Is there really a heaven and a hell? - The Big Questions (Week 4)

Is heaven and hell real? Many of us have heard about these places our entire lives, but it can still raise big questions about whether they truly exist. Many of us wrestle with questions about eternity. 

Listen as Pastor Andrew Strand walks through what the Bible says about heaven and hell in Week 4 of our series, The Big Questions. In this message, we explore what Scripture and why it matters for our lives today.

Transcript

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Well, I'm excited for today. We're going to be in uh Revelation chapter 20. And so if you have your Bible or your device, go ahead and open up there. We are in the middle of a series called The Big Questions. And over the last several weeks, we have been exploring some of the bigger questions that revolve around faith. And I think that it's interesting to think about this topic of questions. Jesus was asked many questions. In fact, if you look throughout the gospel accounts, you'll see that he was asked somewhere in the range of 307 questions. And what had to be so incredibly frustrating at times was he would often in turn ask a question himself. And so you know the disciples had to be incredibly frustrated at times. Just tell us the answer. In fact, many people think that he only answered three questions directly. But I think that questions are a good thing for us. And for those of you who would say, hey, I'm just here exploring, uh, keep asking questions. And so in this series, we have addressed uh some of the bigger topics around faith, like did the resurrection really happen? Uh, we've talked about the problem of evil, we've talked about the reliability of the Bible. And today we're gonna answer the question: Is there a heaven and a hell? And I approach this topic uh with a holy and healthy fear. This is a difficult topic uh that elicits a lot of strong opinions and feelings. And guess what? Uh, some of you may even disagree with some of the things that I have to say today. And if that's you, I want you to feel free to email me at chris.davis at midcities. Just kidding. But it is a interesting and difficult topic. And honestly, um, there is a lot that we don't know about the afterlife. But I do believe, in my opinion, the Bible is pretty clear about some key truths that we see in the scriptures, and so as we approach this topic, uh, it's natural to have questions, it's also natural uh in our mind's eye to begin to think of uh the names or the faces of family members and of friends and of people who are in our office or live on our street who do not know Jesus. It's natural for us to think about scenarios like what about this and what about this and what about this. And so we approach this topic today with a holy fear and with great humility. And we lean into what we do know. And this is what we do know the truth around God's character. We know the words of Jesus, and finally, we understand there's an urgency to preach the gospel. And so today we're gonna be in Revelation chapter 20. We begin with the end in mind. In verse 11, it says, Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. And from his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. And then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. This is the word of the Lord. Today I want to uh start our time with a bit of an apology. I know that there are some of you that are in here today that are new to church, and maybe you're new to following Jesus, and um, some of us just candidly we are scared of this topic. Because maybe our only experience around the topic of heaven and specifically the topic of hell is this it's angry Christians who have screamed at us or have screamed about somebody that we know, people who say, repent, turn to Jesus or burn? And since we are in a series uh about questions, uh I want to ask the question the question if humans are made in God's image, is this what God is like? Is this what Jesus is like? Is Jesus sort of kind of like this right here? I saw that. And of course, on some level he did. He sees it all. But is God angry, eager to send people whom he created, who are made in his image, who he knows more intimately than they know themselves? Is he just waiting there with his hand on the metaphorical trigger for the moment that they die so he can send them to fire and brimstone and send them to hell? Well, I don't think so. God's character is uh quite complex. Duh. He's God. He's the incomprehensible, unfathomable, unconceivable, mind-boggling creator of the universe. He's the one who exercises all wisdom and knows the heart of every man, woman, and child you think your spouse is complex, get to know God. You can't put him in a box. And yet, as we read through the whole Bible, as we read through the scriptures, we get a view into the character of God. This is why you should read it. This is why uh you should spend time getting to know him. He's really cool, actually. And as we read the scriptures in context, knowing that much of the scripture is written in a very different context, in a very different culture than you and I live in today, we know this is true, that God is God. He does not change. And that people, on some level, though the people that we read about in the text, they are also are living in a different context and a different time than you and I are living. People are people. And