All Dogs Go to Heaven
Debuking the myths of Christianity
Luke 16:19-31
There is a growing belief in the church that somehow some way all people wind up in heaven. The movie All dogs go to heaven simply promotes it in a comical way. It seems that we hear less about being lost forever from the pulpits, and many have exchanged the God of the Bible for a kinder, gentler god that fits their lifestyle. While the myth is not adopted by the faithful, it is being widely accepted by those on the fringe and the unsaved world. Those who believe God exists, but don’t believe all the bible says about him.
Hell has fallen on hard times. A recent George Barna survey found that 67% of Americans do not believe in hell. That means that only 33% of Americans believe in a literal hell.
In a recent survey, it was determined that 35% of Baptists; 54% of Presbyterians, 58% of Methodists, and 60% of Episcopalians DO NOT Believe in a literal place called HELL! 71% of the 8 leading seminaries in the United States Do Not Believe in either Heaven or Hell.
Some people have an image of Hell that is not based on reality. For instance Mark Twain said, “I’ll take heaven for the climate and Hell for the society.” Ted Turner once said “I’m looking forward to dying and going to hell because I know that’s where I’m headed.” People would not be so flippant about Hell if they understood the reality of it. Through the experiences of two men Jesus gives us a glimpse into Hell. It is brief but powerful enough to blow apart many of man’s misconceptions about Hell.
We use the word "hell" glibly or to describe the worst things we know here. Brad Paisley’s Song "I’m gonna miss her" begins...
Well I love her
But I love the fish
I spend all day out on this lake
And hell is all I catch
But today she met me at the door
Said I would have to chose
If I hit that fishin’ hole today
She’d be packin’ all her things and she
be gone by noon.
Hell is defined in the song as being chewed out by your wife.
Or we hear “war is hell”. Or we use it to strenthen our explitives. Instead of NO. It is Hell, no.
This has brought much confusion to many people.
Strangely enough a newer poll conducted by US News and World Report (2000) reveals that more Americans today believe in Hell than they did in the 1950’s or even 10 years ago. But most now think of hell as “an anguished state of existence” rather than a real place. [ US News and World Report. “Hell Hath No Fury.” January 31,2000. p. 46]
In this passage, Jesus pulled back the veil between this world and the next and showed us there is a heaven and a hell. There are only two eternal destinies and everyone in this room will end in spending eternity in either heaven or hell.
I Not Everyone lives the Same 19-21
Some Good and some bad
Jesus does spell it out, but gives clues
In their external circumstances:
• One was rich, the other was a beggar.
• One was clothed in elegance, the other in rags.
• One was fed sumptuously, the other existed on crumbs.
• One in health, the other in a wretched physical state.
• One moved in the high social circles, the other in beggarly isolation.
-In their spiritual conditions:
• One exulted in his wealth, the other content in his poverty.
• One satisfied with his earthly possessions, the other longing for a heavenly treasure.
• One selfish and ungodly, the other a self-sacrificing believer.
• One had great possessions but one thing he lacked and that one thing was needful. The other “
as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”
II Not Every Dies the Same v22
a. Like the rich man - some have great expensive funerals, thousands of friends, people laying gifts and memorials,
b. Others seem to die almost unnoticed, Few if any friends,
III Not Every goes to the Same Place After Death 23-26
Myth #1 Death ends all -Evolutionists believe this -If God didn’t start it He won’t end it.
Hell is nothingness we will just sees to exist, hearing, seeing and feeling nothing.
C. S. Lewis was told about a gravestone inscription that read; “Here lies an atheist – all dressed up and no where to go.” Lewis quietly replied, “I bet he wishes that we so.”
Bill Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Church in Chicago which has over 20,000 people in attendance each week, tells the story of an encounter he had with a young woman.
He said, “I recall one time being in a restaurant studying for a message, and a gal looked over from her table and saw me reading my Bible. She said, ‘Why do you study that stuff?’ And I thought, just to stimulate a little discussion, I’d try to knock her off balance. So I said, ‘Because I don’t feel like going to hell when I die.’
I was going to be really blunt, but I took the edge off it a little bit. And she said, ‘There is no such thing as heaven or hell.’ I thought, Well, I got something going now.
“So I turned in my chair and I said, ‘Why do you say that?’ She said, ‘Everybody knows that when you die your candle goes out — poof ’ I said, ‘You mean to tell me there’s no afterlife?’ ‘No.’ ‘So that means you must be able to just live as you please?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Like, there’s no Judgment Day or anything?’ ‘No.’
