A Desire for Heaven (Part 2)

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Reformed Theology (Part 3)

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Well, we are continuing this morning with what we began last week is on the subject of heaven and what we would call the what I've entitled a desire for heaven.
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And just in case you weren't out here last week, I just want to give a simple summary of what we have already discussed.
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We began in Hebrews chapter 11, and I'll invite you to go ahead and turn there now, because we will be reading this in just a moment.
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What we see in Hebrews chapter 11 is a listing of faithful individuals, people who have through history before Christ and up until that time had believed in the promises of the Lord.
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And we have this in this list, different individuals and recognition of their genuine faith.
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And then when we get to verse 12, what we see is that it talks about the fact that the promises that they were given were not actualized, were not realized during their lifetime, that Abraham was promised a nation.
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But yet that nation was not realized in his lifetime.
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It was not even realized in the lifetime of Isaac.
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It wasn't even realized really in the lifetime of Jacob.
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Jacob, yes, had multiple sons, but not an entire nation, just a large family.
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It wasn't until hundreds of years after Abraham that there was a realization of the promises given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.
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And the point of the text is that though they did not receive in the lifetime, the lifespan in which they lived, though they didn't receive all the promises that God had made to them during their lifespan, the promises did ultimately come true.
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And their focus wasn't on those earthly promises anyway, but instead their focus was upon a heavenly promise.
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Their focus really was upon the promise of God being in the presence of God and having a relationship with him that would last not only in this lifetime, but would last throughout all eternity.
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If all we have to look forward to is this lifetime, really, life is truly a pitiful thing.
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If that's all we have to look forward to is what we have here, life really, it comes and it goes and it ends up being relatively meaningless.
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But if life goes on after the grave, if life has an eternal portion, if there's something that we're going to be doing for all eternity, then that really should be our focus.
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That should be our driving force.
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And ultimately, that should be where our hope lies.
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And that's the point of this text is that the hope of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was not the hope of this earthly life.
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It was the hope of the life that is to come.
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So, last week what we talked about was we talked about that and then we talked about, sort of, I sort of gave you an overview of what we would call individual eschatology.
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Now, eschatology means the study of last things.
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And when we talk about eschatology as a system, what we're talking about is how the world's going to end, how Jesus is going to return and the millennial kingdom and then the eternal life.
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But when we talk about individual eschatology, what we're talking about is what happens when you die? What happens at the moment of your death? That's what we really dealt with last week.
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And what we basically said was, we live in this life as spirit and body together.
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Our spirit is in our body.
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You can't separate spirit from body.
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If you separate spirit from body, that's what we call that death.
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In fact, James says, he says, the body without the spirit is dead.
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So, if the spirit leaves the body, then the body is dead.
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This is why I have a hard time believing in things like evolution and things like that.
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Because the whole idea that the body is just really a sort of a supercomputer, is sort of a biological machine without a spiritual component.
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That's the heart of evolution, is that you really are just all meat and no spirit.
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You know, you're all physical and no spiritual.
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And the problem with that is when you die and your spirit leaves the body, it doesn't come back.
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Now, I've heard of people having out of body experiences and things like that.
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But here's the truth of the matter, is that once you are dead, you are dead.
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And the idea of coming back after you're dead, your spirit coming back into this doesn't happen.
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You can't go to the you can go to the junkyard and you can get a you can get a 57 Chevy.
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You pull out a junkyard, put a new engine in it, put new tires on it, start up.
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It'll go down the road.
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If you go to the graveyard and pull somebody up out of the graveyard, put a new heart, brain, lungs and kidneys and all that in there.
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Guess what you're going to have hearts, brains, lungs and kidneys.
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You ain't going to have a person because the spirit is gone.
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You can't shock them back to coherence.
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Mary Shelley had an interesting story with Frankenstein, but it's not it does not have any real existence.
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The spirit leaves the body and one is then dead.
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The body is dead, but the spirit is still alive.
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Your spirit lives on after your death and is with the Lord.
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Yet at the same time, and this is what I tried to make the point last week and this is where we focused last week.
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Even though your spirit is with the Lord and your body is in the ground, that is not your eternal state.
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That is not the way you're going to spend all eternity.
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That's the way you are going to be until the resurrection.