people are often messy and complex themselves, right? Moses, he was uh he was the leader of one of God's greatest missions, and yet he dealt with incredible insecurity. Ruth, uh Ruth was uh both maybe a uh she was both maybe a virtuous woman, but also quite possibly was scandalous. I don't know. And then there's Peter. We're not even gonna go into Peter, we don't have time for that. But if we're going to consider the questions that revolve around heaven and hell, we have to get to know God's character. And if we want to know the character of God, I think one of the most helpful passages for us to explore is from the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 33, we find that Moses and God have this developing friendship. Uh, it's an incredible friendship that they are they are uh getting to know each other. Moses is getting to know God, and we see that God has rescued his people from the Egyptians. He has led them into the desert, and he is partnering with Moses, and they're at the foot of Mount Horeb. And Moses, as I mentioned, has this really incredible friendship uh that he is developing with God. And Moses comes to God and he goes all Jerry Maguire on him and he says, Hey, who's coming with me? And God says, Well, my presence is coming with you. That's all you need. I got you, bro. And so Moses says this in Exodus chapter 33. He says, I know you by name, and have found, and you uh you have found favor with me. If you're pleased with me, teach me your ways. I want you to say this with me, so I may know you, and continue to find favor with you. And then I love this part. Moses says, Remember, hey, don't forget, uh, that this nation is your people. And so Moses is getting to know the character of God. And God says, Okay, you got my presence, you need anything else? And Moses boldly says, Hey, show me your glory. And God's like, sorry, can't go there, right? You will die. But I can show you my backside, and I can tell you who I am. And so in Exodus chapter 34, we start to be here and start to understand God's character. It says, And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generation. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read this passage, I feel a bit conflicted. Anyone else in here feel that? There's a healthy tension that we should feel in this passage. There are some things that I like. And my guess is that you would relate to this. Here's the things that as I read this passage that I like that God is compassionate, that God is gracious, that God is slow to anger, that He is maintaining love to thousands, that God is also one who forgives wickedness, and He is one who forgives rebellion, one who forgives sin, and my favorite one, one who punishes the guilty people not named Andrew and Allie. But then there's the things that I wrestle with. As I read the end of that passage, that the things that I wrestle with is my guilt being punished, the guilt of people that I love being punished, that my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids have to deal with my choices. And we feel the tension of this passage. And if you're like me, my guess is that you often tend to focus on the second third of that passage. We don't tend to read and lean into the first two-thirds of it, which tells us all about how God is, that He is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, that He forgives wickedness, but we tend to focus on the second third of that passage. And because it makes us uncomfortable, we start trying to find ways around it. And I think the same is true when it comes to the topic of heaven and hell. We'll talk about heaven some, and but what we really want to know, what we've really been asking all week is like, hey, is he gonna talk about hell and he's gonna tell us who's going to hell? And so we try to find ways around it. Reminds me uh sort of a store of a story that Allie sent me this week. As I get a little bit older, I'm in my mid-40s now. Uh, I find myself uh hating to check bags. Anybody else, when you go to the airport, you just hate to check bags? Yeah, some of us. Uh see, some of it has to do with uh just practicality. Like I don't want to have to go and wait, you know, in line, and then I don't want to have to wait for it to come around again. And then there's of course the economical side now. What do you do in Southwest? You're killing us, right? But the but the truth of the matter is that it's a deal that it just kind of irritates me. And so I try to find every which way around it. Uh sort of like uh a Florida man that I read about this week. Uh, a Florida man who was stopped and then detained at the Jacksonville airport after, listen to this, the body scanner showed a density reading inconsistent with a human being. Derek Muton, go ahead and put that picture up there for me. Derek Muton uh was stopped and detained as he passed through airport security in Jacksonville because he was wearing 11 shirts and four pairs of shorts. And uh officials at the TSA later found out that he was estimated to be wearing 19 pounds of clothes. This man had a plan. He got to the airport two hours early, and his shirts were layered thinnest to thickest, with collars visible, as you can well see right here, fanned out in a decorative pattern. Muton described the collar arrangement as unintentional, but he appreciated the feedback. His four shorts uh were worn simultaneously, each waistband