Eternity: Where? What? Why?

The Certainty of Eternity: Where, What, and Why?

0:04 Now those of you who attended on the ministry here when I was privileged to stand hundreds of times in this pulpit, you will know that I never was very clever or adept at sermon titles. I just seemed to lack something in my brain that needs to be there to be a good sermon titler. And so probably 95% of the time when I stood to preach, I never said, the title of my sermon today is, and then give you some kind of a scintillating title that whets your appetite. That just wasn't me.

0:43 But in all seriousness, I do have a title for my sermon this morning, but we're not going to be looking at one basic passage of scripture, but many, many scriptures collated around this. The burden of my heart, which is embodied in the title to my message, and that title is this, the where, the what, and the why of your eternity. The where, the what, and the why of your, of your, of your eternity.

1:32 The what, the where, and the why of our eternity. And I introduce that message by asking each and every one of you a very pointed, a very personal question. And the question, when you first hear it, may seem somewhat strange, perhaps even a bit bizarre. However, after I explain what I mean by that question, I trust that you will be persuaded that there is no question under heaven, the consideration of which is more vital to your own highest personal well-being.

2:24 And what is that question? Well, here, August the 8th, 2010, I stand before you, and I ask you this question. In 125 years, at the most, in 125 years from now, at the most, where will you be?

2:51 What will be your condition? And why will you be where you are, in the condition that you will surely find yourself?

3:08 Sounds a little bizarre, doesn't it? You say, especially, Pastor Martin, you know your Bible well enough to know that in Proverbs 27, 1 we read, boast not yourself of tomorrow, for you know not what a day may bring forth. If I were to ask you, where will you be, and what will be your condition, and why will you be where you will be, 10 years from now, you'd look at me like I'd gone loony. See, I can't tell where I'm going to be 10 years from now.

3:47 I can't tell you what my circumstances will be, and why I am where I am. I can't even do that for five years. For one year. For one month.

3:59 For one week. For one day. See, anyone sitting here this morning who would say, with dogmatism, I know where I will be, what my circumstances will be, and why they will be that, even for one day, that would be an arrogant and a presumptuous prediction, because as the Scripture says, we do not know what a day may bring forth. And here you are asking me, where will I be?

4:40 What will my condition be, and why will I be where I will be in that condition 125 years from now? Yes.

4:54 And I'm not only asking that question, but I'm ready to stand and affirm from the Bible that you can give an absolutely infallible answer to that very question.

5:11 Now you say, Pastor Martin, why do you pick out the number 125? For this reason. Up until a few years ago, most of us were very comfortable with what Psalm 90 says about the general life expectancy. The old authorized words, three score and ten, seventy, or four score, eighty years.

5:35 We were comfortable with the fact that here, especially in our society in America, that that was a general, broad stroke description of life expectancy. But in recent years, that measure of life expectancy keeps going up and up and up. Modern medicine and surgical techniques keep increasing it all the time. And should there be even exponential, tremendous leaps forward in medical technology and surgical procedures, and cloning various organs, etc., I believe it is safe to say that though we have an age spread here this morning that stretches all the way from probably some, even under two years of age, I know we have some 80-year-olds, I know we've got some 70-year-olds, one of them standing in front of you, I believe it's safe to say no matter what kind of technological technology that we use, no matter what kind of technological breakthroughs there may be to greatly increase the average lifespan in 125 years from now, not a one of you sitting here will be alive. Every single one of us

7:03 will have passed through the door of death and it will shut behind us and lock us in our own, personal eternity. Hence, my question that is the title of my sermon this morning,

7:27 the where and the what and the why of your eternity.

7:40 And as we wrestle with that weighty question this morning, I've already asserted that each, each one of us can give an absolutely dogmatic and infallible response to that question.

The Twofold Answer: Heaven or Hell

7:58 And that response is as follows, and listen carefully, it has two parts to it. In 125 years from now, I will be in heaven experiencing inconceivable and ever-growing joy and bliss. In the immediate presence of God and in the company of all the people of God. Or, in 125 years from now,

8:37 I will be in hell experiencing inconceivable and ever-growing sorrow, pain, and misery in the presence of the devil, his angels, and the host of the damned.

8:58 Every single one of us can make those two assertions with the absolute certainty that one or the other will be true of us.

