Heaven: What Happens After We Die?

Dr. Marty Baker / Luke 16:19-23 / October 15, 2006

There will come a time when all of us will face the inevitable. We will cross over from this life to the next. It’s one of those things that most would rather not think about. In fact, it makes us a little nervous. If you are like me, you want to go to heaven, but most of us just do not want to die.

All of us will die at some point. Not only will we die, we will also be confronted with death many times in our life as we see family members, friends, celebrities and leaders cross over. What we believe deep within our heart will make all the difference in how we cope with the reality of death. As far as I can tell, there are four options for what we might believe about life after death:

Ÿ When we die, we cease to exist.

Ÿ When we die, we all go the heaven.

Ÿ When we die, we keep coming back.

Ÿ When we die, we are judged, with one of two possible destinations.

Some of you may say, "So what? Does it really matter?" Yes it does. Understanding what’s ahead shapes the way you live and the way you die.

Today’s message really ties into the message that Kevin gave on heaven two weeks ago. One of our members, Angi Reyes, was in that service. This past week, this forty-year-old wife and mother crossed over. She had a strong faith in God and a deep understanding that cancer may destroy her body, but her soul was in the hands of the Lord.

As I stood in the hospital room with the family, I was reminded of two things: life is precious and the best is yet to come.

Two weeks ago we looked at the eternal heaven and about what that will be like. We learned that the promised destination of God’s people is not up in the clouds somewhere. It does not exist in the fog; it is not a state of mind. Heaven is a literal place; it is a physical place. It’s a place of healing and wholeness. Our bodies will be transformed into bodies that will never again decay or face disease or death. We are going to experience unending joy.

The Bible says that there will be no sorrow in heaven. In fact, God himself will wipe every tear from our eyes. God is going to make all things new.

JOKE

Like I said, “All of us want to go to heaven, but none of us want to die.” I am sure that you have heard of the pastor who found himself wondering whether there were any golf courses in Heaven. He prayed about it and one day his prayers were answered.

The Lord said, "There are many excellent golf courses in Heaven. The greens are always in first class condition, the weather is always perfect and you always get to play with the very nicest people." The pastor said, “This is great news.” The Lord said, “Good, You’ve got a tee time next Saturday.”

Everybody has a heaven story. Did you hear about the two health-conscious guys walking around heaven on their first day there? One turns to the other and says "Wow. I never knew heaven was going to be as good as this!" "Yeah", says the other. "And just think, if we hadn't eaten all that oat bran we could have got here ten years sooner.”

Today we are going to continue this series Imagine with a message called “What happens after we die? None of us have ever been to heaven before so it’s a real mystery. So, we have a lot of questions, don’t we? Like, where do people go the minute after they die? How long does it take to get there? Does a beautiful angel with a British accent take you by the hand and lead you toward the bright light? Those are all valid questions.

Today we are going to look at a story that Jesus told in Luke 16. I believe that this story will give us some incredible insight into what we can expect. After all Jesus is the expert. He has existed from the beginning. He has been a part of creation. He understands what it means to be in Heaven to come to earth to die and to go back again. He understands what he is talking about.

In Luke 16, Jesus tells a story a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. This is the only parable that Jesus ever told where the main character has a name. When you read the other parables, you will notice that Jesus never names his characters. You may read about a lost son, the rich young ruler or a general one like “a sewer went out to sow.”

In this particular parable, Jesus gives the guy a name. The beggar is named Lazarus. Some scholars would say that this is not a story that Jesus is telling, but this is a real account. Maybe they are right. It really doesn’t matter whether Jesus is telling a story or if Jesus is giving a first hand account of a real experience either way we could trust Jesus to be accurate.

Like I said, there are two individuals: Lazarus and the rich man. The word Lazarus means “helped by God.” Lazarus was very poor. He suffered with open soars all over his body, but in the end, he was helped by God.

