Today I begin another sermon series leading up to the revival. I will be preaching the next few weeks on Heaven and what I believe about it. Today we will discuss "What I Believe About Heaven--The Place. Next week I will preach on The People Of Heaven and the final week before our revival I will preach on "What I Believe About Heaven--The Inexpressible Preciousness" The text for this message "The Place" is in John 14:1-3; (read)
"What I Believe About Heaven--The Place" We are all profoundly, deeply possessed with an everlasting interest in heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven. Phil. 3:20. Our names are written in heaven, Luke 10:20. Our treasurers are in heaven, Matt. 6:20 And our eternal home is in heaven, John 14:2.
"I am a stranger here, heaven is my home. Earth is a desert, heaven is my home. Sorrow and dangers stand round me on every hand. Heaven is my Father land, heaven is my home."
The abode of God is in heaven, Isa. 63:15. Heaven is the heart and soul of our Christian message and hope. It is our life beyond the veil of death.
Heaven is the heart & the hope of the message of Christ. WHAT IS IT LIKE?
We read in the Bible about heaven being opened. For an example, in Ezek. 1:1 "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God." (Ezek 1:1)
In John 1:51 "And He said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending & descending upon the Son of Man."" (John 1:51)
In Acts 7:56 "and said, "Look! I see the heavens opened & the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"" (Acts 7:56)
And in Acts 10:11, ""and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth." (Acts 10:11)
The viewer said, "I saw heaven opened". But no where is there a record of what the viewer actually saw except in the Revelation. Beginning in Chapter 4 of Revelation and in the chapters following, John the revelator, enters into the glorious realm and he describes it for us and in those chapters the word heaven is used 56 times.
First, heaven is a place.
Twice Jesus calls it a "tau-pos", a place. You can't translate it any other way. Twice Jesus calls it a place. And in our text for today, John 14, it is a real place. In the same passage Jesus calls it an "oy-cus", a house. A dwelling. A home. As real as the home in which you live and the city in which you dwell.
There are some who say, quote, "Heaven is a state of mind". Quote, "A fantasy", quote, "A dream", quote, "an abstraction", quote, "an idea", "wishful thinking" quote. But would you consider this? The Bible says in Acts 1:11, that, Jesus, after His resurrection, was "...was taken up from you into heaven,...."" Tell me, did Jesus go up into A STATE OF MIND? INTO AN ABSTRACTION? No, Jesus went up to a real place, a real home, the final & permanent and eternal assembly of God's saints.
Jesus never taught us to say "Our Father, who art in a state of mind or condition". He never said, "I go to prepare an abstraction for you." Ezekiel did not write, "I saw a fanciful dream open unto me." Stephen did not say, "Behold, I see a fantasy opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God". These holy men saw and Jesus went into a real place called heaven.
Number 2. Heaven is not only a place, it is also a renewed world creation. Revelation 21:1-2 says, "Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth,....and a New Jerusalem..." There are 2 New Testament words for new. One is "Ne-ous" and the other is "ki-nous" "Ne-ous" is new under the aspect of time. Ne-ous refers to time. But "Ki-nous" is new with the aspect of quality, of character. Ki-nous is the only new used in Revelation. We have a "ki-nous", a new name. We sing a new song. A "Ki-nous" song. We live in a new city. And we possess and enjoy "Ki-nous" things, new things. We dwell in a "Ki- nous" earth, new earth and a "Ki-nous" heaven, a new heaven.
"Ki-nous" new never refers to annihilation but always to recreation and redemption. Matter, substance is indestructible. There is never a loss of an atom or particle of God's creation. Eccl. 1:4 says, "One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever." In Gen. 1:1-2, the chaotic heaven and the chaotic earth are reformed or remade. In Gen. 6:7-8 the flood overflowed the earth, but did not annihilate it. Likewise, in 2 Peter 3:10-13 the world is purified by fire, it is not caused to cease to exist.
So Paul uses the word "Ki-nous" to refer to us, in our spiritual regeneration. In 2 Cor. 5:17 he says, "If anyone be in Christ he is a "Ki- nous", he is a new creation, old things are passed away and behold, all things have become "Ki-nous", NEW. The same meaning in Gal. 6:15 and Eph. 2:15 and Eph. 4:24. When he refers to us who have been saved, regenerated, we are a NEW MAN, we are a new somebody. A new people, a new person. We are in the same body, possessed of the same soul, but regenerated, transformed. We shall be like Jesus, the same body and soul but transfigured.
There is no loss of continuity or identity. You will be you and I shall be I and we shall be we, the same persons. Thus it is that our world will be made "Ki-nous", new. Purged of all moral and spiritual imperfection.
Not only is heaven a real place and not only is this present world made new, but also we shall have a new home, located in a new and beautiful city. A city will always rise and dominate a land. Paris is France. Rome is Italy. London is England. Jerusalem is Israel. Do you remember that John the revelator was a Galilean. He was not a city dweller. He lived in the country side of fruit and flowers. But the view he saw of the life that is yet to be, was not in a lovely, lonely Garden of Eden, but in a vast city, the new Jerusalem.
