What Comes to Mind?

When I say heaven, what do you picture?

I’ve asked a lot of people that question, people in our church and friends who don’t attend anywhere. I’ll tell you right off the bat that women do a much better job describing heaven than men do. You’ve imagined it. You’re looking forward to meeting Jesus, and you have some kind of picture in your mind.

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Between services one Sunday, I asked a good friend of mine, one of our deacons, what he pictures when he thinks about heaven. He’s a smart guy who loves the Lord and grew up practicing his faith.

“Well,” he said, “I picture meeting Jesus.”

“Yep. Me too.”

“And then my dad’s going to be standing right behind Jesus, and I’m going to get to see my dad.”

“Yep. What’s next?”

“I don’t know.” Then he said, “Hopefully there’s an orientation class. Heaven 101. You jump on the tram and take the tour.”

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Maybe that’s what we need: an orientation. Maybe this book can be a kind of orientation class. We’ll never know everything outside of what Scripture tells us clearly and concretely, so I’ll try to mark that line as best I can.

Everybody Has a Heaven

My wife and I had dinner with some friends recently, and we got to talking about heaven. Isn’t it interesting that other religions and cultures have their own versions of heaven, and they’re usually spelled out pretty clearly? You could draw a picture of them.

I like Vikings. If I had to be born into a different culture, Vikings would be near the top of my list. That may say some bad things about me. The Vikings knew exactly what their heaven would be like. They called it Valhalla. If you were a warrior and you died with honor and your sword in your hand, you went to Valhalla, a great lodge in the sky. Of course, when I imagine myself as a Viking, I’m not the guy chained to an oar rowing the boat. I’m a warrior. I’m a leader.

In Valhalla you are escorted in by your shield maiden, the woman of your dreams, whose job for eternity is to take care of you. For my purposes, that would be my wife, my shield maiden. Once you get there, you eat all the food you want and never get fat. You drink all the mead you want with no health consequences. You fight all day, never die, get up the next day, and do it again.

My buddy and I were all in. Our wives raised a point of order. “Um, what about us? We don’t want to be shield maidens for eternity.” He and I said, “What are you talking about? You get to serve us forever. What could be better?” They weren’t buying it.

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Isn’t it interesting how often women aren’t really considered in other religions’ definitions of heaven? You start to suspect that men wrote a lot of those stories. Some versions of Mormon teaching describe a man populating his own planet with his wives, who live under his authority forever. Some Muslims believe that a man who dies under the right circumstances receives dozens of women to meet his needs for eternity. Buddhists don’t believe in a permanent heaven at all. They believe in a temporary heavenly state you reach through good karma, where you stay until the karma runs out and then come back to live another life. Hindus believe much the same.

When you break it down, you see how controlled and specific these stories are, and how few of them have a good outcome for women. Isn’t it great that Jesus was different? He valued both men and women, and he showed it over and over again.

Here’s what I believe. Christianity teaches that there is a literal heaven and a literal hell. They are places. They are also states, and they may be dimensions. There is heaven and there is hell, but there is no purgatory. I believe, along with many conservative Bible scholars, that purgatory was an invention built on a misinterpretation of Scripture. Eternity is an eternal state, and the deciding factor in where you spend it is what you’ve decided about Jesus.

Myth: St. Peter at the Pearly Gates

There are lots of myths about heaven. Let’s start with the big one.

When you think about heaven, many of us picture the pearly gates. They’ve been taught to us for decades. And who is sitting in front of them? St. Peter. The gates are always shut and locked. There’s a long line of people waiting to get in. Peter has a clipboard with a list of names. Maybe he’s updated to an iPad by now. It would certainly be an iPad, not an Android.

You get to the front of the line and you’re sweating it, because you don’t know for sure.

Anybody remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail? (If you’re under forty, ask your parents.) The heroes have to cross an abyss, and a bridgekeeper asks each of them three questions. Answer correctly and you cross. Answer wrong and you’re tossed into the abyss.

That’s how a lot of us picture getting into heaven. Peter scrolls through the list. You were taught there’s a list, and your name had better be on it, a little like Santa Claus. He gets all the way to the bottom: Melick. There he is. Maybe I’m written in pencil. Then he says, “Okay, answer the questions.” If I give the right answers, the gates swing open. If I don’t, into the abyss I go.

That’s how many people believe heaven works, and it just isn’t true.

There are pearly gates. But they are not the entrance to heaven. There are twelve of them, and they have nothing to do with getting in.

How Heaven Unfolds

To explain that, we have to wade into the deep weeds for a minute. If this is new to you, I apologize in advance. There’s a lot packed into what I’m about to say, and I’ll come back to all of it in the weeks ahead.

Heaven is the place where God is. It’s where he dwells, and it’s where Jesus is, where he rules. In essence it never changes. But the Bible describes heaven differently at different points in the story, in purpose if not in essence.

There was heaven as it existed when God created the universe, before the fall of Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve chose to sin, something changed. God didn’t change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). We did.

In the Old Testament, the realm of the dead is called Sheol, sometimes Hades, and it has two divisions. Devout Jews, God’s followers, went to one side to wait. I don’t believe that waiting was any kind of distress. I think it was paradise. Those who didn’t believe went to the other side, what we’d now call hell, a place of punishment and of waiting.

When Jesus died on the cross, rose again, and ascended into heaven, the way we think about heaven shifted again. It is still an intermediate state. We are living right now in what the Bible calls the last days, the time between Jesus’ ascension and the day he comes back to collect us to be with him forever. If you have a grandparent, a husband, a wife, or a child who has died, and they either were too young to decide for themselves or had given their lives to Jesus, they went instantly into the reality of heaven. They are with Jesus right now. But it isn’t yet the heaven we’ll know for eternity.

So what are we waiting for? Some of this depends on whether you believe Jesus will gather his people before or after the tribulation, and we’ll take that up in Chapter 3. But for the sake of argument, say Jesus comes and gathers the Christians who are still alive along with those who have already died. We receive perfect bodies. There’s a period of tribulation. After it comes the millennial kingdom (not the Millennium Falcon), a thousand-year reign of Jesus on earth. We’ll have work to do there with Jesus.

I’ve watched some really bad sermons on heaven while preparing this series, ones that left me more distressed than encouraged. One guy could only talk about how we’re going to reign when we get to heaven. We get to be in charge! I’m thinking, Have you ever supervised anybody? Why would you want to spend eternity being the boss of a bunch of people? There will be roles and responsibilities during the millennium; that’s where the idea comes from. But that isn’t the point of heaven.

At the end of the thousand years there’s a massive battle, and Satan is thrown into what will be hell from that point on, along with his demons and everyone who rejected Jesus. Then God creates a new earth, and that is where we’ll live forever in glorified bodies. That’s what will always be known as heaven.

Clear as mud? I know it’s a lot. In my notes it’s five bullet points. We’ll walk through each piece in the chapters ahead.

The New Jerusalem

This is where the pearly gates come in, and where myth meets reality. On the new earth there is a city called the New Jerusalem. For our understanding, it’s where God reigns from. He is everywhere, but in some way it will be his home base.

The New Testament writers lived in the first century. They didn’t have ChatGPT or animation or world travel. They hadn’t had the experiences you and I have had, so they didn’t have our ways of describing things. The apostle Paul was given a vision of heaven and talked about being caught up into “the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2). People get strange about that.

Most Bible scholars understand it this way: the first heaven is what you see when you walk outside, the clouds and the wind. The second is space, what you see through a telescope. The third is something else entirely, a different realm or dimension. Paul said he wasn’t even permitted to describe what he saw. John, however, was told to describe it, and he did his best. He was a first-century man who had a vision that blew his mind and tried to put it into words. That doesn’t make it any less true. It means he described it as well as he could.

The dimensions are given in Revelation 21, and I’d encourage you to read the whole chapter more than once. It’s a massive city. If you do the math, its base would cover about two-thirds of North America, and if you counted its height in stories, it would be around 280,000 stories tall. It’s a cube.

It has twelve gates, and each gate is made of a single pearl. Pearly gates! So where does the St. Peter idea come from? In Matthew, Jesus told Peter he would receive the keys of the kingdom (Matthew 16:19). That meant something completely different in its context. But somebody heard keys, pictured a locked gate, attached the pearly gates, and suddenly it was easy to believe. It isn’t in the Bible.

Revelation 21 says there are twelve gates: three on the north, three on the south, three on the east, and three on the west. Each is named for one of the tribes of Israel. The city has twelve foundations named for the twelve apostles. And the gates are never shut. They are always open. They’re the entrances to the New Jerusalem.

The walls are made of jasper. We don’t even know what color jasper meant when John wrote; it could have been yellow, red, brown, or green. The streets are made of gold, but the description suggests something so clear and shining that gold was the closest word John had.

There is no pearly gate blocking the road to heaven. St. Peter will not be sitting there quizzing you to decide whether you get in.

Good People Go to Heaven?

So how do you make sure you’ve punched your ticket? How do you know for sure that you’ll see your loved ones on the other side?

Here’s what most people say: I’m a good person. Good people go to heaven.

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Last week my wife and I visited a friend who is in a nursing home under hospice care. There’s a possibility the Lord will restore her health, but she has been forced to think about her death. She’s a believer, the kind whose Bible is worn out, which I thought was kind of cool.

Before we left, she asked me to read Psalm 37 to her. You should know two things about me: I wear contact lenses, and I need reading glasses. Her Bible had about a ten-point font. I offered to use my phone, with my fourteen-point backlit Bible. “No,” she said. “Use my Bible.” So my wife held her phone’s flashlight so I could see, like a little old couple helping each other in our infirmity. I’d never read Psalm 37 to someone in that situation. It’s a good one.

When I’m with someone in that place, I always ask, “Are you at peace?” It may sound invasive, but I think it’s one of the most important questions there is.

She said, “I just wish I could have done more for Jesus.”

That set off an alarm for me, because so many people believe that if they just do enough, if they’re just good enough, they’ll tip the cosmic scales and slide into heaven.

I stopped her, gently. “I can answer that,” I said, though she hadn’t really asked a question. “You haven’t done enough.” Then I paused, because pastors like dramatic pauses. “And I haven’t done enough. It’s impossible to do enough, because salvation has nothing to do with what we do.”

“Oh, I know,” she said. “Salvation comes by God’s grace, and all I have to do is believe. I just wish I’d done more to serve the Lord.”

I’m on board with that. If I’m given the chance to look back on the day of my death, I’ll probably feel the same way. So I asked the question another way: “Are you afraid?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not afraid. I’m ready to see Jesus, if that’s what he wants.”

So What’s the Deal?

So many of us hang our hats on being a good person. And we always think we’re good. We think the people around us maybe aren’t quite as good. So we measure ourselves against each other. I’m pretty good. Probably better than one of our staff members. And he’s thinking, Well, I’m probably better than the pastor’s wife. Pretty soon you have a whole church full of people trying to figure out who’s more spiritual than whom, and assuming God will give us grace because we’re living a better life than someone else.

But here’s the reality: there has never been a comprehensive, consistent definition of good that holds across every generation. What is good? Doing good things. What are good things? Not hurting anybody. What counts as hurting somebody? Can you do a good thing that hurts somebody, for the greater good?

I won’t even take you back through world history. Just think about American history and what our society has collectively called good. Not long ago, owning slaves was considered good. In churches, no less, it was not only acceptable but a goal to have enough money to own another human being. I think it’s one of the worst things any society has ever practiced. But at the time it was called good. So if you have to be a good person to get to heaven, and those people thought they were good, does that mean none of them made it?

If that example doesn’t land for you, try this one. Not long ago in our country, men didn’t care enough about women’s opinions to let them vote, and that was considered good. Society practiced it. I hope you’d agree with me that it was shortsighted, disrespectful, and un-Christlike. But at one point it was called good.

Are you going to trust the collective sense of good from people who don’t know Jesus to tell you whether you’ll make it to heaven? Then you’re in trouble, my friend.

Then you might say, “Well, Scripture will tell us what’s good.” Find it. If you think the Bible gives a formula for being good enough to get to heaven, find it. It isn’t there. You can’t open the Old Testament and say, “Here’s how to get to heaven: one plus two equals three.” You can’t open the New Testament and say, “Good people go to heaven, and here are the verses to prove it.” In fact, Jesus taught the opposite. The people who thought they were good, who graded themselves against everyone else and decided what counted as good, were the ones he was most critical of.

Jesus never gave a formula for being good enough. He defined good. The Sermon on the Mount set the standard. And only one person in all of human history has been good: Jesus Christ, the perfect God-man who came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died a death he didn’t deserve to pay the price for you and me, because we are sinful.

Think about it. If you had to be good enough to get to heaven, how would you know not only what’s good but whether you’d done enough? Do your thoughts and intentions count? What if you die one good deed short, with no way to go back and make it up? What if you’ve been so bad that you don’t have enough days left to offset it, so that nothing you do between now and the day you meet your Maker could save you? It’s a preposterous theory, and it leads people down a slippery slope to self-deception. You don’t know what good is, and neither do I, apart from the person of Jesus.

