Speaker 1: Are Heaven and Hell real places?
Speaker 2: And what are they like? Today?
Speaker 1: On Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible Teaching Ministry of
Speaker 1: Rick Warren, we continue his series called Eternal Realities, Heaven
Speaker 1: and Hell. In these lessons, Rick shares what the Bible
Speaker 1: says about heaven and Hell and how you can be
Speaker 1: absolutely certain you'll go to Heaven. Coming up right now,
Speaker 1: here's part one of a message called how to be
Speaker 1: Certain You're going to Heaven.
Speaker 3: You know, this week I was doing a little spring
Speaker 3: cleaning and I was going through the stack of old
Speaker 3: magazines that I found this Time magazine from nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: and the cover says Los Angeles is the city of
Speaker 3: Angels going to Hell.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I don't know if the city of Angels.
Speaker 3: Is going to Hell or not, but I'm more interested
Speaker 3: in knowing am I going to Heaven? If I were
Speaker 3: to go over to a mall this afternoon, ask people,
Speaker 3: you know, if you were to die tonight and and
Speaker 3: you were to stand before God and to say God says,
Speaker 3: why should I let you into Heaven?
Speaker 2: What would you say?
Speaker 3: Are you sure you're going to Heaven when you die?
Speaker 3: Are you absolutely certain that.
Speaker 2: You're going to heaven when you die.
Speaker 3: You know, most people would say, well, I think, so.
Speaker 2: I hope, so.
Speaker 3: I guess I am. Obviously I want to go, you know,
Speaker 3: I hope in.
Speaker 2: Wish that I am. Well.
Speaker 3: Friends, you know, hoping and wishing and guess it isn't
Speaker 3: good enough.
Speaker 2: I need to know this for sure. Only a fool.
Speaker 3: Would go all through life totally unprepared for something you
Speaker 3: know is inevitable. The mortality rate in the world is
Speaker 3: now one hundred percent. I didn't know if you'd heard
Speaker 3: that or not. Okay, we're all going to die at
Speaker 3: some point, and the question is what's going to happen
Speaker 3: after I die? Well, you know, today I want to
Speaker 3: help you settle this basic issue. God doesn't Here's the
Speaker 3: good news. God doesn't want you being in doubt. He
Speaker 3: doesn't want you worried. He didn't want you fearful. He
Speaker 3: doesn't want you wondering all of your life. Am I
Speaker 3: gonna make it or not? Am I going to be
Speaker 3: in or not?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: He says, you can settle it without a doubt in
Speaker 3: your mind. You could have it absolutely confidently for sure,
Speaker 3: know that you're going to heaven when you die. And
Speaker 3: so today we're going to get back to the basics
Speaker 3: and settle this issue so that nobody here when you leave,
Speaker 3: you don't have any doubt in your mind that you're
Speaker 3: going to heaven when you die. You know, all great
Speaker 3: coaches begin with the basics. They never assume that people
Speaker 3: know the basics. Coach John Wooden, the most famous basketball
Speaker 3: coach in history, the winningest coach in basketball history, wouldn't
Speaker 3: with such a success because he always began with the basics.
Speaker 3: In fact, every year as he began basketball season, on
Speaker 3: the first day of training, he would spend an entire
Speaker 3: day training as players how to put their socks on correctly,
Speaker 3: not another is an incorrect way to do it. Course,
Speaker 3: I don't wear socks, but I didn't know that you.
Speaker 2: Could put them on incorrectly. Now you know.
Speaker 3: He said, if you take care of your feet, your
Speaker 3: feet will take care of you. And he said, if
Speaker 3: you put a sock on incorrectly and you're out there
Speaker 3: screeching and scratching across the basketball court, he said, you're
Speaker 3: going to get blisters and bunions and you know, all
Speaker 3: kinds of bruises on your feet. He said, you need
Speaker 3: to know how to put it on correctly. So he
Speaker 3: never assumes that people know how to put on a
Speaker 3: sock correctly. Vince Lombardi, the famous NFL coach he won
Speaker 3: the first Super Bowls, was the same way every year.
Speaker 3: He would start training by holding up a football and saying, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: this is a football.
Speaker 2: You know, don't ever assume nothing.