9:15 Now granted, and I know where some of you are already going in your thinking, yes, it is true that some people will make the statement in 125 years from now, I will be in heaven who are mistaken as to the biblical warrant to make such a statement. They will not be simply because they say they will be. And there may be some sitting here this morning who would make the second statement in 125 years from now, I fear I will be in hell when in reality, they will be in heaven because they have a wrong assessment of what they must know and experience to be able to say I will be in heaven. Granted, some may make the one statement or the other and it may be erroneous, but every one of us is going to fit into one or the other statements in the last day. And so in order to encourage every one of us of you to feel the full weight of these concerns, I want you not orally out loud, but I want you in your own mind to track with me and put in the first person

10:41 that two-fold answer to this question in 125 years. Where will you be? What will your experience be? And why will you be where you are experiencing what you are?

11:06 Say in your own mind with me, please don't feel insulted, I beg you, for your own soul's good. Look at this question straight on and say 125 years from now, say it in the first person in your own mind, I will be in heaven experiencing inconceivable and ever-growing joy and bliss in the immediate presence of God and of all the people of God. Say with me in your mind or 125 years from now, I will be I will be in hell experiencing inconceivable and ever-growing sorrow, pain and misery in the presence of the devil and of his angels and of the host of the damned.

The Intermediate and Ultimate Heaven

12:17 Now to urge you to take this question even more seriously and to think about it more accurately, I want us to take the zoom lens of the Bible and zoom in first of all on an expanded statement concerning heaven. My initial response to the question was some will be able to say 125 years from now I will be in heaven. But when we put the zoom lens on the biblical doctrine of heaven, we discover the Bible tells us about two heavens. And I'm describing in with these words, there is the intermediate heaven and there is the ultimate heaven. Now that shouldn't be hard to remember. There is an immediate heaven and there is an ultimate heaven. If you are united to Jesus Christ, should the Lord Jesus delay his return during your lifetime, then you with me will pass through the door of death at which time your body and spirit will be radically and abnormally separated for a time.

13:40 But the scriptures are unmistakably clear that when the spirit of that person united to Christ exits his body, that spirit passes immediately and consciously, into the presence of Jesus Christ and into a state of absolute moral perfection and fullness of joy. And while the body which has housed that spirit will be left behind, placed in the earth, the spirit will have ascended immediately into the presence of Christ, so that, so that every single person united to Christ has a right, if he's conscious, with his dying breath, to say with Stephen, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. What a privilege to come to the river of death and know for a certainty that when I breathe my last, as the Psalmist says, I shall awake beholding thy form, I shall see him. I can commit my departing spirit to him.

15:10 Isn't that the clear teaching of 2 Corinthians 5? Paul says, We know that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. I love that image. Let's go to the next chapter.

15:28 imagery? What's death in all of its ugliness, in all of its grief-producing nastiness? For the child of God united to Christ, it's going home. Going home! Come next Friday, God willing, and I finish that thirteenth lecture, Vince will take me to the airport, I'll be one excited old man. Why? Going home. Going home. Going home. And that's what will happen. To the spirit of the child of God, he goes at home with the Lord. That's the intermediate state. Paul said it in Philippians 1. He says, I'm torn. I have a passion to depart and to be

16:17 with Christ, which is very far better. However, he says, I think of you Philippians and others, and they need my ministry, so I'm torn. I'm torn with the passion of my faith and love in Jesus. I want to be with Him face to face, and yet I'm torn by the needs of the people of God. But in the midst of that, Paul is absolutely confident that the intermediate state for him would be with Christ. And when we ask all kinds of questions, what's the intermediate state? How do disembodied spirits see, and how do they sing, and how do they hear? We sweep it all aside and say, I don't have a clue, but this I know. I shall be with Christ. And

17:11 being with Christ, Hebrews 12.23 speaks of our coming, all the blessings in the new covenant, and one of them is this, we come to the spirits of just men made. Perfect. So the intermediate heaven, though the Bible doesn't give us a lot of information, it gives us all we need to know that death is no longer the king of terrors. We know that all death can do is chase us up into the immediate presence of Jesus. All death can do is beat us home, drive us home into the bosom of our salvation. And this is what we hear. And in an instant of time, think of it, Christian. When God saved you, He broke the dominion

18:02 of sin. He gave you a heart that began to pant to be holy. And you've been struggling through life with all the remains and remnants of your old hue, and seeking to put to death the things that are ugly and unlike Christ, and cultivate everything that's like Him. And it's been a struggle of decades.

18:26 And at times you wonder two steps forward, two and a half back. And we are weary and we groan with the apostle and say, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Child of God, the moment that spirit leaves that body, God puts forth the energy of His Holy Spirit.

18:48 And I don't know what other term to use. Into every cell of the constitution of your soul. Though I know souls aren't made up of cells, how else can I express it? And He's going to purge out every single stain of sin.

19:05 And furthermore, He's going to infuse you with every character trait of Jesus Christ. I tell you, that's enough to make you want to go out and kill yourself if you didn't have more sense. That's what God's going to do. That's the intermediate heaven.