rolled to distribute the pressure evenly, and he said he had lost the feeling in both shoulders by the time he reached the security line. When asked if he was warm, he said he had stopped registering temperature after the third shirt. And my favorite part, he had actually gotten away with this twice before. You see, Derek didn't like the way things were set up. He was not considering why things were set up that way, uh, much less the safety and security of himself and those who are sitting in the plane around him. And I have to wonder if this is often how we approach things that we don't like in the scriptures. We look for ways around them because they aren't comfortable and they don't land on our terms. And when we talk about heaven and hell, we have to understand what the Bible says about it. And we start, as we've already done, with the character of God, that yes, he is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, and he is a forgiver of wickedness and rebellion and sins, but he is also just that God is just and he is a righteous judge. And we feel that tension in the scripture that we read in Exodus chapter 34, and we will see that tension all throughout the scriptures, never more than maybe in the life of Jesus. So we may ask the question then what did Jesus have to say about heaven and hell? Well, he actually talked about it a good bit. Uh, he starts at the beginning of his ministry in Mark chapter 1, starting in verse 15, it says, and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel, meaning that eternity starts now. Eternity starts now, that God's kingdom is already present, and yet it is still to come in its fullness. And right now we just get a glimpse of it. Sometimes we get a really special glimpse when we're standing uh at the foot of the uh of an ocean, maybe looking at a mountain. Uh, no matter where we live in the world, no matter what country or what government we're living under, we are already living under the kingdom of God, under the Most High King. And as we look through the Old Testament, as we look into the New Testament, we'll see that what Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy chapter 30 is still true today, that there are two paths. There's the path that leads to life, and the path that leads to death. And living under God's wisdom and God's ways, living under the ways of the most kind and generous and grace-filled and merciful, all-wise counsel of the Almighty God, it will lead to abundant life. This is what Jesus tells us. But the opposite is also true. That there is a path that leads to death, and people choose that path every day. They choose it. You can literally be living in hell on earth. Some of you are like, Yep, I know that. I know that life. We sat down with him, we heard his story. Um, it was heartbreaking. He was living in hell on earth. And there were so many choices that had led to death. And we could hear it in the brokenness. But I believe that eternity starts now, that we wake up every morning and we can choose to run to abundant life with Jesus, or we can choose to live according to my wisdom and my ways. And the Proverbs tell us in Proverbs 14, 12, it says this that there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to, say it with me, death. And this is where we are headed, outside of the mercy and grace of Jesus. And so we return to our text today that we began our time with, Revelation chapter 20. It says, And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. Paul writing to uh the church in Rome, in Romans chapter 3, he says that all are sinful and have fallen short of the glory of God. Every single one of us. And he goes on to say in Romans chapter 6 that the wages of that sin. Maybe you've heard this illustration before, but when you think about uh your wage, when you show up to work and uh you, you know, after two weeks or however often you get paid, it's a wage, it is exactly what you have earned. And Paul says the wages of our sin is actually death, separation from God. And this is the moment where some of us in here might say, Okay, so are you saying that because of uh my choices, that I'm going to hell? And the scripture would seem to say in this moment, yes. Now you may be bad at me. I'm just telling you what the scripture seems to say in Romans chapter 6 that the wages of our sin is death, eternal separation from the God who created us and who loves us. But praise God, that scripture doesn't stop there. It says, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. See, we can choose abundant life. Or we can keep rejecting the truth. I heard the story of uh Tim Tebow's dad this week. Uh he passed away, and I read uh on on Tim Thibault's social media uh this complex uh but beautiful post about his father. Because Tim Dad had known the Lord for a very long time and had served. I think he had even been a missionary overseas, and he went to be with the Lord after a long battle of some sickness. And Tim was just saying, Man, I miss my dad. But I know where he is. There is no doubt in my heart that he is with his heavenly daddy, who sent Jesus to pay for all of his sins. And yes, the family mourned, but it was the kind of mourning that 1 Thessalonians talks about. We mourn with a different kind of hope. And I think this is the truth that we see in Scripture. We see that we will be judged by what we have done or what Jesus has done. We will be judged. There will be a judgment day, and we will be judged either by what we have done, what we read in Revelation chapter 20 earlier, or God will look down and we see in Romans chapter 3, he'll see this. