Noted theologian R. C. Sproul looks at the role of suffering in human life with compassion, sensitivity, and concern for biblical truth. He shows that suffering and dying are a vocation that humans are called to, though only those who put their faith in the risen Christ can have a sustaining hope.

What about life after death? Is there any truth in the idea of reincarnation? Dr. Sproul examines the biblical teaching on the afterlife and shows how it contrasts with reincar-nation and other unbiblical teachings. He concludes that only the biblical view of the resurrection offers any hope of ultimate justice. And he discusses the Bible's images of heaven and how they can do much to produce hope in the believer.

A helpful section of questions and answers follows the main text. Here Dr. Sproul deals with such issues as the fate of suicides, so-called out-of-body experiences, the rightness of trying to avoid suffering, the fate of the stillborn and the aborted, the fate of pets, and attempts at contacting the dead. In his answers he uses, as always, a sane and consis-tently biblical approach.