The rich man has been referred to as Dives. Dives is the Latin word for "rich." When this parable was translated from Greek into Latin, this is the word that was used, and consequently this rich man has been called Dives ever since. Dives was very wealthy and blessed with the luxurious things of life.

These two guys were acquainted with one another while they were living, but they did not consider themselves to be friends. As fate would have it, these two men passed away or crossed over into eternity about the same time. More than likely Lazarus’ body was carried to the city’s garbage dump while Dives’ body was buried. They crossed over into eternity, but did not go to the same place.

Luke 16:19-23

19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.

20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores

21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried.

23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

When people read this passage, they have a number of reactions. Some say, “Good, that’s the way it should be.” They feel like heaven and hell should compensate people for what happens in this present life, but that is not the case.

The rich man was not in hell because he was rich any more than that Lazarus was in heaven because he was poor. Heaven and hell are not a compensation for what you go through here.

Others tend to shy away from this picture of the afterlife because they are offended by the parable. They question how could a loving God send someone to hell?

We hear this question often. I personally do not believe that God sends anyone to hell. If a person ends up in hell, it is of his or her own choosing. A person's choices in life set their path for eternity. I believe that God will say, “Based on your decision to live apart from Jesus Christ your entire life, I will now grant you your wish to be separated from Him for eternity.”

Now lets move on. This story gives us some key truths into the afterlife.

What happens after we die?

1. After our physical bodies die, we will continue to live.

We see this in both cases: the rich man and Lazarus. When they died their bodies gave out, they continued to live. They did not cease to exist. They stepped from this life to the next life into eternity.

Notice it says that when Lazarus died, the angels carried him away to a place at Abraham’s side. When his body gave out, this body that had been covered in sores, the real Lazarus, the soul, the spirit that resided in him continued to live and was carried about by the angels to paradise.

The Bible is really clear about this teaching. The fact that when our bodies give out, they may be buried in the ground, but that does not mean that we cease to exist. The Bible speaks of our bodies as tents. One day they will be folded and put away.

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands

There is coming a day when the tent is going to be folded up and put away. The real us, the real you the person that lives inside of that body continues to live. We will receive a new glorified body.

So what happens when a believer dies? Here’s the sequence. The moment a believer dies, he or she goes into the presence of the Lord. The body may be taken and buried or cremated, but real person goes into the presence of God. At the second coming of Jesus Christ, the bodies of the Christians will be resurrected and transformed.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

What happens when we die?

1 After our physical bodies die we continue to live.

2 After we die, we immediately know our eternal destinies.

When we die we immediately face a judgment of faith and that judgment of faith determines whether we are going to move into this intermediate heaven or this intermediate hell.

That’s decided by what we have done with our faith in Jesus. It has nothing to do with works. It has nothing to do with how good you’ve been or how bad you’ve been during your lifetime on this earth. It all has to do with what Jesus has done for us.

If you have come to a point in your life where you have accepted the atoning death of Jesus on the cross, when you stand before God after you die, God will not see your sin, he will see Christ’s perfection.

If during this lifetime you have rejected Christ’s work on the cross, you will go as the rich man to this place of torment. In either case you will know immediately where you are going and where you will spend eternity.

I think that is clear in this story. Immediately after the Rich man and Lazarus died in Luke 16, they knew where they were going to spend eternity.

Lazarus was carried by the angels to a place of paradise. The rich man went to a place of torment. This whole idea that we will know immediately where we will spend eternity rules out several things that we have heard about the afterlife.

• What about purgatory?

For instance, it rules out purgatory. Some people teach that there is this place called purgatory where believers will go when they die to be purged from their sins. You have to suffer a little bit because of the things that you have done before you are able to go into heaven.

No where does the Bible indicate that this is true. This is a doctrine created by man, by a church and it is not found in the Scriptures.

No where does the Bible indicate that there is a halfway house that Christians have to go to pay for their sins so that they can go into heaven.