Speaker 3: So today we're going to go back to the basics
Speaker 3: and we're going to look at the most famous verse
Speaker 3: in the Bible. It's one that everybody's probably heard of.
Speaker 3: If you only got one verse in the entire bye,
Speaker 3: well you got this one.
Speaker 2: This is the one to know. This is the one
Speaker 2: to kind of.
Speaker 3: Memorize, because this is like Christianity one oh one. It's
Speaker 3: basic summarized cliff notes on the Bible. It's John chapter
Speaker 3: three verse Yeah, John three sixteen.
Speaker 2: If you don't know that.
Speaker 3: Verse, it's the verse that the weirdo guys with the
Speaker 3: colored hair hold.
Speaker 2: Up in the end zone.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're seeing these guys with the sun on Monday
Speaker 3: night football John three point sixteen. It's like, who's John
Speaker 3: and what numbers he calling?
Speaker 2: You know, It's like.
Speaker 3: It is the most important or famous verse in the Bible.
Speaker 3: I put it there at the top of your outline.
Speaker 3: Let's read it aloud together. For God so loved the
Speaker 3: world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever
Speaker 3: believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Speaker 2: Now, let me read it to you again.
Speaker 3: God so loved the world that he gave his only
Speaker 3: begotten son. That's that's Jesus, that whosoever believes in him
Speaker 3: should not perish but have everlasting life. Now, there's a
Speaker 3: couple things I want you to notice about this verse. First,
Speaker 3: there's six words. You got a pencil, you might circle
Speaker 3: these God only son, perish, eternal life. Circle those six words,
Speaker 3: god only son, perish eternal life. Now, when you take
Speaker 3: the first letters of each of those six words, what
Speaker 3: does that spell? Gospel? Yeah, and you've heard this word gospel.
Speaker 3: What does it mean Gospel? We talk about gospel music
Speaker 3: or he's sharing the gospel. Gospel is just an old
Speaker 3: English word and it means good news. That's all it means,
Speaker 3: good news. This verse is often called the gospel. In
Speaker 3: a single sentence, it's the best news you've ever heard,
Speaker 3: are ever gonna hear? The second thing I want you
Speaker 3: to notice about this is the middle word there's twenty
Speaker 3: five letters in this twenty five words in this verse,
Speaker 3: and the middle word, the thirteenth word is the word son.
Speaker 3: It's talking about Jesus Son. Now, the first twelve words
Speaker 3: are all about God. God so loved the world that
Speaker 3: he gave is only begotten. And then Sun is in
Speaker 3: the middle, and the last twelve words are all about
Speaker 3: you and me. That whosoever believes in him should not
Speaker 3: perish but have everlasting life, and that in itself is
Speaker 3: a picture. The Bible says that God is on one
Speaker 3: side and mankind's on the other, and Jesus Christ came
Speaker 3: to earth to bring them together. That's what he came
Speaker 3: to earth to do. He's the bridge over troubled waters.
Speaker 3: He's the mediator between God and man. Jesus came to
Speaker 3: bring God and us together. Now, what we're going to
Speaker 3: do today is take this verse apart, phrase by phrase,
Speaker 3: so that when we finish today, you don't have any
Speaker 3: doubt in your mind that you know you're going to heaven.
Speaker 3: And there are four keys. There are four phrases in
Speaker 3: this verse. Now, if you're taking notes, you might write
Speaker 3: this down. The first thing is you must recognize God's love.
Speaker 3: If you want to go to heaven, the first thing
Speaker 3: you got to do is recognize God's love, how much
Speaker 3: he loves you. The Bible says, God so loved the world. Now,
Speaker 3: God says, I don't want you to just recognize it intellectually.
Speaker 3: I want you to recognize it emotionally. I want you
Speaker 3: to feel it. The Bible tells us that God is love.
Speaker 3: Doesn't say he has love. It says he is love.
Speaker 2: God is love.
Speaker 3: It is his nature, it's its character, it's what he
Speaker 3: mads up of. And the Bible says that everything in
Speaker 3: the universe was created simply so God could love it.
Speaker 2: That's why it exists.
Speaker 3: The Bible says God created all the planets just so
Speaker 3: he can love it. God created all the animals just
Speaker 3: so he can love them. God created all of the
Speaker 3: trees and the plants and all of.
