[0:11]اعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والحمد لله رب العالمين وصلى الله على محمد وال محمد الائمه والمهديين وسلم تسليما السلام عليكم ورحمه الله وبركاته
[0:33]Thank you for joining me here tonight. And we have actually quite an interesting topic that we're going to be going over. And uh what we're seeking to prove to you today is that death in scripture is primarily spiritual, it's referring to a spiritual concept rather than the physical or biological death. And that that spiritual death is actually referring to separation from the word. We also seek to demonstrate that Abraham, peace be upon him, is shown in advance how God resurrects His people through various scriptures that we're going to be going over tonight. And we're also seeking to prove how Israel and the true heirs of Abraham cannot truly die, because they are bound to the Word, or the Caliph of God, who can call them back to life. So let's go over that inshallah tonight. We're going to start off by referring to another short discourse of Hermes from the Corpus Hermeticum, and it's titled That None of the things that exist really perish, and that what we call destruction or death is just change. All right, let's go over it. Hermes starts off and he says, Now, my son, we must talk about soul and body - how the soul is deathless, and how the activity of composing and breaking up the body works. For in truth, nothing that exists really dies. Now, that's that's an important thing that we need to kind of wear as an earring around our ears. Nothing that exists actually dies. There is no such thing as death. The usual meaning of the word "death" doesn't match reality. And if you drop a syllable from the word "deathless" and say "death" instead, you've changed the word, not the truth behind it. So they're trying to say that basically, the meaning that human beings have attached to the word death, it's false. There's a false conception behind it. Death belongs to the idea of destruction, that's what people mean when they say death, something that's destroyed. But in the cosmos, actually, nothing is actually destroyed. If the cosmos is the second God, a living being that cannot die, then no part of this immortal life can truly die either. Can the universe die? We know that Ahmed Al-Hassan said, no, the universe is forever, will always be in existence. And we know also from the words of Hermes that it was made in the image of God. And so, therefore, all things that are a part of it and inside of it can never truly die either. Everything in the cosmos is a part of the cosmos, and most of all, human beings, who are the rational living creatures. First of all, truly eternal and beyond all coming into being, is God, the Maker of all things. So, first is God above the cosmos. Second is the one who exists in His image, the cosmos. God brought the cosmos into being, He sustains it, He nourishes it, and He also made it deathless like a child made by its Father. It lives forever, always free from death. That's one thing that the cosmos itself will never experience. Now, what always lives is still different from what is eternal. So, he wants to emphasize that even though the cosmos is eternal or living forever and does not die, it's still different than God. Because some people say that nature is God. No, no, no, there's a difference. The Eternal was not brought into being by another. And even if you say He was brought into being, then it could not be by Himself; rather, He is always in the act of being, without beginning. For the Eternal, simply by being eternal, is the All. The Father is eternal by Himself. The cosmos has been made eternal and immortal by the Father. So that's a key difference. Cosmos has a creator, it has a starting point, it has a beginning. God, the Absolute Eternal, He doesn't have a starting point and He doesn't have a creator. From the matter that lies below the cosmos, the Father made a single universal body. He compressed it together into a sphere, wrapping it around the living cosmos, a sphere that is itself immortal, and that makes matter also share in a kind of eternity. Then the Father, filled with His ideas (forms), sowed living beings into this sphere and shut them in it like in a cave. His will was to bring life out into every kind of living form. So He enclosed this universal body with deathlessness, so that matter would not want to separate itself from its combination with body and fall back into its own original disorder. For matter, my son, when it was still without bodies, was in a state of disorder. And even now, down here below, it keeps this disordered character, surrounding the rest of the little lives (individual living beings) - that process of growth and decay which people call death. So, basically, he's saying that the universe itself, the cosmos, which God created, He created it from something. And that something was matter in its original state. Its original state is true death. It's true destruction. It's true chaos. When when God grabbed from this matter and put it into a sphere, He put in there He mixed it with order.
[7:18]And order brought forth these life forms.
