Death and Afterlife from a Biblical Perspective

Hebrews 9:27 and the Basic Framework of Eschatology

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. Today's podcast is actually a lesson which I gave recently at Set Free Church on the subject of eschatology, which deals with death and the afterlife. I hope you enjoyed today's program.

And if you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email at calvinispodcast at gmail .com. Now on with the show. Hebrews 9 27 ESV translation says begins with the word and it says and just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Well today we're looking at eschatology which comes from the Greek word eschaton which means last things. We are going to be looking then at primarily the doctrine of what happens at the end and we're going to look at this in two ways.

We have two primary parts of today's lesson number one individual eschatology and number two universal eschatology. So in regard to individual eschatology we're going to address the subject of death and resurrection and then under universal eschatology we're going to discuss the question of end times which I will go ahead and tell you not going to get too deep into because it's a labyrinth of stuff that we could go over but we'll discuss a little bit of the broad structure and then we're going to talk about destinations and destinations has two you can guess what they are they are what heaven and hell all right.

So that's the outline of today's lesson. We're going to look at individual eschatology. We're going to look at universal eschatology we're going to look at death and resurrection. We're going to look at the end times and then final destinations.

And that's not a film even though it is I mean it's not what we're talking about today so this is what we talk about. We talk about end times or rather eschatology last things and so let's begin by talking about personal eschatology.

Personal Eschatology and the Question of Death

One of the things that people will ask me from time to time is they will say pastor keith do you think that we are living in the end times. And my answer is usually this uh whether or not we are in the last days all of us are in the end times from the perspective of in 100 years you're all going to be dead.

So whether or not the earth goes on another 100 years 200 years 500 years really doesn't matter from the perspective of you because unless jesus comes in the next 100 years you're not going to be around to see it anyway.

I mean honestly most of us in this room are probably over 30. I know some of you like nails. I know you're in your 20s. How many of you are under 30. Oh wow. Okay so some of you okay all right. Yeah I do believe your little pants are on fire.

So all right. So uh if you are over 30 and you live the average lifespan of a of a male which is between 70 and 80 years then you are close to the middle of your life. I'm 42 which means I am probably halfway done.

Because if I live to 84 that means I'm half I'm halfway there. If I live to 75 that means I'm over halfway there. Or if I die in my 60s I'm two-thirds of the way to the end. Or if I get hit by a semi on the way home today.

Today may be the day and my midlife was in my 20s and I didn't even know it. So we all live in the end times from the perspective of we're all 100 years or less away. I mean probably 50 years or less.

If we were you know most of us in here um and we never know when that time's going to come. I mean there are people. I know people I know healthy you know rugged people jog never understood jogging. But they you know the bible says you run when nobody's chasing.

You know that's not a good thing. Yeah but but you know people would be. And then they die of a heart attack. They wake up in the morning get their shake with all the nutrients and they drink their shake.

And they go for run die while running. And I went to crystals this morning. I'm tempting fate. I'm sorry I'm sort of what I mean we're all going to die. And we're all going to die. You know relatively soon on the world stage we are.

We are like a blip on the radar of history. The bible says we're like a vapor here today gone tomorrow. We're like grass that springs up and then withers in the hot sun. Right. So when people get that's this is why it always bothers me when people get so excited about the end times.

Pastor are we in the end times. You are. Yes might not be everybody else's end times. But you're in your own personal individual eschatology that that's why most of the time when people talk about eschatology this is the part they focus on so much and they leave out the rest of this.

They don't think about the other stuff. So I always like to point that out. So we asked the first question. We talk about death. We talk about individual eschatology. We talk about death. First question is what happens when we die.

So question mark here. Um there have been as many of you know some people who claim to have died and returned and shared a story about going to hell or going to heaven. I call these uh after life tourism books.

You know I got my tour of heaven. I got my tour of hell. Had one guy last year at the fair I do evangelism at events. And I went out to do evangelism at the fair. Dude talked to me for an hour. He wanted to share with me his story of how he got covid.

He was on a ventilator and he died on the table. And then he came back and he wanted to tell me about all the things that he saw in the afterlife. And and people ask me do you believe him. I don't know.