Nobody Is Good Enough

The apostle Paul called himself the worst of sinners. Yet before he met Jesus, he was one of the best rule-keepers who ever lived. He followed the Jewish law better than anyone, to the letter. But he mistreated people.

Have you ever mistreated anyone? Gossiped about somebody? Said something you wish you hadn’t? By Jesus’ standard, you don’t make the cut. There’s been one good person. One. Paul said, in effect, I was the worst of the bad, even though I was the best of the good, because I mistreated people.

Here’s what he wrote in Romans 3:

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:20, 23–24)

No one. You and I are included in the no and the one. Nobody is good enough, not you and not me. Now, after you meet Jesus, he does call you to good works, and the Holy Spirit empowers you to do them as you become more like Christ. But before you meet him, nobody is good enough in God’s sight by anything they can do. Trying to keep all the rules only shows us that we fall short. The Old Testament law was given so we would know we couldn’t measure up. Break one rule and you might as well have broken a million. It doesn’t matter if you’re better than your neighbor or your ex. We all fall short.

Flip it around. Nobody is good enough to impress God, tip the scales, and slide through the cracked-open gate of heaven. Nobody.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And all are justified freely, as the free gift of God, by his grace, through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus and Jesus alone.

Not the Minimum Requirements

So how do you know? How do you punch your ticket?

Have you given yourself to Jesus Christ?

Jesus is not nearly as concerned about getting you up there as he is about getting there into you, right here.

Too many people want to meet the minimum requirements. I checked a card when I was a kid. I went through confirmation. I know my catechism. I got baptized. I wrote the date in my Bible. I’ve got the minimums down, so I can live however I want, be whoever I want, and do whatever I want. Then when I get to the pearly gates, I’ll know the magic answers.

Let me ask you something. I’ve been married to my wife for thirty-six years, and I love it. She’s my shield maiden, though she’s not on board with that yet. Imagine that on our wedding day I had said, “Honey, what are the minimum requirements I need to meet to stay married to you? Nothing extra. None of this romance stuff, none of this relationship stuff. I don’t want a divorce, but I don’t want to do anything else. Just give me the minimum.”

Would you call that a marriage?

Yet so many of us treat our faith that way. When you throw yourself into the relationship, the minimum requirements take care of themselves, because the kingdom of God starts being lived out through you as you’re prepared for the kingdom to come. The magic answers, the hope of squeaking by, become a distant memory, because you’ve become a follower of Jesus.

What Do I Do?

Here’s how you do it.

Paul puts it plainly elsewhere: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). A wage is earned. A gift is received.

You agree with God and say, I’ve sinned. I’ve fallen short. I am one of the “all.” I may be better than somebody else, but I’m still not good enough.

You believe who Jesus is, even though you don’t know everything about him. I believe he is God, that he lived a perfect life, that he died for me, and that he rose again so I could have heaven as my home, know him, and live this life with purpose.

And you say, I’m not interested in the minimum requirements. I want the full deal. I want the relationship. I’m going to follow Christ.

Tell him in whatever way you want. Write it, think it, or say it out loud. In that moment you pass from death to life, from old to new, from lost to found. You become a child of God with heaven as your home. Your life here will change. From then on you will know for sure that you can’t be good enough, but Jesus was, and he has claimed you as his own.

So when someone asks, Why should you be here? you’ll have the only answer that matters:

I don’t know. He said I could come.

Welcome Home

I rarely make gender-specific assumptions, and this is only anecdotal, based on people in our congregation. But women do a much better job imagining heaven than men do. You picture fields of color, music, scenery, nature. Whether or not it’s accurate, it lives in your mind. We men run out of things to say pretty quickly.

Something happened this week that struck a chord with me. I’m not a Buffalo Bills fan; if you are, that’s between you and Jesus. But I’m a fan of moments. The Bills built a new stadium, and their longtime quarterback, Josh Allen, who helped bring it about, got to run out into it for the very first time. The tunnel, the noise, the crowd on their feet.

Hebrews 12 tells us we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. I believe those witnesses are the people who have gone before us: the people of the Old Testament, the people we study in the New, and the believers we’ve known who have passed on. I don’t believe they’re sitting around watching us. They’re doing whatever people do in paradise. But I know they rejoice when we arrive. The angels rejoice when even one person repents and decides to follow Jesus (Luke 15:10). When we get there, there will be a celebration.

Maybe it looks a little like that tunnel. Maybe not. But to me it says: You’re here. You made it.

First, You Die

So what happens? The first thing is that you die. Did you know that? How do you get to heaven? You have to die. Everybody dies, unless Jesus comes back first. Hebrews 9:27 says that people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment. Once. Put that in your back pocket.

In Chapter 1 we sketched how heaven unfolds, and the Road Map at the front of this book lays it out. Here’s the short version. If you die today in Christ, you go to paradise. Then comes the seven-year tribulation. It could start today, tomorrow, in ten years, or in a thousand; every generation since Jesus has thought it saw the signs of the times. After that comes the thousand-year millennial kingdom, and you’ll receive your perfect body before it begins. (I take the thousand years literally, because Revelation repeats it several times. If you see it differently, it won’t change much here.) Last comes the new earth, forever. Most of the time when Scripture talks about heaven, that’s what it’s describing.

This chapter is about paradise, because it comes first. When I picture paradise, I picture a palm tree. I’ll tell you now there are no palm trees there; it won’t have the same physical properties as earth. But a palm tree makes me happy.

Myth: You Become an Angel

A lot of people believe that when you die you become an angel. You get your wings and spend eternity looking down, or playing music, or doing something. If you believe that, I’m not making fun of you. I just want to tell you what Scripture says.

Angels are created beings. They are spiritual beings created by God, and they are not human. Humans were never intended to become angels. Angels serve a different purpose. They don’t need forgiveness for original sin or salvation the way humans do. There is no connection between humans dying and becoming angels. It’s folklore, not Christianity.

For a while I lived in fear that I’d become one of those fat, naked, bald baby angels sitting on a cloud playing a harp for a thousand years. That sounds terrible. Rest assured, it’s not in Scripture.

You were created human. What makes you eternal is your soul. Your body is not eternal. You’re going to get a new one, and we’ll talk about that later. The one you have now is failing you. Can you see it? I can see mine. If you can’t see yours, ask someone close to you; they’ll point it out. It’s a humbling experience. I experienced it at the gym: I can’t squat down. I’ve got bad knees. One day, see you on the other side. No more failing bodies.

Your Body Is a Tent

So what happens when we die? The apostle Paul talks about it in 2 Corinthians 5. Paul was many things, but one way he supported himself, when he wasn’t being paid for ministry or while he was planting churches, was as a tentmaker. So he uses an illustration from his trade: your body is like a tent, and your soul is the person living inside it.

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, puts it in a way I love. Not a translation, but an interesting read. The tent you live in now will one day be folded up and put away, because you won’t need it anymore. The one you’ll get later is far better, eternal, made by God for the life to come.

I want you to find yourself in Scripture. I want that more than I want you to learn facts. This is where I am. This is what will happen to me. This is what I can expect. This is where I’m going. The periods and definitions I’m walking you through aren’t speculation or deep-weeds theology. They’re at the center of what we’d call evangelical Christianity. Interpretations differ slightly by tradition, but nearly everyone accepts this. So research it for yourself; I want you to. But if this already sounds a little weird, relax. Just because something is weird doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The way it all began, in Genesis, was a little weird too. It takes faith. And this is where it all ends up.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling. (2 Corinthians 5:1–2)

Minimum-Requirement Faith

That brings me back to the minimum requirements from Chapter 1. Too many people have a minimum-requirement faith: Just tell me what I need to do to make sure I get into heaven. That would be like my wife and me at our wedding. Truth be told, she chose me; I wanted to marry her long before she agreed. Imagine if I’d stood there and said, “I choose you, but tell me the minimum requirements to stay married. I don’t want a divorce, but I don’t want to go overboard either. Just the bare necessities.”

That would be preposterous in a marriage. Yet people treat faith that way all the time. Jesus is far more concerned about getting heaven into people here than about convincing people to go to heaven. If we understood that, we’d never worry about the minimums, because we’d be living to please God. When you understand eternity, it changes the way you live now. There’s no way it can’t. If it doesn’t change the way you live, you probably don’t understand it, and you may not have it. Scripture is that clear.

What Is There to Look Forward To?

So we prepare for landing. I know I’ll leave this body behind. That’s fine. There’ll be a funeral, and I won’t care, because I won’t be there. I know Jesus will judge me at some point, but I also know he’ll welcome me home. I won’t be ridiculed or raked over the coals or forced to explain every sin I’ve ever committed. It’s a judgment, but a different kind.

But what is there to look forward to? What will I do when I get there?

There’s a curious lack of description in Scripture, and I think it’s there for a reason. I think that if you and I really understood what paradise will be like, then in our weak moments we might want to hasten our journey there. The Bible teaches that life is a trust and a test, and we live until our days are done. We don’t set the number of our days. God does. I also think we’d be so preoccupied with heaven that we’d be no good here at all. That’s a theory, not something spelled out in Scripture. But it still leaves me wanting.

Paradise is mentioned only three times in the Old Testament, depending on how you count, and three times in the New. “Abraham’s side” is mentioned once more, and you could count that as a fourth, since it refers to the same place. Scripture is specific that paradise exists, that you’ll be perfectly at peace in the presence of Jesus, and that it’s a guaranteed promise. But it’s vague in description.

Thin Places

Early Celtic Christians wrestled with this. So do I. I want answers. I want to paint you a picture.

The Celts had something they called thin places. They believed paradise was another dimension, existing around us though we don’t experience it, not bound by space and time the way we are. Many people believe something like that today. Maybe it’s another universe. Nobody knows for sure. The Celts believed this long before anyone studied dimensions or black holes.

They believed there were certain geographic places, where people had worshiped for a long time, where heaven and earth kind of merged. I don’t really go there. There are probably places where it’s easier to worship than others. But they also believed there were moments in life when you could be overwhelmed by God’s Spirit, when he could take something ordinary and point you toward the extraordinary.

I’m not a mystic who wanders around looking for signs. Maybe I should be a little more that way. But four times in my life I think I may have encountered a thin place. I’m comfortable saying so because even if I’m wrong, each one pointed me to Jesus. I’m not asking you to have my experiences. I’m not starting a cult. I’m sharing something personal. Let me tell you about the most recent one, and maybe you can watch for moments like it in your own life, moments that give you a foretaste of heaven.

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I bought a house in Arkansas where, Lord willing, my wife and I will retire fifteen years or so from now. My youngest son leases it. Out back is a shop building with a shingled roof, double-pane windows, and a concrete foundation. The previous owner was a professional woodworker who taught at Arkansas State. When we bought the place, I looked at that little shop and thought, This could be where we stay. Our kids keep having babies, and when you’re a grandparent you run out of guest-room space and end up on the floor.

So the plan was to turn it into a little one-room efficiency, 480 square feet. I called it the Shabin: half shack, half shop, half cabin. People thought that was weird. My grandkids call me Bapo, and they said “Bapo’s Shabin” sounded like something out of a true-crime show. So think of it as a cabin, or a hotel room.

I don’t have a lot of money and can’t hire a contractor. But I have a younger son who is really skilled with carpentry and remodeling, and an older son who knows electrical work and is super handy. They must have gotten that from their mom, because I went to seminary and can’t do any of it.

In June of 2024 we were finishing up, putting down the floors. We’d worked for a week. It was late in the day and raining, and I was cold. My job was to carry the empty flooring boxes from the shop to the burn pile. I remember how hard it was to slog through the tall grass and mud across the yard, throw the boxes on the pile, and come back.

At the end of that day, soaking wet and cold, I was walking back for another load. We hadn’t put the blinds up yet. The light was on inside, and all my people were in there: my sons, their wives, and my grandkids. I think we’d ordered pizza. (Don’t tell anybody. I’m not a big proponent of pizza, but that night we deserved it.) They were getting along, working together, accomplishing something.

I stopped in the middle of that yard, overcome with emotion. Not because of the shack, but because of my family and what we were doing together. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that I took a picture. And it was almost as if the Holy Spirit spoke, nearly audibly, as I stood there crying in the rain:

You think this is good? Just wait till you get home.

I stood there and soaked it in. I took him at his word. Then I went back to hauling boxes to the burn pile and getting wet.

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Remember, the Garden of Eden was paradise only because of the presence of God. That’s what will make paradise paradise. Not palm trees. Him.

Heaven is a place you need some handholds to get excited about. Maybe thin places can be one of them.

Nothing Amiss

Romans 8:28 may be one of the most misused verses in the Bible, but it’s also one of the most powerful:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

So many of us have been through so much. So many bad things happen. Life itself can seem unfair. Heaven is where you will finally see and understand how and why all things worked together for good for those who love him.