19:22 And if you belong to Christ, you can say, What? Where? Why? I know the intermediate heaven will be my portion because I'm united to Christ.

19:39 But, but, the Bible's emphasis on heaven, though it is clear about the intermediate heaven, the great bulk of its teaching is on the ultimate heaven. The ultimate heaven. And what is the? The ultimate heaven.

19:58 Well, according to the scriptures, it is this. When Jesus Christ returns in power and in glory, He will bring the souls of His people who have been with Him, all who have been with Him in the intermediate heaven, He will raise their bodies from the grave, unite those bodies to those souls, and at the same time, renovate the existing heavens and earth, ushering in the new heavens and the new earth. And in conjunction with those events, Christ will sit as the universal judge and will publicly vindicate His own people before the assembled universe. And in that setting, of all the nations gathered before them, He will say to His own, their resurrected bodies now joined to their perfected spirits, Come, come, you blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Think of the glory and the wonder of it all, with souls perfectly conformed to the moral image and likeness of Jesus, with bodies,

21:26 now fully fashioned like unto the body of Christ's glory, we shall be forever with our blessed Lord, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, who in the blessed company of that multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation, and best of all, we will be in that place and in that condition forever and ever and ever and ever. And if I thought it would be to edification, I'd risk doing it. It is now exactly twelve o'clock. And if I stood here for one hour and did nothing but keep repeating these words, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor, endeavor. For a solid hour, I would not have used up the description of one day of the ultimate heaven, for it will be forever and forever. Blessed be God. Pastor Martin, where in the world do you get such notions of such expansive, marvelous things?

22:47 Right out of my Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4.14. This we say to you by the word of the Lord. The Lord is with you.

22:55 The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. I was sitting with my 97-year-old mother yesterday, and each time I visit her wondering, will this be the last before God takes her home? And I was preaching this stuff to my mother. And I said to her, Mom, isn't it wonderful to have my arm on her shoulder?

23:24 And she was sitting there like, woman on the front row, eagerly listening as to think of it. When the Lord returns, and living saints are going to see him, and the Lord's going to say, hey, stand aside for a minute. I've got some business with my dead ones. When I take care of them, I'll take care of you.

23:40 Now you just stand aside over there, and you just watch what I'm going to do. And he's going to call his dead saints out on the ground. And when he does, they're going to have a body fashioned that's, hey, that looks like John Smith over there. But that doesn't look like John Smith.

23:57 That's John Smith, but it's not. There'll be continuity between that body and weakness that went into the ground, and the body that's raised in power. And when the Lord's done reconstituting the body, fashioning it, as Paul says in Philippians 1, after the pattern of the body of his glory, and unites their souls, then he says, all right, I've got them all fixed up. Now you folks that are alive, you come near.

24:22 Now I'll take care of you. That's a bit of a Martin paraphrase. It's 1 Thessalonians 4, 14 and following. And then he says, we shall together be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

24:36 And here's the heaven of heavens. And in a sense, it's all we need to know about heaven. He says, so shall we ever be with the Lord. And the heart of a true Christian says, God, if I don't know one more thing about heaven, I don't need to know it forever with the Lord.

24:56 That's the ultimate heaven. And then he will publicly vindicate us before the entire moral universe. And then passages like 2 Peter 3, 10-13, Revelation 21, 1-4, they describe that ultimate heaven. So, we come back to my initial question.

25:20 In 125 years, where will you be? What will be your condition? And why will it be what it is? The initial answer I gave was rather truncated, wasn't it?

25:38 The initial answer I gave was that I will be in heaven, in the presence of Christ, in the company of all His saints, in a perfected spirit. But now, once we've put the zoom lens on that question and focused in on what the Bible says, this is the answer. Bless God, many of you can not only make it, but it's infallible and dogmatic, and it is certain to come to pass in 125 years. I will either be in the intermediate heaven with Christ, rejoicing and worshiping God with a perfected spirit, eagerly awaiting Christ's return and the resurrection of my body, or I will be in the ultimate heaven, the new heavens and the new earth, as a perfectly glorified child of God, fully conformed to the image of Christ in body and soul, worshiping and serving God in the company of all the holy angels, and all the people of God, forever and forever and forever until one o'clock,

27:05 and it's just the first day of my forever, forever.