Speaker 2: The vegetation so he could love it. And God created you.
Speaker 3: So he could love you. That's why you're alive. The
Speaker 3: only reason you're alive is God wanted you alive and
Speaker 3: He made you to love you. You were created as
Speaker 3: an object of God's love. And the reason your heart's
Speaker 3: beating right now, and the reason you're taking your next
Speaker 3: breath is because.
Speaker 2: God wants to love you. It's the whole reason you're alive.
Speaker 3: In fact, if God hadn't wanted to love you, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't be alive right now now. God's love for you
Speaker 3: is an amazing kind of love. We talk about love
Speaker 3: all the time. You always say, you know, we throw
Speaker 3: the word around, hey, I love you man. You know,
Speaker 3: I love you man in that manly, macho kind of way.
Speaker 3: And we say I love you. We don't go around
Speaker 3: and say, oh, I so love you. If you did,
Speaker 3: you'd get that interaction. But the Bible says God so
Speaker 3: loved the world. That means his love is extravagant, it's lavish,
Speaker 3: it's beyond comprehension. God loves you on your good days,
Speaker 3: on your bad days. He loves you when it's rain,
Speaker 3: and he loves you when it's shining him. He loves
Speaker 3: you when you feel it. He loves you when you
Speaker 3: don't feel it. He loves you when you do the
Speaker 3: right thing. He loves you when you do the wrong thing.
Speaker 3: Why Because God's love isn't based on who you are,
Speaker 3: It's based on.
Speaker 2: Who he is. God is love.
Speaker 3: God's love in base on what you do your performance.
Speaker 3: It's based on what Jesus has already done for you.
Speaker 3: You can't make God stop loving you. You can try,
Speaker 3: but you can't because God's love is not based on
Speaker 3: your performance on what you do. It's based on the
Speaker 3: fact that he chooses to love you unconditionally. Well, you
Speaker 3: slowed on down long enough so I can say this
Speaker 3: to you, God says, I love you. I've loved you
Speaker 3: every moment of your life. I made you to love you.
Speaker 3: I saw you formed in your mother's womb, and I
Speaker 3: loved you. Then I saw you take your first breath,
Speaker 3: and I loved you. Then I saw you take your
Speaker 3: first step, and I loved you. Then I saw all
Speaker 3: the good and the bad in your life, the highs
Speaker 3: and lows, the right and the wrong. And I have
Speaker 3: loved you no matter what, because I made you to
Speaker 3: love you. God so loved the world. Now notice these
Speaker 3: verses out of the Bible. In the Book of First John,
Speaker 3: that's a book in the Bible. In chapter four it
Speaker 3: says this God showed how much he loved us by
Speaker 3: sending his only son into the world, that's Jesus, so
Speaker 3: that we might have eternal life through him.
Speaker 2: This is real love.
Speaker 3: He sent his son as a sacrifice to take away
Speaker 3: our sins. God didn't just say he loved you. He
Speaker 3: showed it. A lot of people say it, they don't
Speaker 3: do anything about it.
Speaker 2: He showed it.
Speaker 3: He showed it in the most expensive way. He sacrificed
Speaker 3: his son. He proved it. And when Jesus Christ stretched
Speaker 3: out his arms on the cross to die for us,
Speaker 3: he was saying to you, I love you this much.
Speaker 3: I love you so much it hurts. I love you
Speaker 3: so much. I'd rather die than live without you. That's
Speaker 3: what God says about you. He loves you that much.
Speaker 3: And even if you were the only person who had
Speaker 3: ever lived, Jesus Christ still would have come to earth
Speaker 3: and died on the cross for you so that he
Speaker 3: could show his love for you.
Speaker 2: Look at the next verse.
Speaker 3: The Bible says, this, what an incredible quality of love
Speaker 3: the Father has shown us that we should be permitted
Speaker 3: to be called and counted as the children of God.
Speaker 3: You see, the reason you're alive is God wanted a family.
Speaker 3: That's why he created the human race. God wanted children.
Speaker 3: Human beings are different from animals. The Bible says, we're
Speaker 3: created in God's image. That's why you have a conscience.
