What Happens To You The Second After You Die?

Millions of people are forming their beliefs about eternity based on someone else’s near-death experience. 

It feels real. It sounds peaceful. But feelings are not the standard for what happens after you die — God’s Word is. 

In this episode, Tim Owen walks through what Jesus, Paul, and the Scriptures actually say about the moment after death. The answer is immediate, it is final, and it changes everything about how you live today.

Check out our YouTube Channel “You Finishing Well” and our website: www.youfinishingwell.com 

All you have to do is go to our website and sign up for updates - all free. 

Stay strong, pure, and like Christ - Thanks for taking the journey with me! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi guys, and welcome back to You Finishing Well. This is Tim Owen. Today we're going to talk about what happens to you one second after you die. I mean, do you ever think about that? What do you actually believe? And where do you get that belief? In fact, have you ever vetted it? Let's talk about it. You know, a lot of people simply just don't think about this very much, or they certainly don't talk about it very much. I recognize that it comes up every now and then, but we all kind of live in a culture that is absolutely saturated with near-death experiences. I mean, everywhere you look, it's in books, documentaries, podcast interviews, bestsellers, people describing seeing a light, or people describing an overwhelming feeling of peace, or they're floating in the room, or they're hearing voices. And some say they even see heaven or they see Jesus or the Holy Spirit. And some say everyone, and I mean they say everyone, ends up in some beautiful place. But I want to be honest with you. These stories, they are compelling and they're emotional, and they feel real. But here's the thing I want you to really hear before we go any farther. An experience can feel completely real, but it can still be very wrong. And only, in my opinion, and I recognize we all believe different things, but in my opinion, God's word tells us what is actually real. So if you're building your understanding of eternity on someone else's story, a person, I think you're standing on sand, and you may not realize it until it's too late. So I would like today for all of us to go to one person who actually has the authority to tell us what happens, and that person is Jesus. So in Luke 16, Jesus kind of pulls back the curtain on eternity. It's not a metaphor, it's not a vague spiritual concept. He actually tells a story with two real men, two real deaths, and two real destinations. Now, one of the guys are very rich. He has everything you could ever define as success: comfort, luxury, ease of the best of everything. The other man, his name's Lazarus, he's sick, he's suffering, he's covered in sores, he's begging the rich man at his gate just for crumbs to survive. And then they both die. And in one sentence, just one sentence, everything kind of changes. In Luke 16, 22, here's the sentence. The angels carried Lazarus, he's the sick guy, to the arms of Abraham. The rich man died and was buried. So here's kind of what I want you to observe in this. When the man died, there was no delay, there was no pause, there was no soul just kind of drifting out into nothingness. That just didn't happen. The moment Lazarus died, angels carried him away. He's received, he's comforted, he is known. And the rich man, he also is fully conscious. He's fully aware, but he's in torment. And he's thinking, he's remembering, and he's feeling. And he's even seeing across a great chasm to where Lazarus was now resting. So what was and the the chasm was between them. And it's a gap, it's a huge gap that cannot be crossed. So let me give you an analogy that might help. Think about a flight. You board the plane in Dallas, the moment the plan lands in New York, you're you are not in Dallas anymore. You don't linger somewhere over Tennessee deciding where you might go. You don't float into the atmosphere. You departed and you arrived. Death is the departure gate. I mean, it is. The question isn't whether you arrive, because you will arrive. The question is where? And there's really no middle ground in Luke 16. No wandering, no floating, no second chance to make a different choice. You don't die and then just figure it out later. You die, listen, you die and you arrive. So now I can probably hear some of you thinking, well, Tim, that was before the cross, before Jesus died and rose again. If you know your Bible, that you should know that really doesn't change anything. Yes, in the most glorious way possible, it kind of does change after the resurrection. You might listen to how Paul, the Apostle Paul, describes it. He's in prison, he's facing the possibility of execution, and instead of fear, Paul writes this in Philippians 1.23, I want to leave this life and be with Christ, which is much better. Not eventually, not after a waiting period. The act of leaving is the act of arriving. He says it even more directly in another letter in 2 Corinthians 5.8, he said, to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord. Now, by the way, that verse is debated a lot of will you be home with the Lord immediately or will you be after death and resurrection, which is probably another topic on another day. But the general belief is if we die here and we're no longer in this body, we then will be with the Lord. And most people do believe that. So away from the body and home with the Lord, they're just what I want to really make clear, there is no gap, there is no delay, there's no immediate waiting room. And for the believer, the moment your eyes close here, they are gonna open there with him, fully aware, fully alive, and fully home. And if you need Jesus, now some of you may want to actually hear Jesus, not me, say this himself, and he does. While he's on the cross, a criminal next to him, a man who'd lived a broken, selfish life right up to his final hours, he turns and says to Jesus, Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And then Jesus told him in Luke 23, 43, today you will be with me in paradise. You know, he says, today, not eventually, it's not pending, it's not after a season of purification. You when you die today, you will be in paradise. The general theme is that when you die, you are out of your body, and then your soul, it's it's not floating around, it actually goes somewhere. And with the thief on the cross, it goes to heaven. So, but there's another Bible verse that kind of trips a lot of people up, and I want to kind of address that. And it's 1 Peter 3.19 that says, after his death, Jesus went and preached to the spirits in prison. So when Christ was crucified, 1 Peter 3.19 says this. So the question is, is did Jesus go and offer salvation to those who had already died? Is there a kind of a window of opportunity after death to respond to Christ? And here's what actually the text says. The word