Where Are They Now? | Dr. David Jeremiah Before Jesus resurrection and ascension, the Bible teaches that there was an intermediate place of the dead where souls went after they died. And it had two divisions separated by a great gulf. Here is a picture of what it looked like. On one side was paradise, Abraham's bosom, a temporary heaven, the place for the righteous dead in the Old Testament, a place of comfort and love and companionship. And then there was the great gulf fixed. In Hades, it was a temporary hell, a place for the unrighteous dead until the end of time, a place of torment. So, between these two places, the Bible says there was a great uncrossable space or a great gulf. YouTube is one of the most powerful ways we share the gospel today. When you subscribe, you're helping us reach people who may never step foot in a church or turn on a Christian broadcast. So, don't just watch. Take a moment to subscribe and join us in sharing Jesus with the world. Thank you for watching Turning Point. Here is Dr. Jeremiah with his message, "Where Are They Now?" "Where Are They Now?" is a question I have been asked many times. Apparently, there were those who lived in the New Testament days who were concerned about this question as well. Paul wrote this to the church in Thessalonica. He said, "But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope." The apostle was using the word sleep to signify those who had died. The word has a twofold sense in the New Testament. It can be used in its natural sense for natural sleep, or it can be used in the metaphorical sense for the sleep of death. It is always used of Christians in the sense of the sleep of death. It is never used for those who are not Christians. The main truth here is the fact that just as physically we sleep and expect to awake, so in the spiritual realm, when we die, we can be assured that one day our bodies will be awakened by the return of the Lord. So, the question of what happens to our bodies is not an issue here. Every time we pass a cemetery, >> [snorts] >> we are reminded of what happens to a person's body when he dies. But what about the soul and the spirit of that person? What happens to that part of who we are? In this, as in all the problems of a future existence, human speculation is useless. Only the word of God can give us solid answers. So, in today's message, I want to talk with you about two people, two places, and two principles that will help us understand what happens to us when we die. The story is in Luke chapter 16. It's a rather famous story, and I want you to turn with me to that story that Jesus told about two people. He allows us to see these two men beyond their life on this earth and then to follow them into eternity. In Luke chapter 16, we have the story of the rich man and Lazarus. We're going to see these two men contrasted in life, in death, and finally in eternity. Let's begin with two men contrasted in life. There could not be two more different people in the same context than these two men. Luke 16:19 says, "There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores." Two men contrasted in life. The rich man covered in purple and fine linen, Lazarus covered only with sores. The rich man faring sumptuously, Lazarus desiring to be fed with crumbs. The rich man with many servants, Lazarus with only the dogs to lick his sores. Now, notice secondly, how they are contrasted in death. In verse 22, we read, "So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom." It seems from reading the story that Lazarus died first and the rich man died after that. There is no reference to the burial of Lazarus. Only says that he died. It is possible that he was buried in the potter's field. More than likely, he was taken to the edge of the city and thrown on the dump because that's what they did with people that they considered unworthy. And Jesus said, "And the rich man also died and was buried." Now, it's not hard to imagine the lavish burial of this rich man. I'm sure there were a lot of eulogies and people told everyone how great he was and how rich he was. But here are two men in death. Note the contrast. One is cast away as the garbage of the earth, and the other is lifted up and honored in a magnificent ceremony. And the curtain closes on scene two. Now, we are about to see something that we will never see any place else in the Bible. So, listen carefully. We have noticed two men contrasted in life and two men contrasted in death. Here we will see two men contrasted in eternity. First of all, Lazarus in eternity. So, it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. First of all, please notice that when the beggar died, God sent his angels to care for him. I believe this is a wonderful picture of God's love and care for his own. When our believing loved ones die, they are taken to Jesus by the angels. I could speak much more of this, but that is not the important point of this story. Jesus says that when Lazarus died, he was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. What is the meaning of Abraham's bosom? Where is it? As we have seen, the term Abraham's bosom is another name for paradise. Anybody who was a believer in God went to this place called paradise, to Abraham's bosom. Now, let's catch up with the rich man and see what's going on with him. In verse 23, Jesus said this about the rich man in eternity. "And being in torments in Hades, the rich man lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom." So, while Lazarus went to paradise on one side of this great chasm, the rich man went to Hades, the place of torment for the unrighteous dead. Notice how the Bible describes that place. It was a place of misery. Then the rich man cried out 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 tormented in this flame." Now, in many respects, the rich man and Lazarus have changed