The ideal life God sets before us, is the life of a city, filled with people. Zach. 8:5 describes it with boys and girls playing in the streets thereof. God said in Gen. 2:18, "It is not good for the man, that he live alone" Our happiness, by God's creation, depends on others.
Paul wrote in Romans 14:7 "that no man liveth unto himself". We are placed in this life in families and in groups, in churches, in towns, in cities.
In this great city, New Jerusalem, we shall have an eternity in which to see, know, get acquainted with and enjoy each other. The revelation of a city of God goes back to Abraham. We read in Hebrews 11:10 "for he looked for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
This city is in strong contrast with a temporary tent in which Abraham dwelt. And that city is the prayerful desire and hope of those pilgrim souls who live in that far away and ancient day. Hebrew 11:15-16 says, "And truly if they had called to mind that [country] from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly [country]. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them."
That's a most amazing thing, that those pilgrims of that ancient day look forward to a beautiful city of God. This heavenly city is the workmanship of Christ Himself. Jesus was a carpenter. He was a builder and He said in John 14 of our text, "He was going away to prepare for us mansions for our eternal home." What a wonder those mansions must be, a work of His hands.
In 6 days the Lord created the universe, He has already been 2,000 years preparing our homes in heaven, where we are going to live. The Lord God loves detail. Look at the wings of a butterfly. The Lord God loves beauty. Look at a rainbow, a sunset. The Lord God loves color. Behold the jeweled foundations of the New Jerusalem. The Lord God loves music. Listen to the orchestras of heaven and their new songs. The Lord God loves a garden. Walk thru the new paradise. Paradise is the spelled out Persian word for garden. The New Paradise, walk thru it, with its rivers and with its trees.
We are invited in Revelation 21 & 22 to share in a panoramic view of the city itself in all its glory. Our eternal home. First he sees it from the outside, it is measured a solid cube of golden construction. 1,500 miles up, down and across. Each street is 1/2 the length of the diameter of the earth. The stories, 1 mile above the other, equals 8 million miles of beautiful avenues. The 3 gates upon the 12 jeweled foundations proclaims security and accessibility from all parts of the earth. It proclaims God's covenant relationship with His people Israel and with His redeemed church, the Bride of the Lamb.
After he describes the outside, he takes us inside and Oh, what a glory. But as we walk thru those beautiful avenues, there are 2 things not present. Two things are not there. There is no sun and no moon. It is illuminated by the presence of God. He is the source of uncreated light. We shall see God's face and live.
Second, there is no temple there. Revelation is written by a man who lived in a day of beautiful temples, in great cities. There was Herod's temple in Jerusalem, there was the temple in Athens and of course, there was the temple of Artimas Diana in Ephesus, one of the great wonders of the world. But here in our new Jerusalem, in the home in which we shall live, it IS NOT NEEDED. We shall live in the presence of God Himself and we shall look directly into the face of the Almighty with no veil in between.
Now, is all this a dream? A fancy, wishful thinking. No, God Himself reveals to us the reality of our heavenly home. 1 Cor. 2:9 says, ""But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."" But the next verse, ""But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit ...."
These things become real to us who have found hope in Jesus. The longing in our hearts becomes a faithful revelation and reality in the promise and in the omnipotence of God. When you are saved, the reality of a heavenly home is born in you the moment you open your heart to Jesus. That's your home NOT HERE, THERE. What lies between us and our wandering here in this life and our promised eternal home?
Like Israel and their 40 years of wilderness wondering and they now approach the Promised Land and they look at Canaan. What lies in between? The waters of the Jordan. the symbol of death. What lies between us and our heavenly home? THE JORDAN. Death and to go into our Promised Land, thru our Jordan to our promised land.
I suppose one of the greatest hymn writers of all ages, born in 1674, Isaac Watt wrote in a hymn, poem, of that river of death, the Jordan, that separates between us and our new city of Jerusalem.
"There is a land of pure delight where saints immortal reign--eternal day exclude the night and pleasures banish pain--
There everlasting spring abides and never withering flowers--death, like a narrow sea divides, this heavenly land from ours--
sweet fields beyond the swelling floods stand dressed in living green--So to the Jews Old Canaan stood while Jordan rolled between
But timorous mortals start and shrink to cross this narrow sea,-- and linger, shivering, on the brink, and fear to launch away
Oh could we make our doubts remove those gloomy doubts that rise--And see the Canaan that we love with unbeclouded eyes
Could we but climb where Moses stood and view the landscape o'er--Not Jordan's stream nor deaths cold flood should fright us from the shore
By our fallen nature we dread death, actually it's just a stream, that divides us from our home in heaven. That's why Paul so triumphantly wrote, "Oh death, where is thy sting, Oh grave, where is thy victory, thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory thru our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Heaven at last, I've reached the harbor for whose calm I long have prayed. Filled with awe, I gaze and wonder at the things my Lord hath made. Hark, hark, I hear the angels singing, morning breaks, night is passed. And the heavenly bells are ringing, welcome pilgrim, home at last.
That's what God had purposed for us, that better thing beyond the river Jordan. Beyond the vail of death. We have come home, O bless be the name of our Lord.