In fact, the Bible teaches that the exact opposite is true. The Bible teaches that the very moment that you trust Jesus Christ for salvation you are completely purged from all of your sins.

Jesus completely paid the penalty of your sin and my sin on the cross. When a believer dies because their sins have been completely purged, they immediately go into the presence of the Lord.

To believe that somehow people go into a place called purgatory to pay for their sins says that the cross of Jesus Christ was not enough.

· What about reincarnation?

This idea that we will immediately know where we will spend eternity when we die rules out reincarnation. No where does the Bible teach that our spirit will come back and re-inhabit other beings. This is a hopeless concept with absolutely no Biblical or scientific foundation.

• What about soul sleep?

Some people teach that when your body dies, your spirit is snuffed out like a candle that has been extinguished or like a light bulb where the switch has been turned off and the electricity stops flowing and you cease to exist.

Some day someone comes along and switches the current back on. Well, the term of sleep is used in the Bible in reference to people who die, but it is talking about the bodies of those who die in the Lord. The spirits are no asleep.

In this story both the rich man and Lazarus were both conscious and alert. They were communicating. There is no indication anywhere of soul sleep taking place. We will know immediately when we die where we will spend eternity.

The idea that we will immediately know our eternal destines is not such good news for everyone. Contrary to popular opinion today not everyone goes to a better place when they die.

Jesus said that this rich man went to hell. We learned last week that hell is a real place. It’s a place of pain and torment.

The rich man knew that this was a horrible place. He knew that he wanted to do anything possible to keep his brothers from this place, but it was too late.

What happens when we die?

3. When we die, we will come to grips with the reality of forever.

Most of us cannot comprehend eternity. We think that waiting in line at Wal-Mart an eternity. We think that getting through school is an eternity. When the Bible talks about eternity, it uses the word forever. It never ends.

As soon as the rich man died, his wealth and status meant nothing. He stood face-to-face with his maker. He immediately came to grips with the reality of forever.

When we die we are going to understand and come to grips with the reality of forever. We are going to have this deep, deep sense inside that this is not going to last for a few months, or a few years, but this is going to last forever.

You know what? That is great news for those who have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior

. On the other side of this story is Lazarus preparing to spend an eternity forever with God.

If you understand who Jesus is and you have trusted him as your savior, then you can expect only good things when you die.

1 Corinthians 2:9

… “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared
for those who love him.”

Paul is saying, “You’ve never seen anything like this. You’ve never heard anything like this.” In your wildest imagination, you have never thought about anything that comes close to what God has prepared for people who love him.

If you think about the most beautiful place you can imagine, multiply that a million times over. Even then, it will not come close to what God has prepared for you.

Several years ago the Lord gave me a glimpse of heaven through one of the members of our church. Her name was Heather Carswell. In 1988, Heather was ten years old and she discovered that she had cancer. We prayed and prayed for her. Heather went into remission and had a bone marrow transplant and we really thought that she was going to come through it.

Two years into her fight, the cancer came back. The doctors started preparing the family for the worst. We believed for the best. On June 28, 1990 at 3:25 AM my phone rang. It was Cheryl, Heather’s mom. She said, “Marty, Heather just died.” I said, “I am so sorry.”

Cheryl said, “Wait, let me tell you what happened. Heather got up to go to the restroom and then laid back down. She drifted off and woke up and said, “Mother it’s beautiful over there.” Cheryl immediately remembered what the doctors told her. They said that Heather may begin hallucinating when it comes close to the end. She said, “Yes, Heather I know.” She said, “Mom it’s beautiful. There are so many children. They have swings. I saw Jesus.” Heather said, “Mom, I want to go.” Cheryl said, “Heather you can go.” At that moment, Heather died. She crossed over from this life to her new life, with a new body, cancer-free.

Revelation 21:3b-5

3b "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

5 He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

Closing Thoughts

Song: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus