Articles
"I Know I Am Not Going to Heaven"
A middle-aged woman was grieving the deaths of both her parents. They were people of faith while the daughter had not lived a spiritual and moral life. She was an only child feeling anxious, lonely and depressed. She had lost her job and was drowning her grief in alcohol. Someone counseled her to take comfort in her parents’ faith and the fact that they were now in a better place. Her reply: “Well, I know I’m not going to heaven” – as if to say, “I’ll never see them again because we’ll be in two different places.”
When I heard of her comment, I was overwhelmed by the emptiness and futility of it. The mindset of a Christian on life, death and eternity should be: I live on this earth for a short time to learn about God and serve Him; death is an inescapable fate that befalls all mankind, yet God has given us the means to face it with hope; and if I honor God and serve Him faithfully He has promised to forgive my sins and give me an eternal home with Him in heaven.
Why would anyone consciously reject the joy and peace of living in harmony with God, with the hope of life after death, in favor of a dissolute, ungodly life destined for an eternal separation from not only God but beloved family and friends? But they do – in droves. And it seems the only explanation is that either they don’t believe in heaven or they don’t want to go there. In either case, Satan has done a masterful job of deception. He has managed to turn the minds of millions away from God and His wonderful promises and provisions for our salvation. In this woman’s case, she has observed what faith in Christ means her whole life: she had her parents’ example, was in worship and Bible class regularly, has an extended family of Christians, was taught by precept and example what a moral life looked like and had seen both her parents suffer terminal illness with trusting acceptance of their fate. Her father even commented before dying, “If my death could somehow get through to my daughter, then it is worth it.”
First, I’ve never understood how children who claim to revere their parents can, at the same time, repudiate the very faith that that made their parents who they were. I remember some years ago teaching a rather wild, rebellious teenager who was known for her drinking and had even been in a car accident in which a friend was killed. Her attitude in Bible class was irreverent and sassy. Yet she idolized her grandmother who was of humble and steadfast faith.
Having said that, I’m aware that true faith must rest solely upon God; we cannot be converted merely by genetics or family relations. But still, I don’t understand the disconnect between the life being lived in front of such a person – and their praise of it – and the corresponding rejection of the values of the one they claim to honor. Or, to put it another way, why would someone extol the virtues of a person – whether kindness, humility, self-sacrifice, service, moral purity, etc. – and then choose to live in hedonism? Perhaps there is a vestige of conscience that tenaciously clings to an ideal but is yet unwilling to do the heavy lifting and actually practice it.
Secondly, why would someone claim to so dearly love their parents/grandparents/friends, etc. and even praise their heavenly destiny (as far as a human might assess such a thing) and then live a life that guarantees they will not be with them in eternity? Again, I realize our prime motivation for heaven is to be with God, but I’m only pondering here the dynamics of human relationships and their influence – or lack thereof – on us.
Such sentiments make no sense. One cannot logically value the character of a person and cherish their presence yet choose to live in such a way that ensures eternal separation from them. Perhaps such a person does not truly value grandma as much as they say they do. How is this demonstrated? Both parents of the woman who spoke the title of this article left the world deeply worried about her moral and spiritual welfare. She even lived adulterously with a married man for several years, openly fracturing her relationship with her father. She was willing to cause great pain to someone she claimed to love, thus proving her claim to be hollow.
The Christian’s mindset about death and eternal destiny is not morbid or macabre. Rather, it is the acceptance of a reality that proves itself every single day. By one estimate 164,000 people die globally each day from accident, murder, disease, old age, etc. If we obsessed over this number like we have on Covid, mental illness would be off the charts. But ignoring death’s inevitability doesn’t resolve the problem. We carry insurance for what might happen; we wear seat belts for what might happen; we lock our doors for what might happen; we invest our money for what might happen; we track and monitor asteroids for what might happen … yet invest little thought in what will certainly happen.
Instead, many just casually blow off the reality of eternal destiny. Some joke about it; some cavalierly say, “Que sera, sera”; others belligerently dismiss the whole matter as irrelevant. But death has a way of making itself very relevant sooner or later, and, sadly, many will find it is too late to open their heart to what they have derisively discounted for years.
Some think that hell is like a pulled muscle or kidney stone – momentarily excruciating but eventually remedied. They have not seriously grappled with what it means to be in Satan’s domain – forever. No parole; no purity; no peace; no goodness; no love; no beauty; no reward; no achievement; no hope; no comfort; no redeeming values whatsoever. Hell is the antithesis of all that God is and causes; it is a destiny of unmitigated wretchedness and evil. No right-thinking person should ever take this possible fate lightly. It is not a joke. It is not a myth. It is not temporary. It is not a shrug of the shoulders “so what?” It is interminable misery.
A final exhortation to those of us who do believe in and long for heaven: guard and nurture this hope fervently. Do not assume it is self-sustaining just because you feel it strongly at present. Attitudes and perceptions change, but true conviction is stable. Keep reinforcing your heavenly hope: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt 6:21).. Shudder at the thought of hell and be revolted by everything that tempts you to compromise your faith. Nothing in this world is worth the unfathomable terror of eternal separation from all that is holy.
