Would you welcome for the mic William to preach the word? Let's joyfully praise the Lord! Come on, shout! Maybe see that God spared a prophet from a pot of burning oil so He could maroon him on an island and let him eavesdrop on the coming eternity.

And I heard, as it were, John said, "The voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, 'Alleluia! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!'"

You can label me spiritually juvenile if you want, but in this place, our precious people are stretched to the end of the tether. In this place are people drowning in despair and defeat. Here in this house are some haunted by emotional strain, some hounded by physical pain, others harassed by financial pressure, perhaps humbled by domestic disharmony. There's nothing the antagonist of our souls would like more than to keep our faces fixed to the ground, to keep our faces fixed on the rocky path beneath our feet instead of the prize before our face, to keep our attention riveted on our problems and not our promises. He would like for us to live shallow, earthbound lives, preoccupied with what's passing and not what's permanent, trapped by things temporal and things trivial. He would like for us to be so transfixed by earth that we fail to be transformed by heaven. For many, if not most, the devil has succeeded at smothering in our consciousness completely the most compelling promise of eternity. "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not true, I would have told you."

I'm rising tonight without apology to preach about the paradise of God, to remind us one and all that heaven is not just a state of mind. It's not a pigment of somebody's imagination. It's not a philosophical concept. It's not a religious abstraction. It's not somebody's sentimental dream. Wow! Heaven is a place.

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Heaven On My Mind | Michael Williams | BOTT 2006

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