EAVESDROPPING ON CHARLIE & THE ANGEL

MIKE CUNNINGHAM

FEBRUARY 8, 2009

The little cluster of jubilant spirits zoomed out of the dreary nursing home and into the midnight sky with a velocity vastly exceeding that of a newly launched spaceship. On and on they flew as they silently made their way further and further from Planet Earth and well beyond the zillions of humongous super clusters, each of which contain billions of individual galaxies.

The silence was suddenly broken by a thunderous Wow! that came from an obviously astonished man. He was the sole purpose of this particular mission; a former Alzheimer’s patient whose spirit had finally been set free from his body at the moment of death. “Now I know how those astronaut guys must feel, Pal. All this is awesome.” The angel named Pal answered: “There isn’t a word in the human language which could even come close to adequately describing what you are witnessing, Charlie. We have already left the most distant reaches of the astronaut’s exploration of outer space.” ”How about that Hubba telescope thing? I’m not ignorant about that kind of stuff, Pal.” “I’m pleased to report we have left the Hubble’s deepest penetration precisely two and six tenth’s light-years behind us Charlie.” “I said it before and I’ll say it again, Pal: Wow!”

To the best of his ability Charlie absorbed the spectacular wonder of the seemingly never ending universe as they pressed onward toward their destination; the real home of the followers of the Risen Savior, a wonderful place referred to in the Bible as Heaven. After a while, Charlie once again starts telling the angel all about the thoughts which have been racing through his mind. “Hey Pal!” “Yes Charlie.” “I’ve been doing a whole lot of thinking and it’s making me sad. I know I should be happy and all that, but something is really bugging me.” “And what might that be Charlie, if I may ask?” “Not what might it be; it’s what is bugging me, Pal. And if I didn’t want you to ask me I would of said nothing.” “You wanna know what’s bugging me. I’ll tell you what’s bugging me; it’s my poor wife Martha and my wise-guy kid and my brother Claude, that’s what’s bugging me.” “I must say I’m having difficulty understanding what you are trying to communicate, Charlie. May I ask you to please elaborate?” “Yeah; I can see you’re not as sharp as I thought you angel guys were supposed to be. Now listen carefully, Pal. Martha and the rest of them are thinking I’m headed south toward Hell when actually it’s the other way around. Sure they’re going to be happy and surprised when they finally die and go to heaven and spot me grinning from ear to ear standing up in front there with the rest of the welcoming crowd.” “That certainly will be a joyous reunion, Charlie. May I ask why you are so distressed?” “You want to know why, Pal, I’ll tell you why. It’s what’s going on inside their head’s right now, that’s why. They love me, you know. It takes a lot of love to put up with someone like me all those years. In case you forgot, I was a real first class jerk for most of my life, Pal. But, thanks to God’s mercy I’m here with you on my way to Heaven and they’re thinking I’m soon going to be in Hell sizzling away--forever. Only God knows how long it will take for them to see me again. They’re going to be miserable for the rest of their life. Can you blame me for being down?” Do you get the picture, Pal?”

“I assure you they are fine Charlie exactly as our God planned them to be before He created His world. In fact, each of them, including the man you so insensitively refer to as being your brother Claude’s “shrink” are doing wonderful.” “I can’t believe I’m hearing all this. Do you have any idea what Hell is like, Pal? I do! I learned a whole lot about that crummy joint at those Saturday morning Bible studies at my neighbor’s back yard. Then just as it began to get really interesting I started coming down with that Alzheimer’s thing. That was the beginning of the end for me, Pal. My mind started going blank and I think I had to drop out. I just can’t remember. That was a real bummer, Pal, a real bummer.” “I know it was, Charlie,” “How do you know that, Pal?” “I was there.” “You were? “Certainly I was. I’ve been watching over you from the moment you were conceived. You could even call me your Guardian Angel.” “I forgot about that part, Pal. Then you gotta know I learned a whole lot about Hell before I started going nuts.” “Indeed I do, Charlie, indeed I do. May I suggest that in order to facilitate our conversation that you endeavor to summarize what you are able to recollect.” “Piece a cake, Pal. Piece a cake now that I got all my marbles back.”