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The Bible is clear that there is coming a resurrection of the body where your spirit and body will then go into an eternal kingdom, an eternal state.
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And that's what we talked about last week.
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We have this life, we have if we are, if we die before Jesus comes, our spirit will be with him if we're saved.
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And then when the resurrection comes, we will enter into our eternal state.
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Eternal bodies, eternal spirits in our eternal state.
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So the focus of this week is going to be what's that like? What is the eternal state like? What do we have to look forward to and do we look forward to it? Are you excited about heaven? Do you even have a desire to go? Let's stand and read the opening text, Hebrews, and this will just be our introductory text.
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I've already given an explanation of it, but as we always want to remind ourselves that our focus is on the word of God, let us read now.
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Verse 12 says, Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
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These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and grieved them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
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For the people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
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If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
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But as it is, they desire a better country.
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That is a heavenly one.
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Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
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Father, as we continue the message today from last week, I pray that you would continue the anointing of the message and continue to bless what is said.
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And father, as always, keep me from error.
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Lord, I pray that you would increase my faith, give me strength to preach the truth, speak through me, Lord, and use this time to edify your people.
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I pray that you would keep their minds in tune with the subject, focused upon all that is said, and that in all things you would glorify yourself in this time together.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.
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There is coming a day, there is coming a day when we will be resurrected, there is coming a day when we will experience a new body.
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A new heaven and a new earth.
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Turn with me to First Thessalonians, the book of First Thessalonians.
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Go with me to chapter four in verse 13.
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One of the most important passages on this subject, because it tells us what the resurrection is going to be like.
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There was a painting and it was called, I believe, if I remember correctly, it was called The Great Getting Up Morning.
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I know that sounds like an interesting title, but the painting, The Great Getting Up Morning, was the it was a picture of a graveyard which had open graves.
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And the picture was the idea that the bodies, it was the it was the Great Resurrection Day.
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That's where the idea came from, was that there was this opening of the graves and all of these believers came out of the grave.
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And the picture, of course, is based on this passage.
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We'll read it together.
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It says, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers.
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This is Paul speaking to the church at Thessalonica.
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He says, We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.
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Now, asleep here obviously means those who have died, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope.
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Now, I just want to reference this subject of grief very quickly.
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It's important that we understand something about grief, and that is that believers, we do grieve.
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He doesn't tell us here not to grieve.
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He says not to grieve as the unbeliever does.
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And the unbeliever grieves how? Without any hope.
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If you've never seen an unbeliever at a funeral, if you've never seen an unbeliever standing outside of a hospital room as someone is dying, then you've never experienced what it looks like to see somebody who has no hope that this life is all there is.
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And that's what Paul is.
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He's admonishing us not to grieve that way.
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I've got a few weeks before this is coming, but I'm going to go ahead and let you know, three or four weeks from now, I forget.
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I have to look at my calendar, my preaching calendar, but I'm going to preach on the subject of grief.
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It's an important subject.
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I'm preaching on it from the text of Abraham's losing his wife, the death of Sarah, because I think this is a subject that while it's so close to all of us, because we've all been grieved, we've all experienced grief.
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I think learning how to manage it in a biblical way.
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And that's what you do with grief.
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You don't get over grief.
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You learn to manage it.
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Because once you're grieved and a person's gone, they don't come back.
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You look forward to the resurrection, but you don't.
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That is important thing to be able to do.
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And as I said, I'm going well, so I just wanted to kind of tell you that that's coming because some of you, I know, have had grief and you are still grieved.
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And I'm praying my prayer is that that message will help you.
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But anyway, I just I'm looking at the text and reminded of that and that it's coming because we do not want you to grieve as those who have no hope.
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For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
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You see just what I said in the communion meditation this morning, our faith is wrapped up in Jesus Christ.
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Our faith is wrapped up in the fact that we believe he's coming back.
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If he's not coming back, if he is not risen from the grave, then our faith is worthless.
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So it is 100 percent dependent upon him.
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He is where our faith is in.
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And that's what it says.
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It says, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring him those who have fallen asleep.
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Those who have died in the Lord have not gone on into nothingness.
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They've not been annihilated.
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They are with the Lord.
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And when he returns, he is coming back with them, says the text.
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He will bring with them those who have fallen asleep.
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What a wonderful hope for this.
