I don't want to address your issues with the Catholic Church but I would like to give you some...... food for thought, on your ideas of sleeping
until the second coming.
I want you to consider this particular verse in the Gospel of Thomas:
"The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. "
You know in scripture where it says, that a follower of Jesus told him, he would be right along, as soon as he buried his father? What did Jesus tell
him? Let the dead bury the dead. Do you understand that if a person is spiritually dead, they will die. You must attain enlightenment from him to
live and if you had attained it, this thread wouldn't exist because your eyes would be open and you would see spiritually and you would no longer be
blind but you would be walking in his light.
Now let's relook at scripture you quoted from the Bible.
"Psalms 13:3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;"
Do you understand that David did not want to sleep, the sleep of death? He wanted the Lord to enlighten him to the other possibility.
You said:
"In the book of John we find a situation where Jesus Himself refers to the dead as being asleep. John 11:11-14 ...Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I
go, that I may awake him out of sleep."
In John 5 Jesus says:
"I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also
does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. FOR JUST AS
THE FATHER RAISES THE DEAD AND GIVES THEM LIFE, even so the Son GIVES LIFE TO WHOM HE IS PLEASED to give it."
Now who are the people that Jesus saw God raise from the dead? Jesus learned to raise the dead somewhere.
Let me peel the curtain back for you a bit more...... Moses was at the transfiguration. You can accept Peter, James & John's testimony, that he
appeared with Elijah and then they disappeared ..... and if they suddenly disappeared - where in the world did they go? Or are you saying you don't
believe their testimony and they all three experienced a shared hallucination? If you believe they really appeared, then they obviously came from
somewhere we can't see but it's a place they also returned to.
Remember - only Enoch and Elijah were translated into heaven, escaping physical death - Moses on the other hand walked to his own funeral - yet he
lives because he was seen by witnesses at the transfiguration.
Jesus said 'before Abraham was, I am...." Jesus said God is Spirit and he told the Sadducees, 'But about the resurrection of the dead - have you
not read what God said to you, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." Even in Revelation, John
bared witness to cognizant souls under the altar crying out to God to avenge their deaths.
It's obvious to see from scripture, that something is going on behind the curtain. The whole NT is about making things on earth like they are in
heaven. It's why Jesus said that from John the Baptist's days and Jesus' - the kingdom of heaven has been "forcefully advancing and forceful men
lay hold of it." This kindgom that cometh is spiritual and will merge with the physical at the renewal of all things. Comprehend?
You then said this:
"Before going on, I must interject as to the main reason Jesus calls death "sleep" here. It is because He knows that everyone will awaken one day
out of death as we awaken each morning from sleep. Some will awaken to receive eternal life, and others will awaken to be destroyed in eternal
damnation."
Did you read carefully what Jesus said to Martha, Lazarus' sister?
She's devestated by her brothers death. Jesus says to her "Your brother will rise again."
She said: "I know he will rise again IN THE RESURRECTION AT THE LAST DAY."
I can just see Jesus standing there looking at her saying: "MARTHA I AM THE RESURRECTION...... and life."
Then he says: "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;"
But consider carefully his clarifying next words: "and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."
Eternal life is here and now - it's what he brought and he gives it freely. There is a huge difference in believing v's living and believing.
Please don't let other people think for you. He made you much better than that!
I started my post to you with the Gospel of Thomas and I'm going to finish with it.
"When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"
Son, if you want to sleep, then by all means, sleep. But if you want to know the power of God you need to wake up and take responsibility for
yourself.... and your life. He has handed everyone the key to the kingdom but everyone is either blinded, lazy or set in their ways, and they think
they got it all figured out, when in reality, they wouldn't know the "truth" if it came up and bit them on the ass. A person should not be ashamed
of being spiritually blind. Jesus came to help us understand the darkness we live in. The blind can't lead the blind - but a person who sees can
help others. I care, like he did and I'm only trying to help.
Now are you dead or are you alive? Do you believe in Jesus? Or do you live and believe in Jesus?