The Intermediate and Ultimate Hell

27:16 But we take the zoom lens now, and we place it on what the Bible teaches about hell. And as surely as the Bible teaches that there is an intermediate heaven, and an ultimate, the Bible teaches there is an intermediate hell, as well as an ultimate hell. Think for a moment with me about the intermediate hell. According to the scriptures, the moment the body and soul of a man, woman, boy or girl, who is not united to Christ, those entities are separated at death, the soul of that man, man or woman, boy or girl, hear me carefully now, in a state of conscious existence, goes immediately to a place of suffering, of misery, and of woe. While the dead body is placed in the earth, the soul continues its conscious existence in a place that we might justly call God's misery,

28:34 or God's miserable holding pen or God's miserable cell or prison until the day of judgment. That's the intermediate hell. God's prison house, His holding cell, His holding pen, for those not united to Christ awaiting their being summoned before God in the day of judgment. It's much like the situation with our own penal system.

29:04 A man is apprehended and he's got all the evidence that he's guilty and yet he's not gone to trial and he is placed in a temporary place of incarceration. And then after his formal trial and the sentence, he is sent off to his permanent place of penal punishment. So likewise, God has a holding pen. He has a holding cell.

29:31 It's called by different Hebrew and Greek, Greek words in the Old and the New Testaments. But doing a word study of those words is not really the key to understanding. It's taking what the Scriptures make plain and focusing our minds upon it in no passage is more germane than Luke chapter 16. Here is a picture.

29:58 Here is a picture of intermediate hell. For we read in Luke 16, verse 19. There was a certain rich man. He was clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day.

30:13 And a certain beggar named Lazarus was laid at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Yea, even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man, also died and was buried.

30:38 The physical part of him went into the grave. He was buried. And yet, Jesus said, and in Hades he lifted up his eyes. The he of him, his spirit, continued in conscious existence, and he lifted up his eyes in Hades, and he cries, out, and says, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, that he may dip the finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.

31:15 And our Lord in most graphic language makes plain that the intermediate hell is a place of conscious existence, constant conscious torment and pain. And you find in Matthew 11, the words of Jesus, speaking to those impenitent Jews of his own generation, and those in some of the northern cities up in Galilee, he says in Matthew chapter 11 and verse 23, And you, Capernaum, shall you be exalted unto heaven? You shall go down into Hades. You shall go down into God's holding pen until the day of judgment. For if the mighty works had been done, in Sodom, that were done of you, they would have remained until this day. It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, notice, in the day of judgment than for you. He says the day of judgment is yet to be.

32:21 But you have gone down into Hades, into my holding pen of punishment, awaiting the day of judgment. And Peter describes the same reality, in 2 Peter 2 and verse 4, here again using a word that is unique to Peter, found here in Peter's epistle, 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 4, If God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and he uses a unique word, committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. The day of judgment will yet come when these fallen angels will stand before God. Paul references it in 1 Corinthians, says to the Corinthians, Do you not know you shall judge angels? Those angels are in God's holding pen. They are there awaiting the day of judgment in God's intermediate hell.

33:30 But then the Bible, just like with heaven, does not focus. its attention on the intermediate hell, but it focuses most of its intention, its attention on the ultimate hell. And once again, according to the clear testimony of Scripture, when our Lord Jesus Christ returns in power and glory, He will not only resurrect and give to His saints bodies fashioned like unto His own glorious, He will reconstitute the bodies of those who are not joined to Him, and bring them to stand before Him in a formal heavenly court, in order to judge them according to their works, and consign them to eternal hell, a place most frequently referred to by our blessed Lord as Gehenna. a place most frequently referred to by our blessed Lord as Gehenna. a place most frequently referred to by our blessed Lord as Gehenna. a place most frequently referred to by our blessed Lord as Gehenna.

34:35 The place of fire and of torment. And on what basis do I make such dogmatic statements about the future? Well, you tell me. If these words do not teach us that, what do they teach us?

34:52 John 5 and verse 28. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice. Whose voice? The voice of the Son of Man.

35:10 The voice that stood outside the tomb of Lazarus. And when it said, Lazarus, come forth! Lazarus came forth. And the returning Lord will say to all of the buried dead, eaten by the sharks, and consumed by the lions, and all of the mystery of how God will reconstitute bodies that have long since disintegrated.

35:40 The God who spoke to galaxies into being, that will be no big deal for Him. No big deal. And Jesus, it says, will speak. And He will say, all you not joined to Me, come forth to judgment.

36:00 And the graves will vomit out their dead. And with their spirits joined to their bodies, they will be summoned away to stand before the Judge. And they will hear those horrific words. Depart from Me, you cursed.

36:23 That's hell enough. Cut off from the source of all love, all light, all purity, all truth. Depart from Me. Sinner!

36:34 Sinner, hear Me! Right now, you depart from Christ. You want nothing to do with Him. You wish Christ would depart from you and not bother you.