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We declare to you by word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
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Interesting context there that Paul would identify himself as possibly being one who would be alive when Christ returns.
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It's important that you have to understand the imminency of Christ's return, that he can come back any time.
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Paul believed it could have happened in his own day.
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He said, we who are alive, indicating the potential that he might be one of those who would be alive when Jesus returned.
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And then he goes into that wonderful passage where he says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command.
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With the voice of the archangel.
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And with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first, you see the bodies of those who have died, who have gone on to be with the Lord.
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And we talked about this last week.
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What about those who've been cremated? Well, the same thing happens to cremains that happen to remains.
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Whenever they go into the ground, they become dust.
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Everything becomes dust.
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This is a regeneration of the body.
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It becomes the body again.
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And somebody says, well, they're buried at sea.
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Well, Jesus can see in the bottom of the sea.
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There's nowhere he can't go.
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There's nowhere he doesn't know.
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And there's nowhere that there is any place where anybody's ever been buried or stored or put in a mausoleum anywhere where Christ won't know where his people are and his sheep hear his voice.
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And when this cry of command comes, we will wake up from that death and that dead body will come to life.
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The spirit will rejoin the body.
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And at that moment, it says we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
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And so we will always be with the Lord.
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That is the most profound part of the passage, because he says, first, those who are dead will come back with the Lord.
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Their spirits will meet with their bodies and there will be a resurrection of the body.
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After that, those of us who are alive will experience a change in the body and we too will join and be with the Lord.
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And then from that moment forward, we will always be with the Lord.
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There will never, ever be a separation again.
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Beloved, that is the beauty of heaven.
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It's not about golden streets.
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It's not about pearly gates.
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It's not about crystal seas, even though all of those things are mentioned and does give a wonderful picture of what heaven is like.
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But yet with golden streets and pearly gates and crystal seas, all of that is simply the after effect of being in the presence of God.
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Gold is what we walk on.
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Crystal will be the sea, the pearls will be the gates.
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All of the things that we make such a big deal about is just going to be architecture and landscape.
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What will be important is the presence of God.
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That's what we look forward to.
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That's the glory of heaven was that there will not be this separate.
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Right now, there's a separation between God and man and even the redeemed live in sinful bodies.
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And as such, there is still a divide between us and the Lord, even though Christ has covered us in his blood.
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There is still because of the flesh, we can't see the spiritual realm.
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We talked about this last week.
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We there have been times when people's eyes have been open to it.
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But generally, we can't see angels.
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We can't see into the heavenly realm.
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We can't see these things.
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We know they exist.
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We know God exists.
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Stephen's eyes were open.
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He saw the Lord when he was dying and he cried out to the Lord.
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At his death, he got to see with spiritual eyes, the servant of Elisha got to see with spiritual eyes, and he saw the angels of the Lord who were encompassing his camp.
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And he understood what it meant to really see.
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But you see, we still live in these flesh, these bodies of flesh, which are still fighting the battle of sin.
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And as such, until these bodies are shed or changed, we will not see.
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But when we finally do see, the Lord will be with us and our entire world will change.
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The picture of the world that we will live in is found in Revelation.
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So I invite you to turn there.
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This was just the first Thessalonians, which is just to show us what's going to happen to get us there.
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And I don't want to get into millennial positions and how many, whether it's going to be a real thousand years or whether the rapture is going to happen before the tribulation, after the tribulation, in the middle of the tribulation.
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That's not what this is about, because I think that has very little involvement in individual eschatology.
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I'm trying to simply explain to you, our believer, as a believer, what to expect.
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If we die in this life, our spirit will be with the Lord and we are awaiting the resurrection.
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And when the resurrection comes, we will forever be with the Lord and our new body and spirit together.
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If we are alive when Jesus comes, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing? And if we are alive when Jesus comes, we won't have to go through that intermediate period of being without our body.
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Our body will immediately be changed and we will go and be with the Lord.
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And that is explained for us in First Corinthians 15.
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I recommend that to your meditation this week and reading.
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But in Revelation, chapter 21, verse one, Revelation 21 and verse one, John describes what's already read.
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This is our opening text this morning, but I want to read it again because this describes for us.
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The glory of what we had to look forward to, the eternal state, it says in Revelation 21, verse one, that I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
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It had gone away.
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It is no more.