I don't know because I'm you know I can't explain his experience. And I'm not. It's not my job to confirm his experience. But primarily I can't I can't trust his experience to tell me what I should trust in.

Right. This is why I heard somebody say a little boy died. He went to heaven and he came back and told us about it. And that's why you should believe in heaven. I say no slow down. My faith is not in the experience of an eight-year-old boy.

My faith is in the scriptures. My faith is not in the experience of a guy who talked to me at the fair. My faith is in the. So if you know why would I want to trust in this guy who I don't know when I could trust in the word of God who cannot fail.

That's the difference. Right. And so people get so excited. This is why people oh I love it when things confirm the bible the bible confirms things. Things don't confirm the bible. That's the other. That's that's the backwards mindset that we have.

I need I need something to confirm the bible. Well then you don't believe the bible. The bible is what confirms other things. That's that's backwards. And think about that for a minute. Just think on that.

I need this story from this eight-year-old boy to confirm. No that's that's backwards. It's backwards all right. So when we talk about death there are two opposing viewpoints that need to be discussed now.

I'm going to tell you what my viewpoint is. If you share a different viewpoint on this that's great. I'm not going to argue with you. As I said every every time I come here I don't come here to debate.

Y 'all I'll teach. I'll give you both sides. Why. Hold the side. I do. But I'm not here to debate. The two positions on death are as follows. Uh I'm going to start over here. Number one uh is called soul sleep.

Soul sleep. Number two is called continued consciousness. All right. So you have the two views of what happens when you die. Soul sleep also called psychopenicia. But I didn't want to write that because that's long and hard to spell.

And the second view is continued consciousness. Just to be clear I hold this view. I hold the continued consciousness view which means when you die your soul continues to be conscious because some people believe that when you die your soul also goes into a time of suspended animation that your soul is asleep just like your body.

Well I was going to say the groups that hold to this view tend to be what are known as Adventist groups. Adventist groups are Seventh-day Adventists Advent Christian Church Jehovah's Witnesses. Now I'm not saying those are all the same because they're not.

That's why I'm distinguishing them. But the Jehovah's Witnesses are an Adventist group. That term Adventist came in the 1800s. It was part of a end of the world perspective that began to flourish in the 1800s.

The 1800s was a huge time of people thinking the world was coming to an end. One of the primary reasons was because of the of the growth of the of the Americas. You know people came over to the Americas 14 15.

1600s began to grow the Americas over here and they began to see this as the new promised land and the new expression of God's blessing. And therefore in this new promised land God was going to finally bring about the end times.

So that produced an Adventist movement. And in Advent means coming. Advent means arrival. So the idea of the Adventist movement was Jesus is about to arrive. We've created this perfect utopia of America and it's the new Israel and Jesus is going to return to the new Israel.

You see how that works. Right. And that's the idea of how these Adventist movements grew. And so you have the Seventh-day Adventist the Advent Christian Church. You have the the Jehovah's Witnesses. All of these are Adventist groups.

Right. And they're all by the way Advent all about the end times because it's about Jesus is coming his arrival. One of the distinctive traits of the Adventist group was that they believed in soul sleep.

They believe that when you die your spirit also effectively dies. And here's their reasoning. Their argument is the soul and the body are intricately connected and cannot be separated. Therefore when you die your soul dies and it awaits the resurrection.

Now you say well what's wrong with that. Well uh the other position which is called continued consciousness says this when you die your soul and your body. I'm sorry. Yeah. No i'm right. Your soul and your body are separated.

That your soul remains alive while your body died. And that is the view that i hold that your soul remains alive at death and your body dies. Now if you hold this view the soul sleep view. I don't think that's heretical.

I do think it's heterodoxical. Oh that's a big word. Heterodoxical means that i believe it's wrong. But i don't believe it's damnable. Right. I don't believe you would be damned for holding that view.

Because it's it's it's it's not in i don't think it's consistent with the bible. But it's not something like you're denying the deity of christ or you're denying salvation by grace through faith you this is a secondary tertiary matter.

What you believe happens to the body is not going to change your faith in christ in that regard. So if you hold the soul sleep my my argument is this i don't think the bible bears that out. I'll give you a few passages to to think.

