Have you ever wondered if you would miss loved ones who didn’t make it to heaven? Will we miss them and be sorrowful for them?

We know that we will be continually in the presence of God and that is perfect joy; so how could we be sorrowful? The best evidence we have for this question is found in Luke 16.

Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame. But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’

The rich man could see Lazarus and that he was being comforted and full of joy. The rich man was in such torment, he longed for a drop of water. But it doesn’t appear that Lazarus saw the rich man. If we could see our loved ones in the flames, longing for water, we would surely want to minister to them.

Revelation 21:27 says ‘nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life’. There’s nothing we can do after someone has passed to keep them from the agony of hell. What we can do is minister to them now. We need to be telling everyone there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. Not everyone will hear us; many choose not to hear. Nevertheless, we must tell them. I would hate to think of someone I knew writhing in agony in the flames watching me being comforted in heaven; especially if I had failed to warn them in life.