Are Heaven and Hell Real?

 

 

 

Most non-Christians don’t believe in the reality of Heaven and Hell.  Those that do believe often believe in Heaven but not Hell.  In recent Barna Group Polls of those professing to be Christians an interesting trend was discovered.  A huge percentage of Christians believed in Heaven, while a much smaller percentage believed in Hell.

 

So here are the questions that get asked quite a bit.  Are Heaven and Hell real?  Can one be real and not the other?  How we decide the answer on that is based on whether we accept the Bible as the authority on the issue or not.  For our purposes, we will absolutely accept the Bible as the authority.

 

PRAYER

 

I.       What Does The Bible Say About Heaven and Hell?

A.   Heaven

1.                 Dwelling place of God – Dt 26:19

"Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”" (Deuteronomy 26:15, NIV)

a)                We know God is everywhere at once.  He is the only being capable of doing that.  Not even Satan can be everywhere at once.

b)               But Heaven is indicated as his dwelling place; a place of absolute perfection where only the absolutely perfect can be.

2.                 It is a place of holiness – Rev 21:27

3.                 A place of beauty – Ps 50:2

4.                 A place of unity – Eph 1:10

5.                 A place of perfection – 1 Cor 13:10

6.                 A place of Joy – Ps 16:11

7.                 A place for all eternity – Jn 3:15

8.                 It is described with streets of gold, walls of Ivory and Jasper, and many other physical descriptions.

9.                 However it isn’t a physical place as we know it.  It is so far beyond our comprehension that these fantastic descriptions of beauty are simply a way for our temporal minds to simply grasp what it is like.

10.             That’s the problem we have with Heaven and Hell.  How do you describe the essence of what these places are so a human mind can fathom what they are about?

a)                How do you describe an incredible sunset to a person who has been blind all their lives?

b)                How do you describe a beautiful piece of music to someone who has never heard a sound?

c)                 How do you explain a difficult calculus equation to a 2nd grader?

d)                You might get parts of it across, but never the full picture.

e)                 It’s the same way with Heaven.

f)                  When I was in college, I became good friends with a man from Gambia, Africa.  One day they were talking about a snowstorm that was to come soon.  Poor Omar had no idea what to expect.  He couldn’t imagine rain turning to snow and lying on the grown like a blanket.  When the snow hit we took him outside for his first snowball fight.  The whole concept just blew him away even after we tried to describe it to him a few days earlier.

g)                I think that’s what the reality of heaven will be like to us once we finally experience it.

11.             We know we will spend our time there worshipping God –

a)                "Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped." (Revelation 5:11-14, NIV)

b)                It’s hard to get enthused about spending eternity in a worship service.

c)                 You may feel like you do that already!

d)                But I believe we will be so blown away by being in the presence of God, you just can’t help yourself.

B.   Hell

1.                  Hell is pretty much the opposite of everything Heaven is.

2.                 Lake of fire – Matt. 18:9

3.                 Outer darkness – Matt 22:13

4.                 Torment – Lk 16:23

5.                 Eternal – Matt 25:46

6.                 It is not a place you want to spend eternity.

7.                 Worst of all Hell is the absolute absence of God.

a)                Have you ever been deep in a cave where no light penetrates?  Imagine being trapped in that kind of darkness with no hope of finding a way out.  Knowing you will live like that until you finally die.  It would drive you insane.  We need light for survival.

b)                Hell is something like that but instead of finally mercifully dying, it last for all eternity.

c)                 Instead of lacking light it’s lacking THE Light.  God himself.  No trace of his goodness, righteousness, purity.

d)                Only absolute evil and Satan.

8.                 The Bible gives us a brief terrifying glimpse into hell found in Lk 16:22-28 READ

II.    Can You Believe In Heaven and Not Hell?

A.   Today’s thinking

1.                 As I mentioned in the beginning of this lesson, even many Christians don’t believe in Hell.

2.                 We want to only see the goodness of God. 

3.                 To think a loving God would allow people to suffer in Hell is an anathema to many people.

4.                 What we forget is that a loving God has done everything possible to keep us from suffering an eternity in Hell.  Yet, he has also given us a free will to reject every offer of salvation he has offered us.

B.   You can’t have one without the other

1.                 The other thing we need to understand is that for Heaven to exist, by it’s very description, means that Hell must exist.

2.                 If it is absolute purity and no sin can enter into Heaven, then sinful people must end up somewhere.

C.   We had better wake up to the reality of Heaven and Hell

1.                 I believe most Christians don’t believe in Hell.

2.                 If we do, then we are among the most cold and heartless people there are.

3.                 During the Nazi occupation, millions of non-Jewish people turned a blind eye to what the Nazis were doing to the Jews because they didn’t want to get involved.  They would watch in shame as trainload after trainload of human beings were taken to be slaughtered and did nothing about it.  When the rest of the world found out how these people stood by and never said or did anything about it, they were horrified and disgusted.

4.                 Brothers and sisters are we sitting by watching in shame as people around us die and spend eternity in Hell because we don’t want to get involved?

5.                 How will God look upon us when we stand before him at the Judgment?

6.                 How will you feel standing next to a friend, co-worker, relative who learns of their terrible fate and have them turn to you and ask, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

7.                 Heaven and Hell are absolutely real.  Let’s make sure we are doing everything we can to teach those realities to everyone around us.