Heaven: Why Dying Is Gain - [Revelation 21 & 22]

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How often do you think about the topic of heaven itself? For me,
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I tend to think about it more when I've lost a loved one, a loved one who
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I am positively certain is in heaven. Sometimes I'll do a funeral and I'll think to myself,
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I don't know by that person's life and profession if they're in heaven or not. God knows.
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God will do the right thing. But when I know someone is a real
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Christian, blood -bought, born -again, kind of sound like a
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Southern Baptist pastor right now, blood -bought, born -again Christian, amen. I think about heaven much more.
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We live in a society where we do almost everything we can to delay our access to heaven.
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It's fine to have health, it's fine to have a sense of protecting family and wanting to be healthy and to live, but it can almost be taken too far.
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We do almost everything we can to delay heaven. So does that mean we don't really believe in heaven?
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Does that mean we really don't think heaven is as great as the Bible says it is? Sir David Wilcox of Cambridge said that he wanted to be buried with a pair of earrings.
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Not earrings, easy for me to say. That would be even weirder. Blood -bought, born -again, a pair of earplugs.
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This was 50 years ago. Today it would be earrings. A pair of earplugs he wanted to have in his ears in case the heavenly choirs in heaven sang out of tune everlastingly.
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Modernity is pretty good in lots of areas, but sometimes our modern society pushes out of our mind really what is heaven, how great is heaven, what has
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Christ purchased for us and how we should be longing to go to heaven.
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There's only one way we can find out about heaven. What does the Bible teach us about heaven? We only know about heaven from the text.
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No more and no less. The Bible doesn't want us to know more than what's revealed in the
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Bible, and the Lord doesn't want us to know less. People consult mediums.
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What's heaven like? People write books, 90 Minutes in Heaven or 90 Seconds in Heaven. I don't know what the name of it is.
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What is heaven like? How can we know? Is this all there is to life right here?
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Eat, drink, be merry, hedonism, epicureanism. This is just it.
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Go for it. Living paycheck to paycheck. Everybody's living for the weekend.
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Yet Jesus said, In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.
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Can you imagine telling that to the disciples? I'm going to go to heaven and prepare a special place for you.
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Just how great would that special place be if Christ himself, the creator of the universe, was going to prepare it for his people?
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I don't know about you, but I'd like to go to heaven. Turn your
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Bibles to Philippians chapter 1 this morning, and I want to show you Paul's heartbeat when it comes to gospel ministry and the desire to go to heaven.
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I hope this morning that I can show you from the text that you need to have an increased desire to go to heaven.
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Certainly this is not some kind of... I don't even want to say it, but I will so everyone understands. This is not, well, let's desire to go to heaven so we'll let ourselves go.
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We won't take care of ourselves. We'll take extra chances in life. We don't have to wear seatbelts now, or we don't have to do this, that, or the other.
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I don't mean any of that. I just mean that we should have a desire, a longing to get to heaven.
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And when life is really great, it sometimes is hard to have such a desire to get to heaven.
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Now, if we were being persecuted in the catacombs of Rome, it might be a little bit different. But for Paul here in Philippians chapter 1, as he writes to this church, you can just hear his heartbeat where he says, you know,
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I have a lot of ministry to do, and I'm happy to do it for the Lord's sake, but I want to go to heaven.
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Now, it's hard for me because I'd kind of like to stay on earth a little bit longer. I'd love to be a grandfather. In due time,
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I'd love to be a grandfather. I'm kind of crazy with kids now, but I can't wait to just have grandfather license and just let the kids just run around like little
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Tasmanian devils all day and then hand them back to my kids and, yeah, they obey.
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They are really good. Now, I was too strict with my kids, but, boy, those grandkids, it is going to be lovely.
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And if it's the Lord's good pleasure for me to be a grandfather and live to be 98 years old, 198 years old, or, you know, 51, that's up to him.
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It's fine to have longings and desires and hopes, and if you're 18 and you think, I'd love to get married and have kids one day, or you're 25,
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I'd like to do such and such, it's good to have all those. I'm just saying it's better to be in heaven. There's something that's better, and so the text here,
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Philippians chapter 1, Paul is talking about how the gospel goes forward, and in the middle of all that, he makes a statement that you know very well.
