Sunday School - Back To Basic Part 8

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Sunday School Back To Basics Part 8 Date: 11/20/2022 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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Sunday School - Back To Basic Part 9

Sunday School - Back To Basic Part 9

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in the star system of Pleiades, okay? So there's a Pleiades star system, which is real.
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Kolob isn't real, that doesn't exist. But the Pleiades star system, that they believe that Jehovah dwelled in that star system.
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They taught that up until the 1940s. So for a couple decades, they believed and taught that.
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But God doesn't dwell in, heaven is not in Kolob, it's not in Pleiades, it's not a physical, tangible place in this plane of existence.
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It's not a plane of existence where you can get on a spaceship and find it. It's beyond, if you wanna use this term, dimension.
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So God dwells in a place that is otherworldly, okay? And now we get the idea that heaven is typically up, right?
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That's the idea. And why do we have that idea that heaven is up and hell is down? Like, why those trajectories?
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No, okay. You had something, Pastor? Well, the heavens are also used as a physical idea of look up at the stars, the heavens above.
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It doesn't mean God's dwelling place in that sense, it means the physical, up there that you see. That's right.
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Interesting point, real quick. The Bible often uses the term heaven in the singular or the plural.
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And you can kind of get the hint of where the biblical authors are going by the use of the singular or the plural pronouns, or nouns that are used in reference to heaven.
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So in the day that the heavens and the earth were created, that's Genesis 2 .4, right?
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Heavens, plural. God dwells in heaven, singular. You know, it kind of gives you this idea that heaven is descriptive of more than one thing often, right?
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You were gonna share something? I was gonna say, well, it's a reminder that God's trajectory is up.
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Yeah. No, that's the heavens are higher than, so my ways are higher than yours. You know, think of the ascension of Jesus as well, right?
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Jesus, when he ascended, the word ascend means to go up, and the disciples literally saw him be caught up, right?
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So he was caught up in a cloud and then he disappeared from their sight. You know, we think of hell being down because of the connotation of Sheol.
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We're gonna learn more about this next week, about hell. But Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, these are all places that are under the feet of man.
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This is the nether world. This is the place of the dead. This is down, not good. You don't wanna go down. You wanna go up, right?
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And so that's where we kind of get that orientation of space. But really, heaven is not just in the orientation of up, but it's really otherworldly.
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It's not in this plane of existence. So I don't think you can get on a spaceship and find heaven, right?
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I don't think that's how it works. You know, we use these terms now that's becoming more and more prevalent because of science and stuff.
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But it's, think of it in different planes of existence in terms of dimensions, right? And so we live in a three -dimensional world and we're pretty sure there's a fourth and fifth dimension.
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You know, theoretical physicists and scientists are pretty sure that that's the case, that there are other, you know, dimensions.
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And what does it mean to have a dimension? So if we have, you know, we have a cube.
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What's a cube? What's the dimension of the cube? You got something? No, I'm not sure about that.
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Yeah. What's a, what is a cube? 3D, three -dimensional, because it has length, width, height.
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Okay, and, but there's another cube that you'll probably recognize from the fictional movies of Marvel, called a tesseract.
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You ever heard of a tesseract? I'm not talking about the tesseract from Avengers. A tesseract.
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You've never heard of a tesseract? No? Tesseract is a, I think it's a fifth -dimensional cube. It's theoretical.
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We can't, we've never, you know, we can't find one in nature. But a tesseract is actually
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Einstein's theory. It's a five -dimensional cube. And so, and it can kind of show you, they can simulate how it would look.
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And it's the trippiest thing. Like, on your free time, Google search tesseract, and then just scroll through the, scroll past the
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Marvel ones, and you'll find the actual 3D ones, or the depictions of ones, and you'll see how tesseracts would theoretically operate in real life.
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And so, what's that? Tesseract, yeah, yeah. Now, it's all theoretical, but it's explaining something that is beyond the comprehension of our brain.
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Like, our brain, if we saw a tesseract, we would not know what to do with it, because our brain is not wired for that.
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It's not created for that. Heaven is kind of like that, which is, I think, why Paul says, when he went to heaven, he went to, he caught up to the third heaven, he saw things that were inexpressible that he could not even describe.
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He couldn't even put into words. I think that's a good depiction of heaven. You can't put it into words.
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It is otherworldly. It's another plane of existence. There'll be things there that you just can't, when you look at the prophets and how they describe heaven, so I think of Ezekiel one as one of my favorites.