Okay uh the first one look you can turn there if you want. But i'm just going to kind of go through these quickly. In luke 23 43 jesus is on the cross. Jesus has two men on the cross one on one side one on the other.

One of the men is reviling christ. Actually it says they both were reviling christ. But at a certain point one of the men repented of reviling christ and turned to christ. And what did he say. Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And what did jesus say. I say to you today thou shalt be with me in paradise. He didn't say today your soul's going to go on the ground. You're going to be in the ground for the next couple thousand years.

And one day there's going to be a resurrection. And at the resurrection then you'll be with me in paradise. So he said today thou shalt be with me in paradise. So i think that unless we want to say jesus was using hyperbole that i think that has to speak to the issue of something happening immediately at death today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

So that's that's my first passage. My second passage is in acts 7 59. Steven is being stoned. Remember steven first christian martyr the first one to ever be killed to his faith as he is being stoned.

The bible says he sees a vision of the lord in heaven standing next to the the presence of god. Right. He sees jesus standing next to the presence of god. And what does he say. Lord receive my spirit.

Lord receive my spirit. His prayer was a prayer of faith that he was going to continue in spirit and be with the lord. And by the way jesus said the same thing into thy hands. I commend my spirit. Right.

One of my favorite ones. And i will i will ask you to turn to this one since most of you have your bibles out. Turn to revelation. Chapter 6. Revelation 6 verse 9 pardon me. It says uh when he opened the fifth seal i saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of god and for the witness they had done.

They cried out with a loud voice oh sovereign lord holy and true. How long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth all. Right. Let's let's exegete this passage. First of all this is in revelation.

So it can be symbolic. We admit the book of revelation has many symbols and language of symbols that's used. So we admit that in in the outset. However the picture here doesn't seem to be giving us symbolism such as like dragons and monsters and things that we'll see later in the book.

You know ten heads and seven horns. And all this seems to be very specifically giving us a picture of something that is in heaven. It talks about the altar talks about uh the seal. It talks about the lord who's breaking the seal.

And it talks specifically about those who have been slain. And and what were they slain for. They were slain for their witness. So these are the word martyr. You know what the word martyr means. We think of somebody who's been killed for something.

The word martyr is the greek word for witness. That's where we get the word martyr from. Because everybody who was a witness for christ was under threat of being killed. The word martyr in greek simply means a witness.

You will be my witnesses. Jesus said you'll be my martyrs. That's literally what he said. Because the word martyr is a witness. These people had witnessed for christ and they had died for that witness.

And here's the thing they knew it. Their souls are there and they know one who they are. They know how they died. And they're crying out for justice. Which is a very powerful thought that in heaven you have self-consciousness.

Historic memory. Right. Self-conscious. You know who you are and you remember who you are and what happened to you. Because you have what's called historic memory. You remember the history of your life.

And they're there in heaven with historic memory saying lord we died. When are you going to bring justice for us. So here but here's the kicker notice what it says. Bring justice. Um how long before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.

So this is happening now or not now. But but this is happening while there's still people living on the earth. So this is not after the judgment or after the final resurrection. This is why people are still living on the earth.

Because they say when will you bring just justice on those who who dwell on the earth. So the souls of those who have died are there while there are those who are still on the earth. So again all of these lay the foundation for the idea of continued consciousness.

I'll give you a few more verses. You don't have to turn there. You may want to. But second corinthians 5 8 paul says this. We are confident and willing to be absent from the body and to be present with the lord.

How can you be absent from the body. The only way would be to be in spirit. Right. That's the only way. So if you are absent from the body and present with the lord that means your spirit and body are separated at death.

Second corinthians. That second corinthians 5 8 james 226 says this. For as the body without the spirit is dead so faith apart from works is also dead. Hear that again. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead.

What is death according to the bible. The spirit leaving the body. When do you know somebody's dead. Their heart stops. Well no they get a heart beating again. We've seen people they their heart stops for a couple minutes they get it beating again.

And the person's back to life. When is a person truly dead. When the spirit has left the body. Right. That's what the bible says. That's how death is determined when the spirit is as this. As the body without the spirit is dead.

So faith without works is dead. The body without the spirit is death. So the last one is the story of that jesus gives us in luke 16 19 to 31. Luke 16 19 to 31 is the story of lazarus the poor man and the rich man who is unnamed in that story it says this.