I can’t remember a morning when I woke up, thought about my life, and didn’t have some prayer request: a burden, something heavy, something amiss to lay at God’s feet and ask him to fix. More often than not it’s for someone else, like my wife, my kids, or the church. But something is always wrong.

Heaven is where you’ll wake up and realize that nothing is amiss. Nothing is out of place. There is no request still waiting for an answer. Nothing is wrong.

Your soul will be at home. Your soul will be at peace.

Well done. You were good and faithful. You made it.

So live in a way that isn’t concerned with the minimums of your faith, but is wholly taken up with what it means to live as a person of faith, with the reality of heaven in mind.

A Biblical Fence

In this chapter we’re going to talk about something that may sound a little strange. If you’re new to church or to Christianity, you may not have heard of it at all. If you’ve been around church a while, you’ve probably heard several different versions. My goal is to tell you what Scripture says for sure, what it doesn’t say for sure, and where you’re free to make up your own mind.

I want to build a biblical fence. Some conversations go too far, to the point where the Bible clearly says, No, that isn’t possible. We don’t want to climb over that fence. But inside the fence of sound doctrine, there is a lot of freedom and latitude.

Pastors teach from different perspectives. Some tell you their opinion and tell you to believe it. That works until your faith is tested. When it is, and you realize you believed something only because I told you to, you’re likely to deconstruct your faith and go through a season of doubt and spiritual distress.

So I want to share the truths of Scripture. I’ll be careful to tell you what I believe we know for sure. I’ll tell you what I think where I believe there’s strong evidence. And I’ll tell you where you can relax, take your time, study if you’re interested, and decide for yourself. This is one of those subjects.

We’ll wade in up to our knees, then our waists, then about chest deep. I’ll keep your head above water, but you’ll need to pay attention.

Two Ages

Our subject is the tribulation. You might wonder what that has to do with heaven. I hope to convince you it has everything to do with heaven, or at least with eternity.

The tribulation is the event that changes everything about how we understand eternity. The Hebrews, the Jewish people the Old Testament was written about, understood time in two parts. Much of the New Testament adopts the same way of keeping time and understanding history. Grab these two ideas and put them in your pocket, because you’ll need them:

• The present age: today, tomorrow, and on until something changes.
• The age to come: what happens after that change.

The tribulation is the transition from the present age to the age to come.

Here’s where it fits. Paradise is where you’d go if you died today. When the Bible says heaven, it usually means what Revelation describes: the new earth, our forever home. In between come the tribulation and the thousand-year millennial kingdom (see the Road Map at the front of the book). This chapter is about the hinge between the two ages: the tribulation.

But know this: you will be with Jesus the whole way through. If you die tomorrow, you’ll be with Jesus in paradise. Is that heaven? For our purposes, absolutely, one hundred percent. Will you be with Jesus during the millennial kingdom? Absolutely, if you’re a follower of Christ. On the new earth? One hundred percent, at home with Jesus and at peace forever. Never think you’ll be unhappy or unsettled, or that something will be wrong. This is simply how the Bible describes the process that leads us to our destiny.

A lot of Christians don’t talk about this. It’s kind of weird. Jesus talked about the kingdom constantly. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he said, “Our Father in heaven… your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9–10). Jesus wanted the kingdom lived out here, not just waited for. When all we care about is getting into heaven, we forget the relationship: the dynamic trust and the following of Jesus that consumes our life, shapes our identity, and secures our future. What we do between now and then matters, and what I’m about to describe makes all the difference.

The kingdom is already here, because Jesus is at work building it on earth. But one day a seven-year period will come that brings this present age to an end and opens the age to come. That period is the tribulation.

This is where I wish we were sitting over coffee, so you could tell me where I’m not communicating well. Stay with me. We’ll get very practical at the end.

Before or After?

The tribulation is coming. The question is whether Jesus will come before it starts and take Christians to be with him, or whether he’ll wait until it’s over and then begin his millennial kingdom with the Christians who lived through it and all who died before.

These are called the pre-tribulation and post-tribulation rapture positions. If you’ve been around church, you know people argue about this. Churches have split over it. Some denominations make it a huge issue.

I want to be completely honest with you, as I always try to be: nobody knows for sure which position is correct. Even the most adamant professors who train pastors, when pressed, will tell you, I convictionally believe this, but I wouldn’t swear to it. There isn’t enough conclusive evidence to stake your life on either one.

So you get to choose. Don’t choose because you don’t want to be here for the tribulation. Choose because you’ve studied the Scriptures, thought it through, and understand the passages.

You’ve probably heard the term rapture. The word itself isn’t in the Bible, but the idea is drawn from Scripture. It refers to Jesus coming again and gathering the Christians who are still living, while the dead in Christ rise and everyone receives a new, glorified body.

The pre-tribulation view says this happens before the tribulation. Jesus comes and gathers us. The bodies of those who have died are raised, we receive our heavenly bodies, and we go up, out, or over to be with Jesus. Then the seven-year tribulation passes. At the end of it comes the second coming, when Jesus returns to earth with all the Christians in their new bodies. There is a battle, and then we live here in the millennial kingdom. You go up, you skip the seven years, and you come back down.

If you hold that view, you might decide the tribulation isn’t very important. I’d tell you that’s a mistake. Even if you won’t be here, doesn’t it still matter how you live? Doesn’t it still matter how you view eternity? The point is that this moment is coming, and the Bible says it will come suddenly, when no one expects it. A trumpet will sound, and in the twinkling of an eye (Bible twinkling, not Santa Claus twinkling) everything will change in an instant. Eternal destinies will be sealed. Heaven or hell hangs in the balance. So how we live today matters enormously: how you raise your family, how you nudge and encourage your grandchildren, whether you’re preparing your life. Are you living as if what will matter most to you five minutes after you die, or five minutes after Jesus comes, matters most to you now?

The post-tribulation view says the church, meaning Christians, will still be here when the tribulation begins. At the end of it, the second coming and the rapture happen together. The souls of believers who have already died come with Jesus, the dead in Christ rise, we’re given glorified bodies, and we begin life with Jesus in the millennial kingdom. In this view, we live through the seven years. We have to survive them.

There’s also a mid-tribulation position. I’ll tell you honestly that I don’t find enough biblical support for it to treat it as a third option. If you hold it, I don’t mean to insult you. Even many scholars have moved away from it as our understanding of Scripture has improved. I just don’t put it on the same level as the two I’m asking you to choose between.

Matthew 24 is one of the main passages to study.

Seven Years

Where do we get seven years? Daniel speaks of it subtly (Daniel 9:27), and Revelation reinforces it. The tribulation unfolds in stages.

The first three and a half years will be a time of great prosperity. The world will seem to be doing great. A leader will come onto the scene, and everyone will think he’s all that and a bag of chips. He’ll unite the world and do things nobody thought were possible. The Bible calls him the Antichrist. At first he won’t be scary at all. He’ll just be a guy you’d probably vote for if you weren’t paying attention.

At the midpoint comes what Scripture calls the abomination of desolation. It’s when the Antichrist pulls off the mask and shows who he really is. If this were a Scooby-Doo episode (and I’m not making light of it), it’s the moment you see who the villain is. The next three and a half years are really, really bad.

That means that if Christians are here, if you’re here, or your kids, your grandkids, or your great-grandkids, there will be economic persecution and social persecution. Their lives will be threatened. You’ll need to help them build the kind of faith that can survive the worst circumstances imaginable.

We have work to do. The kind of faith we build doesn’t survive much, does it? We get distracted the moment we’re inconvenienced. We live toward whatever we’re most looking forward to: the next vacation, the next sports season, the next promotion, the next purchase. Pretty soon we’re caught in what the author of Ecclesiastes calls chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). When you catch it, your hands are empty, but you keep chasing. Then when the trials of life come, whether during the tribulation or next week, next month, or next year, our faith crumbles. And we build the same kind of crumbling faith into our kids.

The tribulation ends with a battle, the Battle of Armageddon. Did you know that’s a real thing? If you’re not a person of faith, I understand how crazy this sounds. When I step back and say it out loud, it takes faith to trust that Scripture is true and that this is how things will end. I believe it, concretely. I’m not a robot, and I haven’t been programmed. I’ve spent three decades immersed in this, studying it and trying to be as honest with myself as I can. I’ve concluded it’s worth staking my life on, and I believe you will too.

At Armageddon the nations rise up to try to defeat Jesus. Christians head for the hills. Jesus comes again and rallies an army he doesn’t need. He takes care of Satan, Satan is banished, and the thousand-year millennial reign begins.

Until Then, What Do We Do?

That brings us back to where we are right now, in the present age, looking ahead to the tribulation that will turn the page to the age to come, to the day Jesus comes to collect us, or the day we leave this biological life behind and are with Jesus forever.

Until then, what do we do?

The disciples asked that question. Often Jesus didn’t answer their questions directly. When they tried to go deep, he’d redirect them: Don’t worry about the deep stuff until you’ve got the simple stuff. Worry about how you live. Worry about how you forgive. Worry about whether you’re influencing the people around you. Sometimes he let them go a little deeper. This was one of those times. All right, boys. You want to go deep? Let’s go deep.

It’s called the Olivet Discourse, which is just what Bible people call the talk Jesus gave on the Mount of Olives. In Matthew 23, Jesus had just lit into some hyper-religious, judgmental people. You have to read it; it shows a side of Jesus that isn’t sinful but is very assertive. Then in Matthew 24 his disciples pull him aside: Just tell us what this is going to look like. What do we look for? You keep dropping hints, but we don’t know. And this time Jesus says, Come here. I’ll explain it to you.

What follows is the most concise and informative teaching on these things in the Gospels. (The chapter breaks were added much later.) In Matthew 25 he gives examples, which we’ll look at in Chapter 5. In Matthew 24 there are five things Jesus tells us to do while we live in the present age and look toward the age to come.

2. Don’t panic

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” (Matthew 24:6)

Have you heard “wars and rumors of wars” thrown around in churches that are a little scary about the end times? I grew up scared to death of the end times, the second coming, and the rapture. I’m sure my church didn’t intend that. People had bumper stickers that said, In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned. I imagined Jesus coming back and finding nothing but a pile of clothes where my mom used to be while I was left behind. Part of me thought, Maybe it’ll be like Home Alone. I’ll have the house to myself. Then, Wait, I’m going to hell. It got confusing and terrifying, and that’s not how it’s meant to be. This teaching is meant to help us and point us toward hope. Its finality should create a sense of urgency, not panic.

Everybody quotes the first half of that verse and skips the second. See to it that you are not alarmed. Wars will happen, but the end is still to come. Earthquakes will happen, but the end is still to come. The world will get worse, but the end is still to come.

How much worse can it get? A lot worse. How much longer can it take? A lot longer. People love to tell you how much worse things are than last month, last year, or five years ago. I wholeheartedly agree that we’re one day closer to Jesus’ return than we were yesterday. But you can’t read the signs of the times any better than I can. Scripture gives no definite markers tied to our calendar or current events that let us check off boxes. We guess, we hope, and we look to Scripture.

Jesus said: Don’t panic. Don’t be alarmed. The next time we’ll have true, lasting peace is when Satan is banished, Jesus is on his throne, and we’re living in the millennial kingdom.

How much worse can it get? A lot worse. How much longer can it take? A lot longer.

Don’t Waste the Wait

Jesus said that in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the sound of a trumpet, he will come again, and we will be with him forever.

So live tomorrow with your priorities lined up with what you’ll believe is most important five minutes after you’re dead. Live with the end in mind.

Don’t waste the wait.

From If to Since

Those two words, if and since: the distance between them can take people a lifetime to cross.

A good friend helped me clear this up in my mind this week. Many people live from the perspective of if this is true. If it’s true, it changes everything.

Some of you haven’t even reached if yet. You’re thinking, This can’t be true. The story of the Bible, the story of creation, and especially the end story we’re working through feel impossible: a paradise that’s a holding place where we’re with Jesus but without our bodies; a tribulation; a rapture before or after it, depending on what you believe; new bodies for believers; a thousand-year millennial kingdom with Jesus; a great white throne where unbelievers who have gone to the anti-paradise, Hades, receive their bodies and are cast into the lake of fire; and eternity on a new earth with Jesus. It’s hard to believe. People step back and say, “The facts just don’t stack up.”

Moving from skeptic to if is a gift from God. It represents the seeds of faith. My job is to do everything I can, and the Holy Spirit’s job is to nudge you, beyond if to since.

When you start reading the Bible from since it’s true, you have changed positions. Many so-called believers live from if. The moment life rocks them, the moment a question or a doubt comes, they start to drift. Shipwreck can happen, because every time they come back from the storms of the soul, they return to a rock with no solid foundation: the rock of if.

