The Best Of Two Worlds

Do you know what is so great about that?

That is exactly where every saint of God who has gone to be with the Lord lives.

Illus: Some of the saints of God live in third world countries and they live in some horrible conditions. But one of these days, they are going to live in this wonderful place called heaven.

God allowed Paul to make a short visit to that glorious place, but once he visited it, GOD TOLD HIM NOT TO SPEAK OF WHAT HE SAW to people on earth.

Can you imagine how hard it was for Paul to see all the glory of heaven and not being able to say a word about it?

Illus: That would be as bad as the preacher who skipped church and played a perfect game of golf. He could not tell anyone what he had done, because if he said a word, they would have known he played golf instead of going to church.

God did not want him to tell.

Why?

There are two possible reasons:

(1)Because there are no words that could DESCRIBE IT.

To describe something we have to have something we can relate it too.

Illus: Have you ever tried to describe a beautiful red rose to a person who was born blind? It is impossible to describe such a thing to a person who does not know how to relate anything to colors.

The Bible does not describe heaven because we do not have anything to relate it to here on earth.

So God takes things like gold and precious stones which is valuable to us here on earth and tell us

• In heaven the streets will be paved with gold.

• The foundation of heaven will be precious stones.

The Bible describes it as a place WHERE EYES HAVE NOT SEEN AND EARS HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS WONDERFUL PLACE WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR HIS PEOPLE.

The best thing Paul could do was not to say anything, to prevent giving a distorted view of this wonderful place!

That could be the reason God would not let Paul say anything about what he saw.

Illus: Suppose you lived on earth in the days of Noah, and someone told you that one day there would be automobiles, airplanes, computers, televisions, telephones, fax machines, interstate highways, and space vehicles that would take a man to the moon, etc.. You would have thought that they had escaped from the "funny farm."

I can assure you that if Paul had to describe what he saw, we all would say, "Paul, your much learning has made you mad."

But I believe there is another reason that Paul was forbidden to speak about what he saw in heaven.

(2) Because God wanted it to be a SURPRISE

When the saints of God see this wonderful place it will be a surprise of their life.

Whatever Paul saw in heaven it certainly got him EXCITED!!!

Look at Phil. 1:23 we read, "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better."

Paul, was one of the few to see that glorious place, he never was the same afterwards!

Another mortal that can tell us about that glorious place is...

2. THE APOSTLE JOHN

When John was on the isle of Patmos, God revealed to him all the horrifying things that were going to take place after the rapture of the church.