36:46 You wish preachers wouldn't get in your face and challenge you and plead with you and urge you. A day is coming if you die in that condition. You'll hear words you wish you never heard. Depart from Me.

37:03 And departing from Him, no light, no love, no grace, no mercy, no tenderness. But that's not all He'll say. Depart from Me into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And verse 46 of Matthew 25 says these sobering words.

37:30 And these shall go into eternal punishment. But the righteous into eternal life. That's the ultimate hell. And it's from the lips of our tender Savior that these words come.

37:55 I'm quoting phrases from the words of Jesus. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. The worm does not die. And the fire is never quenched.

38:15 Outer darkness. The language of Jude. Wandering stars. To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

38:33 Dear people, either God is the biggest deceiver seeking to scare us with words that have no connection, to reality, or words cannot capture a tithe of the horror of the ultimate hell. And you better take it seriously, for in a hundred and twenty-five years, you're going to be in the intermediate hell in God's holding pen, waiting the day when you're summoned before Him to be cast into the ultimate hell. And now it's quarter after. And if I were to keep repeating till one o'clock the words where you will be forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and go on till one o'clock, it would not be the first day. Of the forever, of your forever in hell.

Recap: The Certainty of Eternal Destinations

39:59 And I have not gone beyond the language of the Bible. So, we come around full circle to where I began. In one hundred and twenty-five years, where will you be? In what condition will you be?

40:22 And you must answer in one of these two ways. In a hundred and twenty-five years from now, I will be in heaven, either the intermediate or ultimate heaven, experiencing inconceivable and ever-growing joy and bliss in the immediate presence of God and in the company of the people of God. And that, forever and ever, or in one hundred and twenty-five years, I will be in hell. Either the intermediate or ultimate hell, experiencing inconceivable and ever-growing sorrow, pain and misery in the presence of the devil, his angels, and the host of the damned. And that, forever and forever. Now, much more briefly, I want to come to the third strand of my question. Remember what it was?

41:27 Where will you be? What will your condition be? And I've answered those two. But then I have a third W.

41:36 Why? Why will I be where I am, experiencing what I am, either the glories of the ultimate heaven, or the glories of the intermediate heaven, or the horrors of the ultimate, or the immediate hell? Why? Why will I be in heaven?

Why Eternity? The Negative Answer: Not Our Beginnings

42:01 Why will I be in hell? Well, let me answer, both with a negative and a positive. Here's the negative. As for the negative, not a one of us here, from the youngest to the oldest, follow me closely now, will be in heaven or in hell simply because of our beginnings.

42:21 Simply because of our beginnings or where we started. Because in a very real sense, everyone in heaven and everyone in hell started at the same place. When we pick up these Bibles that teach us about the intermediate and ultimate heaven, the intermediate and ultimate hell, those same Bibles tell us that the people that end up in heaven and those in hell all had the same beginnings. And what does the Bible tell us about our common beginnings?

42:53 Well, I'll spell it out quickly, quote a text or two under each head. I won't take time to turn in the interest of time. Number one, those who will be in heaven and those who will be in hell all began their existence as part of a guilty and a condemned race that fell in our first father Adam. Our beginnings, the same.

43:21 We're all part of a guilty and condemned race that fell in our first father Adam. In our first father Adam, Romans 5, 12, as through one man sin entered into the world and death passed upon all men for that all sinned. When did all sin? They all sinned in Adam.

43:40 Verse 19, as through the disobedience of the one the many were constituted sinners. Or 1 Corinthians 15, 22, as in Adam all die. You say, wait a minute, I never raised my hand and voted that Adam should represent me. I believe in democracy.

43:59 Well, in the autonomy of God's administration of the world, God doesn't go according to your beliefs in democracy. He chose to make Adam the covenant head of the whole human race. And when Adam fell, we all fell in him and with him. We were piggybacked on him.

44:16 We were hooked to his belt as one of the old Puritans described it. So the people in heaven, you ask them, hey, did you get here because somehow you sneaked out from under Adam, unhooked yourself from Adam's belt, got off Adam's back? The people in heaven say, no, no, no. I was in Adam, guilty and condemned in my first father as well as those in hell.

44:43 But secondly, those who will be in heaven and those in hell all began their existence as part of a depraved and a polluted race. Not only a guilty and condemned race, that's their legal standing, but as a depraved and polluted race. That's what they are in themselves. You remember how graphically David put it?

45:09 Here he is a middle-aged man. He's been one of God's covenant children, known God, composed psalms, mighty warrior, and yet as a middle-aged man he acted like a godless, young buck just out to get in bed with the next woman. And he commits adultery with Bathsheba and he plots the murder of her noble husband Uriah. And when God finally busts his heart open through the ministry of the prophet Nathan, David then composes several psalms.

