Heaven and Hell
Today at work I reviewed a book about the existence of heaven and hell. The unassuming Korean woman who wrote the book, felt led by God to communicate that heaven and hell are actual places to a generation who does not know and does not believe. What she described made such an impression on me. A lot of my focus is about life here and now, but I guess I was reminded to lift my eyes and to consider with care what happens next.
Last year I interviewed a man who was killed instantly in a head-on collision with a truck which crossed the median-line and crunched his Ford Escort. Paramedics arrived and declared him dead at the scene. His body was covered in tarp so that onlookers wouldn’t stare. A Baptist pastor came upon the accident scene. Even though he knew this man was dead he rushed to the body and prayed. Despite the scoffing of the paramedics he refused to stop praying. At least ninety minutes after the medical staff had pronounced him dead, God answered the pastor’s prayers and the man came back to life.
The man, a pastor himself, had instantly gone to heaven upon being killed and describes a place beyond human comprehension and human description. It is truly mind-blowing. The only glimpse we have is through the words of Scripture, and this man experienced a taste of that reality. For me his story was actually more a testimony of God’s faithfulness through his gruelling recovery (his body had been totally, totally crunched. 4 ½ inches of his femur had been expelled from his thigh in the collision for example. The details were horrific, and twenty years on, he was unable to take the tube to our interview because his mobility is still affected), but this man actually came back to life from being dead for an hour and a half, and could give an account of the reality of heaven.
So what about hell? Does it even exist? Before I go on to that I have to say I don’t particularly like talking about hell. The reason is, before I became a Christian, the very possibility of hell scared me. I didn’t recognise it as fear at the time, just a huge aversion to the idea of it and of Christians who talked about it. When I think back to those feelings, I can understand why people who are not Christian would be completely put off, and even angered, when the whole issue of hell comes up. The thing is though that as I read this account today it really hit me that the motivation for talking about it is not to upset or scare people, but it actually comes from loving people so much that you cannot live with the idea of anyone being there. Because it is torment. There is such consistency in the witnesses I have read and it is torturous, unbearable and eternal. The Bible refers to the fire that is there (for example in Revelation 20:15) and Jesus uses desperate descriptions about it such as “there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:42).
As I listened online to the author speak about her experiences of both places, the message of choice came through clearly. It is exciting and wonderful that according to the Bible we can make a choice about whether we want to live with God eternally in heaven. God’s heart is that none of us should perish (2 Peter 3:9) and that He loves us so much that He gave His only Son; that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). A major verse too is “that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
It’s a big topic this one and my heart is not to freak anybody out, it is that I was reminded today of how important it is to talk about this stuff. Once, before I ever really connected with Jesus in a real way, a wonderful Christian woman said to me, “Whenever you need Jesus, He is there. There is power in His name. Call upon Him.”