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It says in the sea was no more.
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Now, I've had a lot of people ask questions about that.
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A lot of people really inquire about why the reference to the sea being no more.
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And I've had people say, well, I really like the ocean.
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Does that mean the ocean is not going to be in heaven? Really, honestly, I think that if we consider the language that's being used here and the sea being no more, I think we can we can say there is a literal reference that's being made here.
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Yes, the sea will be no more in the sense that on the new earth.
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I think that such landscape and the geology will be different.
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So I think the idea of a sea, a bitter water source that's undrinkable, I think is somewhat of a potential lack.
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It doesn't have necessity in the new earth.
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But also there's something else to be understood here.
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And I don't like to get allegorical.
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I don't like to make things something that they're not.
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But there is an analogy here that throughout the scripture, the sea was often seen as a place of tumultuousness.
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It was seen as a place that you couldn't trust.
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It was seen as a place that if you went out onto it, you were taking your life in your own hands.
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It was seen as a negative place.
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And I think it could be that John is simply saying there's no more of that.
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There's no more place on the earth that you're taking your life in your hands by going out into.
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There's no more place of of of of potential disaster.
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I mean, the sea was you think about every time the thing about Jesus, every time they went on the sea, Jesus had to calm the sea because it just seemed like there was always something bad going on in the water.
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He said, this is not there will be no more of this.
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There will be no more of this of this of this landscape that is a that is life threatening.
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The sea, all of this idea of this earth that's constantly the earth is like waiting to swallow us up.
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It seems like you can't live and you can't even live on the East Coast and not worry about earthquakes anymore because now they're happening here.
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It just seems like the earth is just constantly trying to swallow us up.
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It says no more of that on the new heaven and the new earth, the geology, the the the world itself is going to be a place where we can exist without fear.
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I used to joke, I said, man, I have to leave Florida because I hate hurricanes.
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It seems like every year we were having a hurricane.
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I said I said, but you can't move anywhere.
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You move out to the West Coast.
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There's there's earthquakes.
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You move up north and, you know, there's there's northerners.
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That was a bad joke.
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No, you know, no matter where you go, there's you know, you move to Kansas and there's tornadoes.
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You move to, you know, wherever you go, there's all these things.
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It seems like there's always this tumultuous nature within our.
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But in the earth to come, there's that that's not going to be.
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In the earth to come, there's going to be a peace that we have yet to experience on this earth.
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We've never had geological peace.
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Never thought about you've never had peace with the earth.
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Actually, we have had peace with the earth one time that was before the fall.
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Since the fall, there has been no peace with the earth since the fall.
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It has been nothing but a battle.
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We battle to make it grow food.
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We battle to make it produce water.
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We battle to keep it from getting so destroyed by our own hand that we can actually eat the food and drink the water.
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There's all these battles that go on with the earth.
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But in the new heaven and the new earth, there will not be this battle.
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And then he goes on in verse two.
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And I saw a holy I saw the rather definite article, I saw the holy city.
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New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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Beloved, it is a new earth.
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It is a new Jerusalem.
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And there has been much written and much said about what this potential new Jerusalem may be like.
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There have been those who have said because it comes out of heaven, it never touches the ground, but simply stays suspended above the world.
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And it is a place where everyone can look up to from the world and see the glory of God in the new Jerusalem.
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And and I one of the professors I used to have in seminary, Dr.
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Johns, he used he believed that there would there would be interaction between the earth and the new Jerusalem and that we could go there and we could be there and we could come back and that there would be transportation there.
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All of these things are wonderful, fantastic views of what it could be.
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But it doesn't say exactly.
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So we have to begin to sort of use our imagination and not that that's bad.
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It's not bad to use our imagination in the sense that this is what we this is what we're supposed to be looking forward to.
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We're looking forward to heaven.
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It's not bad to begin imagining what we're going to look forward to.
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And I think that a lot of what we get when we read about this is is coming from our imaginations.
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Because when you think about a city that's been prepared as a bride adorned for her husband is going to come out of the heavens and is going to be here for us.
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And the city is described later in the same chapter and on in Chapter 22.
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But specifically, we know this, this place that has been prepared has been prepared by Christ for his people.
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Where do we hear those same words from Christ earlier? John Chapter 14.
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Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled.
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Believe in God, believe also in me, for in my father's house are many rooms.
