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WHO SURVIVED HEAVEN'S GATE? #2

SLEEPING OR STAR-TREKKING?

We only met him as "Sawyer," but after the Heaven's Gate tragedy, this former cult member was willing to visit with a camera crew from 60 Minutes. They asked him to defend the Rancho Santa Fe mass suicide, and he was rather vehement in contradicting the use of that description. Here's what he said:

"Suicide isn't the proper term for what they did, in my opinion. They left their bodies. It was something they were preparing for for a long time. It was not a traumatic thing to them." And then he adds this: "In my opinion, it was like going to bed and knowing that they would wake up still alive but not in their bodies."

Kelly Cooke, the daughter of another cult member, Suzanne, also calmly accepted her mother's death last March 26.

"My understanding was that it was to go on to the next level, to be with God. I don't believe she committed suicide. That's a strong word to use when you consider that this is something she worked for all her life. She graduated to the next level."

Kelly's father, Wayne Cooke, who didn't stay with the group to the gruesome end, claims even now that there are many people out there who continue to believe, and that they can still be beamed into space by shedding their human bodies.

I said yesterday that the Heaven's Gate cult pointed, in their defense, to the fairly common belief in the Christian faith that a person's soul can and does survive the body. "Look," they'd say. "Many churches teach pretty much the same as us. When a person dies, part of him goes . . . to heaven or wherever. We're not that different."

Here on the Voice of Prophecy during this two-week series, we want to sincerely try to read as many Bible passages as we can that deal with this issue of life after death. And I think you can sense the urgency here. Thirty-nine people are dead because they believed a man named Herff when he said their souls would survive the poisoned applesauce and vodka chasers. They made a video, where they expressed complete confidence that they were going to survive this death and be conscious in another world. One cult member looked into the camera and said: "This will bring me just the happiest day of my life. I've been looking forward to this for so long." "We are all choosing of our own free will," said another member, this one a woman, "to go on to the next level." The New York Post's quick book on the tragedy reports:

"Each took the mad, hopeless gamble on mortality with serene, joyous determination."

Friend, let me share something with you here. Two things, actually. First of all, the stakes are so high. I mean, in this case it was life and death. In fact, for all of us, what we believe in the spiritual realm is always a matter of life and death.

On the other hand, when we open up our Bibles and read all the passages we can find, every verse that seems to talk about death and resurrections and souls and eternity, we quite frankly find passages that propose different scenarios. This is partly why there are Baptists and Catholics and Pentecostals and Seventh-day Adventists and all the rest. Consensus doesn't come quickly or easily after even 2000 years of discussion in the Body of Christ.

Let me give you just one example of what I'm talking about. Unless you're on the freeway right now, if you can, get out a Bible and look with me at the book of First Thessalonians chapter four, verses 13 through 16. This is Paul writing, of course, and he starts out with something we can all agree on in the wake of the Heaven's Gate tragedy. Verse 13:

"Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope."

Now for sure there are two things we can agree on immediately. Bible ignorance is dangerous and unnecessary. "Let's not be ignorant," Paul says. Secondly, the Bible's news about what happens to God's children who die . . . is good news. Death is not the end for the Christian; that much is absolutely clear, crystal clear, wonderfully clear. Every Christian in the world believes that the grave is not the end because the Bible clearly says so many, many times. When you have about 15 free minutes, read the entire chapter of First Corinthians 15. It's marvelous good news.

But now as we continue, it gets difficult. First of all, let me stay back in verse 13 for just a moment and point you to that one phrase: "those who fall asleep." It sounds, at the very least, like a suggestion that death involves sleep, a kind of unconsciousness. This would contradict the Heaven's Gate claim that the "(quote) departed" cultists are out there somewhere right now, celebrating their PR coup, their escape. "They're laughing now," said one wistful person who was left behind. Well, not according to the Bible. It says they're sleeping now, not laughing. But let's go on.

Verse 14 gives ammunition to some Christians groups the first time we read it, but hold your applause until we get to verse 16. Here's 14:
"We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him."

There's that expression, "fallen asleep," again. But this verse certainly seems to say that a Christian who dies is immediately with Jesus, and that when Jesus comes to this earth again, He brings those people with Him. "God will bring with Jesus."

A Heaven's Gate devotee would approve of that scenario, certainly, because it's so similar to his own claims. "See?" he says. "Someone dies and they take an immediate journey to their heaven. That's what we've been saying."

Let's keep reading though, because that concept runs into almost immediate difficulty in the next two verses. Paul continues:

"According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep."

The final generation, he's saying, those who are alive at the Second Coming of Jesus, won't be rescued ahead of God's sleeping saints. And then verse 16 gets, in my opinion, very clear indeed. Listen:

"For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first."

And we say, "What?" According to this verse, Jesus Christ, the great Lifegiver, raises up His sleeping trophies at the Second Coming. "The dead in Christ will rise first . . . at the
Second Coming." And then verse 17 ties things off beautifully:

"After that," or "then," the King James says, "we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." And I might add: "Starting then."

Now friend, why do we start here? This is immediate difficulty, isn't it? And the racing clock doesn't permit us to study or resolve even these verses right now, today. But the point I want to make is this: we have to read all the verses. Not just my favorites or yours. The Bible has 66 books of truth for us, and when verses don't seem to stack up, well, we just go and look for more verses. We get together with our friends and we say to each other, "Can I borrow your flashlight? And please come look with me."

Tomorrow we'll begin to study what a "soul" really is in the Word of God. But today before we close, can I at least suggest that we have strong Bible evidence for one thing. And that's this: death is a sleep. Right here Paul has said so, not once but three times. Over in First Corinthians 15, which is a foundation passage on this doctrine, he says it again three more times. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, said very plainly on several occasions that death was a sleep. The Old Testament says the identical thing, describing the unconscious state of the dead. Even Job, in chapter 14, poses the question: "If a man dies, will he live again?", which would indicate that the "living again" would come later, not immediately.

Well, there's so much more to come, and friend, let me say how much we yearn to have your participation and your prayers to join ours as we study. We need the Holy Spirit so desperately, don't we, to guide our minds as we read the very words He inspired.

Last March, on the 21st, to be exact, a lunch waiter named Eric Morales served up 39 chicken pot pies, 39 salads with tomato vinaigrette, and 39 iced tea drinks with lemon slices. This was the Marie Callender's restaurant in Carlsbad, and the visitors with their unisex clothing and short haircuts seemed cheerful, almost celebrating, as they ate the 39 identical meals. They were very polite, saying thank you for every little bit of service, as he recalls.

At the close of the meal, one woman paid the bill with cash. Three hundred and fifty-one dollars plus a $52 tip. And when they left the restaurant, every single person of the 39 passed Morales and shook his hand, like they were going off on a trip someplace.

"I thought something was up for sure," Morales said later. The cult members gave him a weird kind of response when he asked them to come back soon. Later that day, two of those in Heaven's Gate found six cents, which they promptly turned in. It's the last entry in the cult group's ledger. Their departure from earth, according to their leader, was just one day away. But they wrote down the six cents.

Where, then, did they go? Death is a sleep, the Bible says. Not a journey. Not an immediate flight to outer space. Just a sleep. Not a new, secret kingdom of light — but just darkness.

We've got to choose our leaders carefully, don't we?