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For, to me, Philippians 1 .21, he prays, he gives thanks to God, he says,
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I want the gospel to go forward, and he says, but this is my mental attitude as I'm ministering the gospel.
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For to me, to live is Christ and to die, gain.
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If Paul could use modern hymnody, he would love the song, Jesus is everything to me.
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It's all about to live as Christ. What I do on this earth is all about exalting
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Jesus Christ in my life, in my body, with my body, with my ministry.
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And by the way, for the Greek students here, the word me, for to me, to live as Christ, me is pushed up to the front of the sentence, and that just shows in Greek, this is emphatic.
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Me, myself, and I, when it comes to my life, I'm living at full throttle for Christ Jesus.
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It's all about Him. And if my life continues as I sit in this jail, I'm going to live for Christ Jesus.
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If I get out of this jail, I'm living for Christ Jesus. If I don't live another day, that day still will be filled with gospel preaching, fruitful work for the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to Acts 20, don't turn there, but here's Paul.
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But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course and the ministry which
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I receive from the Lord Jesus Christ, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.
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Listen to what he said in chapter 21. What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the
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Lord Jesus. Listen to the heartbeat of Paul in Romans 14. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself.
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For if we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the
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Lord's. Paul says with present tense, continuing,
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I am here to live for the Lord. For me to live is Christ, that's my life. I see bumper stickers like you see them.
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I live, what's the most famous bumper sticker regarding this kind of theme? I live to, I guess you don't drive much, at least this is in California.
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I live to shop. Can you imagine
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Paul in jail, saved from his sins against Christ?
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Maybe being involved with more than putting people in prison, but up to and including murder.
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Paul's completely forgiven, he has a Damascus road experience, and he's sitting in jail. And if his goal in life was to shop, his life is over.
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If his goal is, you know, I just need to learn Arabic. My goal in life is to get remarried and have another wife and have some more kids.
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My goal is to make a lot of money. My goal is to make a name for myself.
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My goal is to have influence and power and to be into politics. If Paul's goal is anything except the further proclamation of the gospel of Christ, he is sunk.
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What can you get done in prison? Especially that prison. Paul doesn't live for money, fame, power, pleasure, success.
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He says, as long as I'm on this earth, I live for Christ. Isaac Watts says, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small?
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Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.
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I'm the Lord's, I've been bought by this risen Savior's blood, and I will pour my life into gospel ministry.
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A passion to live for Christ. And then he says in verse 21, if I'm alive,
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I'm going to live full bore for the gospel. For Christ Jesus. But he says something interesting here, for to me to live is
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Christ and to die, what? Gain. To die, it's profit.
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To die is an advantage. That's what the word means.
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It's an advantage to die. I mean, can you imagine that going on in the world now, on the internet,
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CNN? It's an advantage to die. When could it possibly be an advantage to die? Well, certainly when you've lived your life for the
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Lord, and certainly when you realize what Jesus said about heaven is true.
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Eternal rewards, eternal rest, eternal refreshment. Paul said in 2
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Corinthians, we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be home with the
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Lord. So you say, what's the best thing you've got in your life? What's the very best, the closest?
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You say, it's my spouse. Do you know, if you're a Christian, that heaven is better than your spouse?
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Say, I love my kids. They're everything to me. My grandkids are everything to me. Death will be gain for you if you're a
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Christian. Can you imagine? I think one reason why we have these family relationships is so we just get a little taste of how great heaven is with communion with God.
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Say, I love my job. Death, gain. I love my friends.
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Death, gain. Look what he says down in verse 23 of Philippians 1, but I am hard pressed from both directions.
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I feel like I'm hemmed in. I'm torn. The desire to depart and be with Christ, I want to go to heaven, for that is what?
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Very much better. He just stacks a bunch of Greek words together. The highest superlative you can get.
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Very much better. I don't know if I can mix my metaphors here and still stay on target, but when
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I was a kid, my biggest super -fragilistic, expialidocious metaphor was exactly that, but I think that's a show about witchcraft, so I can't use it.
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He just stacks a bunch of words. Good, better, best. It's my good, better, best at the very top, is to go and be with the
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Lord. I'd rather break camp with this striking of a tent military metaphor.
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Paul, the tent maker, says, you know what? When it comes to death, it'd be good.
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I put up so many tents in my life. You ever put up a tent and then you take down the tent? You put up the tent, you take down the tent.