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Ezekiel, man, no wonder people think he's talking about aliens, or that he was on mushrooms or something, because he is describing things that are just out of this world.
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Crazy. God dwelling on a throne, being moved by a wheel within a wheel that has eyes all over, and there's wings on it, and it's just like, what is this, right?
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And that's actually maybe a good description of the tesseract, the wheel within a wheel. How does that actually look or work?
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But anyways, these are all depictions of heaven that are otherworldly, that we really can't describe.
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And that when a man like Ezekiel, Isaiah, John, when they try to describe it, it just sounds crazy.
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It just sounds, you can't even comprehend it. But heaven is unique because, again, there are these three heavens.
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So I would say, if you haven't written this down already, the Apostle Paul spoke of three heavens, likely comprised of the sky, or you could put atmosphere, then outer space, and then also the place of God's presence.
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Now, the alternative to that idea would be that the third heaven is a, is more theological than it is astronomical, that the third heaven is a description of the deepest compartment of heaven, and the three being almost like a hearkening to the
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Trinity. There's a Father, Son, and Spirit, the third place being the place of the multitude, the most intimate dwelling, also probably a reference to the temple.
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You had the outer court, the inner court, and then the holies of holies, or you have the holies, most holy, and holies of holies, and you have kind of this temple imagery that Paul is hearkening to.
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So that's what Paul could be referring to as well when he talks about the third heaven. He's using the temple language as a reference to the degrees of the presence of God.
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So those are all good interpretations, and I think probably they're all true. I don't think you have to pick one over the other.
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I think they can all be true at the same time. And then
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Paul does, in 1 Corinthians 15, we won't read that verse, but in verse 40 to 41, he does seem to give the analogy that there are degrees of heaven, right?
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So he says that in the resurrection, he's talking about the resurrection, he says there are different glories.
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He says the glory of the sun is one, the glory of the stars is another, and the glory of the moon is another.
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So he seems to talk about at least three degrees of glory, which is where the Mormons get their version of like three degrees of heaven as well.
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But that doesn't seem to be totally out of place. There does seem to be degrees of glory in the heavenly realm.
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And so, anyone have any thoughts or questions so far? Is that degrees of glory as you come closer and closer to where God actually?
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It could be that, or it could be a reference to the glorification of the people. Actually, that looks like what's the context of 1
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Corinthians 15, 40 to 41, which is the degree of glory. Paul elsewhere talks about how all of us are gonna receive a crown based upon our works.
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And so, I certainly buy into the view that there are degrees of glory in terms of the
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Christian. Not everyone's gonna receive, I'm not gonna have the same crown as Charles Spurgeon. Some of you guys are not gonna have a crown.
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Maybe some of you will have a crown nicer than mine. We don't know. It's all about our obedience, and it's not about gaining salvation or earning salvation.
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This is in terms of our sanctification, glorification, the crown that we receive from Christ onto eternal life.
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And so, I think that there are likely degrees of glory in reference to the glorification of God's people, but also likely in terms of the closer we get to God in heaven, there is this, it's like getting closer to the sun.
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You're gonna experience degrees of glory in that way as well. So, but most of that is speculation.
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We don't know for sure. Yes? I feel like Moses went up, he had to cover his face.
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That's right, that's right, that's right. And in his glory, the glory that Moses received on Sinai was imparted to the people, because when he came down, everyone was terrified because he was shining.
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The glory of the Lord had basically rubbed off on him. And so, so moving on, the heaven's also a representative of something.
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I want you, if you can, turn to Psalm 103. So, heaven is a dwelling place.
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Now, let me say this as well. Let me ask this question. Is heaven a physical or spiritual dwelling place?
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Okay. The place where God dwells. Before I ask for an answer,
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I wanna see if anyone else will wanna give this a try. Yeah? I'd say it's a combination of both.
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Okay. Anyone else? Yes? Did you say heaven or heavens?
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Heaven. The place where God dwells. The dwelling place of God. Is that a spiritual or physical place? Christ has a body, right?
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So he's there, so I would say physical as well. All right. So if you went with both, you get it right.
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You know, you can't go wrong with that. The answer's yeah. Heaven is a spiritual domain, but we, as evangelicals, often conflate spiritual meaning non -physical.
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Okay? And spiritual does not always necessarily mean non -physical. For instance, in 1
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Corinthians 15, it says that when we're resurrected, we're gonna have a spiritual body. Notice it doesn't say a spirit body.
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This is like where the Jehovah Witnesses and also the Preterists get confused because they read
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Paul saying spiritual bodies. They think, oh, we're gonna be spirits. No, no, no. Spiritual body, body does not have, a body is corporal.
