You know the movies try to make these things, and portray them, and make them look in certain ways, but Jesus describes reality. So I want to show you two things about this.
Number one, I want to describe for you the person himself, because in case you wonder what it'll be like for me - all that happens is you lose your body, but you are still very alive.
Death does not mean you don't exist anymore. Death is just you're separated from your body, separated from the people, separated from this earth, separated from loved ones, so the ones who are grieving are the loved ones.
If you're a Christian, for you to go into eternity is great joy, and great release. In fact many people who have had experiences of going into eternity, and encountering Jesus, never wanted to come back; but they came back because Jesus assigned them to come back.
So what about this man here? Now it says, notice, these things. We're just going to look at it very carefully: He was in torments. He had eyes, he could see, he could recognise Abraham and Lazarus - he recognised him. Notice he cries out, he's got a voice. He's crying for mercy. He talks about Lazarus dipping the tip of his finger in water, and cooling his tongue for I'm tormented in this flame.
So here's the thing that you notice about the man himself. The man himself has eyes, he has a tongue, he has fingers, he has feelings, he has emotions, and he has memories. So in hell, this man is totally conscious.
He can recognise Abraham, who he's never met; so in the realm of eternity, you're able to recognise people you've never met – you just know them immediately. You notice he's got memories - he recognises immediately who Lazarus is; which tells us that in his lifetime, he knew exactly who Lazarus is, and what his condition was - but he ignored it completely. No heart, no compassion, no mercy, quite self-indulgent.
So what else does it tell us? It very clearly - there are fingers, there's tongue, and notice what it says: he was in torments, terrible, terrible, terrible torments. It was his tongue that was tormented, and it described that it was food, and lust for food, was his issue. So he says: I'm tormented in this flame, so notice now he's got these tremendous issues.
Here he is, he exists; so when you die, you won't just cease to exist. You'll just walk out of your body, and someone who could see you, will know exactly who you were, a person from eternity.
You'll walk immediately into eternity. You'll have fingers, and you'll have eyes, and you'll have a nose, and you'll have all the features that a human being would have; except not a physical body, just a spirit body, and your memories. Everything you remember, every experience you had, you'll take it with you.
Now notice also about the place. The people struggle with this thing of a real hell, but there is a real heaven, and there is a real hell. You could probably search out the internet, and you'd find stories, testimonies of people who went to heaven; also people who went to hell. Those who went to hell, it's extremely frightening, terrifying experience for them.
We had some CDs a little while ago, Mary K Baxter I think it was, and she had these visions where she was taken into hell, and she was almost in trauma for days afterwards. It took her a long time to come out of it, and then she's become a most powerful witness, and she described the scenes of the people she saw, who she saw, what she saw. It's a most gripping thing. I tell you it's one of the most motivating things, when you see it.
But let's have a look at this place called Hell. Firstly you notice he was in hell. He was in a real place - it is a real place. There is a spiritual place, a place in the spirit realm, that is called Hell. Notice it's a real place, and it's a place of torment, a place of tremendous pain. Notice it says: talking about the flame; so there's obviously flames of fire in that place. Notice in that place in hell, there's memory. You can remember your life on the earth. Notice also that you know a number of things; you notice that he's able to recognise.