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WHAT IS HEAVEN LIKE?
September 2005 • Chris Rowney
These messages are also available as audio podcasts at www.tcfnet.org.au/podcasts
In the movie ‘Return of the King’, the last in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.some of the main characters are in the city of Minas Tirith, about to be besieged by the enemy and attacked. And there is a short exchange of dialogue that is a perfect place to begin our thoughts today.
PLAY CLIP.
The gray rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise..
In the original books those words appear in a slightly different context, but still in the scene from the movie they faithfully convey the worldview of the author, Tolkien.
A lifelong practicing Catholic. Tolkein was good friends with C.S Lewis and they often discussed their Christian faith together, and for each of these literary giants, a hope in something beyond dying underpinned the lives they lives on Earth.
Facing worldly terrors, Gandalf manages a smile, and his eyes see not hordes of enemies before the battlements of the city, but into the far horizons, a new country…
Gandalf and Pippin are fictional characters in an imagined world very different from our own.
But the Bible tells us the life stories of some very real people, who facing all sorts of life events also managed a smile and had eyes that saw into far horizons, and into a new country..
In Hebrews, after recounting great people of faith the writer says this..
"13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
Hebrews 11:13-16, NIV.
Have you ever wondered at that little line.. God is not ashamed to be their God…?
Why would God ever be ashamed?
When I think about it perhaps it is because the promises of happiness and prosperity, of security and joy were not fulfilled in the lives of those spoken about. And any God that made a promise which did not take place, would be a God that should be ashamed.
But God is NOT ashamed to be called their God.. because God’s promises transcend the portion of our existence between conception and death, they outmeasure 70, 80 or 90 years on this earth. God is not ashamed for he has prepared a city for them.
I ended my message last week with these verses from Revelation, about that City.
"1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
5 He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
6 He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son."
Revelation 21:1-7, NIV.
Last week, from Galatians I declared that if by faith you find yourself IN CHRIST, then you are an heir, and this description is of your inheritence.. Heaven..And I said this week I would talk to you about What heaven is like..
So, what is heaven like?
Let’s begin by asking someone who has seen it!
ISAIAH
"1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke."
Isaiah 6:1-4, NIV.
EZEKIEL
"1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north--an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The centre of the fire looked like glowing metal,
5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man,
6 but each of them had four faces and four wings.
7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze.
8 Under their wings on their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings,
9 and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.
10 Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.
11 Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upwards; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body.
12 Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went.
13 The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.
14 The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.
15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces.
16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel.
17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went.
18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.
19 When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose.
20 Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
21 When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
22 Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked like an expanse, sparkling like ice, and awesome.
23 Under the expanse their wings were stretched out one towards the other, and each had two wings covering its body.
24 When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
25 Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings.
26 Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man.
27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.
28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell face down, and I heard the voice of one speaking."
Ezekiel 1:1-28, NIV.
JOHN
"1 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."
2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.
3 And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne.
4 Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.
5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.
6 Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the centre, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and behind.
7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.
8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."
9 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honour and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever,
10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.""
Revelation 4:1-11, NIV.
SO.. what do we learn from that!.
ONE. Heaven is like nothing on earth!…
Light, Crystals, Singing, Noise, Music, Wheels, movement, in other places incense and smells.
Every sense is overwhelmed by experiences that can only be described with a multitude of images and ideas.
These few experiences are of times when God was revealing (I believe) directly to Isaiah, Ezekiel and john what God’s presence is like, and I think the reality of that is so beyond comprehension, that is is beyond description.
I don’t take these as literal word pictures of the exact appearance of God or his presence, but they are a very real description of the impression and sensation that presence left on these three prophets.
As mind boggling as that may be, it doesn’t help a whole lot in our quest to have some understanding of what heaven is like.
Someone a bit more ‘down to earth’ than those three flighty prophets might help.. the Apostle Paul.
He describes an experience of visiting heaven, in 2 Corinthians 12.
"1 I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.
2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows.
3 And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows--
4 was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell."
2 Corinthians 12:1-4, NIV.
Well, again, he describes it as ‘inexpressible’ which shouldn’t surprise us. Our experience is based on our lives on this earth, and so anything beyond our current experience can only be explained in terms of our current experiences. Which is why sometimes Heaven can seem so very familiar in the descriptions God gives us.
Isaiah contains a description of Heaven, of what life will be like after the end of history..
"17 "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
20 "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.
23 They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD."
Isaiah 65:17-25, NIV.
That is very like an earlier portion of Isaiah
Is 11:6-9
"6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea."
Isaiah 11:6-9, NIV.
Some people read these things and take the words at face value. That in heaven animals will be vegetarian (the lion will eat straw like an ox), and all manner of wild animals will be there and will be like pets, happily co-existing with people in a garden like earth.
The JWs are especially good at drawing pictures of that, but many, many good Christians picture heaven in that same way.
And that is fine, because it is a picture of heaven that the Bible itself gives us.
But I think it is only a picture… words that are being pressed into describing the indescribable, and we should not press those words too far.
For example, the lion eating straw like an Ox, is in another part of Isaiah revealed as not actually being there at all.
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away."
Isaiah 35:1-10, NIV.
AND THE CITY that GOD IS PREPARING, is described by JOHN in Rev 21. lets take a little look at that.
"10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west.
