Heaven (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Father we praise you this morning even as we look out on your creation and see the turning of Seasons and are reminded yet again of your faithfulness how every good thing comes from you

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Lord I Thank you this morning that we're able to gather here to To just rejoice in The blessing we have of having your word

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Even as we focus this morning on heaven and just think about all that lies in front of us as we struggle from day to day

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Lord turn our minds to the things that are above father. I pray that you would bless this time even as we begin

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This series and just pray that you would cause each of us not only to think rightly about heaven

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And eventually about hell and other topics, but Lord that you would encourage us to be those who would be heavenly minded in a good way that we would have a sense of joy and Expectation about us

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Lord I pray that you would make us faithful witnesses to your grace and your glory in Christ's name.

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We pray Amen well, you know Came to my attention some time ago that there's a well -known

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Christian College and That when you begin taking classes there, you have a

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New Testament prof who tells you that's a professor Who tells you that he's not going to heaven

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At a Christian College Why would he say such a thing any thoughts on that?

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Why would somebody say I'm I teach the New Testament This is a Christian College and I'm not going to heaven. He's a

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JW is one possibility holding that New World Translation Any other thoughts how about this one?

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He goes on to say there's no such place as heaven. So I thought about that Thought about what heaven

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How heaven is described in the Bible and what we're going to do over the next several weeks I don't really know how long it's gonna go, but I have a rather ambitious idea in my head for this as you can see heaven hell and everything in between This morning is the introduction we're gonna be talking about heaven

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But only generally and we're going to get into specifics Really nuts and bolts.

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We're going to take a guided tour. No out. Well, we can't do that But I want to I want to give us a great deal of Biblical fodder as it were things to think about to consider about what heaven is going to be like And this first one this is entirely my own invention

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This first question because I use the word invention. What would heaven look like if it were a man -made invention?

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What do you think heaven would look like if it were something that men made up? I mean have you ever heard that charge the

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Bible is just written by a bunch of old old men Right what

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Steve It and that's exactly right because if and I have it kind of in the notes

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But I mean what what would you know if you're a man? Speaking, you know as a male of the species, you know, what sort of things would appeal to you?

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Well, it's gonna be that it's gonna be those sensual sort of pleasures or maybe you know

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It reminds me of a movie I saw and I won't name it just so that you don't think I'm endorsing it because I'm not But in this movie you get to kind of like a weigh station, you know after life you go to this place of Pseudo judgment, but one of the things

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I like about the movie Is that you get to eat as much as you want, you know in this place

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You never put on any weight and I'm like see now that's something that people, you know Oh, all the ladies are like wait a minute.

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You can eat all the chocolate you want Yes, you know, it's that kind of you know thought and so if man were going to create it

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It would be or if a woman were going to create it it would be Pleasure centered it would be focused on us what we want the kind of things that interest us

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That's not what the Bible talks about and I note there, you know Mormonism Steve's exactly right You know, you'd have three levels of heaven because the

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Bible talks about three heavens We're gonna talk about that in the weeks to come And in the upper level of heaven

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This is not the Bible by the way the upper level of heaven That would be where the faithful Mormons go where they can have plural wives and have spiritual children and live forever as God That's Mormon heaven

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You know Islamic heaven Again surrounded by women Pleasures, you know that sort of thing.

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The interesting thing about Islam, of course is no one's guaranteed to get into Paradise they would call it.

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What about the Watchtower? What about the Jehovah's Witnesses? How do you get to heaven? Sorry, those doors are closed

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Pat says you can't get in why not? 144 ,000 reservations, they're all filled.

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There's no room at the inn in heaven in Kingdom Hall theology sad times

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But the good news is if you're faithful you get to hang around on the new earth Buddhism I just copied this the other day

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They talked about Nirvana and I just you know, some of these things are so Crazy I You know just to show you kind of what people think about Buddhism is a popular religion getting more so among the elites in this country

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Particularly entertainers Nirvana. That's what they call it. Nirvana is probably one of the most difficult concepts to define in a way

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Comprehensible to the Western mind and as we read this you'll understand why some have defined

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Nirvana as the state of not being Contemplate that for just a moment

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What is who wants to not be I've achieved the state of nothingness that doesn't work

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This is both correct and incorrect For Nirvana is a release from the cycle of reincarnation in the end of individual existence

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Nirvana is also the blissful state in which all suffering ceases and the individual is joined with the world soul.