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You put up the tent, you take down the tent. You say, you know what? This is my last time I ever have to put that tent of my flesh down.
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It's over. Rest. Gain. Matthew Henry said,
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I'm going to write something, and I want it read after I die, after I die.
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Just in case you think I didn't live long enough. Well, you know, how old was your loved one when they died?
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Oh, you know, they were only 63. That's sad. You know, they didn't really live to be in their 90s.
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Matthew Henry said, you read this after I die, because I don't want you to think that I believed death was not gain.
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Would you like to know where I am? I am at home in my father's house, in the mansions prepared for me here.
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I am where I want to be. No longer on the stormy sea, but in God's safe, quiet harbor.
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My sowing time is done, and I am reaping. My joy as the joy of harvest.
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Would you like to know what I am doing? I see God. Not as through a dark glass, but face to face.
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Henry goes on to say, I am engaged in the sweet enjoyment of my precious
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Redeemer. I am singing hallelujahs to him who sits upon the throne, and I am constantly praising him.
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Would you know what blessed company I keep? It is better than the best on earth.
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Here are the holy angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. I am with many of my old acquaintances with whom
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I worked and prayed, and who have come here before me. Lastly, would you know how long this will continue?
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It is the dawn that never fades. After millions and millions of ages, it will be as fresh as it is now.
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Therefore, do not weep for me. My death and departure to Christ, Paul said and Matthew Henry echoed it, is gain.
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I think all of us could use a good dose of longing for heaven, don't you? In the time that I have left, let me give you some vivid descriptions of heaven, so that you can long for heaven.
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Let's turn to Revelation chapter 21. What's heaven like? Well, we only know what heaven's like by Bible revelation.
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If you'd like to know what heaven is, you can't eat a bunch of peyote and go to some sweat tent. You can't eat a bunch of refried beans before you go to bed.
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Write your dreams down. How do you know this other place? This place in another dimension?
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What do you do? Well, God has told us. He has revealed to us what heaven is like.
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The Bible tells us more about heaven than Revelation 21 and 22. But we're going to look at some of these vivid descriptions from Revelation, designed so that by the
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Spirit's power that you'll live for Christ and you'll think death is gain.
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And for me, on a personal note, as I think about Grandma Evie now, my wife's grandmother, essentially her mother,
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I think to myself, I'm sad. I love Grandma Evie. But you know what? Grandma Evie is just like Matthew Henry today.
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She is not saying, weep for me. She is saying, I have entered into the fullness of my
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Master's presence. The vivid descriptions. I've heard Grandma talk to people about heaven.
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Now she's there. And so these descriptions I want this morning to lock in your mind so you say, while I'm on earth,
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I'm going to serve full speed ahead for the Lord. And when I die, it's going to be gain.
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The best I have now is still not going to be as great as heaven is. For those of you that are savvy to my preaching style,
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I have a number of these vivid descriptions, but I'm afraid to tell you the number because I think it's going to take us two weeks to get through this number.
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But I'll tell you anyway. Thirteen vivid descriptions. Now you know it's going to be a four -part series.
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But you know what? How great will it be to just talk about heaven? For those of you that want to get back to 1 Corinthians, I'm trying to get back there.
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I'm sick, and family emergencies, and we'll get back there. But today, you know, as much as I love 1
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Corinthians 6, today I need a good dose in my soul about heaven and longing for heaven versus Christians couldn't sue each other.
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Now there are some good principles, and I'm going to love that text. But right now, personally, even for my own family,
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I want them to get a good view of what heaven is like because it's real.
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What Jesus said is true about heaven, or he's a liar, and a faker, and a poser. Thirteen vivid descriptions of heaven designed to make you declare death is gain.
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Now this will be almost verse -by -verse exposition, but we'll kind of be in Revelation 21 through 22 .5,
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and we'll be moving around in that chapter and a quarter, sometimes verse -by -verse fashion, sometimes focusing on some key words.
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But I think you'll understand Revelation 21 better as we go. The first description of heaven designed to make you declare death is gain is that heaven will be new.
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Heaven will be new. I don't know about you, but the laws of entropy, thermodynamics, things break down.
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You just look at your house and all the to -do lists and things that are old. Heaven is going to be new in the best sense.
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Look at chapter 21, verse 1. New, new, new. Then, John said.
