Well, we Protestants don't believe in any transitional place of reform between earth and heaven.

There's no purgatory.

It's appointed for man to die once, and immediately after his physical death comes the eternal

verdict.

And in light of that comes this question, is it fair for the soul's eternal destiny

to be irreversibly determined by the mere span of 70 years of life in this world?

This question that comes from a listener named Sean is something that he himself was asked

as a pushback.

Hello, Pastor John.

Thank you for this podcast.

I was recently asked this question, what kind of silly God determines the eternal future

of a soul based on the span of only one lifetime?

This seems fundamentally out of balance to many.

How would you help me answer this objection from Scripture?

I would begin and end by saying that God's judgment is not silly, but infinitely serious.

And I would look for some indication behind that word, silly, that my friend is at

least a little bit open to the possibility that what the Bible teaches may prove spectacularly

true and make his own assessment of silliness a great problem for him is the open to that.

And if I discern that he is willing to listen, then I would try to help him see how the

Bible shows that it is perfectly just for God to condemn a person to eternal suffering,

not just on the basis of 70 years of sinning, but five seconds of sinning.

From his standpoint, the problem is much more serious than he thinks it is, or to use his

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