After having served for decades in Africa, a missionary couple, Mr. & Mrs. Henry Morrison, were returning to New York to retire. After years of service they had no pension, and their health was failing. They would have to find employment in New York to survive. They were worried and discouraged.
As it happened, they were on the same ship as President Theodore Roosevelt, who was returning from an African hunting expedition. The couple watched the fanfare that accompanied the President and his entourage as the ship docked. A band was waiting to greet the President. The mayor and other dignitaries were assembled in all their finery. But no one even noticed as the missionary couple departed the ship.
“Something is wrong,” the husband muttered. “We’ve given our lives in service to God in Africa and no one cares a thing about us. But this man comes back from a hunting trip, and everybody makes much over him.”
His wife smiled understandingly and gently laid her hand on his shoulder. “But dear,” she said, “you seem to forget. We’re not really home, yet.”
Writing to the Philippian believers, Paul said “our citizenship is in heaven.”
The Philippians understood this picture. Philippi was a Roman colony, a strategic military center, one of many the Romans established throughout the empire. In such places, the citizens were mostly soldiers who had served their time in the service and were rewarded with full citizenship. The common characteristic of such colonies was that, wherever they were, they remained a part of Rome. Roman dress was worn; Roman magistrates governed; the Latin tongue was spoken, and Roman morals were observed.” In a political sense, the Philippians knew what it was to be citizens of a far-off city which many of them had never even seen.
Christians, also, belong to a distant city, a “heavenly city” as Hebrews 13:14 points out. But some may ask, “How can you be sure there is a Heaven?” Well, there’s several reasons:
1. Because the soul has always longed for such a place. The anthropological view notes that, whatever culture you stumble across, whatever time in history, you will find some belief in the afterlife. I don’t believe God would plant in the soul a universal longing like that without making some provision for it.
2. Because the soul has always believed there was such a place. Like the little boy flying his kite and the kite was out of sight, and someone asked him where it was. He pointed up to the sky. They asked him how he knew it was there if he couldn’t see it, and he said, “I know it is there because I can feel it tug.” We can know in a similar way that there is a Heaven, because we can feel the pull of it, the tug of it on our souls.
3. Because God says there is such a place – as Heaven. I’d rather have God’s word about anything than the opinion of all the philosophers and scientists in the world. So, for the next few moments, I want to talk about Heaven, and why each of us should want to go there.
I. Heaven Will Be Ready.
We won’t have to wait in line for St. Peter to open the gate to let us in. There will be no lack of fruit on the Tree of Life. There will be no lack of water cascading through the city. Heaven has been prepared for us from the foundations of the world. It’s ready for our arrival.
II. Heaven Will Be Resplendent.
I’d like to read to you a little of what Scripture tells us about Heaven. I’m reading from Revelation 21:9-13; 19-21.
The story’s told of a man who visited a distinguished artist at his studio. He found the artist sitting with an open Bible in front of him while he was arranging squares of colored glass. “I have made a singular discovery,” he said. “These are the precious stones in the foundation of the New Jerusalem, and when placed in the order described in the vision, they form a perfect harmony of color. Were a convention of artists called to produce a perfect color-scheme, they could not improve upon it.”
God loves beauty or He wouldn’t have put so much of it in this world. Who painted the butterfly’s wing with all those gorgeous hues and threw around the evening sun her drapery of a thousand colors? Who put the red on the robin’s breast and touched the lily with its dreamy white? God did!
A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. Wonderingly, she looked up at the stars and exclaimed; “Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be like!”
III. Heaven Will Be Rapture.
Two things are found in Heaven which cannot fail to make its inhabitants happy:
•the first is the absence of all evil; and
• the second is, the presence of all good.
The one prevents sorrow; and the other brings fullness of joy.
It will be rapture to hear the angels song reverberate throughout the city.
It will be rapture to meet the saints of old.
It will be rapture to praise our Redeemer for all eternity.
IV. Heaven Will Be Restoration.
For those who live for Christ, there will be a day where the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the muted mouth will speak, the crippled feet will run, … it will be a place of restoration!
