Transcription
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, on must. But in this place, our precious people 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 so, 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 the angelic benediction over the life of our Lord was, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here gazing? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the Trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. And we are commanded to comfort one another with these words.
And I've come to comfort you. I've come to comfort you, men and women in ministry, preaching, teaching, praying, giving, going, loving, laboring, hurting, helping, hoping. I've come to comfort you. Though trapped in time as we are, tethered to this earth, we're citizens of a world that's cursed with obsolescence. But we must never forget that we shall be caught up. Some of you are going to find it hard to react or to respond in the next few minutes because the devil, your souls and Pagan, has succeeded and taken Him off the table in your life. I'm here to tell you, ha ha ha! Eighteen hundred and sixty-five times in the Old Testament, three hundred and sixteen times in the New. I'm here to tell you, we all have been talking about it, singing about it, praying about it, testifying about it. We shall be caught up, not for some senseless trip to outer space, but to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, but is reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice. I suggest that we do that, that we rejoice. You and me, right here, right now, through the hole that we have. The Bible says we rejoice in this. Somebody said yes! We need to let hell know tonight that we still believe in heaven. That we may be on a winding road, but it's not a dead-end street, and we're headed somewhere. Ha!
You have Him said it much. Heaven. I lost a precious, sainted uncle this week, who I grew up here and sing, "I'm feeling mighty fine, I've got heaven on my mind." Don't you know I want to go where the milk and honey flow? There's a light that always shines down inside this hall of mine. I've got heaven, heaven on my mind, and now I'm feeling mighty fine. You want to get the feeling mighty fine? Just can't ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The voice told John, "Come up." Heaven is up. Hebrew word, Shimon, it means heights. The plural, great heights. The Greek for heaven, ouranos, is where we get our term for the planet Uranus. It suggests an elevated, high, lifted-up place. Heaven is high, on top. The Gospels say Jesus came down to the earth. Ephesians said He ascended into heaven. When He comes again, He will descend from heaven with a shout. The dead in Christ shall rise first. The living saints will be caught up to meet Him in the air. When Lucifer attempted his insurrection against God in heaven, he said, "I will ascend into heaven, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and ascend above the height of the clouds." Heaven is real. Heaven is high. And heaven is up.
But amazingly, John said, "Immediately I was in the spirit." And in heaven! Immediately above the atmosphere, beyond the troposphere, past the stratosphere, the mesosphere, the ionosphere, out of our solar system, beyond our galaxy, past innumerable planets and stars, and into heaven. And John said, "I got there immediately." That's not insignificant. For the sake of science, most of us know that distance in our universe is measured by the distance light travels in a year. Light-years. 186,000 miles a second, 11,160,000 miles a minute. You do the math. Our sun is 93 million miles, or eight light minutes away. That luminous ladder stars we call the Milky Way, it's just one of billions of galaxies. That's great or greater. It's a hundred thousand light-years across. It holds a hundred billion more stars of its own. The closest one to us is two hundred thousand light-years away. You start traveling at the speed of light tonight, you can leave Earth and reach Mercury, 57 million miles away, in four-and-a-half minutes. Traveling at the speed of light, you'll get to Jupiter, which is 390 million miles away, in 35 minutes. If you want to go to Saturn, its 793 million miles, it'll take you an hour and ten minutes. Traveling at the speed of light, Uranus is 1.5 billion miles beyond us. Neptune is 2.7 billion miles beyond us. Pluto is at least a billion more. And heaven is further still, beyond them all. And John said, "Immediately I was in heaven." Animal, haha!
"In a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last Trump, we shall be changed." And, bien, no make-believe here. Their perils are plenty for all of us. Paul admitted that he had labors more abundant, stripes above measure, prisons more frequent, and deaths oft. He said that he had 40 strikes, five times. Thrice was he beaten, once was he stoned, thrice was he shipwrecked. A night and day in journeyings often. He said he had perils of robbers, and countrymen, and heathen, and false brethren. He had perils in the water, in the wilderness, in the city, and sea. He said it was in weariness and painfulness, and watchings often, and hunger and thirst, and fastings often, in cold and nakedness. But in the midst of it all, he said, "Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last Trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Behold, death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't know to whom you paid farewell and buried this year. But I got news for you: that seeming victory of death is going at last to be overturned in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and that death will be swallowed up in victory. So just keep reading. Therefore, because of this, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain.
And I noticed some of you, this doesn't sound spiritual enough. You spiritual colossus is that are among us. I'm living for God to go to heaven. You go and live for Him wherever one you want to. I want to go to heaven. You heard it by the tape. I want to go to heaven. There's a little holy hedonism in me. I want to go to heaven. That's why Paul could say, "We are troubled on every side, but we are not distressed; we are perplexed, but we are not in despair; we are persecuted, but we are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we are not destroyed." He had his eye on the prize. He knew where he was headed. Oh, to that prize before us! Soon His beauty we'll behold. Soon those pearly gates will open, and we shall tread the streets of gold. Bet you hadn't seen that in a while. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we are see! I'll tell you how to get your church off for depression bills, and I love Molly Grubb. Let's start preaching about heaven. Paul said that's what kept his balance. Yes, Lewis was right when he wrote, and I quote, he said, "If you read history, you'll find that the Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought most of the next." Were the apostles who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire. I read continually the great men who built up the Middle Ages. He said the English evangelicals, they all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. And then Lewis said this: "It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one." I pray God, not us, not here, not now. Steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, forasmuch as you know. You just got to know that you know that you know you got to know that heaven is not just a mere doctrine to be preached, it's not a mere theory to be held, it's not a mere dogma to be believed, but heaven is the mighty motive that drives the church.
