Why I Believe in Life After Death, Part 2

Look at your passions, your money, your priority, and your time.

You see, God doesn’t judge people on the basis of their intentions or their emotions. Jesus is fair and loving and kind and no one is going to get a raw deal.

And He also will respect the dignity of every human being, so your deepest yearnings and desires, your real ones, whether it’s more of God or none of God, He says in eternity, that’s what you’re going to get.

The fourth major truth is that every person will spend eternity in heaven with Christ and fellow believers or in hell separated from God forever. Matthew chapter 25, Jesus ends a parable talking about the sheep and the goats. And He says to those who refuse Him, they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Now, God does not desire that any perish. But these are facts. You don’t hear this very often. Jesus talked about hell a lot. He talked about heaven a lot. He talked about judgment a lot. And I’m not sure why, but we don’t talk about it hardly at all.

And yet, we all have this inner sense, this God-awareness that we’re going to have to give an account. What I want you to know is that it’s not God’s desire that any would perish. In fact, the apostle Paul would say, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”

Jesus would say, “Verily, verily,” that’s the old King James. I love it. “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that hears My voice and believes on Him that sent Me has,” present tense, “eternal life and doesn’t come unto judgment but is passed from death to life.”

What I want you to know is that there is a real judgment and this judgment will be forever and ever and ever. And it’s based on how we respond to the Lord Jesus.

I’d like you to just pause for just a minute. I want that to sink in. I’ll confess to you, I don’t think a lot about heaven and hell myself. Not near as much as I need to. But even as I was reviewing and praying through this before I wanted to share it with you, there was one line in my notes, speaking to myself was, “What would happen, Chip, if you actually believed that heaven was as real as it is? What would that do to your priorities, Chip?”

How many of the distractions and the media and the Facebook and the stuff that just gets me distracted and I say, “That’s so trivial.” And what would happen if I believed, what would happen if we believed that there is a heaven and there’s a hell and that our neighbors and our friends and our family, there is a judgment coming. The same Jesus that has said to us, “Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden,” the same Jesus that we’re trusting in and we know that He is our Savior and has forgiven and has been so real – He’s the same Jesus that says, “Depart from Me; I never knew you.”

I’d like you, if you would, even as I continue to speak to think about that one person that you know doesn’t know Christ and make an internal commitment inside that you’re going to pray and then you’re going to initiate some level of relationship to communicate the love of Christ, regardless of how they respond.

Okay, now you want to get to the good news? Because this is a great message. Do you want to know what heaven is going to be like? I can only give you a snapshot. And then I will give you a quick snapshot about what hell is going to be like and then as I promised, for some of you, you’re squirming inside. I can feel it right now.

And you have this sense that, Wowie, man, this is heavy and I think I know what I need to do and I want to respond and a lot of thoughts are going through, you just relax. God, God is going to speak to you.

And here in just a couple minutes after I describe heaven and I describe hell, I want to give you a chance to put your faith in Christ to know that without a doubt, you will spend eternity with Him forever and ever, solely based on what Christ has done for you.

So, let’s get a quick preview of heaven. This is very exciting. First of all, we know that God is there. And that makes it awesome.

Chapter 21 of Revelation, you want to hear a little bit of what it’s like?

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Now, the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them, and will be their God.’”

And listen to this, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain; for the old order has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new. Write this down, for these words are trustworthy.’”

Heaven is going to be a place that has warmth and beauty and light. It’s going to be a place where relationships are wonderful. Can you imagine? No comparison. No envy. No jealousy. Incredible accommodations, right? Jesus is preparing a place. You get a fresh start. You get a new nature. No more struggling with guilt or, I should have done this, or, I shouldn’t have done that.

A new nature, a new body, a new vocation. At the very end of chapter 22, it talks about commerce and cities and works and I believe there is going to be music and culture and jobs. It’s not like floating around on clouds sipping iced tea. Heaven is a very real place.

Think of what the Garden of Eden would have been like if there was never any sin and then think of putting that on spiritual steroids, if you will. And heaven is going to be everything that God originally planned, except exceedingly better because you will have tasted and known what it was like on a fallen earth. You’ll have purpose and rest and protection and commitment and peace. Unbridled joy. Celebration and worship and laughter.

You’ll learn! You’ll grow! You’ll have friendships. You’ll explore the infinite majesty of God. And it will go on forever and ever and ever. There are banquets, there are meals, there are celebrations, there are family reunions, there’s adventure, there’s purpose. And are you ready? There is fulfillment at the deepest level. That’s what heaven is going to be like.

And that’s a lot to look forward to. And as I read through those men and women that have made the greatest impact in the world, they have this very clear picture of a very real heaven with very real rewards that really matters.

And they have this sense that how they live every, single day of their life has a direct correlation to the quality of their experience in heaven. And I’m not there yet, but I want to get there. I want to get to where I really think about heaven and eternity more and more and God would grant me an eternal perspective. Because when you have that, a lot of temptations are not very tempting.