[7:24]This disorder exists around the lives on earth, because it's a mixture now. The bodies of the heavenly beings (the stars and planets) keep the one fixed order given to them by the Father as their law. This order is kept unbroken through the return (restoration) of each of them to its proper course. For bodies on the earth, their "restoration" is their coming together (composition). Their breaking apart (dissolution) restores them to those bodies or levels which cannot be dissolved - that is, which do not die. So we're all made of parts that cannot die, that are immortal, and we're also mixed with parts that are mortal and can die. So what we call "loss of sense" is really just the loss of sensation, not the loss of the body itself. Now the third kind of life - the human being - is made after the image of the cosmos, and has mind, according to the Father's will, above all earthly lives. Man not only shares feelings with the second God (the cosmos, which is a living being), but also has conception of the first God. Of the cosmos, man is aware through the senses, as of a body. Of the Father, he conceives inwardly, as of a bodiless reality and the Good Mind. Tat asks, So, does this life (the human life) not die? Hermes said, Be silent, my son, and understand: what God is, what the cosmos is, what a life is that cannot die, and what a life is that is subject to dissolution.
[9:12]Understand this: the cosmos is by God and in God; but man is by the cosmos and in the cosmos. The source, the limit, and the structure of all things is God. But humans hate still the changes. We still hate the changes, even if we came to believe that we never truly die. And that we just experience these changes, we still hate them. We hate the changes that are brought about by death. And we don't like it, we like that which is constant.
[9:50]And Jesus and the Prophets had a different meaning for life and death. So if we go over now, life and death in the Bible, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we're going to notice something. In Deuteronomy 30 it says, This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. He says, Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life, and He will give you many years in the land He swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
[10:31]So, here, obviously, with God giving us this choice to choose life, he's not speaking about the normal life, that we have come to believe in, or think that that's what life and death means, the biological birth and living and the biological death. In John chapter 5, it says, Very truly I tell you, whoever hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Okay. So, clearly, we're not talking about biological death. John 3, Whoever believes and obeys in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them. Now, life and death is being attached to a person, an individual. A messenger from God. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. First John. So now we have life and death being correlated with feelings of love or hatred towards our fellow believing brothers and sisters. And this is the testimony: first John, God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life, whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. So whoever has the Messenger has life, whoever doesn't, doesn't. But Jesus told him, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Okay, so life is in following Jesus, following that messenger from God, that God in Deuteronomy said, you have a choice to follow me, to find me. What about in the Quran? Is it similar? We have in the Quran chapter 8, Oh believers, respond to Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. Okay. So now it seems that the Bible, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, they're all agreeing on the fact that there is a real different meaning to life and death than that which we experience or all people experience. And the Quran says, Nor are the dead and the living equal. Indeed, Allah alone makes whoever He wills hear, but you, O Prophet, can never make those in the graves hear your call. So now we're speaking about a parable here, where in God's eyes those who are in the grave are not those who are buried, but those who refuse to hear the word of God. Those are the ones that are dead.
[13:30]And the Quran chapter 6 it says, Can those who had been dead, to whom We gave life and a light with which they can walk among people, be compared to those in complete darkness from which they can never emerge? That is how the misdeeds of the disbelievers have been made appealing to them. So now even clearer, disbelievers are compared to those who are absent of life or those who are dead. And the Quran says, He brings forth the living from the dead, and the dead from the living. And He gives life to the earth after its death. And so will you be brought forth from the grave. And here in this verse we have in the interpretations of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, that the meaning of this verse is that a believer can give birth to a non-believer and a non-believer like Abu Bakr can give birth to a believer like Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. So, what about us? Can we bring forth the dead from their graves? I mean, we know now that there's a true life and a true death, but what about the biological life and death? We still we still want to answer that question is that possible to resurrect somebody from the grave? I think that was a question that Abraham contemplated. In a very important verse from the Quran, in Surat al-Baqarah, verse 260. It mentions this incredible story here.