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I Have absolutely no interest in that. I mean reincarnation is a lie

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And you know the ending of suffering is very nice, but who wants to cease to exist as an individual?

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What's the point in that? Well, I've ceased to exist as an individual again Worthless and but I did enjoy this when one of Buddha's disciples was asked to define

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Nirvana He thought for a while and then asked is there such thing as wind? Of course there is came the reply

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What is its color its shape its thickness? Why do I sound like I'm on kung fu it has?

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It has no color or shape or thickness Can one touch it and can it be shown?

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No, it cannot be touched and it cannot be shown if it cannot be shown. How do you know it exists? And this is this is

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Buddha. I am positive it exists, even if it cannot be seen Nirvana is like that the disciple replied it cannot be touched or seen but we are positive it exists

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So Nirvana is the state of not existing of nothingness Wonderful, this is what

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MacArthur says the glory of having a great book He says human nature is so tainted by the effects of sin

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People left to their own instincts will inevitably corrupt every Notice, it's italicized there every spiritual truth

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Subjects like heaven angels and eternal life are certainly no exception to this rule

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What's he saying? Even when we talk about things like heaven apart from Scripture we get things wrong

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He goes on and says when an unbelieving mind Embraces the reality of the supernatural realm the result can often be catastrophic and notice

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I forgot the closed parenthesis there or a closed quote Now What he's saying there is, you know, so many unbelievers say that there's no such thing as a spiritual realm

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You know all that exists is what we can You know sense with our senses.

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I you know feel Smell hear all that stuff and that's all there is there is no spiritual realm

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And that's why MacArthur says look even when unbelievers when they embrace that when they accept it

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He says that's not really not necessarily a good thing. In fact, it could be catastrophic a couple examples here

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Betty Edie embraced by the light her book out some time ago

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She was a nurse She said she died in a hospital. It was fascinating just reading his you know excerpts from this book because she said, you know, she she

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Was outside of her body before she realized that she was dead and she was just looking and she goes

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Oh, I'm much prettier than I remember as she's looking at her body, you know hovering above it

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What do they call these things by the way, where you're you believe that you're dead and you see all these things

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Out -of -body experiences or near -death experiences, I think I use somewhere in here the NDE Abbreviation for you know near -death experience

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She said she died in the hospital had an out -of -body experience. She could see her body in the hospital bed while dead

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She saw three men in robes Why are they always in robes? Why not blue jeans and t -shirts? That's what

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I'm you know, why are they so formal? They said that they had been with her for eternities and This is this was intriguing

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She said that she was able to remember her pre -existence that she had existed before she had lived

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Is what that means and as soon as I read that I just thought okay. I Know that terminology that is the terminology of a

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Mormon and we'll see that there's more of that here During this near -death experience she obtained

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Omniscience she becomes like it. She has a mind milled. I'm using all kinds of stuff here this morning like us you know a

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Spock Ian kind of Link with the universe where you know, I mean you just think how how bizarre is this?

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she writes having received this knowledge and I just kind of summarize here about each religion having some truth.

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I Knew that we have no right to criticize any church or religion in any way

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So let's look at a few Bible verses. What are we to make this? Let's look at 2nd

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Corinthians 11 I mean, this is strange stuff, but it sells a lot of books

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It occupies hours and hours of television because Oprah can't get enough of it Anybody who has a near -death experience?

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She would love to have you on her show Who would read 2nd

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Corinthians 11 verses 13 to 15, please Bruce now essentially whether you know miss

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Edie whether all this stuff was Made up whether it was some kind of delusion

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Whether she actually experienced it. I mean, it's really kind of immaterial Really doesn't

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Really just doesn't matter. I mean, I thought immaterial just seemed like a bad word You know because we're talking about immaterial

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Ethereal things but She is either deceived or She is deceiving

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She claims to have a message from Jesus she claims to be a messenger of Jesus or an apostle that's what an apostle is, although the

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New Testament would More carefully define apostle as those specifically sent forth with authority, but she certainly claims that I mean

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She was allowed to have this for a reason in her mind So what are we to make of it?

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Well, I'd say that she's either deceived or she is deceiving She is either, you know a messenger of darkness or she has been duped by a messenger of darkness

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Some of her claims could there have been a pre -existence for Adam Could Adam have

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Existed before he was created just a couple little simple things to just sort of clarify things biblically.

