Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

Three existential questions that everyone has asked themselves at least once in their lives. Our inner voice will not give us peace until we find out the answer to them during our lifetime

The Bible, the only book of God addressed to man, is the way to the place of His knowledge, and implicitly, to true happiness. It is the "mirror" in which we can look at our soul to see it as God Himself sees it. Anyone who will look deeper into the Scripture will notice his "crookedness", the fact that he has sinned many times and in various ways, because on the face of the earth "there is no righteous man, not even one".

The Bible states that we are eternal beings, formed "in the image and likeness of God" and that we will never pass into non-being, but will exist eternally, as God himself is eternal. But there will be only two places for this existence. The time we are given on this "journey" on earth has only one purpose: to decide where we will spend our eternity!

HEAVEN – THE PLACE OF ETERNAL HAPPINESS

The Bible has much to say about the eternal happiness that God has in store for His beloved children, who have listened to His voice, entered through the narrow gate, and walked the narrow path to heaven. Below are 3 characteristics of the place prepared by God for all the umends of Christ.

1. Heaven is a place of eternal happiness, in the presence of God. The ideals of goodness, beauty, and truth are all attained in this majestic place, the splendor of which has not been fully described by those to whom it has been discovered. In the book of Revelation, the apostle John presents some images that were revealed to him in writing:  "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had perished, and the sea was no more. And I heard a loud voice coming out of the throne and saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God with men! He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them. He will be their God." (Rev. 21:1-3). God's presence will drive away from that place every memory of past misfortunes, any idea of evil or suffering, assuring all those received by Him a happy eternity.

2. No suffering will find its place there, not even death, which will be abolished forever: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death will be no more. There will be no more mourning, no screaming, no pain, because the former things have passed." (Rev. 21:4-5). A world without suffering, without decay, and without death—this has been the ideal of all successive generations on this earth, an ideal which they have not been able to attain even in part. Such a world—a new heaven and a new earth—is what God has preordained for each of us, provided we have listened to His voice in this fleeting life. Our Father wants to give us glory instead of misery, righteousness instead of our sins, and eternal life instead of torment. Will you also receive His gift? Or will you prefer to remain in ignorance and carelessness until it is too late to be able to rectify anything?

3. Nothing filthy, nothing unclean shall enter heaven, as it is written, "The city has no need of the sun or the moon to give it light; for the glory of God illuminates it. Nothing defiled will enter into it, no one who lives in defilement and lies; but only those written in the Lamb's Book of Life." (Rev. 21:27). In His boundless mercy, God will not permit any unclean being, any man who carries with him the misery of sin, to enter the eternal city. Otherwise heaven would turn into a place similar to the world now, dominated by hatred, anger and violence. God commands all people to repent, so that their sins may be forgiven and that they may be received into His presence, but only those who have been cleansed from their sins will be there: "Then He said to me, 'It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink free of the fountain of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son." (Rev. 21:6-8).

HELL - THE PLACE OF TORMENT

No passenger who gets on a train is interested in its destination after the train starts, but would like to know from the beginning where it is going. Likewise, we should know well what we are heading towards with each passing minute of our lives.

1. Hell is a place of torment and suffering that was  not intended for man, but for the devil and his fallen angels. The Savior Himself spoke the following words: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). God did not create this horrible place for people, but He will have to, with great pain, send there most of them, those who have ignored and mocked Him all the time on earth through a life full of sin.

2. Hell is a place where sufferings will be very similar to physical ones. The Gospel of Luke recounts the words of one who had reached this torment: "Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am terribly tormented in this fire!" (John 12:2). The book of Revelation also describes the scene of the final judgment before the throne of God, before which all the dead, resurrected to enter eternity, will appear: "Then I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat on it, and earth and heaven fled before him, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. Some books have been opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, according to what was written in those books. The sea has brought back the dead that were in it; Death and Hadesh have brought back the dead that were in them. Each one was judged according to his deeds. And Death and Hadesh were cast into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. 20:11-15)tag.

3. Hell is a place of the torment of conscience, metaphorically called "the worm that does not die". Everyone will remember with regret all the opportunities they had to respond to the gospel in order to be saved.  Moreover, the fact that nothing can be done will further accentuate the torment of conscience, as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: "They will see the dead bodies of men who rebelled against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they will be a cause of terror to every creature." (Isaiah 66:24).

