Heaven and hell are not ideas tacked onto a religious faith, manipulating people into adherence to some moral code. We should begin by keeping the big picture in mind. Now, back to our question “What are heaven and hell like?” Jesus clearly indicated a population for hell that’s much greater than that of Lost Springs: “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13, NIV). Lost Springs, Wyoming, boasts a population of one.
Often we are led to think that hell is just a bad hair day stretched out for a long time. Gary Larson’s Far Side comics are often hilarious, but what he depicts about heaven, and especially about hell, are just plain wrong. Similarly, let’s shed some extra baggage on hell: Nirvana is where there is nothing and where nothing is grasped. Heaven isn’t a state of mind or a mindless state.In some forms of Eastern thought, people aspire to be liberated from cravings, anger, and afflictive states.Nor will heaven look like what we see in cartoons or movies, where we float on clouds and God is Morgan Freeman. I’m not judging you if you have Precious Moments figurines on your bookshelf or mantle I’m just saying heaven will not look like those. I know that sounds harsh and exclusive, but it’s the truth. Somewhere in the world, between twenty-five and thirty wars are being fought right now. But before we jump into those facts, I’d like to toss some mental stowaways overboard.įirst, let’s make clear what isn’t true about heaven. The Bible tells us a lot about heaven and hell. How do we answer questions our friends have about heaven and hell?.Why are heaven and hell important to us now?.Three considerations should provide us some needed perspective: In this article we want to uncover what is implicit in every page of Scripture and every day of our fleeting lives, and that is this point: heaven and hell, not the here and now of this world, are the ultimate reality. For even when not explicitly referred to, these two realities lie just beneath the words of every page of Scripture.
But they were intended to be the lifeblood that animates it, much as they do the Scriptures. Like a funeral, heaven and hell can be nothing more than the pleasant or not-sopleasant afterthoughts of our Christian life. It’s only then, for a brief open-casket viewing, that we see our frailty and that our myopic tendencies are exposed for what they are: petty and trivial.Ĭould our refusal to talk about death actually be unbelief – doubting that heaven holds a better life for us than this one? Or is it simply a matter of an attention deficit – being captivated by motion and distracted by shiny objects that herd our thoughts toward temporary, fleeting, vanishing things? Why is it that I always notice this at funerals? Why can I never tell anyone I notice this at funerals?įunerals can give us some of the most sobering moments of our lives, the purpose, meaning, and brevity of human existence coming out of the shadows and drawing into sharp focus.
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