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Let's look at Genesis 2 Just see how it describes the the creation of Adam Genesis chapter 2

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Verse 7 and who would read that please? Yeah, go ahead

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Steve the whole idea in the

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Hebrew of You know breathed life into something is for the first time it comes to life

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There is no and it's that kind of It's that intangible

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Where scientists and I've mentioned this before scientists cannot quantify the difference between a living

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Person and a dead person in other words, they can look at it and tell you this person's alive and this person's dead

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They can't exactly tell you why one person is living and the other one is dead They can give you all the numbers, you know

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He's got a pulse He's got this but they don't know and it is that kind of breath of life that God provides

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Could there have been a pre -existence for Adam? No because the Bible tells us he just Was breathed into he just came to life for the first time in Genesis 2

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Could anyone have existed prior to creation? This is an interesting one We talked from time to time we've gone to Job and we've had

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Job getting Addressed by God and challenged by God Yes, Dave.

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Yes, you may. Okay. Well, yeah certainly existed as dirt.

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Yes. I'll go for that Yeah, he he existed before he was alive as dirt because God formed him out of the ground yeah,

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I'll go for that Job 38 for Job 38 for could anyone have existed

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Before Create creation and I think it's kind of Set out here when

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God says to Job and Job 38 for Where were you when

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I laid the foundation of the earth? Well, where was Job if he existed? prior to Creation he was there observing right?

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So why would God ask him that question because Job would say well, I'll tell you where I was. I Was because again, yeah, and I don't want to get

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Into too much Mormonism here, but just enough to just tell you that they believe that we all existed as separate entities before we came to this world and So what she is saying as she remembers being there and what the

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Bible says is no one existed before God Created them before it just doesn't happen before they get that breath of life breathed into them as it were

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They do not exist. So when God says to Job Where were you when

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I laid the foundation of the earth? The answer is he was nowhere Tell me if you have understanding he couldn't because he wasn't there he had no way to observe it.

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No one was there It was God and God alone Betty Edie says

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I understood to my surprise that Jesus was a separate being from God with his own Divine purpose and she says that she has her own divine purpose.

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We all have our own divine purposes it's just kind of new -age

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II foolishness It's wickedness It's unbiblical separate being from God, you know could be right out of the first vision from Joseph Smith number ten

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She says I was shown that Adam was more satisfied with his condition in the garden and Eve was more restless

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I was shown she wanted to become a mother. She was willing to risk death to obtain it She made a conscious decision to bring about conditions necessary for her progression an important Mormon I mean all these things

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I'm just picking up all these code words as I'm reading it and Her initiative was used to finally get

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Adam to partake the fruit. She presents this like it was a good thing Why would she do that? Well, look, this is out of the

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Book of Mormon 2nd Nephi 225 Adam fell that man might be and men are that they might have joy in Mormon theology the fall of Adam was a good thing a

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Good thing in fact in their statement of faith and their articles of faith. They say that we believe

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That Man is responsible for his own transgressions and not for Adams Transgression in other words

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Mormon theology would teach that every single person comes into this world Neutral neither

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Not affected by the fall of Adam and not with a sinful nature In her book, there is no reference to hell

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Instead she teaches a new age kind of create your own surroundings She also teaches pantheism who wants to define pantheism

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Charlie that all things are God and that God is in all things

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In the sense that there's the divine, you know in every rock there there is God, you know

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Denial of need for atonement Is also in her teachings.

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In fact, she was feeling the effects of her wrongs as she terms them what we would call sin

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She felt excruciating pain pain, but Jesus shows up and tells her not to feel so bad about herself.

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Take it easy You're too hard on yourself He showed her the effects of her good deeds You know the waves of her goodness and those outweigh the bad and so She was good to go in short.

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I mean, this is a completely heretical Book and you know and in at its essence

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I'm about to talk about another one but at its essence What are these things tell us about a person's worldview with regard to the

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Bible? What does it say and what does it say about us as a culture that we're so fascinated by these near -death experiences yes,

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Steve, you said two very important things there first of all is and Ultimately, this is what she's saying is that we kind of earn our way to heaven

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But the second thing is this idea that God is love I mean we knit well, I won't say we never we rarely hear somebody talk about hell

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We do have the you know the book. What is it? You know 12 seconds in hell or whatever, you know, it's it it's like 90 minutes in heaven

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And then a lot shorter time in hell. I don't know why that is, you know, draw your own conclusions But the the focus is always on God's love

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God's welcoming look at this Jesus says don't be so hard on yourself He doesn't go on to say, you know, don't worry about it.