2163 times your Holy Bible talks about Christ's coming. Together, beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. I mean, it was the next person, and every man that hath this hope in him purified himself. We won't have to preach so many standard sermons and holiness sermons if we'll start preaching more about heaven and get people wanting to go there, because once they believe that, they will purify themselves. I can tell you how to get your church. I had an impression, how to get it off the fence from spiritual disciplines. Let's just start preaching, let's start singing, let's start praying, let's start exhorting heaven. Let's reintroduce the concept of another world is real, but greater than our own.
Now, I'm not trying to mess with your mind, but most of us assume that when the Bible says, "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself," most of us assume that the pronoun "him" in the prepositional phrase "in him" means the man with the hope. But that isn't necessarily true. If you'll read other translations, you'll find out it says this: "Everyone that had this hope with regard to Christ, or has this hope set on Him, purified himself." More than a doctrine, more than a dogma, but my hope in Him is the mighty motive of the church. It's why we are who we are. It's why we do what we do. You get a glimpse of this, and everything else pales by comparison. You get this vision of heaven, and it will clarify your view of earth. Paul got it. He wrote the Romans, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." He told the Corinthian Christians, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." What's your affliction? Some fractured friendship? A shattered dream? You got a prodigal child? A physical pain? A financial pressure? The disillusion of a dying or broken marriage? I say, lift up your head. Inventory the eternal weight of glory that awaits us. Lift up your head, and don't let John through that door in the heaven and see Jesus said, "Come up hither," and renew your strength.
Let me show you something. John saw it, and saw it not a day too soon. He was exiled. He was on Patmos, in the middle of the Mediterranean, and Christianity seemed like a lost cause. Read your history. It's near the end of the first century, 60 years since Pentecost. The gospel was hardly a world movement. The tyranny of Caesar, the overwhelming might of the Roman Empire, had overshadowed and persecuted the church. And Jesus Christ had promised them that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church, but it seemed, it seemed that they might. The church was being persecuted, the preachers are being killed, their voices had been muzzled, their promise and progress had been stymied. They, they had seen their witness all but snuffed out. That's what John saw from the earth. And so God said, "Having a bad day? Having a bad week? Having a bad month? Having a bad year, pastor? Come up hither." A backer ran up that tower of faith, and he said, "The Lord is still in His holy temple, and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters in the sea." And so John went up into heaven. Everything looked significantly different. It did to him, and it will to us. And we will lift up our hands.
John told us some of what was there. He says, "All new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away: and there was no more sea." And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And he said, "I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are all passed away." It's amazing that we can read that and remain calm.
And there came unto me one of the seven angels that had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, "Come hither, and I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. And had a wall great and high, and twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: on the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the west three gates; on the south three gates. Hallelujah! And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the walls thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed twelve thousand furlongs: and the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall of the city an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprase; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And here's what I like: And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, like unto transparent glass.
And showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever. He said we ought to comfort each other with that. He said we are a great Larry job. I just think it helped all of our churches to have a heaven revolution.
John didn't just take the time to tell us what was there. He took the time to tell us what wasn't there. And I'm skipping a bunch of good preaching. Yeah, I'm gonna skip it because I want to tell you, there's no funeral homes there, and there's no hospitals here, and there's no abortion clinic there, and there's no divorce court setting, and there are no brothels there, and there are no bankruptcy courts there. There's no psychiatric wards there. There's no treatment centers there. There's no pornography there. There's no teen suicide. There's no insane. There's no cancer, man. There's no talk shows. There's no rain. No missing children. No gay rights marches. No drug problems. No drive-by shootings. Not that. No racial tension. No prejudice. No misunderstanding. No injustice. No depression. No harsh words. No gossip. No hard feelings. No worry. No emptiness. No child abuse. No wars. No financial worry. No emotional heartache. No physical pain. No spirits you'll need. No relational division. No murder. No tears. No trials. No trauma. No tragedy. No suffering. No separation. No starvation. No soul. No arguments. No accidents. No emergency rooms. No doctors. No nurses. No heart. No rust. No questions. No false teachers. No hurricanes. No bad habits. No decay. No door locks. No sin, because they'll be no sinners. I got lots of good stuff about having to preach, but I'm quit.
I can only imagine what will my heart feel. Will I dance for You, Jesus, or will I and all of you just be still? Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Hallelujah, or will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine. Shut up! No temple, no sun, no moon, no night. How is this church? We do what the Bible said, and let's greatly rejoice in the hope of heaven that we have. Come on, leaders, brother, help us know how to rejoice about heaven. Come out! Let's don't let the devil take it away from us. Let's don't let him take heaven off the table. It's our home. Let's rejoice in it. Go ahead and get out. Yeah! Praise the Lord a little bit. Run! Get between the accused and praise the Lord a little bit. We just gonna give God praise here a moment. Somebody in the back, get to walking around up there. Hello! Get to leaping for joy. We talking about going to heaven. Never! We not gonna lose sight of where we going. We gonna enjoy some little bit right here. I can get you somebody and dance with them a little bit. I did balcony. Go ahead, leap for joy up there a little bit. You might as well go ahead, have a breakthrough and break out. Haha! I didn't have no shot when I came, but I'm leaving here. I might leave here with the same problem when I still got a child, 'cause I know where we going.