Heaven is the city promised to the captives whom Christ shall make free; it’s the kingdom assured to them whom Christ shall crown. There is the light that shall never go out; and the place that passes all the world’s imaginations. There is the world that shall never decline; there is every want supplied freely without money; there is no danger, but praise and thanksgiving unto God.
D. L. Moody gave a vivid description of Heaven when he wrote,
A city without pain, a city without sorrow, without sickness, without death. There is no darkness there. The Lamb is the light thereof. It needs no sun, it needs no moon. The paradise of Eden was as nothing compared with this one. The tempter came into Eden and triumphed, but in that city nothing that defiles shall ever enter. There will be no tempter there.
Think of a city through whose streets runs no tide of business, where no nodding hearses creep slowly with their burdens to the tomb; a city without grief or graves, without sins or sorrows, without marriages or mourning, without births or burials; a city which glories in having Jesus for its king, angels for its guards, and whose citizens are saints!”
V. Heaven Will Be Real.
Heaven has a specific location in God’s geography. Our text says that, “He has gone to prepare a place for us.” Some say that heaven will simply be a state of mind. I am here to tell you that Heaven is real. It’s not an imaginary “pie in the sky” place for those who are weak minded and need a place to hope for in a better life. Heaven is spoken of as a house, as a city, as a country. Heaven is not make-believe or imaginary. The streets of gold will be real!
John Calvin, in his work Institutes of the Christian Religion, had this to say,
“The next words are, WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. From this we are not to infer that he is enclosed and confined within the circumference of heaven, as by a kind of boundaries. Hence Solomon confesses, “The heaven of heavens cannot contain thee,” (1 Kings 8:27); and he himself says by the Prophet, “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool,” (Isa. 66:1); thereby intimating, that his presence, not confined to any region, is diffused over all space. But as our gross minds are unable to conceive of his ineffable glory, it is designated to us by heaven, nothing which our eyes can behold being so full of splendor and majesty.”
VI. Heaven Will Be Reunion.
Won’t it be wonderful to be in Heaven, and have the chance to be reunited with friends. Just over in Heaven’s Land, there will be a reunion where mothers and babies, and fathers and sons, and husbands and wives, and brothers and sisters will be brought together. There will be a tomorrow where there will be reunion.
VII. Heaven Will Be Right.
Down here, not everything turns out well. One of these days every wrong will be righted; everything will be made correct. As Christian, in the Pilgrim’s Progress drew near to the Heavenly City, he saw the gates opened to receive others.
“I looked in after them,” he says, “and, behold, the city shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many who had crowns on their heads and palms in their hands and golden harps to sing praises withal. There were some that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, saying ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!’ And after that they shut up the gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.”
If you also wish to be among them, take the hand of Jesus and let Him lead you on through the duties and responsibilities of this life, up the steps and over the rough places, and at last through the gates into the city.
Where does heaven begin? Maybe this poem will help to answer your question :
What Is Heaven?
By Terry Barnhill
What is heaven,
and why such hope upon it?
Heaven is already here
By faith in Christ who brought His kingdom near.
“Carpe diem,” said ancient Horace,
“quam minimum credula postero.”
“Seize the day trusting not in tomorrow.”
Our hope is in the promises of God,
His Kingdom comes within our faith.
‘Tis not postponed by hours or days
‘til we pass through the yawning gates.
It begins in our present walk with Him
Who set us free from mortal sin.
Oh grave where is thy terror,
and death where is thy sting,
When living in God’s radiant love,
We find the heart to sing!
Denying the presence of heaven because you haven’t seen it would be like Roman soldiers denying the city of Rome because they hadn’t been there. The only real question is, “Have you prepared for Heaven?”
Please join with me in prayer: Lord of Heaven and earth, we yearn to kneel before Your wondrous throne and know the radiance of Your presence. Guide our hearts and our feet each day that we may arrive safely in Your presence through faith in Your promise and Your Son. In the name of Your only begotten Son who is the only way to Your Heavenly Kingdom, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