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I died on your died on the cross for your sins He doesn't say anything like that. It's just like ah, you know, you're good

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Outweighs you're bad and that is good enough for me That's heretical

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How about 90 minutes in heaven by Don no relation to John Piper Who is a

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Baptist minister by the way? Was involved in a car crash Where he was pronounced dead on the scene, it's interesting too because another

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Baptist gentleman comes up and feels impressed by God to pray for Don Piper who's just been pronounced dead

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Now, I don't know about you, but I don't really normally pray for dead people. I Think it was one of the interesting things

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That I remember about President Bush is I always listened for this part very carefully when he would talk about somebody who had died in some kind of Instance whether it was 9 -eleven or servicemen or something else.

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He'd always say not pray for them, but pray for their families Because their families need comforting.

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They don't need anything there You know Lord willing they're in heaven or they're not in heaven But praying for them isn't gonna change that one way or the other

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Tim Challis on his blog when he was reviewing this book Says Piper's description of heaven left me cold.

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I was dismayed to find that his heaven seemed largely man -centered in Fact if you were to ask your unbelieving friends and neighbors to describe heaven

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They would probably create a place very much like this Piper did not see Jesus Nor did he see

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God though to be fair. He saw only the outskirts and did not pass through the gates

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Despite this he was exceedingly joyful and feels he experienced the very joys of paradise for 90 minutes

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He walked through heaven greeted by all those He knew in this life all of whom were quite conveniently the same age.

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They were when he had last known them Now, what does that sound more like heaven or like your life kind of somehow flashing before your eyes?

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Doesn't sound like heaven to me because what are people doing in heaven sitting around waiting, you know? I mean, that's what we sometimes we'd like to think heaven is

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Oh heaven is a place where all they're all waiting for me to show up Strike up the band here comes

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Steve, you know, my grandparents great -grandparents have all been waiting.

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It's about time. You showed up Steve It's not heaven Heaven is

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Christ centered. Heaven is God centered. Heaven is not man -centered Steve centered.

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It's not about us John Piper no relation to Don Said the critical question for our generation and for every generation is this if you could have heaven

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Now think picture this heaven with no sickness and with all the friends you ever had on earth

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And all the food you ever liked here. We go back to the food thing and All the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, you know

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I think about basketball and all the things I can't do anymore and All the natural beauties you ever saw all the physical pleasures you ever tasted and no human conflict or any natural disaster

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Could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ was not there? could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ was not there all those other things if I closed my eyes and I think about the song by John Lennon imagine

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It would fit that a Christless heaven is not heaven it's some kind of Utopia here on earth, but it is definitely not

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Heaven our good friend

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Eric Raymond the Irish Calvinist says this and I say our good friend because he is our good friend

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He's preached here and great guy It was during this time

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That Piper states he went to heaven His description of heaven was nothing more than or nothing that you haven't heard before there was a gate gold

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Music singing and of course all of his relatives and friends were there In fact, there was according to Piper a reception committee awaiting him exactly what

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I have seen before There was no God sighting or a view of the throne or King Jesus Seems as Charlie's notes.

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It seems that Piper's heaven is a heaven where we are fulfilled without Christ Piper's heaven was a place of reunion with loved ones a

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Place of beautiful music a place of pearl gates and literal streets of gold it is a heaven that can be so easily described to a human mind using mere human words as if it had originated in a human mind and As we'll see in the weeks to come

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Heaven is something so unique that when the writers of Scripture describe it

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I think I think they they're struggling to kind of give us a

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Picture of what it is. I think it's difficult for them. I think they have to stretch themselves to come to these

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Descriptions now, what do we make of this visit to heaven? Well, like I said here we know the

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Piper wasn't dead, right? Hebrews 927 one of our favorite verses Because it says what what is

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Hebrews 927 say it is appointed to a man Wants to die and then to judgment so if he was dead he would then go straight to Judgment We know that this visit was not biblical.