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We've moved to chapter 21 and 22 about the eternal state. There's been the second coming.
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There's been the millennial kingdom. Now we have the eternal state. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.
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John gets this vision from God, and he says there's going to be something new. There's going to be a wipe -out of the old, and then there's going to be the new.
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There's going to be major global warming over here, and then there's going to be something new over here. It's done.
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This planet is not meant to last forever because God is going to take His fire of cleansing and clean the whole thing, and there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and there's no more sea.
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By the way, if you stand on Patmos, I wasn't on the Patmos island, but I can imagine what it would be like being in Greece and seeing on the islands.
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Paul incarcerated on the island of Patmos, small little island, and everywhere he looked, what do you think he saw?
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What do you think he saw that prohibited him from having fellowship and communion and concourse with people?
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It's that ocean, and here there's no more sea. The entire universe destroyed.
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2 Peter chapter 3, But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up.
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Literally, Revelation 21 is heaven new and an earth new.
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Not new in time, but new in quality. Fresh. Do you ever go pick fresh new radishes?
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That's the word. Not radish, but new. Fresh. This thing is, what's the
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Greek word for radish? The Greek word for pearl, we'll learn just in a moment, is marguerite.
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So, not that far off. Pearls, radishes. The first heaven and the first earth are passed away.
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They're gone. It was temporary, and now comes the permanent. The literal first earth has to pass, so the literal second heaven can come.
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See, all kinds of allusions in the Old Testament. Isaiah 24, The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed the laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant.
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Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.
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Here you have this earth that's tainted by the fall, and God says, I'm going to cleanse that, and it's going to be new.
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There's going to be a new heaven, and a new earth. And no more sea.
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70 % of the earth, maybe 75 % of the earth, is dominated by water.
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No more separation of fellowship. No more wild cosmic evil that the sea was believed to be by the
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Jews. Rebellious nations. It's gone.
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Look down at verse 2, with the same theme of new. We live in this old world that's winding down, and heaven is going to be the first thing as new.
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Even the city is called what? And I saw the holy city, Revelation 21 -2, new Jerusalem.
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It's a holy city, but it's a new city. Down to verse 5, And he who was seated on the throne said,
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Behold, I am making all things new. New in kind, not new in time.
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We need new. Satan has just been doomed, sinners have been judged, and now
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God makes a glorious new heaven. We're just building a platform.
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Number 2, The second description of heaven designed to make you declare death is gain, not just the newness.
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We're not anywhere close yet, but we're just putting the pieces together. Heaven is not just new.
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Heaven is a real place. It's not made up. It's a real place. Imagine there's no heaven.
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It's easy if you try. No? Heaven's not just some state of consciousness.
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Heaven is not some adjective, where we just use, well, would you ever use the word heaven? I was thinking about the word heavenly hash, ice cream.
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You know, it's just some kind of word we use. No, it's a real place. It's not some spiritual consciousness.
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Here, the language is, it's a city. Look at verse 2, And I saw the holy city.
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It's got a capital, and the capital is Jerusalem. Hebrews 13, listen,
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For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. And by the way, if you've got a city, it's got measurements.
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How do I know it's a real city? Because it has real measurements. Look down at verse 17. How weird is this in the book of Revelation?
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This is one of the weirdest verses in all the Bible, as far as I'm concerned, especially if you have a spiritual city, and I don't know how you spiritually measure a spiritual city.
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He also measured his wall, 144 cubits, by human measure, which is also an angel's measurement.
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The good news is, we're not saying, you know, this is kind of English, and now we've got to translate into metric.
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One inch equals 2 .54 centimeters, and I can't really figure out all the other stuff. How to do it the other way around?
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One centimeter is how many inches? I don't know how many inches it is. I don't know either. But here it's easy.
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The way we measure things, the angels measure them the same way. Okay, that's helpful, John. I don't know why they measure figurative things.
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Well, the answer is, it's not figurative. It's a place. Prepared by Jesus. That's the same language from John.
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Heaven's new. I need new compared to the old, sin -tainted, wrecked kind of world.
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Give me something new made by God. Maybe a place. Why do you think we're going to get bodies?
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To go to a real place with our real bodies. All right, we're still building this. Number three.
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Heaven is holy. I like new. I like a real place.
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I like holy places. Revelation 21 -2.
