Empowered By Eternity Series

Past several weeks¡K been in a series entitled ¡§From Here To Eternity.¡¨ Before concluding, let me REAFFIRM what God¡¦s Word has spoken and set before us:

GOD HAS PUT ETERNITY IN OUR VERY HEARTS

o Nothing has or can ever remove it.

o To deny the reality of a life hereafter simply because we haven¡¦t experienced it yet is like the days of ocean travel before Columbus.

o Science points to this very horizon

„X What is the relationship between Science and Theology? The relationship has never been closer, because it is mathematics and physics which now point beyond the natural world. Herman Weyl, an eminent mathematician and physicist of Gottingen and later a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, opened the Terry Lectures of Yale with these remarks: ¡§Mathematics and physics make the world appear more and more an open one, as a world not closed but pointing beyond itself.¡¨

Precisely what Jesus said:

- Life as we now live it, is but a part of labor pains leading up to our birth into eternal life¡K there¡¦s pregnancy at hand¡K through Christ, death is no longer defeat, but a doorway.

- Death is the grand intrusion¡K the grand intruder on the life God has given. Death and divine judgment are but the consequences of our sin and separation from the life with God as it was created.

- The Gospel¡K meaning ¡§Good News¡¨ ¡K is that God in Christ provided for the forgiveness of our sins¡K to defeat death and reconcile us as children to our heavenly father.

We looked at what God say about ¡¥what¡¦s up when we go down¡¦¡K and find that God is clear that through eternal life in Christ, HEAVEN AWAITS US NOW.

Then at the culmination of ¡§this age¡¨¡K there lies the climactic recreation of a new heaven and a new earth, which will be eternally united in God¡¦s very presence.

- In regards to its beauty¡K consider how even the beauty of creation in this now spoiled creation can be stunning¡K Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Tropical paradises¡K then consider how much more.

- In regards to its atmosphere¡K ultimate joy¡K marked not by rigidity¡K but by an ultimate freedom¡K

- It will be like a banquet¡K a dinner party¡K full of unexpected guests¡K like the thief crucified next to Christ¡Know made perfect¡K

- For all we might possibly imagine, we can be certain that we are only being given a glimpse of the wonder that awaits us.

- ¡§No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can fully conceive what God has prepared for those who love him¡K¡¨ 1 Cor 2:9

- ¡§Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known¡¨ ¡V 1 John 3:2

C.S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia¡K¡§There was a real railway accident,¡¨ said Aslan softly. ¡§Your father and mother and all of you are¡Xas you used to call it in the Shadow-lands¡Xdead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.¡¨

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.¡¨

In the end it will be this life that will have been a dream.

- Which leads to the most significant question of all¡K SO WHAT? HOW DOES THE REALITY OF ETERNAL LIFE WITH GOD INFLUENCE MY PRESENT, TEMPORAL LIFE ON EARTH, NOW??

A great trend among the church in the western affluent world in modern times has been that of a declining interest in heaven and a focusing of our hopes and expectations on earth. Whereas those throughout most of history and even the world today hold few illusions about just how great are the consequences of sin and the subsequent suffering at hand, we life in a time and place which is constantly given to stirring the sense of infinite possibilities in life¡K to the point of detaching ourselves form the futility beneath it all and denying death itself.

We can become so stimulated we think we¡¦re satisfied.

We can become so important we think we¡¦re immortal.

We can become more interested in adding a touch of heaven to our earth¡K and end us reducing the greater message of hope¡K the Gospel¡K to simply another self-enrichment program¡K when its hope is so much more.