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It doesn't match the Description of heaven given in the Bible again, Eric Raymond aside from the verse at the beginning of each chapter

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This book is devoid of the Bible In fact, I would argue that this book is what you would write if you did not have the

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Bible Piper's view of heaven is more akin to what you would see on Oprah rather than what you would read in Revelation You know the old

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I don't know if they ran those they probably didn't run the California milk advisory Commercials out here in Massachusetts, I don't know, you know, have you seen the old

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You know heaven commercials or where the guy thinks he's in heaven because he's got these nice wonderful warm chocolate chip cookies

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Have you seen that remember those? And and he's just you know, mmm. Mmm. Mmm, and then all sudden he realizes he doesn't have any milk

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You know and he realizes that he's not in heaven kind of thing and you just go This is not it is not heaven heaven is not chocolate chip cookies or anything, you know

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And hell is not the absence of milk to go with your chocolate chip cookies You know or the the kind of rock and roll view of hell

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That hell's where all my friends are and when I get there, you know, the party will really get ramped up That's not hell and we're gonna see that too down the road

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Hell is a place of untold misery not a place where? People who hate

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God get together to talk about how much they hate him halfway down the page here

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We know that the Bible is to be our source of information not experience and that is so key

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Eric Raymond notes the elevation of experience as authority This book pivots on the authority of the personal experience the near -death experience

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However, we interpret our various circumstances becomes God communicating to us

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Suddenly heaven is all about seeing grandpa our neighbors and hearing a hymn or two we say

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That we are Christians we say that we love God God has given us his word so that we can know everything that we need to know

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Emphasize everything that we need to know not everything that is knowable about God Not everything that is knowable about heaven

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Not everything that is knowable about Jesus But we know what we need to know about God heaven hell creation man

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How how much we can or cannot trust our feelings we know this all from the

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Word of God We say in our statement of faith that the Bible is what? It's our standard.

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That's where we go to everything Needs to be determined by the Word of God. What does the

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Bible say about matters and Then someone has a near -death experience and says something contrary to what the

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Bible says we go. Well, he was there Listen to what

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Don Piper who is a Baptist pastor says now he says I have changed the way I do funerals

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Now I can speak authoritatively about heaven from first -hand knowledge May I suggest that at a funeral right now?

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I? Can pastor Dave can whoever's doing the funeral pastor Mike can speak authoritatively about heaven why?

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Because we have God's Word we have exactly what he's told us about heaven

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What else do we need Let's look at 2nd Corinthians 12 verses 2 to 4.

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I thought it was interesting just an aside. I was listening to one of John MacArthur's sermons online the other day and It was interesting because he's had a knee replacement.

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He's dealt with all kinds of physical things and he talked about being on the Larry King show with Deepak Chopra and Deepak, I guess really didn't doesn't have a

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Kind attitude towards John MacArthur and you know, it was just disputing everything that MacArthur had to say and during a commercial break

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Deepak said something along the lines of you know, I don't know where you get your Information and you know

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John said from the Bible and you know, he goes I've written about this Would you like to read my book?

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You know, I'll give you a copy of the book and Chopra said I wouldn't read anything that you wrote

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Well, grace to you All right 2nd Corinthians 12 verses 2 to 4 2nd

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Corinthians 12 verses 2 to 4 who would like to read that Yeah, go ahead

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Simon Okay, what can we what can we discern from Paul's description there?

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What can we sort out from that? I Mean there's enough there for a couple sermons

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But if we were to just kind of make a synopsis of it what jumps out at you? Okay, Carol says he's not allowed to say

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What he heard kind of right? I mean he says that he goes up into paradise and he's not allowed to What's the exact phrasing there says which a man is not permitted to speak?

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other thoughts Pastor Dave, that's right.

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That's right. I mean Peter himself when he sees the glory of Christ says listen as great as that experience was

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I had some we have something better and that is the Word of God Did you have something back there, right?

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Right. The circumstances aren't exactly clear. Very true. Yep Charlie and we'll get to some of these in the weeks to come but I think

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I mean think about it Ezekiel's wheel We think about Jacob's ladder. We think about Isaiah and the vision he has where The robes of the

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Lord filled the temple and you know, their response is You know as Pastor Dave was alluding to come back and write a book go on a book tour

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They're undone they're just overwhelmed, you know, it's like it's overload the system is just melting down and Paul says, you know,

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I I got up there and I don't I mean I'll give let the cat out of the bag I think it was

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Paul, but he gets up there and he says, you know, I don't know if I was in the body I don't know if I was out of the body.

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I don't know. All I know is Was you know Overwhelming and I wasn't even allowed to write about it

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But yet these people have these near -death experiences and they come back and they are told to write about it

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They're told to give the message and they're told to give messages that are completely and not so much completely in Piper's experience opposite the

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Bible, but certainly Contradictory and in some respects to what the

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Bible would tell us and not in keeping at all with the biblical view of heaven Which is very much

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Christ centered God centered and not man centered any other thoughts about that?