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And I saw the holy city. This is the character of the city that reflects the character of its owner, creator, mayor, if you will,
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Christ Jesus. A crime -ridden world will be gone for us.
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This is a far cry from Revelation 11, talking about Jerusalem on earth as Sodom and Egypt.
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Now we have the holy city reflecting God himself. God's holiness.
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Just how holy? Look at verse 8 of Revelation 21. How holy is heaven going to be? Well, the unholy aren't going to be there.
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But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
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The old days you'd have a city, and you'd put up a wall. You'd put up a wall to keep out the marauders, to keep out the prostitutes, to keep out the criminals.
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They're not going to be in heaven. They will be excluded from the intimate family relationship.
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Thomas Watson said, the great Puritan, Heaven is not like Noah's ark, where the clean beast and the unclean enter.
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No unclean beast come into the heavenly ark. What is
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John trying to get you to do? He's trying to get you to think of how holy it's going to be, how secure, how protected, how you're going to long to be in such a guarded place, and how you should be the opposite of every one of those people on that list.
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Not cowardly, but fearless. Not unbelieving, but believing. Not abominable, but holy.
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Not a murderer, but a lover. That's where I want to go.
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John Bunyan was asked a question about heaven. He said, you know, this text doesn't really tell me what you're asking.
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I can't answer it, because the Bible doesn't state the answer to your question. So I advise you to live a holy life and go and see for yourself.
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I like that. These kind of unholy people that we put in jails now, but somehow escape, shall never, look at the text, a future of emphatic negation, shall never, ever, ever, ever come into this city.
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You can count on that. Safety, security.
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It's a new heaven. It's a place. It's a safe place. And you know what?
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Number four, the fourth description, is it's from God. Found in verse two.
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I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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Well, it's got to be good if it's not made by human hands. It's got to be great if it's from God. What kind of gift, what kind of creation, what kind of thing does
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God make and give that isn't great? I don't even have to know anything about it, but if somebody says, would you like to receive something from God?
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Yes. Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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Prepared is a word in John's Revelation for the result of God's decree. It's from God.
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But you know what? Here's maybe the best one, number five. Heaven will be where God Himself is.
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Heaven's new. It's a place. It's holy. It's from God. And number five, the fifth description of heaven designed to make you declare death as gain, is
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God is there. Twenty years ago,
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I had a boss, and he was a very kind man, not a Christian man. But when my father was dying, it must be 25 years ago by now, he said, you can go back to Nebraska as often as you'd like.
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Take some trips back there. See if you can go sell some of your operating room stuff back there. You can expense a trip to see your father.
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Kind man. Nice man. I began to preach to him. We would drive around, and I would just preach and preach.
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I was very excited about the Lord and wanted to tell him the things of God. So we started going to church, and he would go to Calvary Chapel with me and sometimes on his own.
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The thing is, he loved his dog. When you walked into his house, there was a picture of he, his wife, and in the middle, the dog.
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He had no kids. There were three table settings at the main dining room table for himself, his wife, and for Max, the
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Pomeranian. He said to me one day in the car, when
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Max dies, will Max go to heaven? Now, if Max would have been a cat, that would have been an easy answer.
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I love all animals, creations of God. I know what it is like to love a pet.
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I love my dog. Dogs don't have a soul, neither do cats.
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They've been affected by the fall. Jesus didn't die for dogs and cats, and he's not going to use his blood to cleanse those.
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If there are cats and dogs in heaven, fine, but they're cats and dogs that God made for heaven. They weren't cats and dogs on earth, and somehow
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God, you know, the effect of the fall cleaned off through Jesus' blood, and then now they're in heaven.
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So I said, you know what? Max ain't going to be in heaven. And then he said to me,
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I'll never forget it, if Max ain't in heaven, it won't be heaven. Now, some people think the same way about people.
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If my unbelieving father's not there, how could it just be heaven? If one of my unbelieving kids isn't there, how could it be heaven?
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Or you could say to yourself, when I die and go to heaven, the first thing
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I'm going to do is, I can't wait to see my family and friends who have died in the Lord. By the way, is that a good thing, to want to see them?
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Of course. But what makes heaven heaven is not going to be
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Evie being there. I can't wait to see her. I'll probably just notice her right at the beginning.