places. Notice. The proud man of time has become the beggar in eternity. This one who in life denied the poor man a crumb from his table is now begging the poor man to give him a drop of water on his finger. The one who in life fared sumptuously every day would now be happy with just one drop of water to cool his tongue. This is a place of misery. He is tormented in the flame. It is not hell, but it is an intermediate hell. This is also a place of memory. Notice verse 25. "But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted and you are tormented.'" Verse 25 indicates that Hades is a place of memory. The rich man lifts up his eyes and he sees Lazarus in his conscious of what he has missed. One of the tortures of hell is to look across the fixed gulf and view the comforts and blessings of those who are in paradise. I believe that throughout eternity, the unbeliever will be constantly reminded of what he missed due to his rejection of God. I believe he will remember every single service he attended where the gospel was presented and he rejected it. The Bible tells us that hell or Hades is a place of memory. We will remember what happened. And then it is a place of mourning. This is an interesting thing. Then he said, "I beg you therefore, Father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment." And Abraham said to him, "They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them." And he said, "No, Father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent." But he said to him, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." From his place of torment, the rich man pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers so that they wouldn't end up where he was. "If someone comes back from the dead," he said, "surely they will listen to that person." But Abraham responded with a sobering truth, one that we should all take note of today. He said, "They already have Moses and the prophets. If they won't hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they respond if someone comes back from the dead." Some of you here who have never accepted Christ, you're looking for some supernatural thing to happen so that you will believe. And the Bible says, "If you won't believe Moses and the prophets, if you won't believe what the Bible says, you're not going to believe if someone drops out of the sky with a message, because Moses and the prophets are the most important messengers about this that you will ever find." They won't listen to God's word, they won't be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead. In other words, the problem here was not a lack of evidence, the problem was hardness of heart. God's message has been declared and his truth is available, and still many refuse to believe. Miracles catch attention, but only faith in God's word brings salvation. The scriptures are clear. Will we listen while there's still time? So, the representative man of the lost who are now in Hades is the rich man of Luke chapter 16. He was alive, he was conscious, he was in the full exercise of his faculties, his memory, and he was in torment. Two people and two places. Now, let's directly and definitively answer the question, what happens to people when they die? The Bible says they go to one of two places. The unsaved go to an intermediate hell called Hades. So far as the unsaved dead are concerned, they continue in this place, the intermediate hell, until a particular time in the future, which the Bible tells us about. Here's what we need to understand. At the judgment of the great white throne in the future, Hades will give up its inhabitants and they will be sent into the lake of fire. Revelation 20 tells us that. Listen to these words. "And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged each one according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." What the Bible says is that those who die go to this place if they're not believers. They remain in this place until that point in the future after the great white throne judgment, and then Hades is emptied out of all of its inhabitants, and they go into the lake of fire, which is eternal hell. What about the saved? Well, the Bible says the angels took Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham. As we have seen, every believer who died in the Old Testament went to paradise, also called Abraham's bosom. This was a place of comfort and peace, but it wasn't yet heaven. Then something dramatic happened that you may have never noticed before as you've read your Bibles. It happened on what some people refer to as Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This is often overlooked, but let me tell you about it. Jesus didn't just lie quietly in the tomb on Saturday after he was crucified. His body rested in the grave, but his spirit went to this intermediate place I have been telling you about. He went there not to suffer, but to declare victory. As the eternal Son of God, he stepped into the unseen world and announced the triumph of the cross. We know this because of what Jesus said to the repentant thief. Remember what he said? He said, "Today you will be with me where? Not in heaven, but in paradise." Where is paradise? It's the temporary place for believers at that particular time. That paradise was the place of the righteous dead. But something happened on that Saturday. Jesus went there, and 1 Peter 3 tells us he proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Ephesians 4 says he descended into the lower parts of the earth. And in Revelation 1:18, Jesus declares, "I have the keys of death and Hades." What did Jesus do in the place of the dead? He preached victory to the fallen angels. He went to one part of it where the unbelieving dead were, and he preached the victory of the cross. Then he preached to the Old Testament saints who had long awaited for the Messiah, and then in triumph, we are told, he led captivity captive. What does that mean? He took paradise out of that intermediate place and transferred it to heaven. So, where is paradise today, and where are your loved ones if they are believers? They are in heaven, they are in paradise. How do we know this? Well, listen to this. