Bible Teaching by Wanda Ritter

Heaven and Hell

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. Psalm 139:7-8

Last week I shared about what Grace meant because it is the beginning of our Christian life.  Today I share about the end of life.  It is either Heaven or its Hell.  There are no other options. There is no ‘in-between’ place.  During Grace and death a lot of thing happen to us.  Some things are good and some things are bad, but remember this, “Who you are today is who you want to be.”

You may disagree, but it is still the truth.  Day in and day out, you have to make choices.  If you wish you were someone else, you will have to make different choices.  Let me say it this way.  If you wish you were a Christian but you aren’t, you’ve made the choice not to be one.  If you want to be a wonderful husband or wife, find out what would make you be that way. 

This is not hard to become who you want to be, but it does take action on your part. From today on, you will be headed toward the end of your life.  Will that be in Heaven or Hell?  I will try to explain the difference if you don’t already know.  “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”  Hebrews 9:27.  Every person who is alive today will die at some time. No one can escape death, so it is important that you understand what happens next.

Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Only those who believe in God and understand His Son, Jesus, who came to earth from heaven to die so we might be forgiven for our sins, will go to Heaven when they die.  Those who go to heaven will never be sick or in pain again. They will see those that they loved when they lived on earth, if they were ‘saved’.  We will be surrounded by angels who take care of us. You will no longer age and will be able to do amazing things.  God has things planned for us that are too wonderful to describe. There will never be any sorrow or sadness and all tears will be washed away. This is a very short description of a life to come which will be eternal love and joy.

Now, let’s look at Hell!  Hell is also eternal.  It is a place of eternal fire that never stops burning.  It is a place of torment and anguish with no hope of escape. If you are in Hell, you will finally know the love of God of which you will never have a part. I don’t want to spend too much time describing Hell and the Lake of Fire.  I believe you can plainly understand it from the description I gave to you. 

Jesus tells the story in Luke 16:24-26 of two men who died. One was a rich man, and the other was a beggar, Lazarus who was in Heaven. The rich man was in Hell and he begged Father Abraham who was in Heaven to have mercy on him, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. “But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” 

Jesus was using this as an example to show that once you have died, and if you went to Hell, you are still aware of pain and anguish, but are not able to reach Heaven. As I said last week, this is real and if you want to gamble on everything coming out all right, it is your choice. 

Listen, I’m not ready to leave my loved ones; I want God to use me as much as he wants; and when my time is up, my heart is ready to go with him.  God already knows our time; our days and years are numbered.  There is a time to live and a time to die.  God loves me and has a place prepared for me in Heaven.  I am assured of this because “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” 

Do you believe that Jesus loves you so much he died on the Cross for you?  This is so simple it seems hard to believe, but it’s true.  As I continue with this series, I pray that you will get this whole thing and accept the fact that Jesus is waiting to hear from you.  Don’t try to make something harder than it is.  Here are the steps; 1) The grace of God is available now; 2) while you are still alive, you need to make the decision on where you will spend eternity; 3) what you can do about it right now.

The next part is “There is Only One God”.  How can we know that for sure?  If you don’t know, that’s a good place to begin; there are several reasons to accept that and that’s for next week.  I challenge you to go back over what I have written; get it firmly in your mind.

Hang on, there is more to come!