Are Heaven and Hell real places? And what are they like? Today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope,

the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren, we bring our series called Eternal Realities, Heaven and Hell, to a close.

In these lessons, Rick shares what the Bible says about heaven and hell and how you can be absolutely

certain you'll go to heaven. As we wrap up, here's the final part of a message called

How to Be Certain You're Going to Heaven. Look at the next verse. This is a very important verse.

Got some heavy-duty theology terms in it, but I'll explain him. It says, we are justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Now circle the word justified and the word

redemption, because those are the two things you've got to have in order to get into heaven.

So let me explain them. What does it mean to be justified? The Bible says,

Jesus Christ, when he died for you, justified you. What does that mean? Well, justified

means just as if I'd never sinned. That's what it means. Justification. Justifying means

just as if I'd never sinned. It's more than forgiveness. It means it's forgotten. It's wiped out. It's like it didn't even happen. Let me give an example. Let's say while we're in here in church, some kids go out and they take tire irons and they beat up my car. They just tear it to smithereens. And security catches them and brings them in here. And I say, now you know you guys, God's forgiven me a whole lot. And so I need to forgive other people. So I'm going to forgive you for what you've done for me. I'm going to forgive you for what you've done. And then I say to you guys, you guys, I want you all to forgive them too. And you say, okay, we them. Now, they would be forgiven, but they'd still

feel bad because everybody knows. Everybody knows what I've done. And a lot of people feel like that.

They go, yeah, I know God's forgiving me, but I still feel bad about it because everybody knows about it.

What they need is to be justified. If I were to have some pixie dust or fairy dust and I sprinkled it over

you or I waved the magic wand and all of a sudden that incident was totally erased from your

memory, then it would be justified just as if I'd never sin. Remember the movie men in black

they'd hold up that little thing and you know, the guys would forget everything that they knew.

Those guys were justified by Will Smith right there, okay?

Justified by Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones, okay?

That's what it means, just as if I'd never seen.

You don't even remember it.

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