“The first things we learned about Hell is that Jesus went all over the place warning those guys that if they didn’t believe in Him and own up to their sins and ask for forgiveness and knock off all their sinning, they would wind up there. And stay there--forever. The way I understand Hell is that it’s a real hot place which God made for the Devil and his cohorts; sort of like a furnace or a lake of fire where the idiots who send themselves there will be bobbing up and down like a cork , and all the while they’ll be wailing and gnashing their teeth. Forever! And I do mean forever. There’s no let up you know. It just goes on and on and on. I can also picture Martha and the rest of them imagining poor old Charlie all alone somewhere in the outer darkness suffering agony in the never ending flames and twinkling like one of those stars over there. Do you get the picture, Pal?” “Indeed I do, Charlie; indeed I do.” “Good!” That’s the only reason I walked up the church isle and said the sinner’s prayer a long time ago. I said to myself; ‘Charlie, what if this preacher guy got it right. What the heck, go on up there with the rest of them; it can’t hurt nothing.” “I recall that moment, Charlie, but I had no way of knowing your thoughts. After all, I’m only and angel. Thank you for informing me.” “You’re welcome, Pal. Anyway; after that I started going to my neighbors Saturday morning back yard Bible studies. That’s where I learned a whole lot about Hell. The teacher got me to thinking, really thinking. I remember one Saturday coming back to the study with a whole lot of questions for him all written down.” “I loved it whenever you did that, Charlie. And so did the teacher. All good teachers welcome feedback. They were marvelous questions.” “I thought they were real good ones myself, Pal. And I wasn’t trying to be some smart-alec guy either. But for the life of me I can’t remember his answers.” “Why don’t you state your questions and I’ll endeavor to provide you with satisfactory answers?” “Sounds good to me, Pal. Oops, I just got another thought. All of a sudden it popped right into my head. Just like that!” “May I ask what that thought is, Charlie?” “You know you can, Pal. That’s why I told you about it in the first place. Oops, just this minute I got another one.” “May I ask what that one is and then we’ll return to your fist question?” “Yeah Pal; here it is. It’s that I ain’t annoyed by you anymore. You’re still the same guy with all that “may I ask this,” or “indeed it is” kind of stuff. Why ain’t I bugged by you anymore? What happened?” “You haven’t changed, Pal.” “I would hope not, but you have, Charlie. You’re progressing quite nicely in cultivating that beautiful Christ-like virtue called patience. Now please try to stay focused as we return to the first thought that popped into your head.” “Sounds like a plan, Pal. Anyway, I got to thinking, here you and me have been yapping back and forth for a long time now. We’re probably millions of light-years away from that nursing home by now. I mean, there can’t be too much time left for a whole lot of questions before we get to Heaven? There aint no simple answers when you’re talking about people going to Hell, you know. No use starting something we don’t have enough time to finish, is there Pal?” “That’s an excellent observation Charlie! It’s something they all wonder about.” “And who may I ask, are they, Pal? Oops! I can’t believe I just said that. Now I’m even beginning to sound like you.” “I’m flattered, Charlie. The others I’m alluding to are some of those whom our God back in eternity past planned, ordained and predestined to become new creatures in Christ at a precise moment in human history.” “You mean like me?” “Exactly Charlie, exactly” “There’s been others you’ve been assigned to, Pal?” “I have been privileged to serve many of our God’s chosen ones throughout the years.” “That must have been a whole lot of people, Pal. I bet you had your share of some real doozies, ha, ha.” “To borrow one of your favorite phrases,’ you got that right,’ Charlie.”