But when you move to the rock of since, when you’ve decided that even if it doesn’t always make sense to you, it is true, then when you go through the storms of life, you come back to a solid foundation of faith. You start building your story, your narrative, your worldview, and you begin to understand why you were created in the first place.

Many of you are on the road between if and since, and I love that. It’s my job, and my joy, to teach you what the Bible says.

Why Talk About Hell?

If all you cared about was growing a church, you wouldn’t talk about hell. You wouldn’t talk much about sin either. You’d skip it, or mention it once in a while. People don’t want to hear it. You’d quietly assume a universalist perspective: all good people end up in heaven; it all works out in the end; don’t worry about it.

The biggest lie Satan wants you to believe is that hell isn’t real and heaven is boring. Don’t think about it. Don’t worry about it.

My challenge to you is the same one I’ve given myself, and the prayer I’ve been praying every day: I want eternity to shape the way I live today. I want what will be most important to me five minutes after I die to be most important to me now. I don’t mean being so focused on heaven that you’re no earthly good. I mean letting eternity become part of your narrative, part of your inner spiritual monologue.

It’s easy in a message like this to point the finger: I don’t like this pastor. I don’t like what he’s saying. So let me remind you that my only authority comes from the Word of God. When I preach, I preach from the Bible. Where I interpret, I try to tell you. Where you have to choose between interpretations, I’ll show you, and I may nudge you toward one. But in the end you have to decide what you think about Jesus and whether he tells the truth. You have to decide what you think about the Bible and whether you’ll believe it. And you have to decide whether you’ll make the journey from if to since. I believe saving faith is found in since.

This subject is hard to talk about and hard to hear. But it’s real, and Jesus talked about it. Not a lot, but he did. So we will too. Deep breath, everybody. I started with a poop story to lighten the mood. We all went back to junior high for a minute. Now let’s dive in.

Story or Parable?

The Bible doesn’t give us much information about the afterlife. Paul, in 2 Corinthians, says he had a vision of heaven so overwhelming that he wasn’t permitted to describe it and didn’t have the words if he had been. John, in Revelation, tells us some things about the new earth and the New Jerusalem, and we’ll get there. But here we’re beginning two chapters on the anti-paradise: hell, or Hades as it’s called in this present age. Scripture gives us a glimpse of the afterlife from the perspective of someone who rejected the truth and ended up in eternal separation from God. Jesus gave us that glimpse as a gift.

Right away there’s a decision to make. You might think you know the answer, but you don’t. If you do know for sure, you’re smarter, better informed, and walking more closely with God than anyone I know of who has studied and preached Scripture. The evidence is inconclusive. But it does matter what you decide, because the decision tips dominoes down the rest of the timeline.

The passage is Luke 16, a story Jesus told about a rich man and a poor man, a beggar named Lazarus. Is it a story, meaning something that literally happened to real people in a real place? Or is it a parable, a story Jesus made up to sit alongside a real spiritual truth? There were no actual workers in the vineyard. Jesus made up the vineyard and the workers, but the point he made was true.

Reasons some believe it’s a literal story:

• Lazarus is named. In none of Jesus’ other parables is a person named. Abraham is named too, the only time that happens. When Jesus names someone for the first time, you have to ask why. It must be significant. But it could be because Lazarus means “the one whom God helps,” and Jesus wanted to add that meaning to the story.
• Jesus never interprets it the way he does some parables, and Luke never calls it a parable. But Jesus doesn’t always explain his parables either.

The biggest challenge with reading it as literal history is this. In the present age, when we die, we leave our bodies behind. Our souls go either to be with Jesus in paradise or to Hades, a place of punishment and torment, but the bodies stay here. Yet Luke 16 describes the rich man as if he has a body: a tongue, a thirst. Unbelievers don’t receive their bodies again until the great white throne judgment. If you take the story literally, that decision ripples all the way down the timeline. (I know I’ve lost some of you. Thanks to those still with me.)

Reasons to read it as a parable:

• It sits in a section of parables, all of Luke 16.
• It opens the way other parables do: “There was a rich man…”
• It’s built like a parable, and parables were Jesus’ primary teaching method. Jesus wasn’t random. He didn’t have the squirrel brain I sometimes do. He wouldn’t have jumped from a run of parables into a literal account and back again; that would have been confusing.
• The early church father Tertullian said you never build doctrine from a parable. You build doctrine from Scripture and then interpret parables by it.

I believe it’s a parable. If you disagree, that’s perfectly fine; nobody knows for sure. But make at least a temporary decision. Put a pin in it as we walk into the story.

The Comparison

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. (Luke 16:19)

This is not about rich and poor. It’s not saying rich people go to hell and poor people go to heaven. Jesus tips his hand in verses 14 and 15. He was talking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders who used God and religion as a weapon to control people, and Luke says they loved money.

That doesn’t mean they loved the money itself. It means they loved this life and the things they could have and buy and find in it. They’re the people who would be on social media trying to prove they have the best life ever, that they’ve arrived. All they think about is the next vacation, the next promotion, the next purchase. They’re consumed with this life, materialistic, never thinking about what will matter after they’re gone. They love this life and this life only.

It has nothing to do with money as such. God gives some people money and expects them to give generously. When they stand before the judgment seat of Christ and everything else burns away, the money they invested in the kingdom will be one of the things they’re honored for. God trusts some people with that.

In verse 15 Jesus says the Pharisees cared most about what other people thought of them. If they’d had social media, the lighting would have had to be perfect, and if a post had only eighteen likes after an hour, they would have deleted it. They wanted to be popular and envied. Life was about them. They were the main character, and everyone else was a supporting actor. That’s who this parable was aimed at.

So the rich man is dressed in purple, a dye made from shellfish, hard to get and very expensive. He’s shopping at the very best stores and wearing the very best. What’s the problem? He’s also dressed in fine linen. One historian of the period said you could sell a single linen garment and feed a poor person for a year. Is it wrong to dress nicely for a special occasion? Of course not. But Jesus says he lived like this every day. He was dressed to the nines to impress. He cared what people thought. He wanted to look better and more successful than everyone else and put it in their faces. It dominated his life.

I grew up on reruns of Leave It to Beaver. June Cleaver always wore pearls and a pressed dress, served hors d’oeuvres, and ran around in high heels. I’ve been married thirty-six years and that hasn’t happened once. It’s not reality, and I wouldn’t want it to be. But that was the impression, and the rich man trafficked in impression management, manipulation, and envy.

At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. (Luke 16:20–21)

The gate would have stood at the end of a long walkway in a wealthy neighborhood. It provided protection, it was probably ornate, and it was how people recognized the house. The word laid literally means tossed or chucked. Someone dumped Lazarus at the gate. And yet somebody cared enough to drag him away from the crowd of beggars at the town gate and drop him in a rich neighborhood, where someone might take pity on him. It’s a little like trick-or-treating: if you want full-size candy bars, you go to the rich neighborhood. (I’m not telling you to trick-or-treat. It’s an illustration.)

The religious leaders of the day believed anyone who was poor or sick deserved it, or their parents had done something to deserve it. They didn’t want to get their hands dirty helping such people, because they had a twisted belief that helping them would hurt their own standing with God. It was disgusting.

Lazarus was covered with sores. The word means ulcers, oozing and painful. He longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Some translations say crumbs, but historians of the period describe the custom. People ate with their hands, dipping them in oil and sauces, and then wiped their hands on pieces of bread, the reject bread, like the crusts your mom cut off your sandwich, and tossed them under the table. Lazarus longed to eat the bread these people had wiped their hands on. And for whatever reason, they wouldn’t even give him their trash.

Even the dogs came and licked his sores. These weren’t friendly, fluffy little dogs like Baxter. The dogs in this story were mangy, predatory pack animals roaming the streets for garbage. They were eating him before he was dead. That’s enough; you get the picture.

How low was Lazarus? He couldn’t get any lower. How high was the rich man? He couldn’t get any higher. The religious people of the day would have said the beggar had it coming and the rich man was blessed by God and headed for heaven.

The Crossing

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. (Luke 16:22)

Everyone listening would have thought, Finally. Put him out of his misery. Then something interesting happens. Notice three things.

First, the angels carried him. The Bible hints that one of the jobs of angels is to accompany the soul of a believer into paradise when they die. I don’t know whether it’s a hundred angels or one, and Scripture doesn’t say much, so don’t get carried away. But it’s a comforting thought. When I die, if I see angels carrying me to be with Jesus, that’s pretty cool. It gives me goosebumps.

Second, there would have been no funeral. No one would have paid respects. No one would have given to charity in his name or sent flowers. His body would have been carried outside the city and thrown into the burning pit where unclaimed, unloved people, dead animals, and trash were dumped. It was called Gehenna, a word you’ll need again later.

Third, Abraham’s side. People wonder what that means, but it’s simple. It’s where Abraham went when he died. It’s paradise, the Old Testament way of describing it. To any Jew, Abraham was the greatest of the great, the father of the faith, someone who wouldn’t have given Lazarus a second glance. And here is Lazarus at Abraham’s side, the two of them like buddies. That blew the minds of the people hearing the story.

The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. (Luke 16:22–23)

The crowd would have gasped. The rich man would have had a great funeral: donations, flowers, an obituary, maybe a church service, and lots of mourners.

So Lazarus went to paradise and the rich man went to Hades. What is Hades?

Hades is the anti-paradise. It’s where Satan wants you to go, and he’ll meet you there. It is a place of punishment and torment, where your conscience is fully awake. You’ll be in physical pain, as we’ll see, but you’ll also understand spiritually the choice you refused to make, to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and you’ll live knowing you could have changed it.

From this parable we learn four things about Hades:

• It’s personal. It happens immediately at death. Lazarus was carried to paradise and the rich man went to Hades, not after a period of sleep or a pause but at once. Both were awake, active, conscious, and aware of what was happening.
• It’s painful, as we’re about to see.
• It’s permanent. It can’t be reversed.
• It’s preliminary. This one may raise a question. Just as paradise will be called something different after the tribulation and the millennial kingdom, when we get to what we’d call heaven, hell has different names in Scripture too. Hades is the intermediate state: still punishment, still permanent, still eternal. But Revelation says that when the millennial kingdom is over, Hades will give up its dead. Those who died rejecting Christ will receive their bodies, and instead of going to the new earth they will be sent to the lake of fire, Gehenna, with Satan, the Antichrist, and the demons, forever. The name changes, but the reality is the same.

It’s tragic, but it’s what Scripture teaches.

So he called to him, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” (Luke 16:24)

Notice that Lazarus never says a word. Does he even see what’s happening? Probably not. Who knows? This is one more reason I believe it’s a parable. There’s no evidence elsewhere in Scripture that people in heaven can see people in hell or talk with them. That fits the pattern of a parable: a story built to make a point that reflects reality.

I could describe all the elements of hell and try to scare you, and we’ll talk more about it in the next chapter. It terrifies me. I’ve thought about it many nights before going to sleep these past weeks. It shakes a person to the core to grasp even a piece of how personal, how painful, and how permanent it is, and that you’re there fully aware that you could have done something to change it.

The rich man is now living with what should matter to us right now. What we’ll experience five minutes after we die, and what will matter to us then, should matter most to us now. For him it’s too late. For you and me, it isn’t.

But Abraham replied, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” (Luke 16:25)

Circle the word now. Paradise is where we’ll see that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). In this life you don’t always see things working together for good. Lazarus’s life was not good. But in paradise he saw how all of it had worked together for good. You will too, if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” (Luke 16:26)

Set in place means permanently fixed. There is heaven, there is hell, and there is a chasm between them that makes it permanent and impassable. Period. End of that part of the story.

Then the rich man shifts, and I almost like him a little for it. Now he’s thinking not just about himself, which you and I should be doing on this side of eternity, but about the people closest to him, the ones he was most responsible for.

He answered, “Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” (Luke 16:27–28)

The word translated then has the sense of Okay. He accepts that he will never be freed from this pain. So, Okay, then I beg you. Now he’s thinking about his brothers, his family, the people he had influence over. He’s concerned now, when he had no concern before, except to impress, entertain, and distract.

Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.”

“No, father Abraham,” he said, “but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”

He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:29–31)

For them, “Moses and the Prophets” meant the Scriptures. Abraham is saying, They have the Word. John’s Gospel says the same thing: what we need to know about Jesus is revealed in God’s Word. You have the facts. You have the gospel. You have everything you need to wake up. The rich man’s brothers had it too, and it made no difference.

Notice the foreshadowing: even if someone rises from the dead. Jesus is pointing toward his own death, burial, and resurrection.

That’s why I don’t preach opinion to you. I’m not telling you what Rick thinks will happen. I’m telling you what the Bible says will happen. If you don’t like it, your problem isn’t with me; it’s with Scripture. And I’m okay with that, because everyone moves from if to since at their own pace.