Well, what is hell going to be like? Well, first and foremost, God is not there – 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Punishment and torment, varying degrees of punishment based on people’s culpability in response to the truth. Words like “outer darkness,” “weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth,” and it’s forever.

Now, some of these for sure are metaphors. You can’t have fire with light and darkness. But some of you, some of you have lost a child. It’s a sorrow like no other. Some of you have been betrayed by a mate and you’ve gone through a horrendous divorce. Some of you had a great job opportunity and decided not to take it, and then it turned out awesome and what you realize is regret, regret, regret.

Some of you have been clinically depressed and life was so dark and it felt like there’s no hope. Those are the kind of emotions that are typical of hell. Hell is not a place where people are, “Hey! You got a Bud Lite? Let’s watch a movie!” Hell is not a joke. Hell is a place that God, in response to the dignity of your individual choices said, “If you want your own way, you can have it.”

I think C.S. Lewis aptly said, “There are some who say to God, ‘Thy will be done.’ And there are others who God says, ‘Thy will be done.’” God does not desire anyone to spend eternity apart from Him. In fact, He did not want that so much that Jesus came to die in our place, to pay for our sin, and the Holy Spirit – moment by moment – even at this moment is wooing and drawing and convincing and convicting and saying, “Come! Come! Come! Let Me forgive you. Let Me love you. Get on a path of life with Me.”

Hell is like missing the last train, taking the wrong turn, making the big wrong decision, and then beating yourself up forever, by yourself, alone.

Let me finish with, I think, an important question that needs to be asked and answered: why must there be a hell? First, man’s dignity and freedom. God will not force you to be in company with Him. Love always requires that I have the opportunity to say “yes,” the opportunity to say “no.”

And hell is a place that God has reserved to say, “I so respect your individual choice that if you reject Me, though it breaks My heart, it is a place where you can go to be apart from Me.”

Second, God’s holiness and justice demand a hell. You say, “What do you mean by that, Chip?” Here’s what I mean by that, is that we get soft in our thinking. Can you imagine a heaven where Mother Teresa and Hitler, it’s the same place for both of them? There is not a loving God if there’s not justice.

Can you imagine for those of us that have a family or think of your top three closest friends, someone walking into the room and going: Bam! Bam! Bam! And shooting them and then you’re in the courtroom and they come before the judge and you’re expecting: they have to pay for this.

And the judge goes, “You know, you know, it’s okay. I just think they had a bad day.” And you would say, “Where is the justice? What kind of person are you?” You see, God has to judge sin and there has to be a place for sin to be judged and that’s hell.

The third reason is sin is serious; it demands a hell. Sin is like a cancer that hit the planet through the human race. Sin brought about death. Are you ready? Sin actually caused the Son of God to have to come to live a perfect life, be rejected by the Father, die, rise from the dead. Sin was the reason that God’s great love had to be demonstrated. Price tag for sin is super, ultimately, infinitely high. And so, the judgment for sin is eternal.

Finally, there had to be a hell because evil must be defeated and there needs to be a place for those who have been defeated. The Scripture says that Satan and the demons were thrown into the Lake of Fire.

See, the real question for every, single person on the earth is not just: is there life after death? Most cultures, science, the Bible, anthropology – there’s a lot of evidence that when we die, there is an afterlife. And what the Bible is very clear on is that you will either be judged and spend eternity with your heavenly Father, or you will be judged by Your own behavior as rejecting God and be apart from Him forever.

So, here’s my question: will your eternal future be a blissful adventure or a horrible choice? And I have to believe, I have to believe for many, many, many right now, you want it to be a blissful adventure. And if you’re asking: how can I have that? Can I ask you to bow your head right now and bow your heart?

And I want to pray for you, but this is between you and God and saying words after me does not make a Christian. This is a moment where you say in your heart of hearts, “I have sinned against a holy God. I have done things wrong. And I am going to own that right now and I’m going to ask Him to forgive me and cleanse me and make me His son or daughter, solely based on what Jesus did on the cross in my place.”

And if you want to do that right now and you don’t know exactly what words to use, you can use mine. And you repeat after me, from your heart: “Dear Father, I confess to You right now I have sinned. I have missed the mark. I know I have done lots of things wrong. I actually deserve to be punished. But I thank You that You sent Jesus to take my punishment. Today, I believe that He paid the price for my sin on the cross and I believe that it’s true, because He rose from the dead. I am asking You, will You give me the free gift of eternal life? I choose to trust in Him. And I ask You to fill me with Your Spirit right now. I want to follow You all the days of my life. In Jesus’ name.”

What I want you to know is that God, if you could picture Him leaning over the edge of His throne, that’s what He’s doing. There’s a party going on in heaven because many, many, many, many people have prayed that prayer with me and you meant it sincerely in your heart.

Now, let me encourage you: tell the best Christian you know what you’ve done. Get into God’s Word and find a great church that teaches the Bible, and walk with Him with all your heart. You have an amazing future today and an even more amazing one in the days ahead in heaven. God bless you and keep pressing ahead.