Eternal Life With God

WOLFL-2024-20

Transcript

Okay, everybody. This is our last hour. We’re going to Heaven. That’s where we’re going in class. Are you going to Heaven? How often do you think about it? The Bible in the book of Acts shows us an unstoppable group of people who you couldn’t kill, stone, imprison, or harass enough to make them stop. Now it’s a little different than nowadays. What drove the Early Church? Life was so bad on Earth that they couldn’t wait for what? Heaven. Do you know what’s happening to the Church today? Life is so good on Earth that Heaven can wait. No really, I’m talking about when they poll people in modern, normal churches they say Heaven’s great, not right now. That’s really how we feel.

I would like to, with you this morning for our last hour together, our 20th hour together, go to Revelation 21 and 22, so that’s where we are in the Bible. I want to read to you, just briefly, what Heaven’s going to be like, and point out a few of the things that we don’t really think about sometimes. The first is, I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth. The Greek language is precise. God is precise. God wrote the New Testament in Greek and the Old Testament in Hebrew. Hebrew is an Oriental language. You understand there are Occidental and Oriental languages. Occidental is Western, Greek, and European. Oriental is Eastern. Kind of like Chinese, Hebrew is like that. All the Oriental languages are picturesque. One Chinese character can mean an entire sentence, by one character. One Hebrew word is a picture. It’s not as precise as Greek. It’s picturesque.

So how did the Lord write the New Testament in Greek? What we see here is just in the very first verse, verse 1, I saw a new Heaven. There are two Greek words for new, new different, new the same. Those are two separate words. Now I’ll show you. These are my favorite shoes. My son bought them for me. They’re great. You can take them off and without even looking you can put them back on because they have the spring in the back, and it pops up. They’re called Kizik. I get no profit for advertising them. I’m just telling you I love them. Do you know what? I’ll get a new pair of them, but they’ll be new the same. They’ll be black, because I like them, and they’ll be Kizik because I like them. I’m not getting new Nikes, new Hokas, or whatever. I don’t know, there are so many shoes nowadays, there are all kinds of them.

Do you understand? Heaven is going to be new just like the Heavens and Earth are now. That means grass will be green, not blue, water will be the same. Do you understand what I mean? It’s new, the same. That’s what the Greek word is saying. Don’t think of Heaven as exotically different. It’s just the best of everything you’ve ever enjoyed. Only it’s going to be the ultimate perfection of that.

It goes on. The first Heaven, the first Earth, had passed away. We don’t even think about that. It doesn’t just get moved over like junk cars. Have you ever been out back in some places and they have piles of trash and all this stuff? God reconstitutes the universe. We’re going to see that in just a minute. That’s what 2 Peter chapter 3 is about. At an atomic level, God undoes the holding of the nucleus of every atom together. Do you know, that like charges repel? Right? You learned that in high school chemistry, and you’re learning that in high school chemistry, all our high school guests visiting us. Why does the nucleus of an atom stay together when there are like charged particles inside? Scientists don’t know. They invented something. They said there’s an invisible particle called a gluon. Glue on? Like it’s gluing it together. It’s a great idea.

We know, it says in Colossians, all things were created by Him, and by Him all things, what? Consist. Jesus, the Creator, holds together the universe. He built into it a self-destruct feature. Just before chapter 21, He does that. It says the whole universe implodes, dissolves, and He starts over. But when He starts over, it’s new.

Then I, John, saw a holy city, New Jerusalem. Have you ever thought about how Jewish everything is in the Bible.? We’re going to a city called New Jerusalem. The king is called the king of the Jews, the son of David. The twelve gates to get into the city, there are only twelve entrances to Heaven. They have an angel standing by the gate, we’ll see in just a minute. Over the gate, it has a name. Each one is named after one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Now, do you know what the reformers said? Martin Luther? God’s done with the Jews. He wrote, Martin Luther, my friend that I have all of his books and everything, he wrote a book. It was called, To the German Nobility. That’s the title of the book, what a title, To the German Nobility. Do you know what it says in there? The Jews are Christ killers, you can kill them. That was Adolf Hitler’s favorite Lutheran book. He did it. Martin Luther believed in the error of Replacement Theology. He believes that God is done and cast off the Jews and now God has taken the Church. The Jews, as far as he was concerned, could cease to exist. That’s not a good thing. That’s the only bad thing I can think about Martin Luther. Everything else is wonderful about him.