“Concerning whether or not we have enough time remaining to address all your questions; I must remind you of a singular fact, Charlie. At the precise moment your body died your spirit entered into the other side of eternity. Time no longer exists for you. You are in the eternal present.” “Oh! Well, here’s my question’s. Let’s think about that Saddam Hussein guy. You remember how they caught up with that butcher and put him on trial and convicted him and then they hung him?” “Indeed I do, Charlie, indeed I do.” “Well suppose before they tied the noose around his neck; once a week they yanked out one of his teeth, without any pain killers either. They kept right on doing this until every last one of them was all gone. Then they moved to his finger nails, and one by one pulled each of them out too. Next was his toe nails, then they plucked his eye balls out and twisted his ears and nose right off of his head. Oh, I almost forgot to mention they ripped his tongue out right after the second week so they wouldn’t have to listen to all his screaming and yelling. They had him hitched up to one of those monitor things and watched it real close. Then as soon as they saw he was about to die, they dragged the bum to the gallows and hung him dead. Now tell me Pal; what do you think about that kind of treatment? As they say, did the punishment fit his crimes? And how about the judge that ordered all that stuff. What kind of a guy would you say he was, Pal?” “I must say he was a satanically possessed fiend whose sentence infinitely exceeded the punishment for the crimes the man was convicted of.” “I kind a thought you would say that, Pal. Then tell me, what kind of divine Judge is it who would sentence anyone to an eternity of much greater agony especially since his or her crimes only lasted for a short period of time? How can an all loving God do such a thing? Wouldn’t it be more humane if they just zapped him out of existence?”

“Allow me to attempt to answer your questions, Charlie, but first I would like to know your preference regarding whether you would rather an elaborate philosophical explanation concerning unbiblical contentions such as annihilation, conditional immortality, universalism and rationalism, or…” “Hold it right there, Pal. Slow down! Just keep it simple!” I don’t need all that other stuff. And while you’re at it, remember what you said earlier about Martha and the rest of them doing just fine even though they think I’m on my way to Hell to suffer never ending torment.”

“It was part of the eternal plan of our God who is infinite in wisdom to create man with an immortal soul, Charlie. Regardless of how some people try to twist the Scriptures, Our God cannot annihilate people who freely choose to have nothing to do with His Son. It’s just as impossible for Him to do that as it is for Him to sin. Please remember that God has given man the ability to freely make choices. For instance, the time we spoke about your salvation experience, you insisted no one compelled you to believe in His Son, acknowledge your sins and plead for forgiveness, even to the point of crying. You made that choice of your own free will.” “You got that one right too, Pal.”

“You also had the freedom to choose to harden your heart and reject His love. The choice was yours, Charlie. Through your attendance at those Bible studies you are quite familiar of the accounts of numerous other people who had hardened their hearts. Two notable examples of men who did so were the Pharaoh and King Zedekiah, and of course you recall all the Egyptians who did the same thing to their own hearts. The freedom of choice is one of the most precious characteristics our God had given His creatures such as you and me. They can either love Him or hate Him. There’s no in between.” “You mean its all black and white Pal and no gray.” “Precisely Charlie; it’s one or the other. There is absolutely nothing which will prevent anyone from accepting His love and following His Son. And there is absolutely no power in Heaven or on earth which will prevent a human being from hardening his or her heart and wanting nothing to do with the Risen Savior if that is what they sincerely want to do. Our God has given each of His human creatures the freedom to decide not to want anything to do with His Son--eternally.” “You mean it’s as simple as all that, Pal? That’s the bottom line?” “Indeed it is, Charlie, indeed it is.”