Well, that’s bleak. Church is supposed to make you feel good, mess up your hair, and send you home, right? This is the kind of passage pastors like to avoid. I wasn’t looking forward to preaching it, and I didn’t look forward to writing it down either. But I felt compelled, because I love you. I care far more about you building a life of faith on the foundation of since than about building a big church where everyone is lulled into thinking everything’s okay.

The Choice

Look at it one more time. In this life, the rich man could have walked through his own gate to Lazarus at any time. He never did. The gate he would not cross became the chasm he could not cross.

So let me ask you: Who is at your gate? The need may be in your home, your neighborhood, your workplace, your family. And the bigger question: What will you do with Jesus? His brothers still had something the rich man no longer had. They had time. So do you.

You have the comparison between Lazarus and the rich man. You have the crossing into the afterlife, which happens to all of us. And now you have the choice you have to make.

The determining factor between heaven and hell is not whether someone was a good person or lived a good life. It’s the decision they made about Jesus Christ: whether they chose to follow him, confessing their sin, trusting him as Lord and Savior, and becoming his disciple.

One of the biggest disservices people like me do to people like you is to wrap all this up in a phrase that makes everyone feel better but can be deceptive: Well, only God knows the heart. We say it, we smile, we nod. And it’s true. One hundred percent. Only God knows the heart.

But God isn’t looking at the heart through some arbitrary set of rules where he just decides to let things slide. Only God knows the heart because eternity reveals what life conceals. And the only thing that will determine eternity, for you and for the people you love, is the decision a person makes about Jesus Christ. Hell is personal, painful, and permanent. But it is preventable.

And if you’re thinking, you’ll ask a fair question: How could a loving God do this?

God is bound by only one thing: his own nature. By nature he is loving and merciful, which is why we have Jesus. But he is also just and holy, and his holiness and justice require that sin be punished. That is the curse every one of us was born under. Paul says we are all born sinful. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

His justice demands a penalty. His love provides a Savior. Jesus himself said in John’s Gospel, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). This life and the life to come. Anyone who wants to come to the Father can come through him. Is he the only way? Yes. And that’s the decision you have to make.

The Bible teaches that hell will be full of religious people. You can blend into a church crowd, know Bible verses, and be a chameleon who moves easily between different worlds. But eternity reveals what this life conceals. When it all shakes out, the only decision that matters is whether you decided to follow Jesus.

How to Follow Jesus

It isn’t a magic formula. It’s a commitment of the heart.

You come to the point of realizing you’re part of the problem. You’ve sinned. You may not be a terrible person, but the Bible teaches that one sin or a million, it doesn’t matter. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So you confess your sin and ask forgiveness. Scripture says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). It’s right for him to forgive you. If you ask, you receive it.

Then you make a simple commitment, the same one we’re trying to live out together: I’m going to do my very best to live my life as a person of faith, a follower of Jesus Christ. I’m going to live today with what will matter most to me five minutes after I’m dead. I’m going to live so that when I stand before the judgment seat of Christ and everything else falls away, what I have to offer him will mean something, so that I can leave this life knowing I found my purpose and made a difference, and hear, “Welcome home. You were good and faithful.”

Not one of us is perfect. You know that. But we do it together.

So whether you’re on the journey from if to since, or you’ve arrived at since and are working it out, I want you to find yourself in this story. Know the facts. Know the timeline. Pass the test. But see yourself in the story God himself placed you in. There’s a reason he put you there, and he’ll show you if you ask him.

Wherever You’re Starting From

Whether you’re just tasking, figuring all this out for the first time, or multitasking, having wrestled with it for years, take a deep breath. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. If you’re skeptical, or you’ve only made it as far as if, you’re welcome here. You’re about to read what Jesus himself said about how things will end. If you have a red-letter Bible, Matthew 25 is printed in red, and those are the most important words you will ever read. Where I move beyond what the text says and give you my interpretation, I’ll tell you.

An Apology Up Front

This chapter ends with one of the hardest truths in Christianity. It’s the second of two chapters on hell and eternal judgment. That truth is in the Bible, so it matters. But it is not what most of the New Testament is about, and it isn’t where Jesus started. So let’s start where he did.

Life is pressure. Pressure to become, to decide, to be somewhere. Pressure because you don’t know the future and you’re not sure what other people will do. Part of it comes from having to chart your own course: you lick your finger, check which way the wind is blowing, and do your best. And Jesus says:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, puts it this way. Jesus asks if you’re tired, worn out, burned out on religion. (I am.) Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. Walk with me and work with me; watch how I do it. And then this:

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

I don’t know everything those rhythms are, but I want to learn them. Jesus promises that he won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you, and that if you keep company with him, you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

That’s what he had in mind in John 14 when he said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Some people hear that as exclusive. But his arms were open wide: Anyone who wants to come can come. You come through me.

And he spent three years proving it.

He started at a wedding, for two people nobody really knew in a tiny town nobody cared about, and he stayed for the celebration. Jesus didn’t pound a pulpit and tell everyone to turn or burn. He hung out, and he performed a miracle of compassion that foreshadowed much of the New Testament.

I officiated a wedding for some friends just this week. Weddings are growing on me. My kids are in town too, both my sons, my daughters-in-law and my grandkids, plus a couple of their friends. That’s ten people in my house and four dogs. My wife and I are used to rattling around the house like a couple of old people, and we love having people around. Jesus loved a good celebration too.

When religious leaders dragged in a woman caught in adultery, Jesus knelt in the dirt beside her. In effect: If you want to get to her, you’ll have to throw those rocks at me first. This is the kind of person I came for. When he met Matthew, a tax collector and a lowlife in Jewish society, he went to his house and invited Matthew’s friends too.

His arms were open. His invitation was inclusive. He spent three years proving it.

How It Ends

By Matthew 24 and 25, those three years are nearly over. The religious establishment wants him dead. Jesus is about to die on the cross for our sin and rise again, defeating sin, Satan, and death. And his disciples are still asking, Jesus, how does this end for us? They pictured a big house, a big American Express card, a big Popemobile: their kingdom, now. So Jesus gathered them and laid out the final chapter. It’s beautiful and sobering, encouraging and terrifying. And it’s real.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. (Matthew 25:31)

Son of Man is a title for Jesus; Daniel defines it (Daniel 7:13–14). On the Road Map, we’re now past the tribulation, at the beginning of the age to come. The word to focus on is when.

When? The Second Coming

When the Son of Man comes. When Jesus comes again: not if, but when.

There are two ways to meet Jesus: we die, or he comes back. Nobody knows when either one will happen. It could be today. It could be in our great-grandkids’ lifetimes. But we know he’s coming.

I like to schedule. The world divides into people who like to ride and people who like to drive. Riders don’t mind: I’ll get there when I get there. I like to drive. I want information and a timeline. So in Matthew 24, just before this passage, Jesus gives people like me a little more about the when.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36)

There’s an ongoing wedding analogy in Matthew 24 and 25 drawn from first-century marriage customs. The betrothal process was long. After the groom proposed, he went back to his father’s house and built a room onto it, an apartment, or a little house in the family compound. The bride waited at her home with her bridesmaids, ready. When the father finally said, All right, you’ve done what it takes; go get your bride, the groom set out with his groomsmen, usually at night, like a thief, because nobody knew when he was coming. They’d collect the bride. It wasn’t a kidnapping, but there was a lot of fun drama about it: She’s gone! Then everyone went back to the groom’s house for a party that lasted seven days.

Remember when Jesus said in John 14, “I am going there to prepare a place for you”? That’s what he was talking about. The analogy runs throughout Scripture.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37–39)

Why bring up Noah? It can sound random, like one of my squirrel moments at the dinner table. It isn’t. Everyone listening knew the story. Jesus isn’t saying the people of Noah’s day were evil and needed judgment, though they were. He’s saying they were simply going about life, paying no attention to the things that matter after death. They were having weddings, going to work, buying things, taking vacations, achieving, enjoying. They weren’t thinking about what would matter to them five minutes after they were dead. And one day the waters came, and they were surprised.

Jesus says it will be like that. People will live in their three-foot world, so consumed with their own lives, their own stuff, and their own achievements that they see nothing beyond arm’s length. Even good things can become distractions.

Then his illustrations get harder for me.

“Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:40–42)

Here’s what really makes me stop and think. In Jesus’ day, two men working the same field were almost certainly related, most likely father and son. Two women grinding at the same mill were almost certainly mother and daughter, or sisters.

Living as people did in the days of Noah, with little regard for our kids or our families, and no effort to nudge them toward purpose, while we direct them toward all the temporary things that pass away in our three-foot world, with no thought for eternity: one will be there, and one will be gone.

Remember the rich man in the last chapter? When he realized there was no relief in Hades, his heart went straight to his family. Can’t someone at least warn them? And the answer was no. It was too late.

Wouldn’t it be wise to decide that what will matter most to us five minutes after we die should matter most to us now? That’s what Jesus is saying. Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I’ll give you rest. I’ll lead you into the unforced rhythms of grace. But you come through him. You don’t go around him. You don’t invent your own way. You can’t be good enough; remember Chapter 1. You can’t be smart enough. You can’t figure it out or make it up. But it’s offered to anyone who will come.

Who? The Gathering

“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” (Matthew 25:32–33)

Jesus isn’t calling you a sheep or a goat. I had goats once. My boys might remember. They’re the nastiest animals you could ever own. Being called either one wouldn’t be much of a compliment in my book. But Jesus was talking to people for whom shepherding was part of daily life. They walked past shepherds all the time. Sheep were raised mostly for wool and goats mostly for meat, and for practical reasons they were kept in the same herd. As the herd moved from place to place during the day, you often couldn’t tell which was which. But at night the shepherd separated them, because goats are a little rascally. They don’t get along with sheep, don’t eat well with them, and don’t rest well with them. Everyone listening would have understood immediately.

The right hand and the left hand are another important cultural reference. Our courtrooms have a jury box, a judge’s bench, and a witness stand, all very structured. In Jesus’ day, a judge deciding a case would move the person he ruled in favor of to his right hand and the person who lost to his left. It wasn’t that left-handed people were bad or second-class, though there were some odd superstitions about that. People just knew that the right hand meant a favorable judgment and the left hand meant an unfavorable one.

So Jesus comes again and immediately takes his seat as judge. The only thing he’s concerned with is the commitment you made, or didn’t make, to him. And he separates all people. A-L-L. Everyone. Right hand and left hand.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’” (Matthew 25:34)

The kingdom prepared for you is the age to come. We’ll spend the final chapters on the really good stuff, where we’ll spend eternity. I’ve told you before that I don’t like the idea of sitting on a cloud as a fat naked baby with wings, singing songs. That’s not at all what it’s about.

But right now we’re talking about something so serious that you have to understand it. Only you can choose. The decision you made about Jesus in this life is the decision you’ll answer for when he comes again.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” (Matthew 25:41)

Where? Two Destinations

Jesus names only two destinations: “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). (A word of comfort here: any child who dies before they’re old enough to decide for themselves to follow Jesus is with Jesus. I believe that one hundred percent, and Scripture backs it up.) Yet many people hold other views of what comes after death.

I’m not going to dwell on the Bible’s descriptions of hell, and I’m not going to say much about Satan here. But I want to name three popular views of the afterlife. Maybe you hold one of them. If so, I don’t want to dismiss you. I just want to suggest that these conclusions don’t come from the Bible. They come from somewhere else.

Nihilism. When you die, you just disappear. That’s it. A lot of people believe this. It’s a neat way to package life: nothing really matters, and there’s no afterlife. Nowhere in Scripture is that even hinted at. I’d call it anti-biblical.

Universalism. Everyone eventually ends up in heaven. There are many paths and many journeys, and it will all work out in the end. Jesus doesn’t really divide people right and left, or if he does, he says, Ha ha, just kidding. All of you on the left, come on over. I wish that were true. If I were writing the story, that’s how I’d write it. But it’s anti-biblical. It just isn’t in there.

Purgatory. A temporary safe zone where you can pray your way or work your way into heaven and figure it out later. It just isn’t in Scripture. You can’t find it.

What Scripture clearly teaches, and this is not Rick’s opinion, is that hell is a place. The people who go there will be conscious and aware. There will be punishment of both soul and body. It’s eternal. It’s irreversible. And it’s awful.

So why does Jesus talk about judgment? Why does he talk about hell? Because he is just and holy, so sin must be punished. But he is also loving and merciful, so he provided heaven. His love and mercy compelled him to warn us that judgment is coming. His love and mercy compelled him to invite us into a relationship with him. His love and mercy drove him to offer himself on the cross and die a death he didn’t deserve, to pay a price we couldn’t pay, for a life we could never earn.

We have to choose hell.

That’s the part I would rather not have had to tell you.

Why? The Evidence

Then Jesus describes the evidence of a person who is truly a believer:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:35–36, 40)

Don’t misread this. Works reveal; works do not redeem. You can’t earn your place on the right hand by doing enough good deeds. Remember Chapter 1. But genuine faith produces a changed life. Their life looks different. They don’t live only for their three-foot world. It’s not all about them. They choose not to live as people did in the days of Noah, always chasing the next thing.