It’s because he couldn’t figure this out. That’s why he didn’t like to teach Revelation. Why are the gates the 12 tribes? Why is it that every book in this Bible that you hold is somehow tied to a Jewish person? They gave us, Paul said, the oracles of God. Our salvation is completely tied to a Son of Abraham, who is the Son of David, who is the Son of Man, who we know as Jesus Christ. What is His second name after Jesus? It’s Jesus Christ. Mashiach, Messiah of the Jews. Heaven is just a reflection of the Bible and it’s wonderful.

It says, verse 3, Behold the tabernacle of God, that’s the tent of God. A lot of us think about Heaven as a mansion that we have. We sing that, I’ve got a mansion just over the hills, in that bright land it’ll never grow old. No, it doesn’t say we get a mansion. It says in John 14, In my Father’s house are many and then the Greek word is actually resting places. Now it’s translated in old English, mansion, as in a place where a manse. They used to call pastor’s houses manses, where they went to rest. But do you know where the word is used in the Old Testament? In the Ark, it says that Noah made a place at God’s direction for every creature that came into the ark, their little nest. Actually, God is going to prepare a nest for us, but since we’re not sleeping, we don’t need a place to sleep. It’s a meeting place. But we’re all rooms in our Father’s house.

So, it goes on and on. Verse 4, He wipes away every tear from their eyes. Why would people be crying? 1 Corinthians 3 says that many people entering Heaven are going to suffer loss because they lived their whole lives for pleasure, for possessions, for status. Remember, we’ve covered all that. But He who sits on the throne, verse 5 says, I make all things new the same. Write these words, they’re true and faithful. He goes on and on.

Look what he says. Verse 7, he who overcomes, who’s an overcomer? John answers that. Who’s he that overcomes the world? But he that believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. An overcomer is a Christian. We already covered that. Who’s not in Heaven? Verse 8 of chapter 21. The cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars. I call that the big eight. Those are the big, awful sins. They have their part in the Lake of Fire that burns with fire and Brimstone, which is the second death.

Then it goes on and starts describing Heaven. Basically, if you look at what it is, it’s everything precious on Earth is precious in Heaven, but bigger. The gates are made of pearls, and an angel standing there. The floor is made of gold, but it’s see-through gold. It reflects the light of the throne. It’s just amazing.

So where are we? We’ve been going through Revelation. We’re at the last stop. Revelation is made into seven clear events. I’ll illustrate them for you. Number one, it starts with John seeing the Church on Earth through the eyes of Jesus. He takes the promises that the Scriptures give of being taken out of the world. We find the Church in Heaven in chapters 4 and 5. But as they go to Heaven, whoops, sorry, I’m going the wrong way. I should look down. There’s the Rapture again. I don’t mind that. There we get to Heaven. Ah, that’s the Bema Seat, the Great Judgment of believers works. While that’s going on, the Tribulation occurs, which is the biggest piece, the wrath of God in Revelation.

Then Jesus comes, and the reason there are flames is, that Paul said He comes in flaming fire taking vengeance on those that know not and obey not the truth. Jesus reigns on Earth for 1,000 years. You notice every event is just one after another. The book of Revelation is the simplest if you just read it for what it says. It’s just like a movie script. There’s the big rebellion. What we saw last hour, the Great White Throne, and now this is where we are. We’re in Heaven.

What is Heaven? As saints, we finally get to start enjoying the initial invitation. God says I want to dwell with you. Remember, Emmanuel, which being interpreted, is God with us. As saints, we finally get to enjoy God’s invitation to dwell in His captivating, satisfying, sustaining presence.

I don’t know what captivates you. Things captivate me. I love going to Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis headquarters. He has the Ark, and he has the Creation Museum. My favorite part is the Planetarium. You lean back, it’s better than Dolby Surround Sound theaters. You lean back, and he does this entire creation presentation. He shows the dimensions of the universe and everything that God says about the universe. It comes to a point with the music and everything, many of the people probably like me have tears running down their faces thinking, God did all that. He’s captivating. God is satisfying. He created us. He knows just what we need and want and He, by the way, sustains us.

The thing about Heaven is if you look at this, what’s emphasized is, especially when you get to chapter 22, there’s the river of life and the tree of life. God wants us to know we are not self-existent. I can’t make it without sleeping and eating and drinking and breathing. God can. He is self-existence. He doesn’t need anything. But guess what? When He says you are with Me forever, if you are around God, He gives us everything we need to continue living and that’s what the tree of life and the water of life and all of that is talking about and we get to enjoy that forever.