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If it were not so what I had told you that I go there to prepare a place for you.
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So if I connect that word prepare from Jesus in John 14, I'm going to prepare.
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And then I go to this word in Revelation 21 and I see it's been prepared.
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I can say in my in my in my mind, I can make a connection and say this place that's going to come down out of heaven for us is what Christ has been preparing for us this whole time.
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This is the place prepared for us.
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The New Jerusalem, verse three says, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold.
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The dwelling place of God is with man again, what is the greatest aspect of heaven? It's not pearly gates and golden streets and crystal seas.
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It's the dwelling place of God is with us.
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There's no more separation.
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He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God.
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He will.
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And by the way, that's that similar thing is said back in Hebrews chapter 12, where he says, And God will be their God.
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This that's what heaven is all about.
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They're no longer this separation.
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He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.
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Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for these former things have passed away.
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Now, I'm not going to get as far as I wanted to.
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That's OK.
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I'm just looking at my notes going, oh, wow, I got a whole lot more.
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But let me say this because I'm not done, but I'm fixing to take a different road here.
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How can we imagine what heaven is like? How can we imagine what heaven is like? I believe that the best way for us to try to imagine what heaven is going to be like is to imagine what the world was like before the fall.
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All right.
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Because many times I've pondered this passage in Revelations and particularly funeral services, I've spent time, countless hours going over this passage in preparation to speak on the eternal state of a believer.
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Where there's no more sadness, where there's no more crying, where there's no more pain and no more suffering.
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And I begin to think, well, has there ever been a time where there was no suffering, no crying, no pain and no death? Yes.
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That's the way God created the world.
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God created the world where there was no pain, no suffering, no crying, no death.
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And then we, humanity, sinned and came crying, came suffering, came mourning, came death.
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So what we have to look forward to is what God created, but better.
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Because when we move into that state, that eternal state, when God redeems the earth and takes it back to where it was, it now will be better than it was in the beginning.
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Because now there will be no more potential for sin and no more potential for mourning, death, suffering and pain.
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That will have been put away.
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I have a handout for you.
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I had one last week.
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If you weren't here last week, I have some left over.
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I'll get into you afterwards.
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But I want Nathan and Joey, if you would, to pass these out.
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And I didn't get myself one because I made copies and made mistakes.
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So can I have a handout? Thank you.
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When we see the Bible giving the language of describing the earth to come, it always uses words that have the prefix re.
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We see redeemed earth, renewed earth, restored earth, resurrected, recovered.
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And what that prefix re indicates is that it's going back.
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We talk about return.
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It's going back to something.
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So what I've done for you today is I've given you a chart comparing what the earth was, according to Scripture, what the earth is now, and what the earth to come will be like.
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The Bible says there's coming a new heaven and a new earth in this little chart.
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I want to I want to end today by simply going over this with you, because I think it's vastly important.
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I'll give everyone a second to get that.
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Now, there are questions about heaven.
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There are questions that I wanted to get to today, but I'm not going to because of time.
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So after the next week, which will be a special sermon on September 11th and the week after that, which will be our Bible conference week, I will return to this and I will answer the questions.
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One of the questions that people often ask is about about marriage and the relationship in heaven.
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Other questions that people often ask, will you lose memory or will you or what of those who didn't make it to heaven? How will we be happy if somebody we love didn't make it? There's all these questions that people have and I want to address those, but I'm not going to get to it today.
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Just don't look like I'm going to have time.
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So let's use our remaining time to focus on what I've given you in the past.
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This is Genesis chapter one and two.
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In the past, mankind was given dominion with intended stewardship of the earth.
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That was our job.
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Steward the earth, be the managers of the earth.
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We were created for dominion and then as a result of the fall, man's dominion was thwarted, frustrated and twisted.
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And as a result, now we live in a world that is at odds with us in all areas.
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In the future, the restored earth, mankind's dominion will be fulfilled.
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And we will be returned, redeemed as stewards.
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In the past, God in heaven visited earth.
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The Bible says that he walked with Adam and Eve.
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However, at our present time, God is in heaven.
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He is separate, but active.
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In the new heaven, according to Revelation 21 and 22, God will be with them as their God and he will be their people.
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He will be forever with mankind on the new earth.