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. And Jesus is pretty clear on those who reject him. He not only affirms what Moses said and what Joshua said and what Isaiah said and what his cousin JTB John the Baptist said, he doubles down, telling parables so that people could understand in Matthew chapter 13 about the sower and the weeds and the mustard seed and the treasure and the pearl and the net. And once again he tells it in you know that as uh the disciples were sitting there, they're like, I don't understand what is going on. And so Jesus has to clarify for them. And then again in Matthew 25, he tells a much clearer picture. It's actually sort of similar to the Revelation 20 passage that we read earlier, and he speaks pretty clearly about hell, or what he often would call Gehenna, which is a real valley outside of Jerusalem, often related to fire and destruction. And we don't have time to go into all the details of what happens when we die, of the different views of hell. You can go research that out yourself, but I do believe there are a few things that I am sure of. One, there will be a judgment day. This is what the scriptures tell us. Two, hell is real and it is separation from God. Number three, God will create a new heaven and a new earth. That's what we see in Revelation. And then finally, those covered by the sacrifice of Jesus will spend eternity with God. And it will be far more beautiful than you can even imagine. Some of you are saying, I want to read more about heaven. There's a great book out there by Randy Alcorn, just called Heaven. You can hop on Amazon and get it. Is there a hell? I believe there is. I believe there is. And so this naturally leads us to the questions that many of us have. What about my aunt? She was a good person, she was kind to people, she served in her community. Is she going to hell? Well, I would just ask the question, is she covered by the blood of Jesus? And I don't know her heart. We may ask the questions, what about the people who live on a remote island and they never ever had a chance to hear? We may ask the question, what about uh my child or a child that I know that passed at a young age who never had a chance to respond to the gospel? And I say, in those kind of questions, we go back to the character of God. We think about a passage that you may have read before. It's uh a passage right after probably the most well-known passage in all of Scripture, John 3.17 says, For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. So is there eternity with God? Yes, I believe there is. Is there separation from God? For those who perpetually say, No, not interested in that. Yes, I believe there is. So, what do we do? Well, tell you what we don't do. We're not the angry Christians that I talked about at the beginning. That's not who we are. We look at how Jesus interacted with people who were lost and far from God, and we proclaim the gospel boldly. Paul says it is the power of God. We do what Jesus did in Matthew chapter 9, and Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. We boldly proclaim the gospel, my friends. In your family. My aunt's heard it 12 times. Teller 13. Next, we have compassion on people. Compassion, kindness, gentleness. I don't think I've ever heard the testimony of somebody who said, I got yelled at and I came to Christ. Now, can Jesus do anything? Sure he can. But Jesus, Matthew chapter 9, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And finally, we pray. We pray for laborers to go and proclaim the good news. This is what Jesus told us to do in Matthew chapter 9. He said, Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, it's not an issue of the harvest, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. We pray. Like Pastor Daniel said earlier, we keep on praying. We're the kind of people who are knocking on that door at 2 a.m. in the morning for that aunt or that cousin. They're not too far gone. God loves them. And so today, maybe some of you would say, I'm the harvest. I've been terrified of this question because when I have heard somebody tell me about this, I didn't understand God's character. And if that's you today, Leah's gonna come up here in a minute. She's gonna tell you what your next step is. But I want to I want to finish our time today by asking you to stand with me. And I want to pray that the Holy Spirit would empower us, as He did in the book of Acts, to go and proclaim the gospel. I want to pray that we would be a compassionate people. I want to pray that that we would pray like our life and those around us who don't know Christ depends on it. So would you pray with me? God, today we thank you for what your character is. God, that you love people more than we'll ever know. And that your grace is sufficient. So God, would you right now in this room deposit in us an eagerness to proclaim the gospel, an urgency. God, would you open doors for conversations? Father, would you help us to be compassionate with people? And Lord, would you help us remind us to pray for more laborers? God, that we would see an incredible harvest in this community in our nation. And around the world. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.