So, let’s go on a quick guided tour of Heaven. God gives us many previews outside of Revelation. The first preview He gave us is Adam and Eve in the garden. Before sin, what was going on in the garden? Heaven is about God Himself wanting to meet with us. Remember Genesis 3:8? The Lord would come every day in the cool of the day and walk around. Adam and Eve would find Him in the garden, and He would walk around with them. See, God from the beginning has said, I want to be around you, I want to be with you. It continues two chapters later. Enoch walks with God. Heaven is about getting one-on-one time all to ourselves with God.

Bonnie and I once were teaching our Sunday School class at Grace Community Church. Remember I’ve told you about that. We had 800 and some senior citizens. One of the senior citizens came up and said, what are you doing this week? I was 29 years old and, working at Grace Community Church. I said I don’t know. What do you want to do this week? They said, do you want to go to lunch with me? I said I’d love to go to lunch with you. They said it’ll be complex. We go to lunch two hours from here. It takes two hours to get there. You’ll have to go through security. There’ll be another hour of lunch. It takes two hours to come back. I said, That’s a whole day. I can’t afford a whole day. They said you’ll always regret not coming to lunch with me. I said, okay. I talked it over with Bonnie and Bonnie said, Honey, we don’t have a vacation day left.

What I didn’t know is that the person in that class was the Republican presidential frontman for the president. They invited me to lunch with, you ever heard of Ronald Reagan? He had a ranch in California, it’s called the Rancho de Cielo. They couldn’t tell me that because of security. If I told my friends I was going to see the president, someone would follow me, and they’d know he was there. So, I missed sitting at lunch in President Reagan’s mansion in Santa Barbara because I didn’t have enough time. That’s sad. Heaven is something you don’t miss. You get one-on-one time all to yourselves, not with Ronald Reagan, who by the way, many people claim he really was a devout follower of Christ. It’s very interesting, Joel Rosenberg, if you ever read his book, cites all of, Ronald Reagan’s love for the Lord. Do you know what’s better than Ronald Reagan, this president from the past? God. Enoch shows us that God wants us to spend time one-on-one with Him.

How about David? David said that I’m going through life and at the end in the 23rd Psalm I get to go and dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The One that guided me all the way through life, Heaven is having God as my personal provider forever. He guides me and takes me home and even walks me through the valley of the shadow of death. How about Jesus’ name? That is a little preview of Heaven. Jesus will be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. So, Jesus makes God with us possible, and He’s the one that opens the door.

Now back to the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation, remember to understand the book of Revelation, you always have to look at the context. Who were the original recipients? A lot of poor, oppressed, persecuted, enslaved people. Christianity works well with the poor, and with the outcasts, and with the oppressed. Why? Because they realize His promises. I’ll never leave you or forsake you. I know everything about you. I am with you always. Not only that, I’m going to prepare a place for you. When it’s ready, I’ll come and pick you up.

Have you ever met someone going on a cruise or going to a concert or going on something special and they get so excited about it, that’s all they talk about? Then they take pictures of it and then that’s all they do is post it. That’s what going to Heaven is like, only we’re not that excited about it. Maybe that’s something we should think about.

Well, it excited the Early Church. See those seven cities? That’s who this letter was written to. John was a prisoner of the emperor on Patmos off the coast there. This book was written and sent by ship to Ephesus. It was copied and sent to Smyrna and Pergamos and Thyatira and Sardis, all the way around Laodicea and Philadelphia, and all the way around the churches of Turkey. It presents that Heaven is so vital, that we should think about it.

So how do we get ready for Heaven? How do you, at 18 and 19, or younger, or older, get ready for Heaven? The first thing to do is, like we do now, the Bible is like going online and checking out where you’re going. Everybody, if they’re going to New York City, like the evangelism, open-air evangelism right now, the BI in New York is there. All the parents checked out where their kids were going. Where are you staying? They go online and they check the map and everything.

How about checking out where we’re going, okay? First of all, it’s our room at our Father’s house. Jesus said in John 14:2, In my Father’s house are many mansions. Actually, those are the nests I told you about. If it weren’t so I would have told you. I go to prepare yours just for you. Do you know what death is? Death is when your room is ready. Death is like you’re waiting in the lobby and the clerk says, your room is ready now.