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And so it is not a spirit body. It is a spiritual body. And a spiritual body is gonna be likened like onto what
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Jesus had at his resurrection. Now notice some of the traits of Christ's resurrected body. Christ was able to eat,
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Luke 24. He ate fish after his resurrection. He was able to appear in a room when the door was locked.
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So, you know, he'll walk through walls basically or appear or manifest.
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And yet he's also in that same, in John 20, in that same occurrence, when he appears in the upper room with the disciples after the door had been closed, he says, feel and handle me and see that I am, that it is
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I, for a spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see that I have. So he makes it very clear.
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He is physical, it's him, it's his body, the same body that was on the cross.
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Yet it had been transformed to be a spiritual body in that,
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I would use this term today, which may make some of you feel a little bit uncomfortable, but this is a transdimensional body.
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The resurrection body is transdimensional. It transcends our dimension of space and time. Just as Christ's body does.
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And that's the body that we're gonna receive at the resurrection. So heaven is both spiritual and physical.
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It is both. And again, spiritual does not necessarily mean non -physical.
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Think of it as another dimension, as another plane, a more glorified plane of existence.
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So does that make sense? That's right.
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That's right. That's right.
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Amen. But heaven is representative of something else as well.
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And we see that in Psalm 103. In Psalm 103, verse 19, it says, the
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Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all.
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Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word. Obeying the voice of his word.
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Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, and who do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion.
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Bless the Lord, O my soul. Verse 19 says, the Lord has established his throne where? In the heavens.
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In his what rules? His kingdom rules. And so heaven is also representative of God's throne.
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Why don't you write that in there? Heaven is representative of God's throne. Now this is interesting language because we see this in Chronicles as well used in terms of the establishment of the
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Davidic kingdom. When David establishes his kingdom and the throne is established on Zion.
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And it says that Jehovah, that Yahweh, established his throne through David.
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And that Jerusalem was his dwelling place. And then he establishes the temple worship.
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And temple worship, when the temple was dedicated by Solomon, it says, this is the place in which I place my name and it shall be my throne.
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So God's throne is kind of a metaphor for his rulership, for his kingdom.
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And heaven is the primary place from which God rules the cosmos.
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It is the seat of his kingdom. It's like Washington, D .C. is for America. Heaven is the headquarters of God's kingdom, okay?
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Now we notice how Jesus uses the term as well in the Gospels. He talks about the kingdom of God.
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But he also uses it interchangeably with another term. I want you to turn to Matthew 19,
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Matthew chapter 19. Let's see if you catch this.
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Starting in verse 23. 19, 23, and Jesus says to his disciples, truly
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I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man or a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
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You see how he uses the same kind of phrase but interchanges one word?
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Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. Same place, same thing.
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Kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God, okay? You can't separate. These are the same thing. There's some
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Bible teachers, they make a distinction. They do make a distinction. There's a lot of Bible teachers who make a distinction. They say, oh, there's a difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven.
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That's nonsense. Even Jehovah Witnesses make that distinction as well because they'll say that the kingdom of God is the all -encompassing theory, whereas the kingdom of heaven is the specific government under the 144 ,000 in Jesus Christ as the king.
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And there are other Christians and evangelicals who make similar distinctions, which is error. I think that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, they're just interchangeable, okay?
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And so God's kingdom is a heavenly kingdom. His kingdom is headquartered in heaven where he dwells.
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It's the place of inapproachable light. This is the place where God, his presence, again, we have already established he's omnipresent, but this is the place in which his presence really emanates from into the cosmos.
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And so heaven is, again, representative of God's throne or government. I want you to write that in there as well.
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It is representative of God's throne or government. Now, that's interesting, right, because in Isaiah chapter nine, it talks about the
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Messiah and it says that upon his shoulders will the government stand.
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And there's a government that's associated with the kingdom of God. The kingdom is a government. Heaven is a governmental structure.
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You know, it's like, again, like going to Washington, D .C. You go and you see the U .S. Capitol, you see the White House, you see the Supreme Court, you see all these places of power and government, and heaven essentially acts as that for the economy of God's people and for the kingdom of God.
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So heaven is a place, again, where his throne dwells, it's his government, it's his seat of power, which is why
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Jesus is where right now? Where's Jesus right now? He's at the right hand of the
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Father, he's in heaven. And the Bible says in Psalm 110, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand to make all your enemies a footstool for your feet.
