In the End, Part 1 we talked about how God is going to bring human history to an end with the return of Jesus Christ. In this lesson – the End, Part 2 we are going to look at what the Bible says about Heaven, Hell and the judgments to come when Jesus Christ returns.

What The Old Testament Says About Hell

This may surprise you, but there is actually a lot of information in the Old Testament writings about what happens when someone dies. The concept of Hell was there, but it was never referred to as Hell. The people who lived in the Old Testament era had a completely different way of describing it.

While we call it “Hell,” they referred to it as “the Pit.” Here is an example of that for you from Psalm 55:23 (ESV): “But you, O God will cast them down into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days, but I will trust you.”

We see this again in Isaiah 38:18 (ESV) which says “those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness.” There are actually hundreds of other examples I could share with you, but let’s look at what the New Testament says.

Discussion Questions:

#1. Did you ever think that Hell was sometimes described in the Old Testament writings as “the pit?” (Why or why not?)

What The New Testament Says About Hell

In the New Testament we can read about “the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43 ESV) and “the outer darkness. In the place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30 ESV)

In Luke we are told there are “waterless places” (Luke 11:24 ESV), and in a parable Jesus mentioned a man who asked “Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame” (Luke 16:24 ESV). In John 15:6 (ESV) Jesus spoke about people being “thrown into the fire and burned.”

So according to Jesus Christ, the concept of Hell as a burning wasteland where people can be sent when they die is a very real thing. This really does happen to people, and it is not like they burn up and cease to exist when they arrive there.

No the reality is they will be held in this place of suffering until the end of human history because God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness…” we are told in Acts 17:31 (ESV).

Discussion Questions:

#1. Did you know that Hell is presented as a place where people are left to wait for the wrath of God to come at the end of human history? (Why or why not?)

Judgment Day

When human history is finally over there will be a Judgment Day “and the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.” (Revelation 20:13 ESV)

The only solution to this is for each person who is going to be judged to receive THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS before they die: “as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment“ we are told in Hebrews 9:27 (ESV).

The Judgment God is going to make on that day can be that we have “passed from death to life” (John 5:24 ESV) and as a result God will say “there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” we are told in Romans 8:1 (ESV), which brings us back to the Bible passages I shared in the Message of Christianity.

The first passage is Psalm 32:1-2 (ESV) which says “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit is there is no deceit.”

The second passage is Isaiah 55:6-7 (ESV) which says “Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

According to the Bible, the only thing God has left to be offended by anymore are people who think they can be acceptable to God without Jesus Christ. People are not sent to Hell for Homosexuality or Genocide, they are sent to Hell because they reject the idea that we have a serious problem that can only be fixed by trusting what the Bible says about Jesus Christ.

In John 14:6 (ESV) Jesus Christ said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” but other world religions disagree with this claim by Jesus Christ in one way or another.

Perhaps the disagreement between world religions can be most clearly seen by looking at the concept of the Trinity. In Christianity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit shared the name of “God,” but in Islam believing in the Trinity is punishable by death.

Would the three members of the Trinity accept Muslims into Heaven when they spent their entire lives hating and murdering Christians who knew the truth about God? The reality is that every world religion has something similar to this that keeps the followers of that particular world religion away from God and punishes the members of the Church for helping people come to know the truth.

After the followers of other world religions are judged for rejecting Jesus Christ, we are told in Revelation 20:21 (ESV) that “if anyone’s name was found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” and Revelation 20:10 (ESV) says “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Discussion Questions:

#1. Did you know that the result of the wrath of God which will be poured out at the end of human history will result in people being “tormented day and night forever and ever?” (Why or why not?)

#2. Would the thought of them being “tormented day and night forever and ever” change how you pray for others? (Why or why not?)

#3. Can you think of one thing you would do differently in life that could help rescue other people from being “tormented day and night forever and ever?” (Would you like to share it with us now?)

The New Heavens and the New Earth

But what is God going to do with the Church? What happens to the people who come to know the truth about Jesus Christ and declare their loyalty to Him? In Revelation 21:1 (ESV) the Bible tells us that there will be “a new heaven and a new earth” made for them.

In Revelation 21: 2 (ESV) we are told that this new earth will have a “holy city, new Jerusalem” where the Church will be able to live in peace and have all of their needs met by God. All of the struggles, challenges and problems we are facing right now will seem like a bad dream we woke up from.

Discussion Questions:

#1. How much of your life do you spend looking forward to and preparing to live forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth?

The Bema Judgment

God’s agenda is for the Church to be a group of people who are working to help people overcome the misunderstandings that keep the followers of other world religions away from God. God’s plan to rescue people from the misunderstandings that other world religions have promoted requires us to learn how to be His personal messengers.

This is why Romans 10:13-15 (ESV) says “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? How are they to preach unless they have been sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

So God’s plan is for the local Church to be a place where we can become disciples.

This was the whole point of discipleship: to learn how to read each part of the Bible, and then help others learn how to overcome their misunderstandings they learned from other world religions so they can declare their loyalty to God in the place of whatever belief system they held before they began to hear the Gospel.

What we are learning from each part of the Bible, we are supposed to carry with us into our jobs and business to our co workers and customers who might not have access to what we have learned in the discipleship process.

As we work to build relationships with the jobs and hobbies that we enjoy, the Holy Spirit will give us opportunities to help others come to Jesus Christ. As we learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s guidance to share The Message of Christianity with the people we have build relationships with at our jobs and in our homes with our children or with our neighbors God will set aside rewards in Heaven for our obedience.

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” we are told in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (ESV).

So the Holy Spirit of God is constantly working to give you opportunities to talk to others as “ambassadors of Christ” who can invite others to believe the Message of Christianity, and when our efforts on earth are done under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we will be rewarded for it.

When all of this is over, Jesus Christ is going to gather up the members of the Church who lived in every generation, and taking them one at a time to be the guest of honor in the Kingdom of Heaven and introduce each one of us saying something like this: “God rescued 300 people from Hell who are in Heaven today because of you, well done!”

There are also going to some members of the Church who Jesus Christ is going to talk to by saying that “No one was rescued from Hell and brought to Heaven by God because of you. There are actually 5,000 people I had to condemn to Hell because of how you lived your life.”

Paul understood this and warned us about this in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 (ESV):

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

The people who “suffer loss, though he himself will be saved” are the reason that Revelation 21:4 (ESV) says God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes” that a lot of Christians will be crying when they hear Jesus say something like this: “five people I wanted to rescue are not in Heaven because of you.”

Jesus warned us about this in Luke 12:47-48 (ESV): “And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to His will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”

So every choice we made in life that made it harder for God to rescue the people around us will receive a “beating” as we become able to see the consequences of the choices we made in our lives. While members of the Church are being overwhelmed by the pain of all that, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4 ESV) and then we will be with the Lord forever.

Amen.