preached in the original Greek form means proclaiming the gospel to someone who needs to respond. It's the word for a declaration, and then it's sort of an announcement, it's a proclamation of something that this is important, that has already been decided. Jesus did not go to the lost and say you still have time. He went and declared that it is finished. That's what he said on the cross. It wasn't an invitation, it was a proclamation of victory, that he overcame death. The door doesn't swing open again after death. It just doesn't. And the Bible, I think, is not ambiguous about this. In Hebrews 9.27, it simply says people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment. There is one life, one death, one judgment. And this is why I think near-death experiences, even though the conversations are important, they're also, in my opinion, potentially dangerous. If those stories lead you towards Scripture or towards Christ, toward taking eternity seriously, I think those are good conversations. But if those stories lead you to a place to think, well, I'll just be fine. Everybody ends up okay. I've got time to sort this out later. That's a story. Listen, I think that is a story that can cost you everything. Because the urgency of this life depends entirely on the finality of death. I mean, if there was a second chance after you die, the decisions, frankly, that you make today, they probably wouldn't matter very much. But there isn't, and those decisions do matter. So let me kind of bring it all together. What happens one second after you die? Your body may rest, and scripture does call it sleep in a few places, that's true, waiting for the resurrection. But you, your mind, your awareness, your soul, those things do not sleep. You step out of this life and you step immediately into two realities. You're either in the presence of Christ, fully aware, fully held by him, fully home, or in separation from him, also fully aware in what you chose while you were here and what you lost, which is hell, which is a place of torment. There is no confusion, there is no delay, and there is no second chance. So, in my opinion, here's a very important element of dying. You and I, we are not preparing for death. That's not that's not what this life is about. What we are doing, though, we are preparing for where you and I will be after we die. And I think most people are living like they'll just have time later, like there's another season coming, or I'll just deal with it when it gets serious, like death is maybe somewhere far enough down the road that today's decision can wait. But you're talking to a guy or listening to a guy that's had cancer twice and has watched a lot of people around me, including my own family, die unexpectedly. So later, it isn't promised. It it is it is not. So let me ask you a real question, the one that I think really matters. If this was your last breath, where would your next breath be? I mean, because this life isn't about accumulating comfort, it's not about building security or living a long time. It just isn't. This life is really about alignment with Christ right now. I mean, today. So here's the hope I want you to walk away with. And it's not, I don't think it's a soft version, I don't think it's vague, I think uh, I think it's very real, and I think it's very grounded, and it's something you can stand solid on. For those who trust Jesus Christ, you do not have to fear death because he has overcome it. The second your eyes close here, they open and you are with him. There is no fear, there is no wandering, there is no darkness, there is just Jesus Christ in perfection. This is not wishful thinking. This is the promises of the words of God Almighty Himself. He secured death for you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So I'm just going to say don't build your eternity on some, especially a person, someone else's story. I'm not saying they didn't experience something, but it's but everybody it's not a beautiful thing for everybody. I want you to stand on truth because the one second after you die, I want you to know only by following Jesus Christ, he said over and over, I am the only way. And wow, I know that sounds so churchy, but Jesus Christ came, lived the perfect life, died, and paid the price for your past, present, and future sins. And we don't just grab him as a savior. It is nice to be saved, but we also follow him as Lord, meaning we fall in love with him. We follow his commands. I mean, we don't just want God for what he can do for us, I mean, a lot of us do, but we should want God Himself. I mean, who dies for the unlovely? Who dies and pays the price for the very people who are killing him? I mean, that's a love beyond anything that we can really comprehend. That, and then ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. When you do that, you have defeated hell. You have defeated death. When you close your eyes as following Christ, you will open them the second after you leave this earth. Your body dies, you don't, and you will be like that thief on the cross in paradise. So let me pray for us. God, this topic just has a way of, man, it just cuts through all the noise and all the busyness and the things that really just fill our days. And we to be honest, we just don't think we don't live like we're dying, and we're gonna die. I mean, 1900 people die every day in the United, every day, unexpectedly, through not disease, but through wrecks and murder and just things unexpected. So help us sit with this right now. We we want to think about the people in our lives that are building their eternity on somebody else's story. That's not how we want to plan our future and our future death. I think those people are banking on a on some kind of a feeling or a hope. But I want our belief, I want my belief to stand on truth, on what your word says. I mean, there is, we do not want to get this wrong. So because it's so easy to believe other things, I just pray you will bring truth to us. Holy Spirit, the part that people struggle with, I pray you will sort those things out in their mind. And not give us some version that the world says about death, but let us stand on the truth of what your word says about death. We really want to be people who live today like eternity really is real, not with fear, but with clarity and with urgency, with the love of people that are around us who may not know you yet. And that's the reason I do this podcast, Lord. I'm not here for money, I'm here for a mission. And I just pray that people actually would believe what I am saying, not for my own gratification, but for their eternity. So I just pray that you will bless that. I thank you for those who trust you. Death is not the end of the story, it is just the beginning of eternity. And I think that changes everything. So help us believe it, give us more faith in it, and I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, my good people. Have a beautiful day, and until next time, I'll talk to you later.