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And he says, and the decree shall go forth from Zion, Zion being heaven. The Bible also describes heaven as being
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Zion, but Zion is a kind of a double entendre, right? You have the actual
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Zion, which is where? Where's Zion? In Jerusalem. Well, yeah, it's on the Mount.
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It's the place where God placed his name in 1 Chronicles. But it's also a reference to true
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Zion, which is heaven. Heaven is true Zion. We see that description in Hebrews 12.
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We've approached heavenly Jerusalem, heavenly Mount Zion, the place of innumerable angels and festival gathering.
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This is the place of God's dwelling place. I was gonna make a point there, but I forgot.
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Anyways, so God's place of dwelling is actually a government as well. It's not just a place where there's harps and cherubims flying around, and you know, it's gonna be, it's not a place where it's just ethereal.
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Do you know what I mean by the word ethereal? What comes to your mind when you think of the word ethereal? So there's a
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Roman Catholic view of heaven, and early in the
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Reformation, there was a debate amongst the Reformers and Roman Catholics amongst a lot of things.
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One of the things was the nature of heaven, and specifically the nature of the intermediate state, including purgatory and heaven and hell and all these things.
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And the Roman Catholic view was that these places were ethereal, and that ethereal means, kind of similarly to what we would describe as, what we just described earlier as being physical and spiritual.
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But etherealness means like there is a corporalness to the form of the soul or to spirits or to angels or even to God, there's a corporateness there.
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And so that's why when the prophets see God in the Old Testament, they see him as a, they see the shape of a man, right?
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There's an etherealness to him. While the Reformers rejected that mostly and said, no, that's, we're using image, prophets are using imagery to describe the indescribable, and God isn't necessarily, he's not, if you see
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God the Father, he's not in the shape of a man. That would be incorrect because God doesn't,
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God is not a man, God does not have parts, all these things that kind of come up in that regard. But it's a rejection of an ethereal corporation of heaven or the body.
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And so, well, if you have quite more questions than that, well, we can answer that, but to move forward because we're running out of time, I'm gonna introduce to you a topic that is gonna probably be the most controversial part of this teaching.
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And you might recoil at the thought, but it's really, it's not that, it's not that crazy.
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Next part, the heavens had also become corrupt. I want you to put that in there, that's the next part.
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Become what? Corrupt, had become corrupt. Now, that has a lot of implications, and I'm gonna demonstrate from scripture that that's the case.
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So we know in the fall, heaven, I mean, well, earth became corrupted, obviously, right?
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Soon as the fall happens, what are the immediate effects that we see in Genesis chapter three? What are some of the immediate effects that we see?
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What does that look like? Toil, labor. Toil, labor, thorns and thistles. All these things kind of creep up from creation, and creation becomes fractured and broken.
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And, but I would say that this extends far past the physical cosmos.
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This infects everything. Sin is a cancer. So it's like, even for us as Christians, we recognize this, right?
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We sin in any area of life. Does it just stay in that area? No, right?
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Oh, it's just a small sin, it's a little sin, and that little sin begins to corrupt every other aspect of life until we make a whole mess of our lives.
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You know, sin is, it is an infection, it is a, I'm using these terms to describe, not the physiological nature of sin, obviously, but the way in which it is viral.
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Just to support that, you know, R .C. Sproul used to say, when man finds the far end of the universe and the perfect molecule away, that molecule is affected by Adam's sin.
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That's right, amen, amen. Absolutely right. Everything is affected by the fall, including heaven itself.
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I'm gonna demonstrate that to you. I want you to go to Job one. Now, remember all the descriptions we had for heaven so far.
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It's the place of God's dwelling. It is where his presence is. And notice the language that's used in Job chapter one.
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Starting in verse six. Job one, verse six says, now there was a day when the sons of God, I would say these are the angels.
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The Old Testament often uses the term sons of God in reference to the angels. You see that in Psalm chapter eight, verse five as well. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the
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Lord, it's Yahweh, and Satan, Satan, also came among them.
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And the Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? And Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.
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And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears
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God and turns away from evil? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear
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God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side?
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You have blessed the works of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.
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And the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your hand. This is the next part that's important.
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Only against him do not stretch out your hand. This is the important part right here. So Satan went out from the presence of the
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Lord. Presence of the Lord. Remember we described heaven as being the presence, where God's presence is.
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It's a dwelling place of God. And it says in scripture that Satan presented himself before the
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Lord. And where was he before? He was on the earth, going to and fro.
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So here's the truth. Evangelicals have made a very big mistake.