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We'll both realize, oh, we're both here together praising the Lord, but what makes heaven heaven is
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God Himself is there. He's the star of heaven. And without Jesus there, and a real body with scars on His hands and His feet and His side, it's not going to be heaven.
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And if no one in your family is there, but you're there with Jesus, it will be heaven. If everybody's there, and including your dogs are there, and Jesus is there, it still will be heaven.
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It's like, you know, the best part about Grandpa's house, you know, the little mug or t -shirt, the best part about Grandpa's house is what?
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Free M &Ms. No, the best part about Grandpa's house is Grandma.
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No, all right, let's go. The star is
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Christ Jesus Himself. How can you say death is gain unless you're going to go see
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Jesus face -to -face? So look at this unfold. Revelation 21, 3.
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And I heard a loud voice. That's about 20 times in Revelation, by the way. It means it's important, authoritative.
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And I heard a loud voice. Listen up. From the throne saying,
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Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them.
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They will be His people. And God Himself will be with them as their
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God. The dwelling place of God is with man.
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Can you imagine the intimacy with God that Adam and Eve had before the fall?
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And then destroyed and wrecked by sin? And the whole garden catastrophe? And there's been a lack of communion with men and God for all those years?
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And then in heaven, restored. Eden restored. Fellowship restored.
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A virgin shall conceive and she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Emmanuel. When was
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Jesus ever called Emmanuel? You read
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Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and you work your way all the way through and find me one place
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Jesus is called Emmanuel, God with us. And you know what? You won't find it.
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Until right here. God with us. God who no longer turns
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His head away. God who no longer, like Habakkuk says, He's too pure to look upon evil.
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When Jesus is face to face with God, in John chapter 1 with that intimacy before God, in His presence, in His face, we see that now not between God the
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Father and God the Son, although that's true, but here us and God Himself. We're not hiding ourselves.
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We're not in shame. Because Jesus has paid it all and He's been raised from the dead. And here we have
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Emmanuel. He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them as their
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God. Emmanuel.
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Could it be this is where we call Him Emmanuel? Fellowship with God.
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Full fellowship. Complete fellowship. Unlimited fellowship. A lifelong fellowship.
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How many relationships have you had with people? They've been broken by them. Are you? Are both? Are somebody from the outside?
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And here is the relationship that will not end. And this relationship dominates the rest of the chapter.
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God Himself emphatically will be with them as their God. It speaks of intimacy and closeness.
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Think of marriages and how marriages have problems. Marriage problems are usually stemming from, well, we've got what?
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Communication problems. Problems of intimacy. And here, no communication problems.
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No shame. No lack of being close. Sin is gone.
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Death is gone. Hell is gone. And who is there? Jesus. The best privilege of all.
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And it gets more personal. Jump to chapter 22. What are we missing at service at Bethlehem Bible Church today?
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What are we missing? What are we missing? Some might say we're missing tongues. We're missing rock music. We're missing we can't feel the
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Spirit. I'll tell you what we're missing. It's not that we're missing rock music.
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It's not that we're missing the alleged, you know, we're missing the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you what we're missing.
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Is you can't see the face of the God you're worshiping. But one day, with Grandma Evie, you see the face of God.
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It's not going to be like the Robe movie, where Jesus is turned to the side, and you think, that's
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Jesus, but I can't see His face. It's like holding a little kid.
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And the kid's trying to talk to you. And you're talking to someone else. And you're talking to another adult, and you're holding your kid on Sunday night at service, and you're talking to the adult, and your kid's trying to get your attention.
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And finally, the kid just grabs your face and turns it to you. Turns it to them. I need to see your face.
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Intimacy. Closeness. What are we missing today? Revelation 22, 3, and 4.
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No longer will be there anything cursed, but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it. And His servants will worship
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Him. What is worship today? It's by faith. But here, when you worship
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God in heaven, I'll tell you how much gain there is in death if you're a Christian. They will see
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His face. That's what's missing in our worship today. And His name, personally, privately, uniquely, with ownership and possession and intimacy,
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His name will be on their foreheads. Talk about the antithetical mark of the beast.
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This is the hope of a Christian. If you're a Christian, you should be saying, I can't wait for the day that I can worship
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Him and see His face. The vision of God.