“Of course, being eternally separated from our God’s love has awful consequences Charlie. For instance, throughout human history He has occasionally revealed the kind of behavior human beings can expect to witness from someone who has hardened his own heart. Judas was a prime example. And just think of what it would be like to live in a world in which God maintained a hand’s –off position. Consider the time when He prevented a ruler named Abimelech from having sex with Abraham’s wife Sarah, (Gen. 20:6). He restrained that man by influencing his mind just as He influenced the minds of the Egyptians to be favorably disposed towards the Jewish people (Exodus 3:21-22).But, for reasons known only to Himself, our God didn’t restrain Sadham and those like him throughout history from committing the evil they did. One thing is certain however, and it is by knowing about the horrible deeds of this evil man that human beings have been given an idea of what it will be like to become separated from God eternally.”

“Are you saying that when they die God will no longer have anything to do with the people who want nothing to do with His Son? And that He won’t incline anyone to be nice to someone nor will He prevent anyone from doing their own thing no matter how rotten it is?” “Indeed I am, Charlie, indeed I am.” “I said it before and I’ll say it again Pal: Wow! Then He’s going to let them keep right on sinning--forever and ever.” “You got that right also, Charlie.” “Then they will all become worse than Saddham was, Pal. In fact, we could even say that compared to the lost in Hell, Sadham was a pussy-cat while he was alive on earth. “Correct again Charlie. The punishment for sins which have not been forgiven is in our God allowing human beings to continue sinning--forever. The so-called nice people in the world while they lived on earth and who wanted nothing to do with Jesus and His love won’t have any more reason to do nice things for their fellow creatures, benevolent things which were often a blessing to Christ’s followers, but nevertheless were always tinged with a certain amount of self interest. They will continue worshiping themselves, and hating and rebelling against their Creator--forever, Charlie.” “And God has given them the freedom to choose to behave like that, Pal. All sorts of thoughts are popping into my mind right now. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like if I had to live among billions and billions of these kinds of people.” My mind is on overload when I think of what it would be like being in the minority and having these kinds of people for my neighbors and all over the place. It would be awful.” “Indeed it would, Charlie, indeed it would. But there’s nothing for any follower of Jesus to worry about because none of the lost will be in Heaven. This leads me to a question I have for you, Charlie. What do you suggest Our God do with them? Remember, He can’t zap them out of existence. Do you think He could find a place far enough away from the followers of His Son so as not to disturb their eternal happiness with Him?” “Piece of cake, Pal, piece of cake! The more I look at the gigunda size of His universe, the more I have to say He sure can.” “Can you offer a compelling reason why He shouldn’t send those Christ haters somewhere out there and name the place Hell?” “You know I can’t, Pal.” Good!”

“Now let’s return to your concern about Martha and the rest of them feeling awful because to the best of their knowledge you’re on your way to Hell. I tried to assure you earlier they’re doing just fine exactly as He had planned before He created His world. In fact, I said they were doing wonderful.” “But how can you say such a thing, Pal?” “Simply because your despicable self-centered sinfulness together with dealing with your final illness and all the other divinely ordained very trying circumstances in each of their lives were working in them and achieving in them exactly what our God had planned. In other words, the faith of each of them has grown immensely. They’re difficult trials have drawn them closer to Him. They have been diligently searching the Scriptures in hopes of discovering what they can do to please Him such as struggling to become increasingly like Him. They are beginning to view all sin just as He does, the evil of all evil’s, and hating it with a passion. Each of them is becoming fond of wanting His will to be done—-always. And that includes allowing people who want nothing to do with Jesus to do so--forever.” “It looks as though God doesn’t have to stoke the flames in Hell to punish them, Pal. He doesn’t have to. Every time they sin they’re punishing themselves.” “Precisely! Charlie. Now do you think you can come up with a few words which will describe the most important thing we have covered so far? You mean like a sound bite, Pal? “Yes.” Piece of cake: “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish in their sins, but enjoy a life of eternal happiness with Him.” “Amen Charlie, Amen!

And may it please the Lord to make this message a blessing to those of you who just heard it and everyone who may read it later on.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO CONTINUE WITH THE CHARLIE & THE ANGEL SERIES FROM TIME TO TIME OR SHOULD I JUST END IT HERE.

THANKS,

MIKE

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