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Prior to the fall, there was no curse and there was universal perfection and blessing.
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However, when the fall came, sin and the curse and there was a withdrawal of universal blessing and replacement with common grace and particular blessings, God did not withdraw all blessings from the earth when the fall happened.
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However, he did withdraw the universal blessing.
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What we would say that which kept everything growing, everything alive, nothing died.
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This was what was prior to the fall.
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And in the new earth, there will be no curse, a greater blessing, a deeper perfection, and there will be grace on ending.
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This next one's pretty simple.
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Before the fall, there was no shame.
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Now there is nothing but shame.
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In the future, there will be no more shame nor potential for shame.
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In the past, before the fall, the tree of life was in Eden.
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Mankind could take and freely eat.
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However, the tree of life was in paradise.
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Tree of life is in paradise and mankind is cut off from it.
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And according to Revelation 21 and 22, now the tree of life or in the future, the tree of life is in the New Jerusalem and mankind can eat of it forever.
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Prior to the fall, there was no death.
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After the fall, death permeated all things.
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And in the future, death is forever removed.
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Are you getting the are you seeing how this is how it was? This is how it is.
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This is how it's going to be.
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And you see the restoration.
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That's the point, if we want to know what heaven's going to be like, know how God created in the beginning and just think better, think more, think greater.
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But still, it helps us to imagine.
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At the beginning, the first Adam reigned.
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I'm sorry, going back up one, mankind was created from the earth.
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Mankind dies and returns to earth in our present state, but then mankind will be resurrected from the earth to live on the new earth.
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Before the fall, the first Adam reigned.
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After the fall, mankind reigns corruptly and the second Adam comes.
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And in the New Jerusalem, the new earth, second Adam reigns as the God man and mankind reigns as co-heirs.
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We get that from Romans chapter eight.
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We're called co-heirs with Christ, joint heirs with Christ.
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Prior to the fall, the serpent who is Satan was on the earth in our present time.
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The Satan has been judged, yet he is still present on the earth.
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In the future, Satan will be removed from the earth and will be thrown into the eternal fire.
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Prior to the fall, God was walking with mankind in the garden.
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In our present condition, God's glory is obscured and it's seen only in glimpses.
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And in the future condition, God's glory forever will be manifested in all.
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Finally, prior to the fall, there was unhindered individual worship.
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Now, worship is hampered by sin.
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Even believers.
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Our worship is hampered because of the flesh.
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In eternity, in the New Jerusalem, on the new earth, there will be unhindered corporate worship.
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Why have I done this? Why have I spent the time to sit and map all these out for us? The focus of this sermon and last week's sermon is because I believe it is important that we have a desire for heaven.
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I believe that that is actually what the Bible tells us to do.
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Colossians chapter three in verse one tells us, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father.
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If that's what we're commanded to do, if we are commanded to do that, to seek heaven, to desire heaven, shouldn't we know a little bit about what it's like? And shouldn't we focus our attention on what it's about? So I felt like this would be somewhat helpful to remind us that the new earth is a redemption.
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It's a restoration.
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It's a recreation.
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And we're to seek after it.
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A.W.
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Pink says to seek after heaven must be the chief aim and supreme task which the Christian sets before him, laying aside all that would hinder and using every means which God has appointed.
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The world must be held loosely and affections be set upon things above.
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And the heart constantly exercised about threading the narrow way, which alone leads there.
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And that is our focus.
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We focus on that which Christ has gone ahead of us to prepare for us.
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That being in him, we might together enjoy our eternal home.
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With that in mind, let us pray.
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Father God, we thank you for the promise of heaven.
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We thank you for the promise of eternity with you.
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And that the greatest gift of heaven is that we will be with you.
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You will be our God and we will be your people.
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And there will be no separation by sin or any other thing.
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We look forward to that.
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We look forward to shedding this sinful flesh and putting on a body that is redeemed.
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Lord, we pray.
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We pray for anyone here who is under the sound of my voice, who does not know the Lord and has no hope of glory.
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For, Lord, your word tells us there is no name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the matchless name of Jesus Christ.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would understand our sin, that we would understand the necessity of salvation in Christ and that those here who have never called out to him in salvation or called out to him for salvation.
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Lord, that you would change their hearts and open their eyes to the truth.
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In Jesus name we pray and for his sake.
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Amen.