“I said, ‘Well, that’s fascinating to me. Where did you hear that?’ She said, ‘I read it somewhere.’‘Can you give me the name of the book?’ ‘I don’t recall.’ ‘Can you give me the name of the author of the book?’ ‘I forget his name.’ ‘Did that author write any other books?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Is it possible that your author changed his mind two years after he wrote this particular book and then wrote another one that said there is a heaven and a hell? Is that possible?’ ‘It’s possible but not likely.’
“‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let me get this straight. You are rolling the dice on your eternity predicated on what someone you don’t even know wrote in a book you can’t even recall the title of. Have I got that straight?’
“I was playing a little Columbo act with her. She looked me right in the eye and said, ‘That’s right.’ And I said back to her, ‘You know what I think, sweetheart? I think you have merely created a belief that guarantees the continuation of your unencumbered lifestyle. I think you made it up, because it is very discomforting to think of a heaven. It is a very discomforting thought to think of a hell. It is very unnerving to face a holy God in the day of reckoning. I think you made it all up.’ We had quite a conversation after that.”
Like the young woman in Hybel’s story, many people today don’t want to believe in hell, because they do not want to change the way they live. They easily accept anything that smacks of doubt, because it gives them relief from thinking about the reality of eternity. But Jesus wanted people to think about eternity often. In fact, the Bible is almost silent about the subject of hell, except for the words of Jesus. This only makes sense, because we would expect that the One who came from eternity would know and talk about eternity more than anyone else.
In fact, this is not the only place that the Bible uses vivid language to describe Hell. In Matthew 25:30, Jesus describes Hell as a place of
“outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Hell is also described in the Bible as a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48). In the book of Revelation the Final Judgment is described as a “lake of fire.” In other places in Scripture, Jesus said that it would be better to have a millstone hung around your neck and thrown into the sea than to go into the unquenchable fire. (Mark 9:43). Every description of Hell is one of suffering, torment and agony. In this parable we see the word “torment” used four times, and it speaks of definite pain.
Myth #2 Everyone goes to heaven -
Myth #3 Death ends consciousness -
He can see -vision
He can feel -pain
He can hear -hearing
He can speak- talk
He can touch -
He has unmet desires - thirst
He was aware of himself and his surroundings
He has memory -regrets
What will be remembered:
• All of the times spent in the house of God.
• All of the times the Spirit tugged at the heart with conviction.
• All of the times that you prayed and someone prayed with you.
• All of the times that you shrugged off the call of commitment.
• All of the times that you sat uninvolved and preoccupied during the moments of worship.
• All of the times that you laughed it off.
• All of the times that you watched others find spiritual relief and blessing.
• All of the sermons that you ever heard.
• All of the Sunday School lessons that you heard.
• All of the excuses you used about why you could not serve God.
• All of the times that you were wandering about the halls when Church was going on.
• All of the times that you said that there were problems with the Church.
. . . . . Nothing will escape your memory.
Myth #4 The choices we make in this life do not affect our destiny in the next life
Myth # 5 After I suffer for a while for my sins I’ll go on to heaven -Purgetory
“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.
Myth #6 Hell won’t be so bad, I’ll be there with my buddies. (vv. 27-31)
"He answered, ’Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, (28) for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ (29) "Abraham replied, ’They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ (30) ’No, father Abraham,’ he said, ’but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ (31) "He said to him, ’If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ "
Misconception #7 My hell is here on earth -
If you’re going through hell
Keep on going, don’t slow down
If you’re scared, don’t show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you’re there
Rodney Adkins -chorus
George Foreman p 26-27 God in my Corner.
IV Everyone has an opportunity to go to Heaven
Ali is wrong. Again. His thinking was entirely wrong according to scripture. We are not saved by our good deeds, but rather by Christ’s good deed on the cross!
“One day, when Vice-President Calvin Coolidge was presiding over the Senate, one senator angrily told another to go “straight to hell.” The offended Senator complained to Coolidge as presiding officer, and Coolidge looked up from the book he had been leafing through while listening to the debate and wittily replied. “I’ve looked through the rule book,” he said, “You don’t have to go.” [Crossroads. Issue 7, p. 16] You really don’t have to go, you can heed the Word of God, repent and be saved.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. John 3:16-18
Conclusion:
A few years ago there was a TV show called Early Edition. The main character in this program would receive a paper every day that showed what was going to happen the next day. He would then set out to correct the bad things before they happened. Through a series of events in which he often put himself in harms way he would accomplish his destiny.
If we as Christians new something bad was going to happen to someone we would try to prevent it – wouldn’t we? We know hell is real and certain for everyone who doesn’t know Jesus, so let’s gather in and pray for God to motivate us like the rich man to share the truth.