Speaker 3: You know the difference between right and wrong. You can pray,
Speaker 3: you can talk to God and never gonna see a
Speaker 3: doggy given thanks before it eats its food. You know,
Speaker 3: we're made differently the animals. We're made in God's image,
Speaker 3: so we can have a relationship with God. And the
Speaker 3: Bible says that God created the human race because he
Speaker 3: wanted children.
Speaker 2: God wanted a.
Speaker 3: Family and he wants you in it. Now, that is
Speaker 3: a mind blowing thing to me. The most amazing thing
Speaker 3: in the world to me is that the creator of
Speaker 3: the universe would want me, Rick Warren in his family.
Speaker 3: And what's even more amazing to me is that he
Speaker 3: would want you and his family.
Speaker 2: And me.
Speaker 3: I can understand you. I mean, nuds, I mean that
Speaker 3: is grace. I tell you, that really is grace. God
Speaker 3: says I created you to love you.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: God wants you to know his love. Look up the
Speaker 3: next verse out of the Bible. It says, may you
Speaker 3: be able to feel and understand how long and how wide,
Speaker 3: and how deep and how high God's love really is,
Speaker 3: and to experience this love for yourself. Did you know,
Speaker 3: God says I want you to don't not just know it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know. God loves me. Not an intellectual trip. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know. God loves me.
Speaker 3: He wants you to feel it, to experience it, to
Speaker 3: understand it, to feel it in your soul. Most people
Speaker 3: have never felt the unconditional love of God because when
Speaker 3: you feel it, it transforms your life. You're never the
Speaker 3: same again the day that you act actually feel totally
Speaker 3: loved by God. After that day, you will never again
Speaker 3: have to deal with inferiority or insecurity, or low self
Speaker 3: esteem or the depression that comes from a feeling of
Speaker 3: worthlessness because you realize, whoa wait a minute, The creator
Speaker 3: of the universe made me simply to love me.
Speaker 2: God made me to love.
Speaker 3: Me, and that will change your life.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: God says, I want you to feel all four dimensions.
Speaker 3: It's not three dimensionals four dimensional first, it says, in fact,
Speaker 3: you might circle the four dimensions, long and wide and
Speaker 3: deep and high. He says, I want you to know
Speaker 3: that first. How long is God's love long enough to
Speaker 3: last forever? I don't know if you figured this out
Speaker 3: or not, but human love doesn't last. That's why you've
Speaker 3: had a lot of girlfriends or a lot of boyfriends.
Speaker 3: That's why there's divorce in the world because human love
Speaker 3: wears out. But God will never stop loving you. Let
Speaker 3: me say this, you will never meet a man who
Speaker 3: loves you.
Speaker 2: As much as Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: You will never meet another woman who will love you
Speaker 3: as much as Jesus Christ. Because God's love is long
Speaker 3: enough to last forever. It is eternal. How long is
Speaker 3: it long enough to last forever? How white is it?
Speaker 3: Wide enough to be everywhere? There is no place you
Speaker 3: can go where God's love is not now. You may
Speaker 3: not feel his love, but it's there. You're just not
Speaker 3: tuned in. There are times in your life when you
Speaker 3: feel lonely, but you shouldn't be lonely because God is
Speaker 3: never without you, or you're never without God. His love
Speaker 3: is everywhere, And when you feel lonely, you're just not
Speaker 3: tuned in spiritually, You're not plugged in. You're not realizing
Speaker 3: it that He is never away from you. He is
Speaker 3: always with you and always loving you. It's long enough
Speaker 3: to last.
Speaker 2: Forever, It's wide enough to be everywhere.
Speaker 3: How deep is God's love deep enough to handle any problem?
Speaker 2: You've got.
Speaker 3: Deep enough to handle it. You say I'm in the pits,
Speaker 3: I've hit bottom I'm in the pit of hell. God's
Speaker 3: love is deeper still. I don't care what problem you're
Speaker 3: going through. His love is deeper than that problem. A
Speaker 3: few years ago there was a great movie it came
Speaker 3: out called The Hiding Place, based on a true story
Speaker 3: you may have seen. It is about in Holland when
Speaker 3: people in Holland hid the Jews in order to keep
Speaker 3: them from going to the Holocaust, and told the story
Speaker 3: of this one family, the ten Boom family, a Christian
Speaker 3: family who hid Jews in their attic to keep them
Speaker 3: from being taken into the death camps by the Nazis.