Let’s be honest with each other for a moment. How many of us have chased the next thing? While you’re chasing it, it seems like the only thing: the degree, the promotion, the purchase, the vacation, losing twenty pounds. Then you get it, and what do you have? Nothing. Because then it’s on to the next thing.

Jesus said a person who really understands him will refuse to live like the people of Noah’s day. They’ll take responsibility for the people closest to them, the people in his illustration, the father and son in the field, the mother and daughter at the mill. They’ll be a godly man or woman. A spouse of faith, if they’re married. A friend of faith. A parent of faith, if they’re parents, not so concerned with making their kids good at everything that won’t matter after they’re gone, but encouraging their families to invest in what matters for eternity. An employee, a student, or a boss of faith.

These two chapters have made the staff and me stop and think. As I’ve said, I’ve gone to bed several nights with the reality of hell on my mind. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, as I try to be every time: it horrifies me. And it compels me, and I think I speak for the rest of our pastoral staff, to do two things.

First, it makes me look inside. Not inside you. We’re all good at impression management. Inside me. Which side am I on? It makes me come face to face with the Lord and be honest with myself and with him about the answer, because that is the most important truth we’ll be judged on.

Second, it makes me pray for the people closest to me, the people I love, because I want nothing more than for them to be people of faith.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Come find the unforced rhythms of grace. Leave the pressure behind. Find the pace of the Holy Spirit as you discover your purpose in this life. Leave your three-foot world behind. When Jesus comes and separates the sheep from the goats, that’s what he’ll be looking for: evidence of a person who truly decided to follow him.

From here, the story turns. Next comes the millennial kingdom. It sounds like something from Star Wars, but it isn’t. The story gets much more upbeat and a lot more fun. We just couldn’t go on without first being clear about the different destinations, and the decision that determines eternity.

Five Minutes After

Remember the question this whole book is built on: five minutes after we die, certain things will be on our minds, and I want what will matter most to us then to matter most to us today. I want it to pull us out of our three-foot world, out of the days of Noah, so busy with the next job, the next purchase, and the next vacation that we forget the story we were born into.

From the rich man and Lazarus, we know at least two things will matter five minutes after you die: your own eternal state, and the people closest to you: whether you did what you could to nudge them toward Jesus.

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This past week I was with a friend who is facing the possible end of her life. We reviewed the end-times timeline together, but that wasn’t the important part. What we really talked about was where her confidence was placed. When your trust is in Christ alone, not Christ plus good works or Christ plus some religion you’ve invented, you can be completely confident that the moment you leave this life you will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). Welcome home.

Her body is failing her. She looked down and said, “I leave this body behind?”

“Yep.”

“And I get to be with Jesus.”

“Yep. That’s the promise of Scripture.”

She paused. Then she said, “I am ready.”

And then: “I can’t wait.”

◆◆◆

That’s why it matters to know your end story.

Taking the Penicillin

It’s a little like going to the doctor with a sore throat. The doctor says, “Here’s penicillin. Take it and you’ll feel better.” You can just do that. If you aren’t interested in the details, take the antibiotic and move on: trust Christ, and you’re safe.

Or you can go deeper. Why penicillin and not doxycycline? Pretty soon you’ve formed a whole worldview about antibiotics. That’s what I want this chapter to do for you: build a way of seeing the world that gives you the confidence my friend has.

What comes next can sound a little crazy. The apostle John, who gave us the up-close, personal Jesus of the fourth Gospel, was later exiled on an island and given a vision of the end of time. He had no science fiction, nothing to compare it to, and he did his best to describe the indescribable. Some of what follows involves my interpretation, and I’ll tell you where. But nobody really argues about what the Bible says here. The question is whether you’ll believe it.

The Thousand Years

The tribulation is over (Chapter 3), and the sheep and the goats have been separated (Chapter 5). Believers have received their glorified bodies. That’s where our story picks up: the thousand-year millennial kingdom, the reign of Christ.

I believe it’s a literal thousand years, because the specific thousand-year period is repeated several times in Revelation 20. Some people don’t take it literally, and I can’t prove them wrong. Time itself may be marked differently once these events happen. And whether you believe the church is gathered before or after the tribulation shapes how you read some of what follows, so you’ll run into questions that are hard to answer.

With Satan no longer active in the world and Jesus in charge, many believe the world will be restored to something like the Garden of Eden. Scripture hints at dangerous and gentle animals living together in harmony, and at streets so safe your kids can roam them. There will be prosperity and peace. For the most part, people will get along.

But the Bible also says some people will still choose evil. How do you choose evil if Satan is bound? Let’s walk through the text. Revelation 20 describes four things: restraint, reign, rebellion, and removal. A thousand years in four points: for a preacher, that’s hard. And remember who’s writing: John, an apostle, writing a real letter to seven real churches full of real people. Prepare. Don’t believe false teaching. Don’t fear persecution. Don’t get complacent. Trouble is coming. But Jesus is going to win.

1. Restraint: the deceiver is confined

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time. (Revelation 20:1–3)

Which angel? That was my first question. He isn’t named, but he has a pretty cool job. Gabriel? Michael? Maybe. Some say it’s Jesus. I think if it were Jesus, the Bible would call him Jesus, not an angel. But some make that argument.

He has a key and a great chain, symbols of God’s power over evil. And what is the Abyss? It’s a bit of a mystery. Some scholars think it’s a separate place altogether, a third place besides Hades and Gehenna (the lake of fire), something like a jail cell. Nobody knows. Many think it’s the basement of Hades, the bottom floor of a really, really bad place, where Satan will be locked up for a thousand years. The Antichrist and the false prophet, meanwhile, have already been thrown into the lake of fire before the millennium begins. They’re the only ones there for now, waiting.

Whatever you decide about the details, understand what’s happening: Satan is bound, chained, and locked up. His direct influence is removed from the earth, and the earth is under the control of Jesus.

All of this may feel theoretical right now.

◆◆◆

I went to the bank this week. I don’t like going into the bank, but I had to. The girl behind the counter looked about fourteen; I’m sure she was twenty-five. It was taking forever, and the Bee Gees were playing over the speakers. (Do you know the Bee Gees? You have to be of a certain age.) I didn’t like the Bee Gees even when they were the bee’s knees. It was loud, and you know how much I love waiting, so I was tapping my foot.

“Man, your music is really bad,” I said.

“I know, right?”

That phrase bothers me. I know. I just said it.

“I don’t like this music,” I said, “and I’m old.”

She looked at me, waited a beat, and said, “I’ve seen older.”

I didn’t know how to take that. My goodness. What have I just been told?

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You might think this is for old people, something to worry about when you’re the oldest person in the bank. But none of us knows when it will stop being theory and become reality. One day this will be either the decision you’d give anything to go back and make, or the one you’re so thankful you made. So work it out now.

The Great White Throne

At the end of the millennial kingdom and that last battle, when Satan has been thrown into the lake of fire to join the beast (the Antichrist) and the false prophet, the great white throne judgment takes place. Remember the two judgments from Chapter 2, the judgment seat of Christ and the great white throne? This is the great white throne.

When people are gathered before it, those who are not Christians are given their bodies and cast into the lake of fire. The picture is that Hades is turned upside down and shaken out, and they spend eternity with Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, in a future that is personal, painful, permanent, and preventable.

For Christians, their names must be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

When I studied this, it sounded like a test, and it made me uneasy. I know what it’s like to try out for a team. Back in the old days, before coaches texted you, you ran to the bulletin board to see whether your name was on the list. A few times it wasn’t, and I know how it feels not to be chosen. So in my mind I picture an angel with a big book, flipping through, getting to the M’s (my last name is Melick), and I’m nervous: Oh Jesus, help me. And he says, I already have helped you. Why don’t you listen to me? But I’m still nervous.

◆◆◆

Here’s a funny story. Years ago, while I was starting a church in Arkansas that met on Sunday evenings for over a year, I served briefly as interim pastor of a tiny country church on Sunday mornings. Thirteen or fourteen people on a high-attendance day, all super-senior adults. I think the youngest in the youth group was eighty-three. They were the sweetest people. I’d come from a much larger church where we counted people by sections, and I’d lost touch with that kind of personal ministry.

Every Sunday I walked up to that little church and preached to them, and they were so gracious. I still carry a picture of that church on my phone to remember those people, because they were so special. The treasurer, an older lady, made me hug her before she’d give me my check. That’s probably an HR violation, but with forty years between us, I figured it was okay.

Once, a church member’s relative died, and I was asked to do the funeral. The first thing you want to know is, Was he a believer? A believer’s funeral is completely different. Hope or no hope. Celebration or despair.

The church treasurer said, “Well, I know he’s a Christian.”

“He said he wasn’t a Christian,” I told her. “In fact, he said he had no interest.”

“I know he’s a Christian.”

“Listen, only Jesus knows his heart. And when Jesus looks at the heart, he’s looking for one thing: whether a person has decided to follow him. It’s not a sliding scale where good people get the benefit of the doubt.”

“I know he’s a Christian.”

“How do you know?”

She disappeared into the church archive and came back with, “I’ve got the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

“Do you have the Holy Grail back there too? The Ark of the Covenant?” She was about 130 years old, so she probably had a lot of stuff. She came out with a dusty ledger as thick as a family Bible, holding every record since the church started in the 1800s. On the cover, it literally said Lamb’s Book of Life. That was the church I wanted my name written in. (I wrote it in later, just to cover my bases.)

She flipped through and found him. “He was baptized in this church when he was eight years old. His name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

We talked a little more, but that moment stayed with me long after.

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Only God judges the heart. But the life, the fruit, is what’s examined: the desire to step outside the three-foot world, to live today with what will matter most five minutes after we die, to influence the world around us. Those things matter. But your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life the moment you decide to follow Jesus. Jesus says anyone who wants to follow him can. Only you can choose. Your name will be written there if you want it to be.

When your name is found in the book, you’re ushered onto the new earth, which is also heaven, which is also eternity. That’s where the next two chapters go, and I’ve been looking forward to them since the beginning of this book.

Don’t Let Your Hearts Be Troubled

As we close, I want to point you to the words of Jesus to his disciples in John 14.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.” (John 14:1)

Maybe this subject troubles you. Maybe you don’t know for sure that you’ve decided to follow Jesus, and that’s troubling, as it should be. Maybe you sense the Holy Spirit nudging you and you’re fighting it. Maybe you’re thinking about someone you love, or you come from a belief system so different that you’re not sure any of this is true. Maybe it’s just the fear of death. I’ve been praying for you, that you’d make the right decision.

Jesus says, Don’t let your hearts be troubled.

Why were the disciples troubled? John 13 gives at least three reasons. Jesus had told them that one of them would betray him, and they didn’t know who. He told Peter he would deny him, and that rattled Peter. But what really shook them was this: “Where I am going, you cannot follow now.”

What do you mean we can’t follow you? We’ve been following you for two years and eleven months!

And he said:

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:2–3)

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. But make absolutely sure your faith is in Christ, and Christ alone.

Out of Time

As I studied for her memorial, it struck me that the secret to the whole passage, really the secret to the urgency of life and the reason we take this book’s subject so seriously, is tucked into the end of the very first verse.

Naaman is introduced as a great man, commander of the army of Aram. He had money, military victories, a résumé, a massive retirement account. He woke up every morning thinking, What’s next?

And at the very end of that first verse, after describing this great man and everything he’d accomplished, there’s a little phrase that changes everything:

Naaman was a great man, a commander in the army of Aram… but he had leprosy.

One morning Naaman woke up and it was unlike any other morning. Maybe he saw a spot on his arm. Maybe he nudged his wife: “Hey, look at this. Is this what I think it is?” In those days leprosy was fatal. She probably looked afraid. Let’s get a second opinion. So Naaman reluctantly showed the doctor the spot, and the doctor confirmed it: Yes, it’s exactly what you think. You’re going to die.

Time runs out.

All of us live with the illusion that we have time, so we squander it, until one day we’re out of time: at the end of a long illness, through the bumper of a runaway vehicle, in a sudden cardiac event.

But what we’ve been talking about in this book is the opposite of the fear we feel when we think about time running out. It’s what my friend knew as she lay in what some would call her deathbed. I didn’t see it that way. She knew time had run out for her in this life, and she said the words I told you about in the last chapter: I’m ready. I can’t wait. Then she closed her eyes and opened them to the reality of heaven.

She passed the final exam without having to answer a single question, because she had already answered the only question that mattered: What did you decide about Jesus?

At her memorial, her ashes sat on a table. That was the body where she used to live. She didn’t need it anymore. Paul talks about the body being like a tent, folded up and put away. She has moved out. Her soul is with the Lord in paradise. She now understands what we can only speculate about.

Who Cares How It Ends?

