Hell Of A Place To Go
Copyright 1996 / Leslie A Turvey




  Can those in heaven see and hear their loved ones writhing and screaming
in the inferno of hell? Not a very heavenly thought, is it?


  A baseball player died and went to heaven. A year later he visited one of his old team mates on earth and gave him the good-news-bad-news routine.
   "What's the good news?" asked his buddy.
   "We've got baseball in heaven," came the enthusiastic response.
   "And the bad news?"
   "You're pitching tomorrow!"
   There's enough heaven jokes to fill a dozen newspapers. But it's odd, when the time comes to go there, even among bible enthusiasts it seems to be bad news. Why?
   To begin with you can't get to heaven unless you die: there's no other way. And despite the reward of a halo and a harp, or whatever you believe awaits you beyond the pearly gates, the prospect of dying is not the most gratifying way to start the day.
   Then there's always the chance the departee from this life may have sinned once too often, got God thoroughly infuriated, and find himself unexpectedly transported somewhere else.
   But the worst news about heaven is it seems to be a hell of a place to go.
   Most people use the account of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) to prove you go to heaven. The story is well-known: Lazarus was poor, and the rich man did nothing to help him.
   Eventually they both died, and the rich man looked up and saw Lazarus resting his head on Abraham's chest. He called to Abraham, asking that Lazarus bring a drop of water to cool his tongue because a flame was tormenting him.
   If this story indicates Abraham and Lazarus were in heaven, and the rich man was in an ever-burning hell fire, then imagine the following scenario:
   A saintly mother dies and goes to heaven. Her son, for whom she has shed many tears during his life of debauchery, goes to hell. She loves her son and longs to have him with her, but there's no way either can pass to the other.
   If the usual interpretation of Lazarus and the rich man is true, it would indicate the mother can see her son forever tormented in the inferno of hell, and hear his unbearable screams of agony, and be helpless to do anything for him. Not the most heavenly way for her to spend eternity!
   Where do we get our ideas about going to heaven or hell? Believe it or not they don't come from the bible.
   Instead they come through the Satan-inspired mind of Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet who wrote The Divine Comedy nearly seven hundred years ago, and thirteen centuries after Jesus Christ said Abraham had not gone to heaven (John 3:13).
   Despite the admonition to let the bible interpret the bible (II Peter 1:20), people choose to treat the Lazarus and rich man account as a heaven-hell story, rather than searching the scriptures for the truth.


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