It says there was a poor man who begged to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. And the rich man wouldn't give him anything. And both of them died. And if you read the narrative it says this.

It says when the poor man died his soul was ushered into the presence of abraham by angels which is comfort to me because he is the one who represents the believer. He's the one who represents the faithful the righteous.

And the bible says in death he is accompanied by angels in a in a in an angelic escort to the presence of abraham which is where the righteous were. But it says that the rich man closed his eyes here and opened his eyes in hades.

There was no angelic escort. I don't know if you ever seen the movie ghost with patrick swasey. Now i'm telling my age a little bit some of you guys my age remember the movie ghost when the people were going to hell that the demons would come out of the shadows and they grab them and take him down to hell.

That's actually not that. Even how scary that is. That's actually not the picture the bible says. The bible says the picture of the unbeliever's death is he closes his eyes here and he opens them up immediately.

He's in pain. There's no escort there. Huh. The pain. Well the bible says he was. He was thirsty. He wanted water for his tongue and he said he was being tormented in the flames. So it's immediate. There's no escort.

There's no. You know you don't go through a turnstile. You don't get. You don't get in line. Like you see some pictures of like uh the far side comic where they got people in line to go to heaven. People in line to go to hell.

You know it's like a joke. It's just immediate. The soul is in torment. So we have the um luke 16 is a picture of what happens immediately at death. And the soul is either comforted or it's tormented.

The Resurrection of the Body and Christian Burial

Yes.

11 in the revelations 11 is that him saying that you gotta wait for your brothers to die the same way and then he says to rest a little longer until the number of the fellow servants and their brothers should be complete who will be killed as they themselves is that is that was that john seeing jesus going just relax wait for your brothers and then we'll all.

Go together. Yeah they well the the lord at that point is breaking the seals he's preparing for the judgments. And those who are crying out for justice he says wait a little longer. Because those who everyone who's going to die for their faith hasn't died yet.

And so they're yeah yeah so he's he's holding back for that. Yeah that's that. Yeah so as i said i i think that i make a pretty compelling case for continued consciousness based on the text that we looked at um the only argument for soul sleep that that i've ever really heard them use is the term sleep is used.

And the term sleep is used for those who die in christ. The in fact that's the euphemistic term for death. You know those who sleep in christ and um so that is their argument. And then they say well if you're conscious after death why do we need a resurrection.

And that's what we're going to go to next. Because even though i do believe in continued consciousness i don't believe that our continued consciousness is our final state. The bible says we are awaiting a resurrection and the resurrection will bring us into our final state.

So let's all turn in our bibles to first corinthians 15. First corinthians 15 35 to 44. First first corinthians 15. First corinthians 15 35 to 44. By the way this comes on the heels of another portion where paul is arguing for the resurrection.

And he says if there is no resurrection then we have no hope. And his reason is this. He said if you deny the resurrection then you have to deny that jesus raised. And if jesus didn't raise then he's still dead.

And if jesus is still dead then he didn't pay for our sins. And if he didn't pay for our sins and you're still in your sin. And if you're still in your sin you have no hope. So belief in the resurrection is a necessary belief in the christian faith.

I heard somebody recently she was a she was a president of a seminary woman president of a seminary. And she says oh belief in a physical resurrection of jesus is not necessary to be a christian. And i said hogwash absolute baloney.

Because paul says if you don't believe in the resurrection of christ you're not a christian. You have no hope. Well i believe in a spiritual resurrection. The bible doesn't tell about a spiritual. It says jesus rose bodily.

He said to thomas see my hands and my side. That's right. There was the idea what jesus rose. Uh spiritually. That's not what the bible teaches. The bible teaches jesus. He was no longer in the tomb. The proof of the christian faith is the empty tomb.

You need nothing more than the empty tomb in jerusalem to prove that jesus is who he said he was according to the apostle paul. So having said that we come to verse 35 it says. But someone will ask how are the dead raised.

With what kind of body do they come. You foolish person. Paul doesn't mind saying you're a foolish person. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel perhaps of weed or some other grain but god gives it a body as he has chosen.

