Heaven
Greg Leuenberger
Midland SDA Church
February 7, 2015
I struggled somewhat, looking for a topic for today, but I kept coming back to Heaven so I’m going to spend some time talking about the place God has prepared for us.
Now, I have no personal knowledge of heaven but I’m looking forward to being there, accepting by faith what the Bible tells us. As it says in our scripture reading for today,
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the hearts of man, The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
(1 Cor.2:9 NKJV)
The Bible tells us a few things plainly and hints at the rest which we accept by faith.
I was uneasy that I might somehow misrepresent Heaven but I came across this passage near the end of the “Great Controversy”.
“A fear of making the future inheritance seem too material has led many to spiritualize away the very truths which lead us to look upon it as our home. Christ assured His disciples that He went to prepare mansions for them in the Father’s house. Those who accept the teachings of God’s word will not be wholly ignorant concerning the heavenly abode. And yet, “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 1 Cor. 2:9. Human language is inadequate to describe the reward of the righteous. It will be known only to those who behold it. No finite mind can comprehend the glory of the Paradise of God.”
Ellen White was commenting on our tendency to underestimate and undervalue the importance of Heaven and the magnitude and magnificence of it. I agree, I think we tend to put Heaven off in a somewhat vague, fuzzy place, somewhere “out there “…………But Heaven is more important than that. This, the earth, is a very real place. The earth before the Flood, was a very real place. The new heavens and the new earth will be a very real place.
In Genesis 1:1 it says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There were 6 days of Creation and in verse 31 of Gen 1 it says “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” In Gen. 2:8 it says “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom He had formed”. A perfect earth and a Garden of Eden.
Now, we messed that up with sin, but even so, we can find great beauty here. Whether you see it in person or watch it on tv, there are still some amazing places here on this earth. The National Parks here in the US and the many places around the globe. Right here in Michigan we have much beauty; the forests, the lakes, our favorite places. Here in Midland we have Dow Gardens, a special place, and maybe a tiny, tiny, hint of what was, and what will be again.
A few years ago I had the chance to see the redwoods in California, to walk through the mighty forests. Wow! It’s hard to describe…… Of course, we are all different, I also like snow, to ski down a mountain, the trees, the rocks, the whiteness of it all. Others may think of a white sand beach with palm trees, or the desert during a 100 year bloom, or a mighty river rushing over the rocks in rapids and falls.
God is not going to disappoint us.
Rev. 21:1 “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”
Let’s not get too comfortable here. Earth as it is now is sin-filled and temporary. God has a new earth planned, one more amazing than any of us can imagine, and it will be very real.
We are promised new homes in Heaven
Rev.21:2 “ Then I John, saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”
John 14:1-3 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Please turn with me to Revelation 21, verses 9- 21
( read )
Now, we have poverty and suffering, of course, but in general, we have been richly blessed here in the United States. I think we get a little bit complacent, too comfortable here. Most of the world is not like that.
I have vivid memories of the mission trip to India my son Cade and I went on 2 years ago. It’s hard to describe the poverty we saw. Here’s one memory in particular. We had a city tour of New Delhi to see some famous sights. New Delhi is a HUGE city, FULL of people, some very rich, most very poor. Imagine Detroit and the surrounding area, full of people, maybe 20 times more people. I can remember the bus ride, stopped in traffic, and in places, the “right-of-way”, the space from the curb to the fenced property line, was a city all to itself. Packed with people, whole families, with a tarp or sheet of tin, to call their earthly home, or often, not even that.
God has a dwelling place, for each one of us, in Heaven………. A very real home,………….. in a very real place………………………….. Let’s focus on that.
There is also an indication we will also build our own.
Isaiah 65:21-22 “They shall build homes and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; They shall not plant and another eat; For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of my people, And my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”
Just think of the possibilities!...... To build our own homes in Heaven!............ We can imagine what we might build in earthly terms, but God has promised us something beyond our earthly comprehension.
I get excited about the planting and harvesting, too. I guess that is the farmer in me. But what about the labor, the work of our hands? To be useful and productive, that’s a good thing. I want to be careful and not assume too much, but I don’t think work in Heaven is going to seem like work here.
Think of the things that worry us here, the bills we have to pay,………. Mortgage or rent, health insurance, home insurance, car insurance, groceries, the list goes on and on. Then we worry whether our job will support us, and a family. How secure is it? Will I get fired, replaced, outsourced? Do I get Sabbaths off?
God has a plan! A sin-free plan! He has it under control. Just think of doing something you love to do without all the earthly worries we now face.
The Bible gives us the promise of a new body, a sinless, eternal body.
Rev.21:4 “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
What a promise! That alone should make Heaven our goal!
Just think of the suffering man-kind has went through.
Think of the plagues, the Black Death, that swept throughout the world in medieval times. Think of the terror, the fear of the unknown menace.
Doing genealogy research I’ve come across pages in birth records where someone has added a date and a small cross in heavy black ink to most entries on a page…… or death records for a small town or village where instead of the usual one or two entries for a month, there is a very long list. Whether very young or very old, or anywhere in between, a sickness had taken its toll.
As bad as war is, the flu epidemic at the end of WW1 killed more people than died in the war itself. It is estimated that the death toll from the war was 16 million while the 2 year flu epidemic claimed 50-100 million lives, 3 to 5 percent of the world population at that time.
Even with all the advances in medicine, disease is still a problem. We have new threats like Ebola, which we have a connection with. The Bades, whom we support, and other Adventist Frontier Missionaries, are working in dangerous places in Africa. In the most recent edition of “Adventist Frontiers “magazine, there was a feature from the Lovitt family who are serving in Mali. The next day after Neill Lovitt had been to a clinic, it was quarantined because a nurse who worked there died of Ebola. Thankfully, he and his family are fine.
