Grace Vs Soul Sleep

Jesus Taught against the Soul Sleep deception in Luke 16:19-31 because various Jewish and other Sects had adopted doctrines that had rejected belief in the Resurrection.

ESV The Rich Man and Lazarus “There was a Rich Man who was clothed in Purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. At his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the Rich Man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and kicked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the Angels to Abraham’s side.”

At this point someone who is defending the Soul Sleep heresy, will say ‘It’s just a parable of Jesus, it isn’t real.’

This is incredibly insulting to our Lord Jesus Christ, if Jesus used total fabrications to illustrate his parables, then none of them would have any value because they would all be based on lies.

Jesus was talking about what actually happens to people when they die, and he also included a Prophecy about His own Resurrection.

ESV “The Rich Man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”

So the Poor Man was on one side of a Chasm with Abraham, and the Rich Man was on the other side in Hades in torment.

How can your Soul be asleep with no awareness of your surroundings, and at the same time realise that you are being tormented in Hades?

Obviously the Soul Sleep delusion is contradictory of Jesus clear Teaching.

ESV “And the Rich Man called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.”

Here the Rich Man is claiming that he is in ANGUISH in the flame, not blissfully unaware of his surroundings in Soul Sleep.

Did the Rich Man say, ‘Abraham, you are disturbing my Soul Sleep, I don’t care what Lazarus is doing on the other side.’?

The only way a Believer could give any credibility to the Soul Sleep deception after reading this Teaching of Jesus would be to be totally dishonest.

ESV “But Abraham said,’Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.”

Abraham asks the Rich Man to remember his lifetime, and how can this be done if he is Soul Sleeping oblivious to everything ?

Obviously the proponents of the Soul Sleep misapprehension have been influenced by some of the Jewish and other Sects that used this deception to counter the Resurrection belief.

This includes the very misleading works of the cult leader Ellen White, who had likely plagiarised the doctrines of these Sects.

ESV, “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”

Also Abraham is explaining something that requires a recognition of both time and space, and you cannot be Soul Sleeping to comprehend this.

ESV “And the Rich Man said,’ Then I beg you father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

So the Rich Man has a very clear and detailed memory of his life and that of his relatives, and if the torment he is currently experiencing, yet he is supposedly Soul Sleeping?

ESV , “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them. And the Rich Man said, No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”

Here the Prophecy about the Resurrection of Jesus is introduced.

ESV, “Abraham said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

This is foretelling the rejection of Jesus by some of the Religious Legalists and Ritualist’s even after He had been Raised from the dead with many proofs and witnesses.

The Ellen White Cult is one of the biggest pedlars of the Soul Sleep illusory nonsense, and this explains why the SDA reject the power and operation of the Holy Spirit.