What Is Really True In The World? Hell, Faith, And Heaven

If I go to my bank account and say, "well, I don't know what's true" that's not going to work. There will be an amount listed. It's either correct or it isn't.

That's how it is with history. That's how it is with science. That's how it is with archaeology. That's how it is with anything, there is objective truth. There's an absolute reality. But then when we get to religion, we say, "well, no one knows the truth for sure." Nonsense. There is a right answer. There are wrong answers. Its just as objective as history or anything else.

Sometimes we just don't like that reality. But I think if we can face it and say, okay, it is true, I'll admit it, then we can begin to walk that path. Soon we may yet find ourselves saying, "Hey, this isn't that hard. I can do this in the power of God. And I can be okay."

But a lot of people are in rebellion in our world, they would rather fight it. Instead, for me, it became much better to say, "You know what, I get it. It's true. Jesus Christ is really real. I'm gonna try to live that out." And it turns out, life works much better that way.

Today, though, the Lord gave me a three-fold message that he wants me to share. First of all, we're going to talk about hell, then we're going to talk about Jesus Christ and the gospel, then we're going to talk about heaven. Okay? Hell, Heaven. In the middle, we'll talk about Christ. And all those things are aspects of what we find in the Bible, the Word of God. Everyone likes heaven. Some people like Jesus, some people don't. And no one wants to hear about hell, but it's all in there.

All of us are made in the image of God. That means you have intrinsic value. Every human being on the planet, in fact, is made in the image of God. That means that every human life matters. That's why the Bible says "do not kill." That's why we have laws in our country that say, you may not murder someone else. Because every human life has value. We are made in God's image, the Bible says. What that means exactly, we don't know, it's a mystery. But it is a beautiful mystery.

I don't know if you've noticed this: Nothing in this life fully fills our desires. There's something inside of us that longs for more. And the goal then, is that we would find that extra something in God himself. Because nothing in this life fully satisfies. You can drink as much as you want. You can eat as much as you want. You can have the perfect romance. But at the end of the day, none of it quite satisfies. There's always something missing, that can only be filled by an infinite God.

We have a seed you might say, of the infinite within us, we have this longing within us that can't be touched by anything in this world. When I see a beautiful sunset, or a sunrise or the stars in the sky, that's great. But I want more, I want to be able to jump into it and be part of it somehow.

Something's missing. Does that make sense? So we have this infinite value, right? But there's a problem. We know Adam and Eve were the first humans. They sinned against God. And then the human race became fallen. That's why we all struggle. That's why we battle temptations in this life. That's why we struggle to want to do the right thing. It's like something inside us wants to do the right, but we can't quite get there. It's just out of reach. And then we do bad things, and it feels good. After, it feels bad. We feel guilty. And here's the thing, God has to deal with the sin problem. He has to. If we look deep down, most of us would admit, "I want him to deal with it." I want God to get rid of sin. I want God to get rid of murder, and human trafficking, and death, and evil and wars.

So our part is this: We have to leave sin behind ourselves. By turning to Jesus Christ, we can leave sin behind. And then we can be part of the new thing God is doing. However, if we cling to the sin, say, no, I'm gonna live in sin. I like sin, I'm gonna do it. God, in fact, has no qualms about sending me to a place of horrors, a place of nightmares, a place of conscious eternal torment called Hell.

There is also time limit to say, "I'm done with the sin problem." And if the clock runs out on our lives, and we never turned away from our sins, God will say, all right, I got a place for people who want to cling to their sins. It's called Hell. That's one of my least favorite things to talk about. But it's in there. I'm not going to sugarcoat it for the sake of anyone on planet earth. Because God is a God of love, but he's also a God of justice. And the fact is, every single person alive loves justice, just as much as they love, love. Sometimes we want justice even more than love. We want things to be right, more than we want love. Right? Am I wrong? All of us want justice. We long for it every day. But then we get mad when God says I'm gonna deal with it.