And to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same. For there's one kind for humans another for animals another for birds another for fish there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind.

The glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun glory of the moon another glory of the stars for stars differ from star and glory so it is with the resurrection of the dead what is sown is perishable.

What is raised is imperishable it is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown in the natural body it is raised a spiritual body if there is a natural body there there's also a spiritual body.

Okay, having said that, let's look at what he's saying. He's saying there is a principle in the resurrection of continuity and discontinuity. And here's what I mean by that. The continuity is this, the same body that you're in now, that's gonna one day go into the ground and become worm food, that same body is going to be raised.

But when it is raised, it's going to be changed. And that's the discontinuity. Because even though it's the same body, it's going to be glorified and renewed. So it will be the same, but not the same, if that makes sense.

It's the same body, but it's renewed, it's glorified. Because Jesus's body that went in the tomb is the same one that came out, but it wasn't the same in the sense that when it went in, it had been beaten by Roman soldiers, it was bloody, it was bruised, it was all that.

I've heard people say, Jesus didn't really die on the cross, he just fainted, and when he went in the tomb, he woke up and walked back out. I say, well, there's a couple of issues with that. One, they beat him half to death before they even hung him on the cross.

So three days later, he'd have been walking like a zombie if he was able to walk at all, because he was beaten half to death before they even hung him on the cross. Secondly, they stuck a spear in his side and the wound poured out blood and water, which means they probably pierced the pericardium, which is the sack that surrounds the heart, that is a water-filled sack that would flow out looking like water, which means they stabbed him in the heart.

So he is dead, D-E-D, dead. He's not walking out. And if he did, nobody believed this guy was a resurrected Messiah, because he beat up, tore up. He's not gonna look like a savior. When Jesus comes out of the tomb, he only has the scars in his hand and the scar on his side as proof and testimony to what he did.

But he's a glorified body. People ask me, am I gonna look like this in heaven? I don't know, eternity's a long time looking like this, but who knows? But I know this, I got a six-inch scar on the inside of my leg.

I doubt that scar will be there. Every morning I get up, I have to deal with the arthritis in my knees that I inherited from my mother. My mother had rheumatoid arthritis through her body. She still does, she's still alive.

Hold on one second, let me finish this thought and I'll ask you a question. I get up in the morning, I put my feet on, as soon as my feet hit the floor, I can feel, it feels like Rice Krispies in my legs, because my knees rub together.

And that arthritis, I've had surgery on it and it still doesn't help. So that hurts, right? I've got lower back pain, I've got, I'm overweight, I've got my right eye is going bad. I got stigmatism, I've got all these things.

In glory, I don't think I'll have any of that. I'll have a glorified body. Go ahead, brother, now you can ask your question. Okay, question. What do you think about probation?

Oh, that's a good question and, well, finish your question. Is this right, the probation thing, or, I mean...

Okay, I think I've mentioned this before in here. And again, I don't want to say this to offend anybody. I do a lot of funerals and I work with a lot of families and many people are doing cremation now because of the financial cost of funerals.

They can't afford to do a funeral. But from a Christian perspective, that has never been the method that was used in our tradition. Our tradition, which is based on scripture, has always been the burial of the body, not the burning of the body.

That doesn't mean that it's sinful. That doesn't mean that it's going to make the person go to hell, because I've heard people argue, well, if you burn their body, you're consigning them to hell. That's not true.

But it's certainly not the tradition. And I'll give you the example of where our tradition comes from. Our tradition comes from the earliest book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. Every time one of the patriarchs died, he was buried.

Remember when Abraham's wife Sarah died, he bought the cave at Machpelah to bury her. When Abraham died, he was buried alongside of her. Later, Isaac and Jacob are also buried in that same tomb and it becomes the family tomb and they're buried.

But the most convincing to me is when Moses dies at the end of Deuteronomy, God buries him. That confirms burial as God's method of dealing with a dead body.

But now they have, they're saying that the ground has been so overpopulated, they're not going six feet no more, they're going to vault and stuff.

There's a lot, like I said, there's a lot of arguments as to, see like me, I have the funeral home I work with, I literally do work with them. I told them, when I die, I don't want them to do all the things to me that they do to bodies now, because they embalm, they do all these things.

