Everybody dies. The scripture says so: Psa. 22:29 "...none can keep alive his own soul"; Heb. 9:27 "...it is appointed unto men once to die..."; Gen. 3:19 "...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"; Psa. 104:29 "...Thou takest away their breath,they die, and return to their dust"; Ecc. 12:7 "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it"; Ecc. 3:20 "All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again"; Psa. 89:48 "What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death..."; Ecc. 9:5 "For the living know that they shall die...".
And everybody who dies will either go to Heaven or Hell to exist in eternal peace or torment.
Heaven:
Heaven is my kind of place; eternity with God, how wonderful is that! Sadly there are some out there today that would want you and I to believe that believers are in heaven here on earth while they are living. This is wrong, it's error. The scripture says so: Matt. 6:20, Heb. 11:16 and 1 Peter 1:4).
It would seem that this erroneous concept grows out of a misunderstanding of Rev. chapter 21 verses 1, 2 and 10 in particular. These passages are describing the New Jerusalem (the Church)not Heaven on earth. Heaven on earth is most assuredly not, the same thing as being in Heaven. Besides, John clearly stated that the New Jerusalem descended "out of Heaven" from God and therefore is plainly not an image of Heaven. Rather it is an image of God coming down to tabernacle with man in a restored relationship. Heaven is a post physical death location for all eternity for those covered by the blood of Jesus our Christ.
And, if its not Heaven then its hell.-(
Hell:
Hell is strong English word that invokes strong emotions and feelings. In the KJV of the Bible the word hell appears 55 times and is translated from several Geek works and one Hebrew word:
Greek (geenna): geenna is translated in the New Testament 12 times all as "hell". (hades): hades is translated into English 11 times; 10 times as "hell", 1 time as "grave". (tartarus): tartarus is render only 1 time into English as "hell".
Hebrew (sheol): sheol is translated in the Old Testament 65 times; 31 times as "grave", 31 times as "hell" and 3 times as "pit".
Now that we have the words involved let's ponder the subject for a few. When a person dies the spirit of said person continues to exist past that physical death. Before the resurrection of the last day is spirit held "alive" and very much conscious by God in hades. Hades has two realms: paradise and tartarus. Paradise, good and desirable. Tartartus, bad and undesirable. Blood covered Believers, (paradise), awaiting the resurrection of life (John 5:29 and Dan. 12:2), the "first resurrection" (Rev. 20:3-6 and Matt. 12:26-27) and the wicked unbelieving sinners, (tartartus), awaiting in "chains of darkness" "reserved unto judgement" (II Peter 2:4 and Luke 16:19-31), the "second death" (Rev. 20:6); IE hades.
So then all the righteous dead from Abel to the resurrection of the last day as promised (Gen. 3:15) receive a resurrection by the power of His (Christ) resurrection, crushing death and keeping them in hades(paradise) at physical death until the resurrection of the last day. At the resurrection of the last day the righteous dead are taken to Heaven.
Likewise the unrighteous dead from the beginning until the resurrection of the last day are held in hades(tartartus) a place described by the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) as a place of "torments", a place of unquenchable thirst for a single drop of water to cool a tormented tongue because he was "tormented in the flames". And they will be tormented in this awful holding place until the judgement of the last days.
Rev. 20:14 says: "And death and hell (hades) were cast into the lake of fire (geenna). This is the second death." As you can see here, at the judgement of the last day, hades(tartartus) is cast into the lake of fire (hell/geenna).
Geenna is really what is meant when we are talking about a burning hell. It is a place of eternal suffering, flames and torment. A place to be avoided at all cost!