4. Hell is also called "hell", having the same meaning that it has today in our language - a place where garbage is thrown. The ancient Jews had such a place in the valley of Hinnom, outside Jerusalem, and there they threw away all the waste, even the corpses of animals or people who died of a contagious disease, such as leprosy. Because the city was big and there was always something to throw away, the fire in that valley never went out. The Savior gave a clear picture both to those in His time and to us today, of what the place of torment (ghena) means: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but who cannot kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt. 10:28).

5.   Hell is the place where the torment will be all the more terrible as those in hell will be allowed to see the brightness and happiness they have lost through their stubbornness to persist in disobedience to God and carelessness. The rich man who was in torment was able to look at Lazarus, who was in paradise: "While he was in Hades, in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham and Lazarus in his bosom from afar..." (Luke 16:23). The Lord Himself warned those who would not repent in His time: "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you are brought out." (Luke 13:28).

6. Hell is a place of incessant weeping, of deep regret, but it has come too late and can no longer change anything: "And cast that worthless servant into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 25:30) In this life, full of trouble and suffering, we are born weeping and we continue to weep many times, in difficult circumstances. But there is a cry that we must have here and now, so that we do not cry later in vain. The prophet Jeremiah urges us to this kind of weeping, of sincere repentance, because we have dishonored the name of God through our sins: "Why should a man complain while he lives? Let each one complain better of his sins! Let us take heed of our wanderings, examine them, and return to the Lord." (Weeping 3:39-40).

7. It is an endless and eternal punishment for all those who have been a mocker of the eternal Being, the Son of God.

We have mocked the Son of God by our sins, we have driven thorns into His forehead, and we have spat in His cheek every time we have dared to sin against Him. The Bible states that "the wages of sin is death," and we are guilty of several such charges. How can we think that we shall escape the wrath of God after death, when we appear before Him, when we have done nothing but incessantly reproach upon Him? That is why He will also have to condemn us to an eternal separation from His presence: "How much more severe punishment do you think he will take who tramples on the Son of God, defiles the blood of the covenant with which He was sanctified, and mocks the Spirit of grace?(Heb. 10:29).  "They will be punished with eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His power." (2 Thess. 1:9).

Of course,  the normal question that arises in any person will be this: "What can I do to escape? How can I not get there?" These are legitimate questions, and God, in His goodness, has not left us unanswered. The good news (the gospel) is that we can escape, we can be saved from future wrath, if we ask forgiveness from Him against whom we have sinned. He, the blessed Son of the true and eternal God, "bore our sins in His body on the wood of the cross," offering us His righteousness in return. The torments and ridicule that we should have endured for eternity, He took upon Himself. He was beaten, bound, scourged, spat in the face, reproached, stripped of his clothes, and nailed to a wooden cross, which he had carried to Golgotha. For six hours he suffered the torments of hell, the separation from God, His Father, so that none of us would ever suffer in hell again. At the end, "He bowed His head and gave up His spirit," testifying in His last words that it was all "over!"

No one, absolutely no one, no man, man or woman, young or old, should go to the place of torment prepared for the devil. Salvation is for all, and God has demonstrated His eternal love by putting His only begotten Son to death "that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." and to enter through the narrow gate, through repentance and faith in the Only One who can save from eternal torment – the Son of God: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate, wide is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. But narrow is the gate, narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it."

But God has prepared for you and for me, for all people, a place of eternal happiness called Heaven. Where will you continue to be in eternity? In which of these two places? God has done everything for you, He has given what He dearest to death, His beloved Son Himself! Now the decision is yours! He will not force you to change your life and renounce sin, but He will let you choose. In His long patience, He postponed the judgment of this world in order to allow as much time for repentance as possible. Remember, however, that "God does not heed the times of ignorance, and now commands all men everywhere to repent; for he has ordained a day in which he will judge the world according to righteousness, through the Man whom he has ordained for this and of whom he has given all men an undeniable proof, by the fact that he has raised him from the dead..." What will be your answer?