Theologians call the study of the end eschatology, and you may be surprised how many Christians aren’t interested in it. It’ll all work out in the end. For some it’s fear. For some it’s apathy. But here’s how I see it. Who do you trust? “I trust Jesus.” So you believe in Jesus? “Yes.” What about God’s Word? “Oh, yes. I believe God’s Word.” All of it? “Every single word is true.” Do you know what’s in it? “Uh, no.” Are you interested in how it ends? “Nope.” Do you want to know the story? “No. It’s going to work out.”

If I told you I was a Muslim who believed every word of the Quran, and you asked me, “Okay, Rick, what does it say?” and I said, “I don’t know,” you’d think I was brainwashed. You’d think I was simple. You’d make fun of my faith, and for good reason, because that isn’t faith at all. It’s conjecture. Somebody handed me something and I accepted it without ever making it my own.

So working through these things matters, not to settle every detail but to be informed. Revelation is the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing for reading it (Revelation 1:3) and warns against adding to it or taking away from it (Revelation 22:18–19). Knowing how the story ends is our responsibility as Christians. It’s also our privilege.

A Little Angst

I’ll admit something. I’ve looked forward to getting to heaven in this book for a long time, and now that we’re here, it gives me a little anxiety.

◆◆◆

Last night my wife and I were watching a football game. I was half-watching, with my notes in my lap; that’s my obsessive Saturday-night routine. She asked what she always asks: “Are you looking forward to tomorrow?” She can tell from my answer where I am in my preparation. Too early, and I say, “Uh-uh, not at all,” and she leaves me alone for a while. Later: “Yep, I’m getting there.” Then: “Yeah, I think we’re ready.”

This time I looked over at her and said, “Listen, I want to ask you something. I’m teaching on heaven, and I’ve got a little angst about the new earth and the New Jerusalem. Does it stress you out at all?”

She said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Oh, good,” because it stresses me out too.

◆◆◆

What’s stressful about it? For me, part of it is that I can’t wrap my mind around being in one place, doing one thing, for all of eternity. I like to move. I like change. What if I get bored? What if it’s not what I…? I go through all the what-ifs. And she said, “Well, yeah. You and I like being together, and we’re not going to be married.” We started going down the list.

Then we stopped and called a time-out. Wait a second. There’s a reason we can’t understand the reality and the promise of heaven: we can’t see it clearly.

Eternity in Our Hearts

Ecclesiastes is a book full of interesting questions and answers, and it gives us a handhold for thinking about heaven, eternity, and forever. In chapter 3 the author wrestles with an existential question: Why are we here? What is life about? What are we supposed to do?

C. S. Lewis summed up what you and I sense instinctively: that there’s more, that we were created for something else we long for but can’t quite grasp. I’ve held on to this quote all week:

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

I resonate with that. You were made for another world. But what world is that? What will it look like? What will it be like?

This chapter looks at what the Bible tells us that world will be like. The final chapter asks, What will I be like when I’m there? Scripture tells us enough about the new earth, but not a lot. (Remember the reason from Chapter 2: if we knew everything, we’d be so eager to get there that we’d be no good here.)

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

You were created for it. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you’re destined for it. Yet we can’t quite understand it, because we’re human, flawed, and sinful, and we just can’t see.

The Last Stop

Look at the Road Map and you’ll see how far we’ve come: paradise, where my friend is right now; the reality of hell; the tribulation; the thousand years, where we still end some sentences with an ellipsis; and the great white throne. Now we reach the last stop. Believers, in glorified bodies, are ushered onto the new earth, forever, in a place we can’t really picture. John described what he saw as well as a first-century man could. I believe it’s true. But right now we can’t see clearly, because we’re still here, and that is still to come.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (Revelation 21:1)

A few verses later the one on the throne says, “I am making everything new!” The good news is that we’ll be given at least four things we don’t have now and desperately need.

Why Is It Different? A New Body

First, we’ll be given a glorified body with glorified senses, able to experience what God created for us in ways we simply can’t now.

◆◆◆

My wife likes hot water. When she gets ready in the morning, no bathroom fan can keep up with the steam. I don’t know how anyone can stand it; I’m not a hot-water guy. But on Sunday mornings I sometimes have to run in and use the sink. I have to see the mirror, because this hair takes a while to get perfect. (It doesn’t actually take a while, and it never gets perfect. But I give it a shot.)

This morning I was at the sink, and there was so much steam. I wiped the mirror with my hand and could see for a second, and then the steam rolled right back in and I couldn’t see a thing. Wipe, wipe again. I got so frustrated. I just needed to see, and I couldn’t.

◆◆◆

I think that on this side of heaven, in this present age, we get glimpses of what heaven may be like, glimpses of eternity, like the thin places we talked about in Chapter 2. But we need new eyes and new senses. We need to be able to see. Our glorified bodies will include new senses that let us see without the steam of sin fogging up the mirror of reality.

It’s almost too good to imagine, almost too powerful to think about. But it’s one of the promises that comes to us because of Jesus and his sacrifice. We receive a new body.

A New Morality

The second thing we receive is a new morality. I don’t know a better way to put it. And it doesn’t start only on the new earth; it begins in us earlier.

I think that if we understood how much sin handicaps every part of our lives, it would stagger us. We tend to see ourselves as mostly good with a little bit of bad. I think the reality is that we’re mostly broken, and that Jesus has begun working in us to unbreak what’s broken. But it takes so much time, with so many ups and downs, that we’re not even aware of how flawed and faulty our perception of the world really is.

I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t have to fight that nature anymore. When that new morality is fully given, we’ll experience Jesus for who he really is and ourselves for who we really are, and finally be present and at home in the bodies and lives God has given us.

A New Creation

The third thing we’ll receive is a new creation. This one is harder to wrap our minds around. We’ll get a new earth. The earth will still exist, but newly created.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 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.” (Revelation 21:2–4)

Who Makes It Great? A New Relationship

And fourth, we’ll have a new relationship with Jesus, a new way to experience him.

This is what brought me back to a place of real peace in my spirit, where I started truly looking forward to eternity. The more complicated it gets, in a sense, the simpler it becomes.

If you’re looking forward to heaven only for its benefits, if all you’re thinking about is a great place with no fear where all your stuff is finally dealt with, but you’re not thinking about being with Jesus and living in a perfect relationship with him, then we don’t yet grasp what it’s all about.

Heaven draws us because we were created to be with God: finally with him, free of everything the sin we chose has brought into our lives.

That reminded me of the simple truth at the heart of this whole book. The most important decision we can make is the decision we make about Jesus.

I Drive, You Ride

So here’s a handhold to take with you.

◆◆◆

My wife and I were driving to Hy-Vee. I go to Hy-Vee every day. I think Jesus intentionally placed a Hy-Vee on our way home from church. No matter which way we go, we drive right by it, so we have to stop every day, because there’s always something we need.

Last week we were coming home in the afternoon. I was driving up State Street, heading north, and I turned left, west. The sun sets in the west, right? I don’t know what it will do on the new earth, but on this earth it still sets in the west. As it was setting, the sun was pouring through the windshield of the truck.

My wife said, “Stop. You have to stop.” (I don’t know if you ladies do this, but whenever she wants me to stop, she puts her hand up like a cat and grabs the door handle.) “Stop!”

“What are you talking about? I’m fine.” I had my Maui Jim sunglasses on, and I also have a creation called a sun visor that you can pull down to block the sun coming through the windshield.

“Stop!”

“What is wrong?”

“I can’t see where we’re going! I can’t see where we’re going!”

What she meant was, I can’t see well enough to tell you everything you need to know to park this truck safely without my help. But I said to her as nicely as I possibly could, “You don’t need to see. I can see. I can park. I drive. You ride.”

She didn’t like it. I liked it a lot. I liked it so much that I put a note in my phone to remind me to tell you how it connects to John 14.

◆◆◆

Jesus had just told his disciples he was going to prepare a place for them. He didn’t say a mansion. He didn’t say a loft above a big city. He said a place, a place for them to be together, a dwelling place for those who believe.

And Thomas said, in effect, Stop, Jesus. I can’t see.

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:5–6)

We’ve all been Thomas. We don’t know where you’re going. If we don’t know where you’re going, how are we going to get there?

And Jesus said, I’m the way. I’m the truth. I’m the life. I know where we’re going. You don’t have to see. You just have to ride. Trust me, and I’ll lead you through.

Know the Person

What that reminded me is how important it is for me to know more about Jesus. The more I know about him, the more I want to spend time with him, the more I look forward to spending eternity with him, and the more I look forward to the place he’s prepared for me.

So what did it do? It drove me right back to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the books of Scripture that tell us who Jesus is, what he cares about, and how much he loves us. They tell us what he thinks about sin, how he offers salvation to anyone who will choose him, and how he wants us to live as faithful followers until he leads us home.

We don’t know a lot about the place, except that it’s there and that it will be created specifically for us. But we know a lot about the person. And that leads us to the last question of this book: who will we be when we finally meet him?

May we live today with what will be most important to us five minutes after we die. May we keep orienting our thoughts, our hope, and our habits around what God has revealed about himself and about Jesus in the pages of his Word. And may we make our days, from here to eternity, count.

You Get Out What You Put In

My wife and I were at the gym this week. We work out together, but I think we go for slightly different reasons. She was on the bench doing a set of dumbbell presses, and the whole time she was talking to me. “Don’t forget we have to take the trash out tonight, and then we have to stop at Hy-Vee on the way home, and then we have to call the kids, and our granddaughter is going to dress up like a princess…” The entire set. I didn’t say anything, because whatever she’s doing is clearly working. She must have the secret, and I don’t.

When she finished, I asked, “How was it?”

She laughed. “Hee hee, it was fun.”

Now, if you’re describing a set at the gym, it shouldn’t be fun. Enjoyable, maybe, but it should be work. Then she looked at her hands and said, “Hee hee, I have two different weights in my hands.”

“One side’s going to be all pumped up and the other side all shriveled. You’re just not going to look right the rest of the day,” I said. “It’s really important to use two weights that are the same.”

“It’s not important to me.”

“But do you see the sweat on my forehead?”

“Why, are you hot in here?”

She just wasn’t having it. She was there to have a good time, and it’s clearly working for her.

◆◆◆

This book is a little like that. If you’ve come along just for a good time, you’ll get something out of it. But if you’ve sweated a little and gone deeper, maybe you can now see the timeline: what lies ahead for you, for the loved ones who’ve gone before you, and for your kids who come after you. Maybe you can picture the other side.

I’ve never wanted to pretend this is simple. I’ve wanted you thinking it through and arriving at your own conclusions, or at least your own ellipsis, inside the biblical fence. Scripture gives us a few clear promises and drops some Easter eggs (Isaiah, Daniel, Hosea, the words of Jesus). Beyond those are hints that point toward hopes that are perfectly fair to hold.

The Whole Story

We started with the decision that matters most: receive Christ, and your ticket is punched; refuse him, and death determines destiny. Then we walked the whole Road Map, from paradise to the new earth. One question is left: who will I be?

In this final chapter I want to do three things. First, from the pen of the apostle Paul, I want to show you what we know for sure about what we will be like for eternity. Second, from Revelation 22, three things we know for sure we’ll be doing. And third, a few things the Bible hints at. They’re not proven beyond a doubt, but they’re fun to think about.

Who Will I Be?

Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to a church full of rascals, just like ours, just like any church: people who couldn’t get out of their own way, who kept tripping and falling, and who were forgiven and got up and started again. Some of their dysfunction we probably don’t share, thank the Lord. But a lot of it we can relate to.

These were new Christians in the first century. Their friends were dying, and they wanted to know what happened next. Maybe you’ve been in exactly that place, maybe recently. When you watch someone you love go into the ground, or watch their ashes laid to rest, it raises fair questions, existential questions. Scripture answers them, but only a careless person would answer them with trivial sayings that never touch the grief, the loss, the wonder, and the faith underneath.

In chapter 15, Paul reminds them that one day the believer who goes into the grave will be given a heavenly body, and that body will be them going into eternity. If they deny that, he says, they’ve denied the resurrection of Jesus himself, who went into the grave, came out the other side, and defeated sin, Satan, and death. We’ll still face death on this side, and our bodies will go into the ground. But our spirits go instantly to be with Jesus in paradise.

So what happens after that? They wondered. We don’t see anybody rising again. The graves are still here. The stones are still in place. And Paul says, in effect: It’s a promise. But I know promises are hard to picture.

What Will I Be Like?

We have lots of questions about our resurrection bodies, and we’ve toyed with them for a few chapters. Some things we know for sure. Others we can believe with a measure of confidence, because we see them in Jesus’ glorified body after he rose and appeared to his disciples and others for about six weeks before he ascended. I can’t tell you these are one hundred percent certain for us, because the Bible doesn’t say so specifically. But I think the evidence points that way.