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seeing none All right. Number two finally Does heaven matter? Isn't important to know about a little insight from MacArthur most

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North American Christians. I think that's most of us Have things so good right here in this world

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That they don't really know what it is to long for heaven. We're supposed to think of ourselves as vagabonds here not her nice my

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Again, I have to fire on myself as a secretary so bad Here on earth looking for a city with eternal foundations whose builder and maker is

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God Let's look at well. Yeah, let's look at Hebrews 11 8 through 10

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We're actually going to and the weeks to come look at the description that the Bible gives us

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About having the things that we can know about it, and I think it ought to Excite us.

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I think we ought to look be looking forward to it and certainly more and more You know every day

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I think from time to time Guido Might tell me that he's looking for to have

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I know I am I think we all are every day that goes forward as your bodies just starts

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Failing more and more I think you are reminded again of the decay of this body and we long for a body that will not decay

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Let's look at Hebrews 11 verses 8 to 10 and Who has that pastor

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Dave and what was that city?

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He wasn't looking for you know San Francisco or whatever. I mean that wasn't that wasn't the issue

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Ultimately he was obeying God believing God's promises Looking forward to Heaven now number three.

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What do you know about heaven? What about it makes you want to be there got this from the dictionary of biblical imagery heaven is the eternal and transcendent

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Let me try it again transcendent Word or world that is the abode of God the angels and glorified believers

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Heaven is the eternal and transcendent world that is the abode of God the angels and glorified believers

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It's pretty simple It's where God the angels and believers live most commonly used elements of Heaven or element of heaven in the

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Bible. It's where God dwells. Let's look at Genesis 24 7 and who has

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Genesis 24 7 Yes, Carmen.

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Okay, the key part of that verse is just the God of heaven And again, it is the place he inhabits let's look at Isaiah 63 11 to 15 this whole idea of You know heaven where somehow

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I don't even know if you could call any part of heaven heaven Where you would not sense?

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the presence of God I Just don't I don't think that's possible

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Isaiah 63 11 to 15 Looking for a reader 15 okay look down from heaven.

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That's where God is Stephen saw

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God and Jesus there if you remember his Vision as he's being stoned to death.

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He looks into heaven and what does he see? the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of God Finally, let's look at number

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C there. It is typically portrayed as a crowded place Like to go to just let's look at Revelation 5 9 to 12, although it's interesting there is definitely

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Imagery in the Old Testament as well talking about heaven Revelation 5 verses 9 to 12 and I'm gonna go ahead and read that and they sang a new song saying

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Worthy are you? Oh, I'm sorry. Is that right? Yes, okay

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Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God With your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation

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You have made them to be a kingdom and priests who are God and they will reign upon the earth then

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I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the number of Them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice

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Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing

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We should sing that sometime How many are in a myriad? Countless, I mean at the very least

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I think the Greek term indicates that at the very least it's ten thousand So if you have ten thousand of ten thousands, how many is myriads of myriads if they all gave a dollar?

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I think the nation would be out of debt. So And Thousands of thousands.

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I mean this is a lot. It is a crowded place. It's standing room only packed

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God is going to save countless number of people more than Certainly we can count more than we have the capability of counting

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Heaven is going to be a place filled with people filled with angels

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Who will sing his glories for all eternity and that is right

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It is absolutely right for heaven to reflect the glory of God as we look at the

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At this in the next few weeks. We're gonna think about Heaven in terms of how does it glorify

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God? What is it about heaven that brings glory to him? We're gonna be talking about things like purgatory

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Annihilation ism Spirit prison all kinds of Topics that we'll be talking about.

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Well, let's go ahead and close in prayer Father even as we've just introduced

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This topic this morning is just It is just a reminder of your greatness of Your goodness what you have provided on behalf of your people all the things that you have planned for us how you have more than even

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Cannot minimize this but more than just saving us which was great saving us from what we deserve

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You have granted us so much more than we could ever hope or dream in our promise of heaven

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Lord, would you as The weeks go by Let us be reminded again and again of your promises to us

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Let us be reminded again and again of those who do not yet know you who've not yet been assured of eternal life

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Would you cause us to so think of heaven as a place where we would want to see?

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More and more and more people there that we preach the gospel Knowing that the alternative to heaven is a place of unspeakable

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Punishment sadness wailing gnashing of teeth Lord would you fill us with compassion?

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Would you fill us with humility knowing that we don't deserve anything that you're giving us That apart from you we would run headlong into the pit of hell

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What a great Savior you are Let us rejoice and worship you this morning in Christ's name.