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Especially like in Sunday school classes when we're kids. They often seem to conflate and teach that the fall of Satan, you know that Revelation 12 verse where there's war in heaven and Satan gets hurled down to the earth.
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We always put that like at the beginning. And we say, oh, that happened in the garden probably.
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That after the fall of Satan, after Adam and Eve sinned, God banished Satan from heaven.
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That's not the case. Satan has had access to heaven for a very long time.
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The heavens had become corrupted by Satan's influence. Which is why by the time that we get to Revelation 12, you see
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Satan amass a rebellion in heaven. And a third of the angels fall with him, okay?
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That's bad. So the connotation that's often presented is that Satan was kicked out of heaven early on.
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That's not the case. Satan has had access to heaven for a long time. Now, what's the thing that Satan is doing here?
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It starts with the letter A. What is he doing in regard to Job? Accusing.
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He's accusing, okay? And that's what Satan does. He's the accuser of the brethren, according to scripture.
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He's the slanderer. That's what the word Satan means, slanderer, okay? And he's the one who speaks lies.
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He's the father of lies. And he has had access to heaven, which means that heaven has become corrupt.
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It's no wonder then the Bible speaks of a new heavens. Why would we need a new one if the one that we have is perfectly good and fine?
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There's a new heavens because the old heavens along with the old earth had become corrupt, had become, has come under the influence of sin and rebellion.
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Therefore, the Lord has to deal with both spaces of dominion. Heaven and earth both have to be dealt with in the new creation.
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And so the heavens have indeed become corrupt, which is why we see in Ephesians chapter six, what we just went through in our sermon series.
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Notice the language that Paul uses in terms of the spiritual battle. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.
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Where? In the heavenly places. Well, why would it be in the heavenly places?
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Because this is a spiritual battle that has infected even heaven itself. All of creation has become a battlefield against sin, against death, against corruption, which is why again, even in Romans chapter eight, it talks about all of creation is groaning in eager expectation for the revealing of the sons of God.
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All of creation, all that God created in Genesis one, heavens and earth, all of it is groaning in eager expectation of the revealing of God's sons for the redemption of the body and the redemption of the cosmos.
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And so, can you see this clearly? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that God is in a place right now in this period, is physically.
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Yeah, well clearly, I mean, so when you look at Job chapter one,
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Satan comes into the presence of Yahweh. Is Satan not corrupt? Is he not the original father of lies?
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Does he not bring all this baggage to the place of God's holy dwelling place? And do we not see in Revelation chapter 12, the references here for us in verses seven to 12, we won't read it for lack of time, but you guys are probably well familiar with it.
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It says that there's battle broke out in heaven and Michael the archangel contends with Satan the devil and a third of the angels follow
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Satan. And then it says, there's great celebration in heaven. It says that the heavens rejoiced when
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Satan was hurled down because the accuser of the brethren has been cast down, but woe to the earth, for the devil's been cast down to you and he is angry for he knows his time is short.
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You know, all this seems to indicate that the place of God's dwelling, the place that we're, you know, the seat of government,
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Washington, D .C., there's been an insurrection there, right? To use the language of what's going on politically in our country.
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There is an insurrection in heaven. Satan and his dominion led a rebellion and they were dealt with.
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Now, I would actually put that time of rebellion around the life of Jesus. I think that Revelation 12 actually happens somewhere in the ministry of Jesus.
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And I think that's the best reading of the whole chapter of Revelation 12. Talks about Christ being born, talks about his ministry, talks about his kingship in the context of what happens in verses seven through 12 where Satan is contending with Michael and there's battle and they're hurled down.
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I would put that in the life of Jesus as being fulfilled. So Jesus, so Satan had full access to heaven up until death, burn, resurrection of Jesus.
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And evidence of that, kind of, you know, remember Satan is the accuser. Romans 8, one says, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Romans 8, verse 32, I think it is, says who shall bring an accusation against God's elect?
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That's to say, the accuser's been cast down, the accuser's been hurled. He can no longer go before the throne of God and accuse you because he's been cast down, okay?
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So there's a fundamental shift in the dynamic of Satan being able to accuse
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God's people. But does that kind of help a little bit though? I think, and the verses that we're gonna go at the end will,
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I think, wrap it all together nicely, hopefully. But my perspective would be that heaven itself needs to be dealt with.
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And I think we see that clearly in the ending of Revelation, where you do see this new city coming down out of heaven, adored for her husband.
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This is the new Jerusalem. This is the new heaven, new earth. Heaven comes down and touches the earth and it's a new creation.
