Lost: What happens when I die?
(7 downloads)Thursday, Jun 07, 2007
Luke 16:19-31
What will happen to me after I die? Is there a heaven? If so, how can I get there? Is there a hell? If so, how can I avoid it? If there is not, what is the point of living and dying anyway? You hover on the brink of consciousness hoping for answers, but no bright glow comes, no great tunnel of light appears, no angels sing, and no devils roar. In fact, the silence is so overwhelming that your heart beat is a deafening sound. Since life after death cannot be scientifically ascertained, and since heaven and hell, if they exist cannot be observed from our vantage point on earth, what really happens when we die? And how can we be prepared.
The Rich Man and Lazarus
Jesus tells this story as though he knows the people involved
A wealthy man – he has five brothers
A beggar named Lazarus
The patriarch Abraham
Abraham was a real person, the others may be as well
They teach us something about the afterlife
The poor man went to a place called Abraham’s bosom
A place of good things
A place of conscious comfort
The Rich man died and went to a place called Hades
A place of thirst without expiration
A place of excessive temperature
A place of no mercy
A place of conscious torment
A Primer on Hell
Hades–used of the grave, the underworld, death & hell
Sheol – Is the match for the Greek word Hades
Tartarus –the place of fallen angels 2 Peter 2: 4
the Bottomless Pit - equivalent to the Abyss or Tartarus Rev 19
Gehenna –the word for eternal hell fire
Mark 9:43 - A fire that will never be quenched
Mat 8:12 –outer darkness weeping and gnashing of teeth
Mat 25:41, 46 – a Place of everlasting punishment
2 Thess 1:9 the unbeliever will receive everlasting destruction
Daniel 12:2 everlasting contempt
A Short History of Hell
The Lake of Fire was created for the Devil and his angels
Until the final judgment, unbelievers are sent to hades
Fallen angels are cast into Tartarus
At the Judgment unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire
What Hell is like – Rev 20 10-
Hell is eternal punishement - 10.
Judgment is final and certain - there is no way out 11-13. .
Judgment is impartial and just - Vs 12-15.
Every person will have an opportunity for his works to be examined. Whoever does not have his name written in the book of life, will be consigned to the Lake of fire. The book of life contains the names of all the saved of all time. Anyone who has but their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior, has his name written there.