Jn. 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

            The late John Lennon had a song entitled “Imagine”. It became the theme song of the post modern period. The first verse went like this:

“Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try.

No hell below us, above us only sky.

Imagine all the people living for today.”

            Let us imagine that for a moment, if there is no heaven then there is no God. If there is no God then there is no truth. By now the humanist is applauding the thought. But as we keep going the image continues to change. If there is no God and no standard of truth, then there is no morality. Now is when it gets scary. No morality then anything goes. As humans we become like the animals in the jungle, only the strongest survive. Without any standard for guidance, then chaos reigns! Men like Hitler, Hussein and Ben Laden are within their rights to do whatever they feel they want to do. “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12). Do we really want to imagine life without God or His Word?

            Let us continue to imagine like the song said, there is no heaven. Then we are only mortal flesh. Once we draw our last breath it is all over. Nothing is left. Death has robbed us of all of our joy in this life and now like Rover, we are dead all over.

            Imagine there’s no heaven, then there would be no hope. “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,” (Heb. 6:19). “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23).

            Now if there were no hell, then that would mean that the author of the Bible lied and since God cannot lie there is no God. If there is a heaven, then there is a hell. “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;…” (2 Pet. 2:4). Even Jesus believed in hell (Luke 12:5). “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” Hell is a place of torment (Luke 16:23). One can imagine that it does not exist but it does not change its reality.

            “Imagine all the people, living for today.” That’s rather easy to imagine because it’s the way the majority of Americans live. Too many people live a simple existence of self pleasure and gratification (Luke 12:16ff). “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ‘But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

            How dare Mr. Lennon try to take away the greatest promise that we as Christians enjoy.

1 Thess. 4:16-17 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”