LIFE AFTER DEATH – PART 1
Sakkie Parsons
Following what I wrote about “Your last step on earth and your first step thereafter” and quite a few other thoughts about the same subject, someone wrote to me again and I am placing the question as I received it:
Pastor, please tell me, what then happens to the Day of Judgment, if all God’s children are already with Jesus now? I thought that everyone who dies goes to a place of rest?
So, let me begin there where we will all appear before the judgment seat of our Lord, and I am going to use at least two examples from the Word for every statement I make, to substantiate what I write.
First of all, every person, whether you are a Christian or whatever faith you may have practiced, will one day stand before the judgment seat of GOD and—Who is the almighty GOD of heaven and earth, whom you are going to see there before you on His throne?
ROM 14:10 “…For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”
ROM 14:11 “For it is written: ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will confess to God.’”
Do you see Who the Almighty, the only wise and righteous GOD is, before whom every person who has ever been born and who will yet be born will appear before that great Judgment Day’s throne?
Do you notice what you have just read?
ROM 14:10 “…For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”
Just so that there can be absolutely no doubt about how I have now made you understand Who this one, only wise and righteous GOD is, before whom every person will appear—yes, even those who deny His existence and fight it tooth and nail—(because further on in this series of two, you will again read testimony about this indisputable truth), I share with you for now one more passage from our Lord’s precious Word:
2 COR 5:10 “For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Now, if all this is going to happen one day—Where are the souls of those who have lived from the beginning of creation and have already died now? And where will you and I go when we one day die?
Well, the answer is very clear to me—
All people who die or have died, their souls are either in heaven or in hell.
Let me explain with a simple example:
If someone commits a criminal offense today—let us use the worst:
Suppose someone commits murder and he is caught red-handed while committing the murder in front of several witnesses, and the witnesses recorded the murder on their phones. Then he is arrested and goes to prison and waits to appear before a judge. He has not yet appeared before a judge and he has also not yet been found guilty, but because he was caught red-handed, he is already sitting in prison and is already experiencing what prison is like. He is now waiting in prison merely to appear before a judge to hear how long he will still remain in prison in the future—but I emphasize again, he is already there and is already experiencing what it means to be in prison.
Well, precisely this is what has happened, and what is happening now, and what will happen until Christ appears, with every ungodly person who has ever lived and died in his ungodliness, and this will continue until Christ comes.
Every ungodly person who has ever died and did not repent of his or her ungodliness is now in hell—and just like the murderer in our example who was caught red-handed, they are already experiencing what they will experience forever after they have been sentenced by Christ to eternal imprisonment in hell.
For remember—
Every person who has lived an ungodly life and is still alive now has done so directly before GOD and is doing so at this very moment directly before GOD. They were therefore and are now, up to this point in their lives, caught red-handed, and because they did not turn to our Lord in repentance in this life, when you leave this life, you enter the prison of hell.
Now someone may ask, and quite rightly:
What about the people who lived and died before Jesus’ birth and the beginning of the New Testament?
Well, first of all, the people before Jesus had the Mosaic Law, and the ungodly people lived ungodly lives directly before our Lord, and what applies to them is what applies to someone who is caught red-handed in his/her ungodliness and is now in hell, waiting to appear before the judgment seat of GOD to be sentenced.
But not only did the people of Old Testament times have the Mosaic Law, but every person who has ever been born, is born, and will be born was created in the image of GOD, and everyone has a God-consciousness within him or her:
ROM 2:12–16
12 “For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
13 For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.
14 For when Gentiles who don’t have the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves,
15 in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them, (for every person is born with a God-consciousness, because man was created in God’s image)
16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.”
I emphasize again—the human being was created in GOD’s image, and one of those qualities that man has because he/she was created in GOD’s image is a God-consciousness, to know what is right or wrong and what is good or bad in our lives in the eyes of our Lord.
GEN 1:27 “God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.”
GEN 1:28 “God blessed them. God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
Then a person only has to look at our Lord’s creation to know what is right or wrong and what is good or bad in our lives in the eyes of our Lord. Our Lord’s creation continually reminds us of this when we look at it:
PSALM 19:2–4
2 “Day after day they pour forth speech, and night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world.”
PSM 97:6 “The heavens declare his righteousness. All the peoples have seen his glory.”
PSM 97:7 “Let all them be shamed who (will stand before Him with their God conscience) serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods!”
I now share with you an example from the Word that is given to us of how this works.
You know the story of the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah, quite early in the history of mankind in the Word. We read about Sodom and Gomorrah earlier, but as far as this writing is concerned, you can read about it in Genesis 19:1 if you want to remind yourself of their history and how wicked they were and how our Lord then dealt with them. Then we read quite a lot about their end as an example for us in the New Testament, and this is approximately 2,000 years later—but I share only the following with you:
JUDE 1:7 “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.”
Do you see what the Word tells us here about Sodom and Gomorrah?
JUDE 1:7 “…are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.”
We do not read that they will undergo the punishment. We read that they are already undergoing the punishment.
Another Translation puts it as follows:
JUDE 1:7“…7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,[a] serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
They are already sitting in the prison of hell and waiting to appear before the Judge to receive their sentence. Then, as I have also heard people say on more than one occasion, and others ask: Is it possible to pray someone out of hell?
If someone in heaven cannot even give the slightest help to someone who is in hell, what chance do you think someone here on earth has of being of any help to someone in hell?
If you now read what I put before you, remember that it is Jesus who tells us about this example, and as I always say, let me say it again—if Jesus shows you that no one, not even someone in heaven, can help someone in hell, you can know that no one, including anyone who is on earth, can help someone in hell.
LUKE 16:23–26
23 “In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom.
24 He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’
25 “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted and you are in anguish.
26 Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’”
As I mentioned, I emphasize again. Remember now Who shows us this example of how impossible it is to help someone in hell—It is Jesus.
If I then understand that if I live an ungodly life and do not repent of my ungodliness and accept Jesus Christ as my Redeemer and Saviour, I will one day, at some point (which I do not know when it will be), leave this life and enter the prison of hell, to experience the suffering of hell there, until I appear before the throne of Christ to hear my sentence—that what I have experienced up to that point will continue throughout all eternity.
Now what about those who sincerely turn to Jesus Christ and accept Him as their Redeemer and Saviour? Where are those who have already left this life, and those who will yet leave this life in the future and enter eternity?
I will talk to you about that in Part Two of this short series.
For now, I conclude this writing with two passages from our Lord’s precious Word, about which you who have now read this far and have not yet accepted Jesus as your Redeemer and Saviour can—no, not can, but urgently must—think very, very seriously.
Have you already accepted Jesus Christ as your Redeemer and Saviour?
Remember also that if you are not sure whether you have accepted Jesus as your Redeemer and Saviour, then you have not yet accepted Him as your Redeemer and Saviour.
Jesus says to you again today through this writing that you have read this far:
REV 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”
(that is, to be happy together for all eternity)
HEB 3:7 “Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today if you will hear his voice,’”
HEB 3:8 “‘don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness.’”
Greetings,
Sakkie