Bonnie and I travel so much. We stay about 60 nights a year in every kind of hotel you can think of. I can tell you one of them, I won’t even tell you the stories of the bugs. In the one place we were, every time a toilet flushed on any of the three stories above us, it dripped in our room. That’s a bad sign. Every time the showers ran in the rooms above us, it dripped out of the ceiling over there. Our room had two white five-gallon buckets. One over there. That was the flush bucket. That one was the shower bucket. We’ve stayed in all kinds of places. A lot of them, it’s not ready for you. They’re cleaning the buckets before you go in. Finally, they say from the desk, okay, your room is ready. You can go to it now. We’re so excited. We want to go.

Jesus said I prepare a place for you in my Father’s house. It speaks of family, of love, of connection, of special reunions.

But He doesn’t stop with the place in the Father’s house. He says it’s our seat at a banquet. This is Matthew 8:11. Jesus said, I say to you, many will come from the east, the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.

Sit down? This is a banquet. Everybody in the ancient world worked all the time. There were actually three classes of people in the ancient world, the beggars, the poor, and the rich. If you read the New Testament there are three groups. Jesus talks about the rich, the poor, and the beggars. Beggars don’t have enough food for today. They sit there with their hand out until you give them something, and they have nothing. They got it, and when it’s gone, that’s all, they don’t have anything again. The poor work all day long to get enough food for tomorrow. They left not hungry because they had food for that day. So poor people have enough for the day, but they have to work to have enough for tomorrow. Then you have rich. What are rich people in the Bible? People who have enough for several days. Of course, some people have enough for a long time. We are basically poor, but we’re not beggars. So, we understand that we have to work to eat.

To talk about a banquet, most people rarely went to a banquet. A banquet means someone else did all the work, they have all the food. I don’t have to work, I can save my food at home. In fact, if you were going to a wedding banquet that lasted seven days, you didn’t have to work for seven days, you would eat for seven days. You had a place provided for you. Jesus said Heaven is like a banquet, a feast. Not only do you show up, you have your own place, just for you. That’s why He says you have a name nobody else knows, all that we covered last week.

Thirdly, Jesus says Heaven is a longed-for paradise. Listen to what Paul said, in Philippians 1:23, I’m hard-pressed between these two options. I can’t wait to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Do you know what he’s saying? I want to serve and minister in the church, but I long for Heaven.

Why does he long for Heaven? He talked about going there. Remember when he got stoned? When he was coming around between Lystra and Derbe and Iconium they started offering sacrifices to him and he said, I’m not a god, so they stoned him. When you stone someone, you don’t miss. Stoning is taking bowling ball-sized rocks and hitting people’s heads. Paul, in that process, they stoned him to death and he’s lying there crushed. The disciples all came and stood around him and he scared them. He stood up and came back to life. Do you know what he says when he describes it in 2 Corinthians? He said, I went to an unspeakable paradise, right here. He longed for that. He adds that when we’re absent from our body here on Earth, we’re immediately present with the Lord there in 2 Corinthians 5. So, he just longed to be there.

Peter adds something. He said we have reservations. Bonnie and I, we flew into Tampa, and we got off the airplane. I got a text from the rental car company we work for, and they said, go to slot 12. So, I went across into the parking structure at Tampa to slot 12 and there was my car. We had a reservation. They just did it. That’s nice. Do you know what God said through Peter? To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away reserved in Heaven for you. Peter said we, who know Christ, have reservations at the most exclusive resort in the universe. If you think the Earth is pretty, can you imagine what the perfect form is? And we have reservations there.

Jesus also says that Heaven is secure. We’re starting to feel insecure. Everything going on right now that’s going on around the world and weather-wise. This is going to be the largest hurricane season since 1850. Have you read all that? There are going to be 33, they predict, named storms. There are only 26 names for hurricanes. They pick 26. There are going to be 26 plus 7 more. Wow. It’s very insecure, especially if you live in Florida. I’m teasing.

Look what the writer of Hebrews says, for he waited for the city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God. Abraham waited for his secure home. He was living in a tent. How would you like to live in a tent out in the desert where people have bows and arrows and spears and there are herds of animals that could trample your tent? It’s very insecure. You sleep on the ground with just, nothing between you and danger? Any knife can go through a tent wall. Abraham said no, I have a secure location. I’m waiting. I have a secure home God has built for me. Once Abraham came to know the Lord, he never built anything but an altar. He built altars all over the place, so he didn’t own any land except for his wife’s burial place. He never built any house, he just lived in a tent. He didn’t spend his time building stuff on Earth except for the Lord. Abraham is such a picture of walking by faith.