I just want to be put in a wooden box. I want to be buried with a vault with no bottom. You see? Well, this would be a, this vault, in the state of Florida, you have to have a vault because the wooden casket would collapse and it would be dangerous if anybody walked on it, it could collapse.

So you have to have a vault in the state of Florida because of how soft the ground is. But you get a vault without the bottom and as the casket deteriorates, it goes back into the ground. That's what I want.

That's what I want. It's more expensive, but that's what I want. So that's my conviction though. As I said, I'm not telling anybody, if you think different, I am convicted that God has given us a method in its burial.

I can see just like, what kind of casket you got? Unsealed casket or sealed casket?

Yeah. See, I think sealed caskets are unnecessary because the whole idea of seal, all you're doing is preserving something that's supposed to go back into the ground. Yeah. So, and like I said, if somebody got cremated, it's not changing the condition of their soul.

It's just not the method that the Bible gives for believers. The only people we see in the Bible who burned their dead were pagans.

Yes. Is that in alignment with the way you want to be buried? I also feel the same way. Is that in alignment with from dust you came?

Yeah. I want to go back to the ground and the way God designed, you know, yeah, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Now some people say, well, you know, what's wrong with burning? You're just speeding up the process.

And I get that argument. Like I said, I don't, yeah, yeah. You're ashes, right? You become ashes. Huh? Buried ashes, yeah. Like I said, it's just my conviction. I don't want to be burned. I'm gonna be dead anyway.

But some people say, oh, well, it just doesn't matter. It matters to me, but that's my conviction. I'm not saying you have to share my conviction. I'm just saying that's where I'm at. All right, so very quickly, when the resurrection occurs, your spirit and your body, the Bible says rejoin, and that's what the resurrection is.

So your spirit is alive when you die, when your body is resurrected. And if you've been cremated, your body's still gonna be resurrected because God doesn't have any trouble resurrecting the cremated body anymore.

He hasn't resurrected anything else. When your body is raised, you come back together. It's not a Frankenstein monster. It's a glorified body. All right, now, so that's the picture we have. Death, individual, your soul is alive until the resurrection.

When you're raised, you receive your new body. And then we talk about the end times because when does the resurrection happen? The resurrection happens at the end of the world, the end of the age, and that is what we call the end times.

End Times, the Return of Christ, and the New Earth

Now, when we address the subject of the end times, primarily, people wanna talk about the book of Revelation, sometimes the book of Daniel because it addresses some of those things, and people like to try to come up with schemes for how this is gonna happen.

Some people believe that the church is gonna be raptured out, then there's gonna be seven years of tribulation, then Jesus is gonna return, and then there's gonna be 1 ,000 years of kingdom reign, no, 1 ,000 years of kingdom reign on the earth, which is called the millennial kingdom.

That's called dispensational premillennialism. That particular view I used to hold. I mean, I held that when I was in seminary 20 years ago. I don't hold that view anymore. I've changed. My view is now what would be called partial preteristic amillennialism.

Again, I don't wanna get into what all that means, but those particular views, I think all of them have something that we could debate or discuss. But let's just say, what did the early church say was necessary to believe?

The early church said it was necessary to believe that Christ is returning. So any group that would say that Christ is not coming back would be not Christian. In fact, if you wanna know the very foundational things that we have to believe as Christians, look to the Apostles' Creed.

Look to the Nicene Creed. These early creeds of the church were there to tell us what things were necessary to believe and they all end with the return of Christ. So if we deny the return of Christ, if we deny the resurrection and Christ's return and judgment, then we have denied the Christian faith because that's what the Bible teaches.

That's what all Christians of all time have believed. Whether we believe in a pre-tribulation rapture or a post-tribulation rapture or a millennium or a non-millennial, all that is secondary to Christ will return.

Any position that holds that he won't return is obviously not Christian. So Christ will return. When he returns, he will return in judgment. He will judge. The Bible says he will put all of his enemies under his feet and he will usher in the kingdom for his faithful, his elect.

So that leads us to the destinations. We have two destinations, heaven and hell. Now, heaven, I want to write a little off to the side here. It's actually the new earth, the new earth. If you'll turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 20, I'm sorry, chapter 21, Revelation 21.