How does the Bible repeatedly refer to death? John 11:11 Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth,” and then He went on explain, “Lazarus is dead.” So how did Jesus call death? Sleep. Matthew 27:52, "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose." I throw in Psalms 13:3, "Consider, hear me, O Lord my God, enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." So here you can see, I wanted to put that additional passage in there that they do sleep, they do die.
There are approximately a dozen resurrections in the Bible. The big question everybody wants to know is, "What happens when you die?" How long was Lazarus dead? Four days and Jesus rose him from the grave. Now, did Lazarus have to be in dead for four days? Let's suppose you go right to heaven as so many people think when you die. Lazarus died, he's up in heaven, he's checking out his new mansion, singing with the angels, walking on golden streets, checking out his new wings and all of a sudden after four days, poof, he's back in a grave wrapped up like a mummy in grave clothes and he says," Thank you Lord." Would you be grateful for that?
Or did you hear Lazarus make a comment and say, "Lord, I was down burning in fires of hell, thank you so much for rescuing me"? Don't you think that when right to reward a death before the judgement of the resurrection, there’d be some comments from one of the 12 people who were raised from the dead in the Bible? You know what they all say about it? Zero, silence, nothing, no commentary on the biggest question.
If anybody in the world today had been dead for four days and came back to life, every news anchor in the world, they’d fly with helicopters, they’d get there any way they could. Lights would be blazing and they would put the microphones in their faces and say, "What happened?" right? Am I right?
The Bible on this subject, they said nothing. You know why? What did we learn? The living know they'll die but the dead know not anything.