Jesus was recognizable. People knew who he was. He kept his identity. And there are other examples in Scripture of people being recognized on the other side. You’ll recognize people in heaven, and they’ll recognize you.

Jesus still had scars. That one makes me think, because I tend to imagine a perfect body as, well, perfect. But it has nothing to do with our standards of beauty. Even in his glorified body, Jesus let his disciples see and touch his scars. Will we carry any of our scars to the other side? We won’t carry any of the sadness, pain, or disappointment. But Jesus carried some scars. Some of you have a lot of them. I have a couple of little ones I never thought much about. I figured maybe I’d get a little heavenly plastic surgery before I got there.

Your personality will be much the same, only perfect. Those of us who are a little obnoxious and hard to deal with will keep the good sides of our personalities, and leave the rough edges behind. The traits and characteristics that make you you will probably come with you. Just not the ones that disappoint you.

What you love will be perfected. Many people believe that the things we enjoy and the way we appreciate beauty, whether nature, music, or art, will be perfected and become one of the ways we worship for eternity.

Jesus moved through a locked door. Will we be able to? Will we even care? He didn’t seem limited to moving through time and space the way we are. Is it possible for us? Sure. Is it promised? No. But it’s fun to think about. Pick your favorite Marvel hero. No, that’s going too far. We don’t want to get outside the bounds of Scripture.

To recognize and be recognized. To keep the best of our personalities and desires, the things we love, perfected by the absence of sin.

But let me add a caution before we go on. If all we think about is what we’ll get, who we’ll become, and how we’ll finally be rewarded, we’re missing the point of heaven. The very best part of heaven isn’t what we’ll get, or even the place prepared for us. It’s that in that place, we’ll be with Jesus.

What Will I Do?

For what we’ll be doing, we turn to Revelation 22. There’s a lot we don’t know. Someone asked me this week, “What are the angels going to be doing in eternity?” I started to answer and then thought, Huh. I’ve never thought about that. Why not? I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t care. But I cared then, so I went looking. We know there will be an angel at each of the gates of the New Jerusalem. Beyond that, we don’t know.

But in Revelation 22, we see three things we know for sure we’ll be doing.

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:3–5)

No longer will there be any curse. That isn’t a throwaway line. That’s the reason I can say, O death, where is your victory? It’s the reason you don’t have to mourn like people without hope. It’s the reason you can look forward to seeing people on the other side, and the reason you can face the worst times in life with confidence. The curse will be reversed. You’ll no longer live with everything that keeps you from being the person God created you to be. You’ll be free of yourself.

Do you know what I pray for you? That God would get into your head before you do. Does that make sense? We get into our own heads, and then we can’t hear. Our spirit gets crowded out, and the noise keeps us from embracing simple truths. So I prayed, God, get into their heads before they get into their own. Part of the curse is that we get into our own heads first thing every morning and crowd everything else out.

No longer will there be any curse.

2. We will serve him

His servants will serve him. We’ll be working for God, serving him in some way. I want to stop here for a minute, because I think some things are probably true about heaven even if I can’t say I’m one hundred percent sure.

I think we’ll work in heaven. And if you hate work now, it isn’t because you were created not to work. It’s because sin is in the world. If there were no sin, I think the line between work and play would disappear.

Imagine being created by God with abilities, interests, and gifts to contribute and build and accomplish something, and then having sin removed and being free to do that for all eternity, in a way that not only brings you joy and fulfillment but adds to everyone else’s joy and fulfillment. That’s an interesting thought.

Scripture points this way. Go back to Genesis 2: God worked, and he created Adam to work. Ephesians says we are God’s workmanship, created to do good works (Ephesians 2:10). The Psalms talk about the works of God. Jesus told a parable about servants who used their master’s money well or poorly (Matthew 25:14–30), and how that shaped what they were given afterward. Maybe there’s something we’ll do for eternity, the perfect job we’ll never want to quit.

◆◆◆

I have a friend who’s an engineer. Engineering sounds boring to me. (I’ve never driven a train, and I don’t want to. That’s a joke. A bad one, I know.) He designs fuel-injection parts for jet engines. He spends years on tiny, microscopic parts that keep jets in the air. It’s important work. It’s just not for me. You don’t want me doing that; your plane would crash for sure. So I thought I had him. “Could you see yourself, under any circumstances, being an engineer for all eternity, working on little parts?”

“Wait a second,” he said. “There are things about what I do that I love. If I could contribute, if I could build something, if I could be part of it… yeah. I could get behind that.”

I said, “Oh my goodness.” To each his own.

◆◆◆

God made us all different. But what if he’s given you something you’ll get to do, perfectly, for all eternity?

I also think the Bible at least hints that there will be learning in heaven. Have you ever thought about that? Some people assume that when they get to heaven they’ll know everything. Then you’d be God, because the only one who knows everything is God. When you get to heaven, you won’t suddenly be Jesus: Here I am, scoot over, I’m moving in. God is God. He’s all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere present. We’re not. We may share in some of that in a far lesser way, but we won’t know everything.

So what if you get to learn in heaven, without any disability or difficulty or short attention span, and without any of the subjects you never wanted to study? What if every day something new is revealed to you about who God is and how things work, and you’re so excited and engaged that you can’t wait for the next day’s discovery? That’s very consistent with the nature God gave us when he created us in his image.

And what if there’s travel in heaven? There will be nations and kings. There could be all kinds of places to go and experience and explore. What if you don’t have to get on a plane, wait in line, and sit in the middle seat? What if you can travel in a way that suits your glorified body perfectly, with none of the aggravation?

What if? Can you get behind any of this? Do any of these possibilities start to wake your spirit up? We don’t know for sure. But we do know that if there’s work to do, the work God gives us will be unlike anything we’ve experienced so far.

Since It’s True

Both John in Revelation and Paul in 1 Corinthians bring it back to this: since all of this is true, what you do here really, really matters.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

But it’s hard, because the distance between if and since is a chasm of hard truths, difficult concepts to receive by faith, and seasons of doubt that come with the natural ebb and flow of life. I hope and trust that by now you’ve arrived at since this is true, even if we don’t understand everything.

As we close this book, I want to leave you with three things.

1. Hold on to the thin places

What are your best days here? What are the best times of your life, the moments that have given you the most joy? They’re few and far between, because this world is full of disappointments and bad days. But have you ever had a moment when heaven felt so close you could sense it?

I told you about standing in the yard at the house in Arkansas, looking through the window at my family. There’s another moment I keep thinking about, when God gave me a sense that there was something bigger and better, and I just worshiped.

◆◆◆

My wife was pregnant with our first son. She was well along and getting uncomfortable. This was a long time ago. She had a pregnancy pillow, but she didn’t like it. She liked me better. We lived in Dallas then, in an old house, and it was hot most of the time. She used me as her pregnancy pillow instead, while I lay there sweating like crazy. But that’s okay. I had the easy part; she had to have the baby. (Remember Eve and all that.)

So there I was in the middle of the night, her belly propped on my arm, a bulldog on his back taking up the other side of the bed, snoring. My wife was sound asleep. Our son wasn’t born yet. We had no kids, and I was lying there wondering, How am I going to be a dad? How am I going to love somebody I don’t even know? I wasn’t especially kid-oriented, and I was having all the freak-out thoughts.

And in the middle of the night I felt a little thump on my arm. Just a little thump. It was my son, kicking me from the other side.

Even though that’s what babies do, something in me woke up. Something powerful moved me. It went far beyond I’m going to be a dad. It connected me to the fact that God is real, that he has so much planned, and that he does miracles and things we can’t even imagine.

◆◆◆

If you have moments like that, hold on to them. Heaven isn’t about making our best days better. It’s about living in the best place, with Jesus, forever. But those moments help prime us for the other side.

A Closing Prayer

Father, thank you for my friends. As we close this book and move on to other things, may we never move past the main thing.

I pray for anyone reading this who hasn’t yet decided to follow you. Eternity hangs in the balance. It’s so easy to be deluded into thinking we have time, but we never know when our time runs out. So if nothing else, help us come face to face with that reality today: if we died now, would we spend eternity with you in heaven?

And help us look at how we influence the people closest to us. If we’re married, our spouse. If we’re parents, our kids, at home or grown and gone. If we’re grandparents, our grandkids. How are we investing our time, our resources, our thoughts, and our prayers? Are we doing everything we reasonably can, through relationship, compassion, concern, and love, to nudge those closest to us toward eternity with you?

Help us live with purpose. Eternity reveals what life conceals. Give us a purpose that carries us through every trial of life, with the expectation and hope of heaven to come, so we can face whatever you allow into our lives and enjoy the blessings you bring. Help us do it together, growing a little more each week.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Punching My Ticket

Prepare for Landing

Meeting in the Middle

Eternity Reveals What Life Conceals

One Way or the Other

Highway to Heaven: 1000 Mile Marker

Leaving the Light On

Now That I’m Here

Glossary

Abomination of desolation. The event at the tribulation’s midpoint, connected with the temple and worship, when the Antichrist shows who he really is. Chapter Three

Abraham’s side. Jesus’ Old Testament description of paradise in Luke 16. Chapter Four

Abyss. The prison where Satan is bound for the thousand years (Revelation 20:1–3). Some see it as a separate place; many see it as the lowest level of Hades. Chapter Six

Age to come. Eternity, the age that follows the present one. The tribulation is the transition between the two. Chapter Three

Antichrist (the beast). The charismatic world leader who rises during the tribulation, then reveals his evil at its midpoint. Chapter Three

Armageddon. The final battle of the tribulation, when Jesus returns and defeats the nations gathered against Jerusalem. Chapter Three

Bema (judgment seat of Christ). The “podium” where believers, already saved by grace, give an account and are rewarded for how they lived (2 Corinthians 5:10). Not a judgment of salvation. Chapter Two

Eschatology. The study of last things: death, judgment, the return of Christ, and eternity. Chapter Seven

False prophet. The Antichrist’s right-hand man during the tribulation. Chapter Six

First resurrection. Believers raised bodily to live and reign with Christ (Revelation 20:4–6). Chapter Six

Firstfruits. The first of the harvest, given to God as a pledge that the whole crop belonged to him (Leviticus 23). Paul calls the risen Jesus the firstfruits: the guarantee that we will rise too. Chapter Eight

Gehenna (the lake of fire). The final, eternal place of punishment after the great white throne judgment. The name comes from the burning valley outside Jerusalem. Chapter Four

Glorification. God’s final work of making us complete, including our resurrected bodies, when we step onto the other side. Chapter Eight

Glorified body. The resurrected body believers receive when Jesus returns: real, recognizable, imperishable, and free from sin. Chapter Six · Chapter Eight

Gog and Magog. Names from Ezekiel 38–39 for the nations Satan gathers for one last rebellion after the thousand years. Chapter Six

Great white throne. The final judgment at the end of the millennial kingdom. All whose names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life are cast into the lake of fire. Chapter Six

Hades. The intermediate place of punishment for those who die without Christ: personal, painful, permanent, and preliminary. Chapter Four

Imperishable. No longer subject to decay, sickness, or death. Chapter Eight

Justification. God declaring us right with him because of Jesus, not our own goodness, received by faith alone in Christ alone. Chapter Eight

Lamb’s Book of Life. God’s record of those who belong to Jesus. Your name is written there the moment you decide to follow him. Chapter Six

Millennial kingdom. The thousand-year reign of Christ on earth after his return, while Satan is bound. Chapter Six

New heaven and new earth. God’s renewed creation, where he lives with his people forever (Revelation 21–22). Chapter Seven

New Jerusalem. The city that comes down out of heaven to the new earth: God’s dwelling with his people, with twelve gates of pearl that never close. Chapter Seven

Olivet Discourse. Jesus’ teaching on the Mount of Olives about his return and the end of the age (Matthew 24–25). Chapter Three

Paradise. Where believers go immediately at death: with Jesus, awaiting the resurrection (Luke 23:43). Chapter Two

Present age. The age we live in now, from Jesus’ ascension until his return. Scripture also calls it “the last days.” Chapter Three

Purgatory. A teaching that souls are purified after death before entering heaven. This book holds that Scripture doesn’t teach it. Chapter One

Rapture. Jesus gathering living believers to himself as the dead in Christ rise (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). Christians differ on whether it happens before or after the tribulation. Chapter Three

Sanctification. The Holy Spirit’s lifelong work of making us more like Jesus: a little less sin, a little more Jesus. Chapter Eight

Second death. Final judgment in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14). It has no power over those who belong to Christ. Chapter Six

Sheol. The Old Testament word for the realm of the dead. Chapter One

Son of Man. Jesus’ favorite title for himself, drawn from Daniel 7. Chapter Five

Spiritual body. A real, resurrected body transformed and empowered by God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:44). Chapter Eight

Thin places. A Celtic Christian idea: moments when heaven feels close and God points us toward home. Chapter Two

Tribulation. The seven-year period that ends the present age: three and a half years of false peace, then three and a half years of persecution. Chapter Three