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And I think that's the culmination that we look forward to. Another thing that needs to be addressed about heaven though is that heaven is for you and I.
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It's for us now. Let me make that very clearly by going to 2
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Corinthians chapter five. Let's go there real quick. 2 Corinthians five. So I believe that when a
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Christian dies, he goes straight to heaven. A Christian who dies in the Lord goes to be with the
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Lord in heaven. So we don't believe in soul sleep. We don't believe in a purgatory.
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We believe the Bible teaches clearly that when a person departs from their earthly dwelling, they will be with Christ in a heavenly dwelling.
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And we see this in 2 Corinthians chapter five, starting in verse one. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, what's he referring to there?
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The earthly tent that is our earthly home. What is he referring to? The bodies.
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He's talking about our physical bodies. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
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For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked.
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For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
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Now what is mortal about the human? What is mortal about the human?
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What's that? There's an end point. Yeah. You're gonna die. The body, right?
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We have an immortal soul. We have an immortal spirit. We are immortal in that sense that there's an aspect of the human that does not die, but that carries on after death.
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But the body is mortal. The body needs to be dealt with, and that's our earthly tent. That's why it says,
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Paul says, we don't wish to be unclothed. So he knows that when we die, we're unclothed because what happens to our body?
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It dies. It goes into the burial, and it gets buried, and it's there.
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It's decaying. It's gone. And you are separated. Your soul is separated from your body.
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And that's the part of us that's mortal. It's the flesh. It's the body.
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And once we're dead, we're unclothed in a sense. And so think about being the worst nightmare, right?
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If you're in public, those dreams that you get, you're in public and you're naked, and it's like,
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I'm unclothed. I'm like, you feel exposed. And that's kind of like, in a sense, almost like what it feels like to die.
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Because your body, you were born to have a body. You were born to be a physical being.
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And so when you die, you are separated from that which made you physical. A huge aspect of your existence is gone now.
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And so I think that's what Paul's describing here. He says in verse five, actually, we're gonna go all the way to verse six.
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So we are always of good courage. And we know that while we are at home in the body, so now we know exactly what he's talking about.
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He's talking about the body. The earthly tent is the body. He says, while we are at home in the body, we are away from the
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Lord, or absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we'd rather be away from the body.
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And where? At home with the Lord. So to be absent from the body is to be present with the
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Lord. When a believer dies, he's absent from the body, he's naked in that regard, but he is at home with the
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Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
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For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
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So that's the condition. As Christians, we believe that when a person dies, as a
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Christian, they will go into the presence, in the presence of the Lord, to be absent from the body, to be present with the
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Lord. This is the clear teaching of scripture. Paul also refers to, in Philippians chapter one, verse 20 to 23, he talks about how he longs to be with the brothers, but he also wishes to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, talking about his death, his imminent death.
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He wanted, he longed for the releasing, in the Greek, the word that's used there means a releasing, so a ship that's being tied up, that's being released to go on a sail.
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He says he longs for the releasing to be with Christ, which is far better, he said.
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And so he understood that when he died, he would be with who? With Christ. This is the clear teaching of the
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New Testament. Jesus says in John 14, that I go to prepare a place for you, right?
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Jesus says, on my father's house, there are many mansions. And he went to prepare a place for us at his father's house.
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So when we die, we go straight to heaven. But is heaven our final home? So if you're following along, believers who die go straight to the presence of the
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Lord, our heavenly tent. So heaven is our heavenly tent, it's the place of God's dwelling place.
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And one of the interesting things in Revelation, chapter six, verse 17, there is a scene in Revelation 6 .17
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where you have souls under the altar of heaven. And it says that they're groaning, and they're crying, and they're pleading.
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And one of the things, these are the souls of those who have been martyred for the testimony of Jesus. And it says that they were groaning and moaning, and saying, until when, oh sovereign
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Lord, will you not avenge our blood? Right, so we think sometimes there's heaven being a place of like, just pure bliss and joy.
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But even there are saints in heaven who are pleading, who are crying out for the judgment of God upon the evildoers and upon the wicked.
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And so it's not all hunky -dory even in heaven in that regard. There is a plea for justice that is happening even now under the altar of God.
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And so that's something to consider as well. But is heaven our final home?
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You know, there's a lot of Christians who say, earth is not my home, I'm just passing by. You ever heard of that phrase?
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I think it's wrong. There's a sense in which it's true, of course. Wherever Jesus is, that's my home.