45:44 One of them is Psalm 51. And after he's begging God for mercy and pleading that God would turn away his face from his sins, then he says this. He breaks in at verse 5 of that penitential psalm and says, Behold! He's struck with something and he says, God, look at this!

46:05 Look at this! I'm saying have mercy upon me. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. I've been an adulterer.

46:15 I've been a murderer. I've been a hypocrite. But then he stops and says, Behold! Behold, God!

46:22 Look at me! Look at what I really am! Behold! I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

46:35 He's saying, God, look on me for what I am. What I did as a middle-aged man in my perversity, I did because I am what I am. From the time my daddy's sperm penetrated my mama's egg, what was conceived in her womb was depraved and polluted. And what I've done in my middle-age years is a commentary of what I've been from my conception.

47:04 Behold! I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. That's why Jesus said, That which is born of the flesh is flesh. We pass on to our children that depraved, sin-polluted nature.

47:26 And if you were to ask the people in heaven, Hey, are you here? Because somehow when your daddy's sperm penetrated your mama's egg, God was there and neutralized and bled out of that conception. Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

47:42 I've prayed Psalm 51 hundreds of times in my lifetime. I'm not here because I was exempt from the pollution and depravity. But then they have a third element of their beginnings exactly the same. Those who will be in heaven and those in hell all began their existence as part of a race that by nature is the unsettled rebellion against God.

48:12 Not only part of a race guilty and condemned, that's their legal status. Not only all depraved and sin-polluted, that's their internal condition, but their disposition is one of settled rebellion against God. Romans 8, 7. The carnal mind, the disposition, the heart bent of every man, woman, boy or girl by nature is enmity against God.

48:42 It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be. What we are by nature is one massive clenched fist against God. When God says, Thou shalt, we say, I shan't.

48:58 I won't. I will not. And when God says, Thou shalt not, we say, I will. The carnal mind, enmity against God.

49:08 Not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be. Titus 3, 3. Paul says, We ourselves were foolish, disobedient, hateful, hating one another.

49:20 That's what they are who are in heaven. That's what they were. And you say, Are you there because somehow you were naturally a God lover? You were naturally No, no.

49:31 I was a high-handed rebel against the God of heaven. Fourthly, those who will be in heaven and those who will be in hell all began their existence as part of a sin-loving, light-hating race. Sin-loving, light-hating. Think of it.

49:51 There are people in heaven who love the light. They love the light of God's holiness. They love the light of Christ's countenance. They love the light that shines in the face of all their fellow believers because they see Jesus reflected in them.

50:06 But they weren't that way by nature. John 3, 19 to 21, Jesus said, This is the condemnation. Light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Neither will they come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved.

50:26 By nature, those in heaven, those in hell are part of a race that is a sin-loving, light-hating race. And the fifth element of their beginnings in which they are absolutely the same is this. Those who will be in heaven and those who will be in hell begin their existence as part of a spiritually blind, spiritually dead, and spiritually impotent race. That's what the Bible says about all of the sons and daughters of Adam.

51:02 They are spiritually blind, spiritually dead, and spiritually impotent. They are spiritually blind. 2 Corinthians 4, 3 and 4. If our gospel is veiled, it's veiled in them who perish, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should dawn upon them.

51:29 The devil knows if a sinner can see the glory of Christ, it's all over. What are the trinkets and toys and the stuff of this world and a few sensuous pleasures while going on? One word into hell. Once I've seen God's glory in the face of Christ, so the devil says I'll blind them to that glory.

51:55 I won't let them see any beauty in Jesus. Spiritually blind, but spiritually dead. You hath He made alive who were dead. In your trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2, 1.

52:11 Spiritually impotent, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned and not having the Holy Spirit, he can no more figure them out than he can read Hindustani backwards. Spiritually, spiritually impotent. So impotent that Jesus said we can't even get to the remedy on our own.

52:42 No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Here I am, the bread of life, the author and the giver of salvation. I offer myself, but you can't get to me unless the Father enables you. You go to those people in heaven and say, hey, did you bypass that?

53:05 Did you have some little spark of spiritual sight? Some little spark of spiritual life? Some little spark of spiritual energy that you used and God gave you more and then you eventually...

53:18 They say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was blind. I was more blind than that guy in the pulpit. His death.

53:27 I mean blind, blind. It's like my eyes were gouged out and I was spiritually dead. There was nothing in me responding to God. And I couldn't get to the remedy on my own even when I first heard of it and said, yes, it all makes sense.

53:45 But my love of sin and love of self and love of the world was such. I couldn't let it go and run to Him. You see, when you take up that third strand of my question, where will you be? What will your experience be and why?