Finally, this is what David said. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Have you ever thought about David? David kind of was in a continuous battle for almost his whole 70 years. He starts out as a teenager fighting Goliath. It said he was a little guy, and Goliath was the giant, y’all know the story. As far as we know, David never lost a battle he was ever in. If you look in the scriptures, he doesn’t lose anything, any battle he’s in in the scriptures. As far as we know, David was never wounded. How did they fight battles? They fought battles this far from their enemy. They hold a sword, or they’d slingshot someone that has to be within a few yards, and you could shoot them with an arrow. David was never wounded. David never lost a battle. But he was constantly hiding in caves, living outdoors, and sleeping on the ground because he was always on the run. Saul tried to kill him, and the Philistines were after him.

Look what kept him going. He says, oh, the Lord is my Shepherd, and I don’t have to worry. Surely goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life. That’s a great summary of his very hard life. But what kept him going? The man after God’s own heart. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Wow. Finally, in Revelation, John sees what David talked about. Heaven is going home to stay in God’s place.

This is from a Sunday school book. This is some artist’s drawing of what they think one of those gates looks like. That isn’t even correct, because the gates are pearls. That one does not look like a pearl to me, but it’s close. Revelation 21 and 22 and some questions for us. Are you excited to go? But do you stay here because you’re going to do, as long as you can, what God called you to do?

The first thing, and I alluded to this, and I want to read it to you, is the big change. The 2 Peter chapter 3 change. This is what it says. I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth. For the first Heaven and the first Earth passed away and there was no more sea. Point number one, Heaven is about the old going away and the new coming. But what is the new?

This is what 2 Peter says, But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the Heavens will pass away.

Now between chapter 20 of Revelation and chapter 21, this happens, 2 Peter 3:10, The heavens will pass away with a great noise. The elements, that’s an interesting word, stoicheia, the underpinning pieces. It’s the elemental, it’s at the atomic level. The elements will melt with a fervent heat. That’s a great description of the splitting of the atom. And both the Earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Now look at what Peter does. Verse 11, Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, that’s what he calls it, the whole universe dissolves. What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? How does Peter apply prophecy? Like we ended the last hour with, you’re on a crashing plane. Are you going to unhook your seatbelt and go down the aisle? Endanger your future by sharing the Gospel like Jesus left us to do. Peter says, since everything is going to burn up and be dissolved, verse 11, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? That’s what’s important to God.

Now we already know this. Everything unconnected to God burns up. Do you ever think of that? I love my computer bag my kids got me and a lot of my shoes my kids got me. Did you know everything unconnected to God burns up? House, property, and all the achievements. I go to visit people, and they show all their trophies and everything and I say Do you have any trophies in Heaven? Do you have any? They show their investments. People are so excited about their investments. It’s good to be good stewards of your money. You can’t take anything with you to Heaven, but people, and you can’t send anything ahead except what you give now. That’s what send ahead means, and we send our wealth by giving it back to the Lord. It doesn’t mean you give it away. You just give Him the ownership of it and let Him direct how to use it. And we send our prayers up. Everything that is unconnected to God burns. This is what John said. The world is passing away and the lust of it. But who does the will of God? Those who are connected to God abide forever.

Ok, before we go, let’s talk about the 23rd Psalm. Y’all know this? Yea, though I walk through the what? Valley of what? Shadow of death. What is that? Dying. For just a minute, chapters 21 and 22, how do you get to Heaven? There are two options. Death, which is how most people have to go through the value shadow of death, probably 99.99999% of all believers have to die. Now that very small number that are still alive and remain until the coming of the Lord won’t die. They’ll be changed.

Now I pastored a church in Oklahoma. Bonnie and I shared our lives there. The founder of the church was an ardent Rapture believer. He was like 90-some years old. His name was Willard. He was really struggling because he had emphysema. He had all kinds of stuff, and he was dying. His wife came to see me, and she said, Pastor, will you go talk to Willard? He is so convinced that the Rapture is going to happen before he has to die, that it’s actually depressing him. Because every time the doctor comes, he tells the doctor, no, I’m not going to die. I’m going to be raptured.

So, I came and stood at his bedside and brought my Bible and I shared two verses with him. One was that verse, and the other one was in Hebrews 9. I said, Willard, and he had his breathing mask on, and he looked up at me. I said, Willard, did you know that there are two Raptures? He was Dallas Seminary trained, Philadelphia College of the Bible Educated Bible scholar. He looked at me and his eyes narrowed. He said, what do you mean, two? I said oh, the First Rapture is the group bus. I said, and all those who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord, all of them go on the group bus.