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Jesus is my home. Jesus is your home. Wherever Jesus is, that's home. But Jesus is not gonna stay enthroned in heaven forever.
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He is gonna make his dominion on the earth as well. And there's a new heaven, there's a new earth that we're awaiting and looking forward to.
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Why don't you turn to 2 Peter chapter three. 2
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Peter three. I'm gonna read starting in verse 10.
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2 Peter 3 10. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens, plural, will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
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Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for the hastening, the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.
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But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.
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The expectation eschatologically for the Christian is not just to die and go to heaven. That's like half the expectation.
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So evangelicals, when they say, you need to accept Jesus in your heart so you can go to heaven.
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Well, that's true, that's great, but no, that's not our final end point. We are waiting for resurrection. The gospel is the resurrection gospel, the resurrection of Christ and the eventual resurrection of the
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Christian body. We will be raised, and that resurrection happens in the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness will dwell.
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And so the promise eschatologically is not just that we die and go to heaven, but it's rather, we're waiting for a whole new creation of which the
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Christian is the beginning of. We are the seed of the new creation. Paul says, if any man be in Christ, he's what?
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He's a new creation, he's a new creature. We're the beginning, we're the seed of the new creation. It starts with us.
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We're the beginning of it. And ultimately, that will lead us to a new heavens and new earth.
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The last verse that we'll read together, Revelation 21, just so we can get that nice, beautiful picture. And the consistency of scripture, which is just amazing.
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After the great white throne scene where God, through Christ, judges the intentions of and the secrets of man's hearts, it says in Revelation 21, then
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I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven, the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.
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And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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So I would take the new Jerusalem. That's the representation of the church. It's a representation of the new heaven.
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Because again, Christians, we're the new creation. We're the beginning of the new creation. So the new heavens and new earth are inaugurated by the coming down of the church, coming down of heaven, and it meets the earth.
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And it says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place, or the tent. The dwelling place just means tent.
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The tent of God is with man, and he will dwell with them, and he will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their
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God, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
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That's the new heavens and new earth that we look forward to. It's the new creation. It culminates beautifully, magnificently on that final day.
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And so we await a new heavens and earth where righteousness will dwell. That's what I want you to write in there.
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New heavens and new earth where righteousness will dwell. Any questions on this so far?
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Did that kind of help, Pastor, with what you were thinking or asking earlier? And so I think that the heavens itself, now here's an interesting perspective that I have that not everyone shares.
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I don't think, when we read in Peter about earth being dissolved and heaven being dissolved,
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I don't take that literally. I don't think that heaven and earth will literally be dissolved. There are those who take the perspective that the earth, that God's literally gonna like snap his fingers and restart everything.
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He would've done that already if that was the case. Reason I don't buy into the earth being fully destroyed and then being recreated, or the heavens being fully destroyed and recreated is because it's not consistent with the use of the language of the
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New Testament or the Bible when it refers to something being new, right? So you and I are new creatures when we accepted
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Jesus Christ into our hearts. Did anything ontologically change in us?
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No, not really. Nothing ontologically changed in us when we accepted Jesus, except maybe spiritually, obviously being raised from the dead.
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But you are a new creature, and God didn't have to press the restart button on you and break down every atom in your body and then recreate you.
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That's not what he did, or not what he is going to do either in terms of the resurrection. The resurrection is not a recreation.
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It is literally a standing up again. It's you being raised. So it's not you being recreated in a sense.
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The word resurrection literally means a standing up again. So it's you. It's all the atoms that made up your body will be fully reconstituted as it was and even more gloriously.
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And it's also not consistent with what the Bible says elsewhere about the earth. I think it's in Ecclesiastes 1 .3
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that says, or Ecclesiastes chapter one, I forget what verse, but it says that God made the earth to stand forever.
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Or another translation is to till time indefinite. So the earth will stand forever. God says in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 25,
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I think it is, that God made the heavens, he made the earth, he formed the earth, and he did not do it for no purpose, but he made it for it to be inhabited.
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So God doesn't have to destroy the earth and then recreate it. I don't think that that's what that means.
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When it talks about new heavens, new earth, it's talking about the conditions of this earth, the conditions of heaven being different.
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And so I think that's the most consistent understanding and reading of it. There's a lot more reasons
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I can give, but those are just the simple ones. Any other thoughts or questions? My question is where Satan was in the presence of the
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Lord. So my understanding is God can't be with sin, right?
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He can't be part of it. That's right. So how can he be in his presence? That's exactly the dilemma.