54:07 The answer in the negative is it has nothing to do with your beginnings. Those in heaven and those in hell all have the same beginning. Part of a guilty and condemned race, a depraved and polluted race, part of a race in settled rebellion against God, a sin-loving, light-hating race, a spiritually blind, dead, and impotent race. And that's not the whole of the story.

Why Eternity? The Positive Answer: Title and Fitness for Heaven

54:38 I've only given you a specimen of what the Bible teaches about the people that end up in heaven and the people that end up in hell. Well, as we seek now to give a positive answer, and we ask how do those people coming out of those beginnings, how do they end up in heaven made like Jesus in their moral constitution, perfectly righteous, infused with all the graces of the Holy Spirit make them into the moral likeness of Christ with resurrected bodies fit for life in the new heavens and the new earth. They come out of the same stuff of those that are in hell. How in the world, why do they end up in heaven? Well, follow me closely now.

55:35 I know I've made you think a lot. And I'm watching the clock. I won't burden you with preaching too long, I trust. Here's the positive answer.

55:45 If we boil down to its irreducible elements, the answer of the Bible to this question, why are they in heaven? What remains is this. In 125 years from now, those of you who will be found in the intermediate or the ultimate heaven will be there because of two basic realities. And follow me closely.

56:14 Number one, you will have been given a legitimate title to heaven. The intermediate heaven, the ultimate heaven, you've got to have a legitimate title to get in. And you will be there if that's where you will be because you've obtained a legitimate title to heaven. And secondly, because you have been made perfectly fit for heaven.

56:47 You've got those two things, a legitimate title and made perfectly fit for heaven. Now, according to the Scriptures, that title is not comprised of the stuff of anything you do, have done, or ever will do. It is made up exclusively of the stuff of the perfect life, of the God-man, Christ Jesus, and the death that He died in the room instead of sinners, the virtue of which was validated by His resurrection. To have a legitimate title to heaven, I need something in my hands that I have not created, no fellow human being has created. It's been created by the doing and the dying, the life and the death, of Jesus. That's why Romans 5.19 says, As through one man many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of the one, the many shall be constituted righteous.

58:01 And when our Lord Jesus left the glories of heaven as the second person of the Godhead, He did not come and take to Himself human nature, a human soul, a human body, a human mind, human affection, sin accepted, and then just live out as it were all of His liberties as God. No, the Bible says, He was made of a woman, made under the law. He placed Himself under the very law by which God binds all of us and will condemn us for breaking that law. And in every facet of His life, from His conception, through to His saying, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And this is the marvel of the obedience of Jesus all the way through the stages of toddlerhood, into those younger years, into adolescence and young manhood and adult manhood. He never, never once spoke a word that was contrary to perfect love to God and perfect love to man. Absolute truth, spoken with grace, spoken with the right motives.

59:20 He never said a word that didn't even have the right tone. Think of all the sins we commit with our tongues just by the tone of our voice. And we've got to say to husband and wife, dear, forgive me, I responded to your question sharply. I responded sarcastically.

59:41 And often it's the tone that makes the, not once, one note in the tone of Jesus' voice, He could not be our Savior. One look of lust, one disposition of petulance and selfishness and disobedience to mom and dad in His heart, we'd have no Savior. When as a grown man, coming through all the stages of normal maturation, He stands in the waters of death, in the waters of Jordan, the Father speaks from heaven and says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well. Everything I've seen of my Son for these 30 plus years, every motion of His motives, every word of His mouth, every move of His hands, every step of His feet, there's not been one thing, one thing that I'm not pleased with. And if the Father was to receive His Son back to heaven, He could have done so right then and there without any impediment, my Son. You have a legitimate title to be ushered back because you fully kept my law.

61:04 Oh, if I could only hide under His garments, as the Father says in you, I'm well pleased. My friend, that's what faith does. The people in heaven had the same beginning with the people in hell. But they've run under the skirts and under the robe of Jesus.

61:26 And they say my confidence for a title to heaven is not in anything I have done, can do, ever shall do. I trust only in the One who perfectly kept the law of God, not just for Himself, but on behalf of all who will hide in Him. But then we have a problem. He didn't.

61:49 What about that polluted nature? What about that clenched fist? What about that love of darkness? Well, you see, the second thing those people have who are in heaven, they've not only been given a legitimate title to heaven by trusting in the work of Christ in the life of His obedience, then I should have mentioned, trying to condense a bit, that which He did when He died upon the cross where He took upon Himself all of the righteous punishment against our sins.

62:27 He bore our sins in His own body up to the tree, Peter says. The prophet says, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And when He had exhausted the full cup of divine wrath against our sins, He cried out, it is finished. It is done.