14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
16 The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long.
17 He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man’s measurement, which the angel was using.
18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald,
20 the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.
21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.
25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.
26 The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it.
27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
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
2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever."
Revelation 21:10-22:5, NIV.
These are wonderful, exciting description of what Heaven is Like.
But again, they describe the indescribable.. The part I read before talked of NO MORE SEA, and last week I explained that was a way to say there was no evil (for the sea in their culture was where the evil came from, even in Revelation, the ‘beast; comes fomr the Sea..)
I found a wonderful explanation in one of the books in my study..
A man named Alec Motyer explained it like this.
Pictures drawn in the colours of this life…
That
Project the perfection of the life to come..
REPEAT THAT IT IS GOOD!
We can know what heaven is LIKE, but we cannot know what heaven actually IS, until we live there ourselves..
But taking the colours, the palette of images, experiences, senses and activities of THIS LIFE, we can paint a picture that projects glimpses of what is to come..
The images from Isaiah, of Lion and Ox, Wolf and lamb. Of no untimely death, of infants near Cobras.
And in Revelation, of no more tears, of no more curse,
Of a city with gates that never shut, with no night
ALL, paint pictures of the good things in life.
Old enmities are gone. (The Wolf and the lamb)
Evil Natures are changed (Lion eats straw… that doesn’t mean eating meat is evil, but just an image that the dangerous ravenous aspects of wickedness,
The child with the snakes, These things symbolise the devouriung, ravening, poinsonous elements of society.
These things are NO MORE in heaven!.
There are No fears, we are safe and secure. The gates to the city are not shut.. they don’t need to shut to keep out the enemy, because the enemy, even the LAST ENEMY (Death( is defeated.
The New Jerusalem, is NOT a part of heaven.. it is actually the INHABITANTS of HEAVEN.. US.
Look at Rev 21:9..
"9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."
10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God."
Revelation 21:9, 10, NIV.
The Church, the redeemed, you and me.. We are the Bride of the lamb.. WE are The City of God..
In Heaven We will reflect the Glory of God, and will find ourselves amazed to be transformed into the likeness of HIS Glory.
The Numbers, and translations that convert them into modern measurements do a dis-service here, of 12,000 and 144 are meaningful,.. the repeated 12s are a number of completion (12 tribes, 12 apostles, 24 elders etc.. _
The Inhabitants of heaven have been raised to maturity by the Spirit of God, to live in a place of safety and security of prosperity and close fellowship with one another and with God.
That is what heaven will be like.
We are promised a new Heavens and a new Earth,, or maybe better translated a RENEWED heavens and a RENEWED Earth. In the same way that You and I have been taken from our fallen state and redeemed by God, not just restored to the paradise of before the fall, but beyond even that, so the creation, heavens and earth will be renewed, and our life will continue in some way in both realms.
What is heaven like?
Like LIFE, the best bits, lived to the Fulll.
We talk of Eternal Life and put the emphasis on the Eternal.. but the Bible talks of some other Eternals too, eternal destruction for one.. it is not the ‘eternal’ that we should wonder at but the LIFE!
What is heaven like, I phoned a friend the other day and mentioned what I was preaching on, he said, well it’s like Queensland) (He moved there some years ago)
But the Bible begins with a tree in Paradise, and ends with a Tree, in Paradise.. (Rev 22)
A Tree of Life..
We looked at Paul before.. with his vision of heaven
He says he doesn’t know if it was in the body or out of the body.
What I learn form that is that WHATEVER the reality is, it will be to us as bodily real an experience as is living here.
Heaven is not just a state of mind, it will be a state of mind, but we are not just disembodied minds, or even disembodied spirits.
Jesus is not a raised ‘spirit’ but lives in a glorified body.
SO what of Bodily things..
The Bible talks of a feast in heaven, will we eat? Well.. it will be AT THE VERY LEAST .. LIKE a feast.
Will animals be there, will we surf, play golf, play music, I cannot say.. but at the least IT WILL BE LIKE those things.
So what about sex?
Not much time but I cannot really leave this out.
Perhaps it is clear, The Gospels accounts say Jesus said there is no marriage in heaven, so I guess that means no Sex… But if that pleasure is not there then how could it be ‘heaven?
I like what C.S Lewis writes in his book ‘Miracles’
“The Bible forbids us to suppose that life in the New Creation will be a sexual life; and this reduces our imagination to the withering alternative either of bodies which are hardly recognisable as human bodies at all, or else of a perpetual fasting from sex. As regards this fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer No, might regard the absence of chocolates the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position, (AND HERE WE COULD REALLY PUT ANY EARTHLY PLEASURE THAT WE ARENT SURE WILL BE IN HEAVEN) We know the sexual life we do not know expect in glimpses the other thing which in heaven will leave no room for it.”
What is heaven like.?.
So great in Glory that anything suffered on earth will fade away.
"18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
Romans 8:18, NAS95.
We shall rest and we shall see, we shall see and we shall love, we shall love and we shall pray, in the end which is no end
Augustine.
I am going to play a song now, I can only imagine.. which is all we can do, what heaven will be like, what meeting Jesus face to face will be like. When the song finished please, fell free to go or to chat or have coffee, but during this song, pray, and respond as you want to, to the calling on your lives.
To the distant horizons the heavenly country, which is your true home.
COPYRIGHT AND OTHER INFO
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Cheers! Chris Rowney