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That's a far cry from Exodus 33. God said to Moses, You cannot see My face, for no man can see
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Me and what? Live. But life in heaven isn't heaven until you see
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His face. The divine glory of Jesus Christ, the God -man. Do you know in the ancient world, criminals would not be allowed to look at the king's face?
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You can't look at the face because you don't get that kind of intimacy because you've just sinned against the king.
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Now when the king returned from the palace garden in the place where they were drinking wine, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was.
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And the king said, Will he even assault the queen with me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered
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Haman's face. 2
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Samuel. However, the king said, Let him turn to his own house and let him not see my face.
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So Absalom turned to his own house and did not see the king's face.
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But now, for those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and God has made them born again by the
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Spirit's power, Does this verse mean anything now, more to us?
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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
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Isn't that good? And that name on the forehead shows that we're personally sons, personally daughters.
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He owns us. It's a metaphor that talks about ownership. Reminiscent of Exodus 28 with a name on the forehead of Aaron, the priest.
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The most wonderful thing about grandpa's house is grandpa. And the best thing about heaven,
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I'm going to be glad when I see you there, but pardon me if I don't say hi to Fred Tebow for about 10 billion years.
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And then I'll say, Fred, great to see you. I always knew you were here. Pregnancy in between Luke and Haley.
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I don't know if it was even a baby. Lost the baby, DNC, all these things. But I think to myself, am
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I going to get to heaven? Do I have another kid in heaven? If I do,
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I do. If I don't, I don't. But I know God will be in heaven. And I can trust him for that.
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Number six, and finally for this morning. Heaven will be new.
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It'll be a place. It'll be holy. It's from God. It's where God is. Number six, it's curse -less.
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It's curse -less. If you'd like to be more positive in the way
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I phrase this, it will be a place full of compassion. A compassionate place.
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It's just how uncompassionate is the world today. How we are uncompassionate.
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And here, free from the curse, free from all the effects of the curse. And if you look at Revelation 21 .4,
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back now to chapter 21, 21 .4, you talk about the mercy and stooping grace of God who cares for his people.
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How could God care for such insignificant thing as a tear? The minutiae that God is concerned about when it affects his people.
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Revelation 21 .4, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
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No more sadness. No more sorrow. And death shall be no more. Wouldn't it be a great day when there's not another funeral?
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No more funerals. They're just done. Sometimes the phone rings and I think, it's going to be a funeral.
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There'll be no more death. Neither there shall be any mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
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Wow! No more bad moods, no more headaches, no more migraines, no more sorrow, no more sadness, no more depression, no more
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PMS, no more edginess, no more backaches, no more anything. By the way,
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I didn't say that to get a laugh. I don't know why people are laughing. Shame on you.
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The effects of sin that rip and tear and bereave are gone.
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Every tear, literally every single tear. No more sadness, no more pain, no more disappointment, no more misfortune.
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Nothing sad, nothing wrong. Every tear. Psy said something that was very interesting.
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Why do we need God to wipe our tears away? This is what Psy said. Human hands are poor at drying tears.
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The compassion of a great transcendent God who's close to his people, who's so compassionate.
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No more death. No more graves being dug. But when this perishable will have put on imperishable and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.
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Chapter 22, verse 3, no longer will there be anything accursed.
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It's gone. To live is
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Christ, to die is gain. I wonder if you could say that. For the rest of my years on earth,
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I'm going to serve the Lord right where he has me. And I'm going to look forward to death because God has saved me and death is going to be profit.
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Death is going to be advantage. I just saw
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Nancy Shepard sitting right there. And as much as I miss Tom, I'm sure Nancy misses him a thousand times over.
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But for Tom Shepard, to live for Tom Shepard was Christ and to die for Tom Shepard was what?
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Gain. I'm happy for Grandma Evie.
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And I'm happy for these texts to make us live for what we should be living for because if you live for anything but Christ Jesus, death is a loss.
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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this text. Thank you more for Christ Jesus, our great
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Lord, who makes heaven new, makes heaven holy. To be in the presence of God forever.
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We don't even know what it could be like. It's indescribable. It's not some story for kids.
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It's not just for families who have lost babies and loved ones and grandmas. It's the truth from the
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Holy Word of God. Thank you, Father, for placing the curse on Christ Jesus who became our curse.
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And thank you for then giving Christ our righteousness that with Christ we might be resurrected and be in heaven with you forever.