Speaker 3: It's true story. And one day these twins, these sisters,
Speaker 3: Corey and Betsy, and their father and mother that they
Speaker 3: were discovered and they had a hiding place where they
Speaker 3: were hiding the Jews. And the stormtroopers discovered this and
Speaker 3: they sent not only the Jews, but these Christians together
Speaker 3: off to Auschwitz. And in that Auschwitz camp, in the
Speaker 3: death camp, Betsy Tinboom speaks to a bunch of women
Speaker 3: there who have lost everything they've ever owned and all
Speaker 3: their family and their friends, and she said, there is
Speaker 3: no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still.
Speaker 3: How high is God's love? Well, it's high enough to
Speaker 3: overlook your mistakes. Aren't you glad for that one?
Speaker 2: Y'all.
Speaker 3: I don't care what you've done, or who you've done
Speaker 3: it with, or how long you've done it or where
Speaker 3: you did it. God says, I want you to come
Speaker 3: back to me. I love you, I want to forgive you.
Speaker 3: I want to give you a fresh start. A lot
Speaker 3: of people think, you know, because all the stuff I've
Speaker 3: done wrong, I've just got to blown it and gone
Speaker 3: my own way, that if I came to God, he's
Speaker 3: going to reject me.
Speaker 2: He's going to scold me, He's going.
Speaker 3: To tell me all the bad things I've ever done
Speaker 3: make me feel bad. Listen, God isn't mad at you.
Speaker 2: He's mad about you. He's not mad at you, He's
Speaker 2: mad about you.
Speaker 1: That was such an encouraging message from Pastor Rick, and
Speaker 1: now to encourage us more, here's Rick with a letter
Speaker 1: from one of our listeners.
Speaker 3: I want to say thanks to all of you who
Speaker 3: are supporting Daily Hope Ministry with your financial gifts and
Speaker 3: with your prayers. I know you appreciate these notes that
Speaker 3: I get from people around the world as much as
Speaker 3: I do. Let me just share one with you from
Speaker 3: a woman named Anna who is an elementary school principal,
Speaker 3: and she just wrote this, your Pastor Rick. I became
Speaker 3: a principal in an elementary school at the age of
Speaker 3: twenty five. I'm now forty two.
Speaker 2: Now. We've had Rick Warren.
Speaker 3: Bible series and studies at our church during the summers,
Speaker 3: and I always enjoyed them so much, and I've invited
Speaker 3: many friends and relatives to visit our church. A couple
Speaker 3: years ago, I began to share your devotion Daily Hope
Speaker 3: with all of my staff members each morning. See she's
Speaker 3: a principle, she's sharing this with her staff. She said,
Speaker 3: I've seen their growth in God. I've seen the transformation
Speaker 3: in their lives and characters over these past years, and
Speaker 3: I'm amazed at the Lord's love and mercy. That doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that we haven't struggled with issues such as death
Speaker 3: and depression and disappointments and illness things like that. However,
Speaker 3: we have had our eyes on God during all of
Speaker 3: the things that have come against us, and this has
Speaker 3: made a difference. I pray with them during our staff
Speaker 3: meetings to give thanks. So Pastor Rick, I just want
Speaker 3: to thank you for following God's calling. Even though you
Speaker 3: go through struggles and life problems just like we all do.
Speaker 2: God is with you.
Speaker 3: May the Lord continue to bless you and your beautiful family.
Speaker 3: May continue to bless you with wisdom and discernment so
Speaker 3: that you're able to share your gift with all of us. Blessings, Anna, Well, Anna,
Speaker 3: God bless you. Thanks for writing. I love getting these
Speaker 3: letters and you actually encouraged me. And I love the
Speaker 3: fact that as a principle, you're sharing the broadcast and
Speaker 3: you're sharing the devotionals with your staff. This makes you
Speaker 3: a partner in this ministry, and I thank you for
Speaker 3: doing that. I want to encourage everybody else's listening. Find
Speaker 3: somebody that you could share the good news with, tell
Speaker 3: them about Daily Hope. God bless you.
Speaker 1: Please join us next time as we look into God's
Speaker 1: word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by
Speaker 1: Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.