Eternal Life and Death, Where to Next?

To say that Jay Carty is an unusual communicator is a mild statement. Maybe a little nuts would be more accurate. Not a preacher, not a teacher, more a storyteller with a very important message. Where some deep preachers are too snoozy for the rank and file, and where some humorists don’t have much to say, Jay’s stuff is generally regarded as an unusual blending of humor and profound content. A former Oregon state basketball star and LA Laker, Jay has dedicated his life to helping people say yes to God. Now, we hope you enjoy Carty’s contemporary classics.

Last week, we talked about physical and spiritual life and death. This week, where to next? Eternal life and death. So we’ve got a tough subject, so you aren’t going to like this one. So I couldn’t find very much funny to talk about hell, so I’ll just do the best I can. The Old Testament dead went to Sheol. New Testament, it’s called Hades. It’s where everybody went. It had a penthouse, and it had a basement. The penthouse is heaven-like. The basement was hell-like. Those who believe God who’s counted to him as righteousness went to the penthouse. Abraham, the patriarchs, their families, and all those who believe God. Those who did not went to the basement.

When Jesus died, he took captivity captive, and went to Hades, and took those in Upper Hades, in the penthouse to heaven. From that point on, to die in Christ would be to be absent from the body, but present with the Lord. But everyone who died since, including today, goes to Hades that doesn’t know Christ, if my Bible is correct. So you don’t go directly to hell. You go to Hades before hell. Then, Jesus spoke more about hell than he spoke about any other subject, including love. So there are more verses devoted to hell and Hades than even love. So those of you who discount the concept of hell, you cannot revere the words of Christ and discount the concept of hell because he spoke so much about it.

I took all the verses on hell and all the verses on heaven, and condensed them. Here we go. Forgive me for reading. That’s the only way to get through. Absolute absence of God, nothing good or wholesome there. You’ll keep your personality with your sin nature turned loose. Satisfaction, never available. Never any fulfillment. Unrestrained demonstration of selfish urges. In the presence of all that’s bad and evil, sudden and eternal destruction. Utter and outer darkness. If all the fire verses are literal, it’s a different kind of fire because they won’t produce light. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Second death, worse than death itself. Tribulation, distress, wrath, fury, extreme anguish. No escape. No rest. Torment goes up forever and ever. No concept biblically of purgatory. No second chances. No way to get out. Period. Pits of nether gloom, degrees of punishment. Satan won’t rule there. He’ll be in the deepest, darkest depths of the place, and then all the burning stuff, all the verses about fire, and all the rest of that, and a whole bunch of those.

Contrast that with heaven. Place where God dwells. Place of righteousness. We’ll worship God there. If you don’t like to worship him, make sure your issues are with the taste and preference of worship, not the act itself. Always be with the Lord. Retain our personality with our sin nature removed. No hunger, thirst, tears, sadness, pain, or death. No hard labor, but lots to do. In charge of many things, but no stress. Paradise, beautiful, magnificent, and the physical description uses all the words that are really buzzwords for us. Nothing unclean. God will be our light. Lots of places to dwell. It took six days to make this. Jesus has been working on heaven for over 2,000 years. It might be nice.

Here’s one. There’s no sex. Now, I know. I got a friend who says if there’s no sex in heaven, he’s not sure he wants to go. It’s not referring to gender because when Jesus with his glorified body came back, he was still a male. So it’s referring to intercourse. It is, and if you think about it, your deepest relationship is with your spouse. But in heaven, your deep relationships will be reserved for God. So there’s every indication we won’t miss it, so heaven must be pretty good. All right. All right. We’ll have new perfect bodies. Every spiritual blessing is ours. There’ll be no such thing as time. It means no such thing as age or aging.

Yeah.

If you listen to the out of body experience, people will all be 30-ish. Grain of salt with that crew. We’ll be served by angels. When I figured this one out, it made me cry. We’ll be served by Christ because he’ll be the ultimate servant leader demonstrating that example. It must be very difficult to get through a door in heaven. Nobody will go through first. We’ll do all things perfectly, and no feelings will ever be hurt. You were given an eternal soul when you were born, but you were born spiritually dead. You don’t want physical death to catch you spiritually dead. You want to have spiritual birth. Now, if my Bible is right… and there’s always a little if in that. I bought into it. It seems right to me. It might not be, but I think it is. But if my Bible is right, you won’t have a second chance. You don’t want to take your chances with this one and hope you’re enough to get in. You don’t want to do that because the consequences are too great.

That’s right.

So if you would just confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Put him on the throne. Take yourself off. If you would believe that Jesus can take care of you when you die, that he will resurrect you, and if you believe that, my Bible says you will be saved from the consequences of your sin, which are eternal separation from God. You’ll be saved from that, and you can look forward to an eternal presence with your Father in heaven.

We hope that you enjoyed this week’s installment of Carty’s contemporary classics. We’ll join Jay next week for a continuation of his laugh-inducing and thought-provoking insights.