50 Years Building His Kingdom - Far Eastern Bible College

The Mystery of Death
(The uncompleted sermon by Mr Chew
Fook Wah, FEBCer, on the afternoon of
March 20, 1985 before he was suddenly
called to glory)
BEING A HEATHEN and an
“idolator of idolators” for 57 years,
I have noticed the greatest fear
amongst the Chinese is death, and after
death, what This is what I intend to share
with you this evening. Of course when
witnessing to the unsaved, many other relevant
factors will come to mind, such as
life is short, eternity is long, sin is black,
hell is certain and heaven can be yours, etc.
From experience, I never try to apply all
these points to witness to one individual;
it depends on his/her personal needs and
response. Don’t try to use a large bunch of
keys to open one lock; just use only the
right key.
The Bible tells us that “it is appointed
unto men once to die”. This nobody will
dispute but all will agree to. The big question
that confronts us is “After death,
what” Death is a dark mystery that faces
each one of us. King Solomon said long
ago, “There is no man that hath power over
the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath
he power in the day of death: and there is
no discharge in that war. . .” (Eccl 8:8). No
one is exempted from facing that final conflict
with the “King of Terrors”.
The Chinese have proverbs which
express fear and perplexity in the face of
death. One saying goes like this: “A troubled
life is better than a peaceful death”
( ). It is better to live
to face a sea of troubles than to die peacefully.
Another wise saying is, “Death is not
the conclusion of things”
( ). Those who want to
kill themselves will soon find out that death
does not end all their troubles. After death,
what The thought of that undiscovered
country where no traveller ever returns
from makes us all cowards. We fear death,
mostly because of the dark mystery that
enshrouds it, hiding from our eyes the nature
of that fearsome “something” that lies
beyond the grave. What is it
“If a man die, shall he live again”
(Job 14:14). This was Job’s question asked
more than fifteen hundred years before
Christ. It is a question that still haunts us
today in this twentieth century. What happens
to us when we die I am not referring
to our physical bodies; we know that answer
too well. I mean what happens to the
real persons who live in our bodies We
all feel that our bodies are only temporary
dwelling places. The Bible fully agrees to
this as we can see in 2 Peter 1:13-14, where
Peter refers to his physical body as a tabernacle
or tent, like the temporary shelters
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