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That's exactly the dilemma. If you don't have a corrupt heavens, then that becomes even harder to reconcile.
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But my answer is that the heavens have become corrupted. And God, that's why
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God is having, first of all, he kicks Satan out in Revelation 12, cleans the heavens in a sense, and then he has to bring a new heavens and new earth.
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And so that's why I think that's how God deals with the issue of sin in heaven, by kicking out the evildoers, and then also by, just like he did in the
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Garden of Eden. So in the Garden of Eden, sin came into the creation. What did God do?
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God removed the sinners, right? And so that's what Yahweh does in the heavens as well.
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He removes, now granted, there's a longer period of time which he puts up with it, but he eventually removes the evildoers, and then now he has to cleanse it through the new creation, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, right?
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So that's how I would reconcile that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Anyone else?
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Yeah? Dimensional, do you think Eden's still there?
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Eden? Yeah. Now what's interesting is that Eden, this is a real long one, but I won't go too long in it.
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Eden in the Bible, we have the description in Genesis chapter two, right?
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And by all indications, it seems like a place in Mesopotamia. It seems like a place likely in Iraq, okay?
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Now, that's if we read the Bible like a map. Elsewhere in scripture,
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Ezekiel 26 is one of them. Eden is described as a mountain, and it's described as a mountaintop, which is why in the ancient religions, even in the
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Bible, we always encountered God or the gods where? In the mountains.
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You have Zeus, Mount Olympus. You have Yahweh in Mount Zion or in Mount Sinai. You're always encountering
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God in the mountaintop. And Ezekiel 26 describes Eden as a mountaintop.
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And so, does Eden exist today? The answer is yes, it does.
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Can we find it geographically on a map today? I would say no. I think it's part of the aspect of heaven being transdimensional.
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It's here, but it isn't. When you look at the end of Revelation 22, the whole story ends with Eden being restored to the earth.
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And the last scene you see in Revelation is Eden, okay? It's the paradise, because what does
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Eden mean? Eden means paradise. It ends with the paradise of God, and the paradise scene that you see is
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Eden, the mountaintop of God. And from the throne of God, Eden, comes rivers of living water, which brings healing to the nations.
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That's how it ends. Isn't it cool? Oh, it just gets me excited. It's super cool. You know what's exciting, too?
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Yeah. It's just Eden, the tree of life. That's right, and the tree of life, which was in the garden, is the one that's restored at the end of the book.
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I mean, it's just, you can't write a better story. I mean, it's incredible. It really is.
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Well, Revelation 6 would be a problem, because Revelation 6 is not
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Armageddon. It's not the second coming event. There's nothing in the text that would indicate that that's the second coming event.
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We're talking about, so the scriptures often use what's called deconstruction language. You see it, the prophets use it often.
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Isaiah, Ezekiel, minor prophets use it often. I think of Zephaniah chapter one. And they all use what's called deconstruction language, which is basically
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God, so for instance, Isaiah 13 is a perfect example. It says, God concerning his judgment against Babylon.
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And he says, the earth will be shaken out of its place. The heavens will burn.
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All these kind of grand language of what scholars call cosmic deconstruction.
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But did the heavens actually dissolve when Babylon was judged? Was the earth literally shaked out of its orbit when
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Babylon was judged? No, this is language depicting judgment. He's talking about the sixth seal.
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Right. So that's not. Well, I would say that happened already.
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You gotta wait till I do my Revelation class, because I explain all that. No, no, no, no, no, no.
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Yeah, so even if you take a historic pre -millennial perspective on Revelation, Revelation six, you'd have to put that maybe in the seven year tribulation period, if you believe in that seven year tribulation period.
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And even then, I mean, that's not the final judgment. So it's hard to take that literally when you try to, whatever framework you have for Revelation, you really can't take that too literally, because then you're gonna run into a host of different problems in the text and with other texts of scripture.
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And so I would understand Revelation six, the judgment seals that are broken there as a reference to the judgment of Israel.
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And I have a very compelling case for that that I'll share with you guys in a short while.
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So, all right. Any last thoughts or questions? All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you,
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Lord, that heaven is your dwelling place. But yet, Lord, we are your dwelling place. You dwell in our hearts, you dwell amongst your people, dwell amongst your congregation.
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And so, Lord, today, as we study the beautiful topic of heaven and we prepare our hearts for the service this morning, we pray,
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Lord, that you'd help us, God, to keep our eyes heavenward, the upward call that is in Christ Jesus, that we would not lose sight of the precious hope that we have and even the blessed hope of the glorious manifestation of our great