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians and mentioned paradise and helps us understand this. He said, "I know a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven." We learned earlier that's where God is. "Caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words." By the time Paul wrote this, paradise was no longer the intermediate place, but had been transferred to heaven. So, when your believers die, they go to paradise, which is in the third heaven. Literally, they go to heaven. Did you catch that? Paradise is now in heaven because Jesus moved it there. So, here is the answer to the question, where are they now? If your loved ones were follower of Christ, I can tell you for sure where they are. Their bodies are in the grave waiting for the day of resurrection, and they themselves, their souls, their spirits, in paradise, a literal place that is located in the third heaven. So, we've talked about two people and two places. Let's talk finally about two principles. Let me just tell you what I've learned from this passage that speaks to every one of us. First of all, I'm reminded of the priority of the presence of Jesus. When you immerse yourself in all these passages about temporary and eternal bodies and all of the things we've talked about, the one truth that jumps off the pages of scripture is this. Paradise, heaven, the New Jerusalem, whatever name you want to call it, is the place where Jesus is. Over and over that truth is hammered home in the verses of the New Testament. Heaven is where Jesus is. So, what is the best thing you can say about your loved one if they're a Christian when they die? They went to be with Jesus, right? They went to heaven, but more than that, they went to be with Jesus. My brother, my sister, my father, my mother are with Jesus. After Jesus had explained to his disciples about the mansions in heaven, he comes back and makes this point, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself." Now, watch this. "That where I am, you may be also." Jesus wants us to be with him. When Jesus gave assurance to the thief on the cross, what did he say? And he said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." Paul explained death in these same terms. He said, "We are confident, yet well pleased that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." After all is said and done, after all is written, after all of the understanding that we have about what happens to our bodies when we die, the most important thing you can take away from this is when you die as a believer, you go to be with Jesus. And that is critical. Richard Baxter said it this way. He said, "My knowledge of that life is small. The eye of faith is dim, but it is enough that Christ knows all, and I shall be with him." So, it is enough to know that when you die, you go to be with Jesus. Oh, yes, you go to heaven. You go to paradise, the New Jerusalem, the holy city, all the names that are given in the Bible, but more important in all of that is all of those places will only be what they are because Jesus will be there. And when you get there, you're going to be so occupied with who Jesus is, you will not care about where you are. You will just care about who you're with. You'll be with Jesus. >> ((applause)) >> So, the first thing that I take away from this story is the priority of the presence of Jesus. Here's the second thing. The permanence of personal decisions. Luke 16:26 in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, there is this verse. "And all of this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to you. The story of the rich man and Lazarus teaches us that the decisions we make in this life are irreversible. What is done in this life fixes forever what the next life will be like. There is no such thing as getting it right after you die. There is no such thing as reincarnation. There are no second chances after death. What you do for eternity, you do between now and the moment you die. And when you die, it's over as far as any decisions about the future are concerned. Listen to me, there is no purgatory. The story in Luke 16 is not about purgatory. There is not one sentence in the Bible that speaks of a person's destiny being changed after death. Once a person enters paradise or Hades, their fate was fixed forever and ever. Let me just say that as lovingly as I can to any of you here who may not know the Lord. You may think you have all the time in the world, and maybe you have all the time of a normal human life, and maybe you don't have all that time. Every day we watch on the news as unexpected things happen to unprepared people. Don't play with your eternity by putting off until sometime in the future what you know you should do today. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. If you have never taken ((music playing)) the step to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can do that today. If you will allow us, Dr. Jeremiah would like to send you two resources ((music playing)) that will help you. The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, which will help you as you ((music playing)) begin your relationship with Christ. And the second is our monthly devotional magazine Turning Points, to give you encouragement ((music playing)) and inspiration throughout the year. These resources are yours, completely free, when you contact Turning ((music playing)) Point today. Thank you for being with us today. Join Dr. Jeremiah next time ((music playing)) for his series, The Promise of Heaven, here on Turning Point.