But I said, the 23rd Psalm says, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, all alone, I will fear no evil because You’re with me. I said, did you know there’s a Personal Rapture? Where Jesus comes right to where you are before you die and walks you home. He said, how do you know that? I said, it says in Hebrews chapter 9, that it’s appointed unto man once to die and after that to judgment. For believers, Jesus said, whoever lives and believes in me will never what? Die. Never die. Our body dies, we don’t. We’re totally conscious the whole time. In fact, you’re going to be conscious forever. Your body, my body is going to wear out. Mine’s really worn out. You guys have a lot of time left on yours, but as you saw Mark Strout’s little clock, you have a lot less than you realize. I love the illustration he gave. He’s a good teacher.

I said, Willard, which do you think is better? The big bus with everybody going, or do you want the personal valet, the private chauffeured trip to Heaven? That was about noon, and he looked at me and he said, could you read all that to me again? Tell me all that again. His wife was just frustrated because he was just so anxious. He didn’t want to miss the Rapture, and I was telling him you’re not going to miss it. You either get the group one where we’re all changed in a moment and meet the Lord in the air or Jesus is going to come right to you. He died about six o’clock that afternoon, peacefully. He let his wife know he wanted the private transfer. He didn’t want to wait for the group.

Let me, let’s see, I have enough time. This will take three minutes. One of the things Bonnie and I have loved to do in all of our years of ministry is funerals. A funeral is the declaration of the sum of someone’s life. I love funeral services. We always had all the people in the church write out their testimony on a piece of paper. I said, before your wife or your husband is trying to prepare your service, you ought to write how you met Christ, your favorite verses, your favorite hymns, and you ought to give it to someone. Once I said that, people started giving me their funeral sheet, so I had a whole file of all the old people that wanted me to do their funeral. I did hundreds of them, hundreds of funerals.

Here’s one: Jesus visited Kalamazoo, Michigan on Sunday, November 6th to meet another of His precious children. Just as a dark cold river of death began to flow and the valley of death’s shadow began to creak open, the only One who ever defeated death and destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the Devil, extended His arms toward David. This is David’s funeral. It was 5:45 a.m. and all of a sudden, David, in the hospital room, was acutely aware that he heard a voice. As he listened, he realized, over the hissing of all the machines, and the breathing pipe that was down his throat, and all the pics, and things that were in his arms, that was a voice he knew really well. Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me.

This was my friend David’s last moment on Earth. So, to the voice of his Good Shepherd, David looked up on Sunday morning for what would be the greatest day of his life. David had heard the voice of Jesus coming to take him to Heaven. David looked at Jesus standing there, and the One who was crushed for his iniquities, he saw. As he looked in Jesus’ face, he saw the One that was bruised for his transgressions. Then David looked at the hands that were extended to him. Those hands were the ones pierced for his sins on the cross. Those nail-scarred hands were reaching out for his. At that moment, David reached up to Him.

His family, who were all gathered around his bed in the hospital at 5:45 a.m., only saw his tired and worn-out body that was starting to fall silent. If you’ve ever been next to someone, which if you’re with your grandparents or parents someday, it’s amazing to see what happens. They go from pink to gray very rapidly. You just say the life just leaves them. That’s what his family saw. His tired and worn-out body fell silent. But David had already firmly grasped the hand of Jesus. He had slipped quietly out of bed. He was headed with Jesus to the place Jesus had prepared for him in God, his Father’s home above. In that instant, at last, David was glorified into Christlikeness and had stepped into endless life because of the amazing grace of God.

So, while we were taking care of the funeral, everyone throws their flowers down on top of the casket or whatever they do in the tradition of the area, what was David doing? See, a lot of times we don’t think about this. As we learn in Revelation 3:5, David came led by the nail-scarred hand of Jesus to meet his Heavenly Father because Jesus paid for his time to be forever in Heaven. By the way, that’s our highest delight, together before God. It’s a miracle of grace. This is what happens, recorded, as we saw last week, in Revelation 3:5, Jesus tells us, I will confess your name before My Father, before all of His angels.

So, at that moment, sometime before 6 a.m. on Sunday, David had been taken by the hand. The Lord led him past all the ranks of angels, all the way up the boulevard we’re reading about in Revelation 22, past the cherubim and the seraphim up to the very throne of God. David heard Jesus Christ call him by a name that no one else knew and presented him in person to God as His beloved child. