Christ the King Sunday
Sermon ~ “Heaven”
2 Cor. 4:17-18; Revelation 22:1
As we consider the destination of faith in heaven, the place where Christ our King shall lead us, let’s consider two texts from sacred Scriptures. First, 2nd Corinthians 4:17-18: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Reading from Revelation 22:1 “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” These are Your words, Heavenly Father, sanctify us for heaven in Your Word, for Your Word is everlasting Truth. Amen.
Last week our topic was the doctrine of hell. Today we look to the destination of our faith-- heaven. It seemed right to preach on heaven, since we have spoken of its counterpart. Yet, I have a caution to state at the outset... A proviso... A qualification.
C.S. Lewis wrote a book dealing with conversations between two demons as they sought to corrupt and soul and secure it for hell. His book was entitled The Screwtape Letters. After it was written, people thought that Lewis should write a book about angels as they tried to guide and protect a Christian... you know, to balance off his other work dealing with demons.
Lewis replied, in effect, that although he could in his depravity imagine how demons might talk and seek to seduce a Christian into hell, he could not imagine how angels talked! Their’s was a speech to lofty and holy to be captured by the pen of a fallen creature.
Thinking along the same lines, from the bitterness and cruel tragedies that I have witnessed in this world–from the terrible tortures that I have heard men do to other men, I can imagine hell.
But the glory of heaven is so beyond my experience and the experience of any human being, that it will not easily give way to my descriptions. So be warned, I am far better to preach the doctrine of hell than of the glories of heaven.
Heaven, in the Hebrew is gal-gal and means literally “rolling cloud.” How it came to be, we
are uncertain. But I can imagine an ancient Hebrew walking within a scorching desert, feet blistered, limbs scratched and sunburned, thirsty and hungry. He looks up, there he sees a cloud floating pure and untouched by all the misery of this planet, and he longs to be that cloud–free, full of moisture, high above the problems of life.
Did I just describe you, fellow pilgrim? Have you tasted the bitterness and misery of this fallen world so that you look forward to the “rolling cloud” where all the evil and pain and misfortune is completely and forever banished?
Perhaps we speak of heaven too little. Perhaps it is not enough just to use the word ‘heaven’ in one little sentence and just to make a minor point in a series of other points. Perhaps it is time for us to put the word ‘heaven’ on a gigantic banner to wave above our
heads like the American flag waves above Perkins!
Think of how the lives of Christians would change if we could drink deeply of the meaning of heaven... if we could focus well upon the things unseen, rather than giving so much attention to what is seen!
Now I grant that it’s natural–no, even divine–to love and care for family and friends. St. Paul, when he considered whether or not he would be killed, said that he would rather die and go to the Lord, but better if he lived for the sake of those he had come to serve.
So we also, when we consider our death or the death of someone close to us, can grieve the temporary loss of relationships or that we no longer will be able to serve and assist those we love in this world.
Though we may grieve some practical problems that our death may cause for those whom we love, think of how our lives would change if we drank deeply of the certainty of heaven!
Fear of our greatest enemies–be they people, problems or diseases–would melt away. What could they do to us? Let our enemies do the worst to us, and all that would happen is that they would also force open a doorway into something so wonderful that it’s impossible for human language to express.
Although the Scriptures do suggest some things about heaven--and we shall look at these--it must not be assumed that there is any real correspondence between our present circumstances and heaven. To be sure we shall have bodies, but the place into which the
glorified body shall be placed will be so beyond what we can see within the dark glass, that human language will and must fail at any attempt to capture the greatness of the glory to be revealed.
John says it like this in his first epistle: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
The first thing that we will say about heaven is that we will be with Christ, and our glorified bodies will be like His. This brings us to the miracle of the Incarnation which is not so much that the divine stooped so low as to become human, but that the human has now been brought so high as to be made divine.
St. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:49: “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”
The second point that we know ties closely with this. We will be delivered from the earthly body and its lower nature that is corrupted with sin and draws us into so many evils and sufferings. Again from 1 Cor.: “The body that is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
Thirdly, heaven will be a place entirely separated from the society of wicked and evil- disposed persons. No more injury to the one righteous in Christ and who is led to live to the glory of Christ. Revelations proclaims this truth without any qualification: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”
And Again: “Nothing impure will ever enter it, not will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Fourthly, everything upon this earth is inconstant and forever changing--nothing is capable of completely and constantly satisfying our expectations and desires. But in the world to come, it will be different. The joy of the saints will continue without interruption or change, without fear or termination, and we will never tire of our experiences.
Heaven as a place is sometimes called the third heaven. For heaven in the Hebrew could mean the place of atmosphere where the birds fly. Heaven could also designate the spans with all the stars. But the heaven that Christ has prepared for the human race is beyond all this, hence “a third heaven,” even far greater than the entire physical universe.
Heaven is paradise. The winged cherubim no longer holds out the departed soul, but guides and cheers them on from one state of glory to another higher.
It is supposed that in heaven God may grant instant and direct knowledge to the soul–especially to that soul which died within infancy at no fault of its own. Perhaps countless aborted children of God will be spotlighted under a beam of grace so awesome that they will shinee–just shine beyond the horizon of this dark and selfish world.
The blessed are said to sit at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In other words, relationships will continue in heaven, and new ones will be made. Perhaps thousands upon thousands of new relationships will result and each and every one filled with purity,
holy passion, and undiminished love and charity.
And how great will the love be between the Saints in glory? A clue comes from the lips of our Lord as he answered a trick question. He was asked about a woman who had lost several husbands through death, who would then be her real husband in heaven.
Jesus’s answer has bothered some because He said that in heaven people are no longer given in marriage, but are like the angels. This answer has made some people sad, because they thought that Jesus was saying that their special love and relationship in this world would
be ordinary in heaven. But this is not what Jesus is saying.
In heaven, our love for a husband or wife will exceed the greatest earthly affections like the lakes of Fairmont exceed the puddles in the street after a rain. We will only love our husband or wife more!
But here’s the point: That same passionate, but pure, love that we’ll have for an earthly spouse, we will have that same affection toward every citizen of heaven. Here in this world selfishness (and even survival) makes us possessive, but we will feel no selfishness in heaven.
Think of it, loving each person beyond what the greatest marriage on earth has ever experienced, and being loved in return by myriads upon myriads of saints and angels in that same way!
No my friends, nothing shall be lost of what is special in our sanctified relationships on earth, but increase upon increase will be our portion with our saved beloveds in heaven.
What a contrast heaven is from this satanic idea of reincarnation! The Hindus who gave us the concept or reincarnation hated the cycle of rebirths. The whole goal of the Hindu’s life was to attain a state where they left the wheel or reincarnation-- to have the golden thread holding their five senses together untied–losing all personality and joining the eternal
without any consciousness and awareness.
Unlike the Hindu’s Nirvana, in heaven our awareness is not destroyed, but heightened! I close this sermon on heaven with my personal and favorite illustration of what it will be like for the Saint in heaven.
Imagine that heaven is a place where each person sings a solo--a song so personal and unique that it sums up all the meaning and joy which that saint is experiencing. God knows the individual and is pleased with that saint’s uniqueness and his song.
And yet, heaven is not a place of thousands upon thousands of singing soloists, for God in His beauty and power weaves each solo–thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them–into a perfect harmony.
The singing saint then hears the harmony created within all the singing saints as it joins with this individual saint’s solo. The saint is carried into deepening ecstasy in the harmony that is heard, and inspired to weave it into the ongoing solo, which is again woven by God into the greater harmony, which lifts the saint higher into ecstasies greater still.
And breaking out in each solo will be the love note of the Lord Jesus--stormy from Calvary-- dazzling bright from the Easter tomb–shining with glory from the throne of heaven.
And crowns will be thrown at the feet of the lamb, like cymbals shaking to the beat of the heavenly song, as angels and archangels fan their wings of glory brightly threading each cord with golden light. And their will be joy... and their will be greater joy... and their will be joy greater still, and it will never end.
All to the glory of Him who was slain that we might wear the robe of righteousness in heaven. To Him--the Lord Jesus Christ, whom angels praise and adore--be glory now and forever.
Amen.