Talking with Chinedu Allan before he moved, I know he had a lot of worry on his heart. He was here in the US but his wife and son were still in Nigeria, not a safe place, and I’m not aware that situation has changed.
And then there are all of the medical issues we face today. Think of the battles so many of us right here in our church family are facing. Think of all the family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, we each know that have been affected by one health issue or another.
But God is going to fix all this in the New Heaven and the New Earth.
I go back again to Rev.21:4
“ And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
What a promise God has given us to cling to! The physical and emotional pain and suffering of this world will be no more.
What about the people you’ll meet in heaven? Certainly there will be some surprises, both absent and present, but God knows everything, we only know in part. What people from our history lessons will be there? Will George Washington and Abraham Lincoln be there? How about Paul Revere or Meriwether Lewis?
We’ve always tried to have good reading material for our sons and we’ve read biographies of godly men and women such as Louis Pasteur, Florence Nightingale, Isaac Newton, Abigail Adams, David Livingstone and George Washington Carver.
I look forward to meeting such people in Heaven.
Then there are the Reformers, people like Jerome, Huss, Wycliffe, Zwingli, Tyndale, and Luther.
And the martyrs, men and women who gave their lives to stand for Jesus, from the earliest Christians in Rome, to those of Reformation time such as are recorded in Foxe’s Book Of Martyrs. I’d like to share a brief account that John Foxe recorded in his book. (Ch. 16 - George Carpenter)
It is hard for me to imagine the awful things that were done to the brave men and women who stood for Bible truth.
And even today, or especially in these times, in many places in the world, men and women are giving their lives for their faith. What a JOY it will be to see them in Heaven.
What about people of the Bible?............... If I asked you, “Name 10 men or women from the Bible that you would want to meet first in Heaven “, who would you pick? Many of our lists would be similar, I’m sure, ……….. Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Paul, Peter, John, but I’m sure we would have some differences. ……Enoch would be on my list……………… “ By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found, because God had taken him, for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God “ ……….. Hebrews 11:5…… I’ve just always found that fascinating.
No matter what our list of 10 might be, the best part is we’re talking about eternity, we’ll get to meet EVERYONE!
On a sadder note, the sin of this world causes death. I, like all of you, have lost friends, family and loved ones to death………………… But we have Bible promises……………………… If they walked with Jesus here on earth, they’ll walk with Jesus in Heaven,………………………….. and we can do the same.
I’ve saved the best for last. God the Father, Jesus the Son.
Read Rev.21:22-24 Rev.22:1-5 Rev:21:3
Wow! Think about it! What more could I add to that.
God the Father wants us in Heaven with Him. Jesus the Son gave His life, shed His blood, to have us in Heaven. That was always the goal, the original plan, a perfect creation. God will be our God and we will be His people.
But we have a problem, Sin.
Have you ever thought about all the sin in a newspaper? The wars, terrorism, arguments, litigation? The natural disasters and calamities? The death, sickness, accidents and suffering? The crime, the effects of alcohol and gambling? The things that are advertised, the folly of the entertainment industry? Newspapers are full of all that is bad in this world. You might say they have a smell about them.
I grew up on a farm and we raised cattle and also sheep for many years. If you put a bunch of cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, or any animal really, together, they have a smell. If you live and work with them you get used to the smell, you really don’t notice, unless you’ve been away for a while.
Smoking is similar. If you smoke or live with a smoker or work with smokers you get used to the smell, it doesn’t bother you as much as it did before. It’s not as offensive as it first was.
(I would like to suggest that sin works the same way. When we surround ourselves with sin our senses become dulled to sin, we don’t realize the trouble we’re in).
How about the smell when your dog finds a skunk? You give it a bath trying to get rid of that smell.
I would suggest to you that Satan is the nastiest, most evil “skunk” that is or ever will be. And he is here on this earth. And whether it’s a little or a lot, we all smell like Satan, we have the smell of sin about us, we’re sinners. But Jesus is ready and willing to give us a “bath”, the best bath of all, to clean us up. He paid the ultimate sacrifice for each one of us to cover up our sin, our bad smell, to make us ready for heaven.
Last week the teen class had a lesson about early Adventist pioneers and the 3 Angels message. It included this quote from C.S. Lewis, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this “.
Let me repeat that. ( repeat )
The Christians who did the most for this present world are the ones who thought the most about Heaven. It is because Christians have largely ceased to think of Heaven, that they have become so ineffective in this world.
Let’s think about Heaven, spend some time contemplating what God has in store for us, and spread the Good News .
I want to share one of the favorite parent memories that LaRayne and I have. When the boys were little we went to Frankenmuth and took them to Bronner’s. Bronner’s is a huge store that sells Christmas ornaments and decorations year around. If you want it, they have it. We hadn’t said anything to the boys, they had no idea what was ahead. Cade was about 2 1|2 years old and Keagan about 1 year old. Their mouths dropped open and their eyes got big. Then the smiles started, and never stopped. Cade was in his element. He was like a little kangaroo, he bounced with excitement through the whole store, ready to burst.
Heaven is going to be So Much more. We can’t see it yet, but God has something very magnificent planned for each one of us. We need to walk with God like Enoch did, and keep telling others what we are excited about, so they can join us.
None of us know how much time we have on this earth, and we might face some hard experiences, but this is a blink of the eye in comparison with eternity. Let us be like kangaroos bursting with excitement for what God has ahead for us.