Solomon and What Happens to Us When We Die

Solomon, the second wisest man to have ever lived, learned many things in his life and one of those things is about what happens to us when we die. In his book Ecclesiastes on his repentance for his past sins, Solomon gives us one of the best statements on death and how we function after death. Solomon writes:
Ecclesiastes 9:1 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Solomon learned that all of the people of the earth, whether they be wise or foolish, live out their lives, do whatever they are going to do and then at the end they all die. So one event comes to all people, and although there have been a few exceptions, a theme for another study, all of us have to deal with death sooner or later.

Solomon further states:
Ecclesiastes 9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Solomon learned that all of the living will learn that when all the dust has settled death comes to all of the living. However, Solomon discovered that the dead do not know anything in the state of death. On top of that Solomon discovered that the dead do not experience any kind of feelings, or thoughts. They do not experience love, hatred, or envy. Not only that but the dead do not participate in anything in life. They do not communicate with the living and they are not concerned with anything for they do not think. This may come as a shock to some people who believe that the dead interact with the living.

God, in Deuteronomy 18:9-14, says the following:
Deuteronomy 18:9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.
14 For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.

In the above text God states that He does not want His people to get involved with many things but one thing in the list is that of being a Necromancer. A Necromancer is "one who conjures up the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future of influencing the curse of events." Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary on the word Necromancy. God says that the nations that He drove out for Israel practiced this kind of behavior and God did not want His people to do it. The reason He does not want His people to participate in it is because according to Solomon it can’t happen in the first place. God, who created all mankind, knows what happens when you die. Mankind does not know except God tells him what will happen. God says that you don’t know anything about what is going on around you so how can you tell anyone else what to do if you don’t know and you can not communicate with the living.

The next logical question is if people do not communicate what is happening when they are dead then who is doing all of the communicating of information that no one else knows about? The answer is obvious and simple but disconcerting. If a Necromancer is seeking information about someone who is dead and they acquire special knowledge that no one else knows, and the dead are not talking, then the only source left is Satan and his angels.

Satan knows almost everything there is to know about you and he was the only one around that was willing to contradict God in the beginning. God said But of the tree 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 2:17. Satan came along later and said to Eve "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4-5 So God says one thing and Satan, the serpent (Revelation 12:9), says another. The great issue for us is whom do we believe. God says that you can not communicate with the dead for they don’t know anything. Satan says please do communicate with the dead for they know all things. God knew that Satan would come up with this scheme of thought and He seeks to protect us from an avenue of information that will only lead us to problems, discouragement, and ruin.

We have a case study on the subject in I Samuel 28. King Saul was discouraged and knew that he would be going into battle with his enemies the Philistines on the next morning. He wanted to talk to someone about what would happen the next day and what would happen if one were to die. He had spent the last 20 years ignoring God and when he was desperate, but not so desperate that he was willing to change, and when he went to God, God would not answer him by any normal avenue of communication. I Samuel 28:6. So Saul decided to do something outside of the box and again showed that he was in rebellion against God. Saul decided that he would talk to a witch that practiced Necromancy. He goes to the witch and asks her to call up the prophet Samuel from the dead to speak to him. When Samuel was alive Saul would not cooperate with him and now that Samuel was dead Saul wanted to talk to him, and by seeking to speak to the dead Saul showed that he was willing to disobey God to the very end.

The witch calls up a spirit who informs her that the man speaking to her was King Saul. I Samuel 28:12. The witch is confirmed again that this avenue is a source of valuable information. King Saul does not ever see this spirit but the woman is the channel through whom they communicate. The spirit pretending to be Samuel tells King Saul that he will die on the next day. This statement was fulfilled the next day when Israel is defeated and Saul indeed dies for his sin of disobeying all of the commandments of God and especially of the sin of seeking a witch. II Chronicles 10:13-14.

This brings us back to the question of who was communicating through the witch. God had clearly told His people not to attempt to communicate with the dead for the dead can not communicate with the living. The next question is would God then break His own rule and resurrect His prophet Samuel to talk to a king that did not want to obey Him in the first place? I do not believe that God violates His own laws to cooperate with rebellious hearts. But we already have evidence that Satan can and will do so. Satan is the communicator of rebellion and it is he that uses the belief in the communication with the dead to mislead and misguide us in our relationship with God. So let us get a little more information on this subject.

Solomon’s father, David, stated that when the dead die their thoughts perish. Psalms 146:4. David also states that the dead "praise not the Lord" Psalms 115:117. He also states that "…in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" Psalms 6:5 So again the evidence indicates that the dead can not speak to us. But Satan is constantly trying to get us to go to sources of information that he controls so that he can deceive us and get us to join in his rebellion.

In Isaiah 8:19 we have the following counsel:
"And when they shall say unto you, See unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God, for the living to the dead?"
God counsels us to seek Him, for He has all knowledge. He commands us not to speak to the dead for they do not think at all.

Virtually every religion in the world believes that the dead are not dead and can speak to us. The Bible states that the dead are dead and can not speak to us. In Psalms 106:28, 37 we get a little taste of the religious services of the nations not of Israel. In Psalms 106:28,37-39 we find the following:
"They (Israel) joined themselves also unto Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead." "Yea, the sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils. And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land as polluted with blood. Thus they were defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions."

In this text Israel turns against God and follows the religious practices of the nations living in Canaan – the future home of Israel. In these religious practices human sacrifice was an important part of the religion and gave the people opportunity to communicate with God through the death of the children. Solomon himself followed these practices by assisting his wives in their religious services. I Kings 11:1-8. All of the major names of the gods recorded in Solomon’s story required human sacrifice and also practiced communications with the dead. All of these religions were in the land of Canaan and were one of the many reasons that God drove them out and forbade Israel to follow their practices. Deuteronomy 18:9,14. God counts all of these religious practices as abominations. Deuteronomy 18:12 Since God does not want us to participate in them the only agency that would promote these activities are those in alignment with the doctrines of devils, or of Satan. I Timothy 4:1

Since Satan is seeking to confuse us on the subject of what happens when we die, what is God’s position? God says that when we die we enter into a state of being that the Bible calls a sleep. John 11:1-14; I Corinthians 15:15-18; 20,51. God says that we do not think, praise God, get involved with anything with life until He calls us from our state of sleep, and calls this the resurrection. I Corinthians 15:51-55; John 5:25-29; I Thessalonians 4:13-17. Without the resurrection there is no communication with those who have been dead.

Satan seeks to confuse this issue and says that we can communicate with the dead. Those who believe in this channel of communication have to negate the Bible and the need for the resurrection. If the dead are alive in the "spirit world" and are able to communicate with the living then the Bible is clearly mistaken. On the other hand if the dead can not communicate with the living, as the Bible says, then all agencies that state that the dead can respond to our prayers and entreaties are of Satan for these thoughts are direct contradictions of the Bible. Each person must evaluate these thoughts, study out these concepts, and make a decision as to who we will believe. I pray that you will take these things seriously enough to read the texts in this study. May God deliver us from all evil.