62:45 The wrath is turned away. I now have the stuff of a legitimate title to heaven to give to sinners, the stuff of my perfect life, the stuff of my death on their behalf. And then they are in heaven because they've been made perfectly fit for heaven. Christ gives His Spirit to His people and the Spirit comes and delivers us out of the dominion of sin.

63:14 He comes to indwell us, giving us both motive and power to please God, opens our eyes to understand the Word, and in the power of the Spirit we begin to live a life that's pleasing to God. We begin to mortify, put to death our sins. We cultivate by the Spirit's help Christ-like graces. We are beginning to become fit for heaven.

63:41 And that's why the moment the Spirit of a child of God leaves His body in death, God completes the work in an instant of time. And He makes that soul perfectly fit for heaven by making it perfect. And they join the spirits of just men made perfect. But we've got a rotten body.

64:02 The worms are eating it in the grave. Yeah, that's right. So the Lord says, I'm going to take care of that too and make them fit for heaven, body and soul. So He gives them a resurrection.

64:13 A resurrected body, fashioned like unto His own glorious body. So when He's done that work, they not only have a legitimate title to heaven, they have perfect fitness for heaven. Well, that's reality. That's what the Bible teaches.

64:31 And all of those things, God says, are by grace. All of them have to do with the love and the mercy and the pity of God toward sinners. And they're just any number of texts that don't have time to quote them. John 3.16, Romans 5.69, Ephesians 2.8-10, Titus 3.4-7, Revelation 21.27, Matthew 5.8, all of which point to this reality that God in grace gets people to heaven, the intermediate and the ultimate heaven, by giving them a legitimate title and by making them perfectly fit for heaven.

Why Eternity? The Positive Answer: Justice and Holiness for Hell

65:10 And why will people be found in hell? I'll just give you the heading. Men and women, boys and girls, will be found in heaven for two basic reasons. Because God is a just God and must punish all unforgiven sin.

65:28 The wages of sin is death. The soul that sins, it must die. If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins, Jesus said. Men and women, boys and girls, will be found in hell because God is who He is.

65:45 He is a just God and must punish all forgiven sin. And secondly, men and women, boys and girls, will be found in hell because God is a holy God and cannot allow uncleansed, depraved and sinful creatures into His presence. Revelation 21.27, there shall enter into it nothing that is unclean.

Final Exhortation and Prayer

66:11 God is holy and will not admit the unholy into His presence. Follow after holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Well, I've delivered my soul, dear people. I have no premonition that this is the last time I'm going to preach to you.

66:36 But if it is, you remember, somebody tried to help you to get serious about the only thing that really matters in this life, and that's being prepared for your eternity in inexpressible bliss and joy or in the incomprehensible, horrific place called hell. 125 years from now, where will you be? I will be in...

67:21 Where? Where? Fill in the blanks. I will be...

67:25 Where? Fill in the blanks. In heaven or in hell. What will your condition be?

67:35 Unimaginable bliss and glory, unspeakable horror and woe. And why? Not because of your beginnings, but because those in heaven have obtained a legitimate title based on the work of Christ and made perfectly fit based on the work of the Spirit in them, conforming them to Christ. And if you're in hell, it'll be because God will not cease to be both a just and a holy God, and He will magnify His justice and His holiness in your damnation and elicit praise from holy angels and all the redeemed who will worship God when you sink into hell. I want us to close this morning by singing a hymn that I trust God will use to press these things home to our hearts. It's hymn number 606 in your red hymn book, hymn number 606. The time is short, ere all that live shall hence depart their God to meet, and each a strict account must give that Jesus' solemn judgment seems,

69:04 the time is short, how can we tell how brief our life below may be? Today on earth our souls may dwell, tomorrow in eternity. God help us to think hard and long on these great realities. Hymn number 606.

69:25 Let us pray together.

72:18 Father, we now commit Your word to Your watch-care. We know that careless, indifferent sinners will go on in their carelessness and indifference in spite of what they have at least in some little measure heard. But we love them for Jesus' sake, and we pray that You will not allow them to damn themselves by hardening their hearts in the love of sin and the love of death and the love of the darkness. But O God, bring them, we pray, to embrace in Jesus that legitimate title to life and salvation, and transform them by Your mighty Spirit, begetting them to new life in Christ. Bless Your precious people, who we trust with a fresh sense of wonder, long to be in Your presence, are confident, that one day You will indeed perfect them not only in their spirits but in their aging, sick bodies, and give them bodies like unto the glorious body of our exalted Savior. So we commit Your word to You that You will make it effectual

73:46 in all of our hearts. To the praise of Your grace we pray. Amen.