’s spirit departs, the physical body dies. If his spirit is still carrying mission and still has to live in the physical body, then the person won’t die physically. No matter what kind of sickness he has, he won’t die. If the spirit departs, even though he doesn’t have any sickness, he will die. However, if a person departs and goes back to the spiritual realm, it’s not necessarily that he will suffer punishment. For instance, some people departed and he was still doing some work in the spiritual realm. A bailiff took this spirit out and this spirit talked through another physical body. The one who was still alive heard and said: “This is my family! Do you want to come back to life? You hurriedly come back to this world. Who killed you? How come you don’t revenge?” The spirit said it was pretty good in the spiritual realm and he didn’t care about the reason of his death nor requested to come back to the world. This happened in real life before. It proves that when a person dies, he falls asleep. That is to say, the person has finished his mission in life and gone to another world. The other world is better than this world except for the fact that he commits something wicked in his previous life and he has to suffer in hell, then his spirit has to be punished.

If a person understands the matter of death, he won’t feel too sad because his family member dies. What’s more, he can take the opportunity to reflect: Where’s life from? Who is in sovereignty and supplies this mankind? How should we humans live a meaningful life? God’s words disclose the mysteries. God says: “All who come into this world must experience life and death, and many have experienced the cycle of death and rebirth. Those living will soon die and the dead soon return. All of this is the course of life arranged by God for each living being. However, this course and cycle are the truth that God wishes for man to see, that the life bestowed upon man by God is endless and unfettered by flesh, time, or space. This is the mystery of life bestowed upon man by God and proof that life came from Him….Now let Me tell you a secret: The greatness and power of the life of God cannot be fathomed by any creature. It is thus now, was thus then, and will be thus in time to come. The second secret I shall impart is this: The source of life comes from God, for all creation, whatever the difference in form or structure. Whatever kind of living being you are, you cannot move counter to the path of life that God has set. In any case, all I wish is for man to understand that without the care, keeping, and provision of God, man cannot receive all that he was meant to receive, no matter how great the effort or struggle. Without the supply of life from God, man loses the sense of value in living and loses the sense of purpose in life.” We were created by God with dust and we became a living being through the breath God blessed us with. God is constantly supplying us so that we can live from generation to generation and follow the law of birth, aging, sickness, and death. This is unbreakable. God also arranges a suitable destination for each of us after we return to the spiritual world. These are the manifestation of God’s authority. God is everlasting and His life forever remains. If we accepts God’s sovereignty and live according to the path God predestined, then our life is meaningful and God will give us a suitable destination after we die.