The dead, we have so many beliefs of where the dead are.  It seems we almost have a choice, heaven, hell, limbo, and reincarnation, so many to choose from. Do we really have a spirit that moves on, watches over loved ones, and do we have people burning in hell right now? Where does one go after they pass away? Who was the first to be resurrected?  Where did death originate? Are we really born to die? There is no mystery in death, the Lord gives us the answer if we search the scriptures for the truth, and if we are able to accept and believe it.

    Doomed, doomed, doomed—to perpetual agony and pain, pleading for mercy, with only the echo of thine own voice to taunt and mock thee and an accusing conscience to chide thee.  No hope, no light, no tender hand to soothe the aching frame.  No ear to hear the pleadings and groaning of the soul and though the eternal age rolls on—age upon age bring no relief, nothing but an eternal of pain, suffering, torture and torment for ever and ever.

    In view of all of this, it must be evident that there is only one source from which we can hope to get a reply to our question, the Bible.  The Bible is a revelation from God, and as much, is the only available source from which gather any definite idea of the future life, in God’s kingdom, or in hell.

    Now I wish to show that notwithstanding the ideas of popular theology or so called orthodoxy, to affect that man is immediately transported to heaven or hell at death.  In view of their statement, who dare say that the recompense or reward is given to the righteous at death, or before the resurrection?  To assert that man goes to heaven or hell at death before the resurrection is to deny the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Over and over again, in almost every funeral sermon, the minister tries to comfort the mourners by telling them that their dead are now in heaven praising God.

    When God created Adam, He created him innocent, out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7).  God created Adam that he should progress to the point where he could overcome all temptation, and then he would become virtuous, or righteous.  However, he fell short, and we have been following his example ever since.   
           God gives life as well as food.  “Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust” (Psalms 104:29).  When the present generation of animals dies, God’s Spirit creates others to take their place as well as the human race.

    The righteous man’s confidence is in God, and is his ardent desire to have the spiritual privilege of eternal life, as Job says: “All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27:3).   We see that the Lord formed us out of the dust of the ground; we didn't become a living person until “he breathed into the nostrils and then we became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).  At the same time, when he calls you home, your breath is taken and you die and return to dust (Psalm 104:29).

    And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” Genesis 2:16-17.