[15:07]It says, And remember when Abraham said, My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead. He wants to know. He said, meaning God said, Do you not believe, Abraham? Abraham said, yes, but I ask so that my heart may be at rest. God said, then take four of the birds and draw them close to yourself; then place a part of them on every hill; then call them - they will come rushing to you. And know that Allah is Almighty, All-Wise. That's a fascinating verse and it really doesn't give you any more details in the Quran concerning this particular case. Now, when you go to the narrations of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, they mention that Abraham took four birds. And he basically cut them up into pieces and he mixed their pieces together. He mixed the feathers together along with the meat, with the blood, with the wings, with the legs, with the claws, everything he mixed together. And then he went and he put them on the different mountains and then he called to them and they all came rushing to him, flying back to him. And this is an incredible story, and it reminds us, actually, very much so of a particular story, although it's a little bit different, differently narrated in the Bible.
[16:42]In Genesis chapter 15, and that is the Lord's covenant with Abram, or Abraham. It says, After this, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your very great reward. But Abram said, Sovereign Lord, what can You give me, since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir. Well, the first thing that we would like to point out is that you have God posing the question to Abraham, Did you doubt? That's in the Quranic verse. And here also, in Genesis, it seems like Abraham is doubting a little bit on whether or not he's going to have any children. So, you have that in common. Then the word of the Lord came to him, and he said, This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir. He took him outside and said, Look up at the sky and count the stars - if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.
[18:03]Abraham believed the Lord. Just like in the first story, he says, no, I just want my heart to be at peace. He believes. And he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it. But Abram said, Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it? How can my heart be at peace? So the Lord said to him, Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon. Okay. So now we have birds appearing, just like the other story. Here's two, the other one had four and we have three other animals. Abraham brought all of these to him, he cut them in two and he arranged the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, Know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, meaning Egypt. And that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and will be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
[20:04]On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. Okay. So here are the themes, the elements that were in there. And obviously, God was establishing a covenant with Abraham. Back in the day, when they used to establish covenants with one another, strike deals, they used to sometimes do it in this fashion. They would take animals and they would slaughter them right down the middle. To where you would have half of the body on this side, half of the body on the other side. And the blood would flow inwards in the middle. And then the two people that are making the contract would walk right down the middle of the aisle together.
[20:56]And sometimes holding hands, as if to say, if I ever break this covenant, or this contract, may I be killed and split in half like these animals.
[22:04]So, we have here the story of Abraham, which has an inner and an apparent. And the story involved the dead, the scattered, the exiled, those who are lost in different places, and their obedience to the word of Abraham. He made the birds lean towards him, obey him, know him. He trains them to listen to him, the Caliph of God. And he cuts them up and he scatters them. And then he calls them forth and they listen to him from the other side.
[22:49]We have the same thing taking place in the story of Ezekiel in the Valley of the Bones.
[22:59]All of those bones, through one word from Ezekiel, were resurrected once again. And God tells them that in this same way, he's going to resurrect Israel. We have the story of Jesus also, the word of God, who is able to resurrect the companion Lazarus.
[23:34]That's what's actually what what Ezekiel was talking about. That's what God was showing Ezekiel. That's what God was showing Abraham. He's showing them the Raja, the return. They were asking about this great matter, the matter when they and the rest of the prophets and the messengers and the saints, all those who were killed, the people of the Wilaya, about them returning back to life. And finally, we have here the story of Lazarus.
[24:06]Now, we're going to go over this and we're going to kind of hone in on a few details, because we still want to know about a physical resurrection, is that possible, too? Now, a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick. When He heard this, Jesus said, this sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days, and then He said to his disciples, Let us go back to Judea. But Rabbi, they said, a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back? Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light. After He had said this, He went on to tell them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up. His disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better. Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him. Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than 2 miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she replied, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world. After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside, the teacher is here, she said, and is asking for you. When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him, He asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, See how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?
[28:43]Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Take away the stone, He said. But Lord, said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.
[29:08]Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, Take off the grave clothes and let him go. Then the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?
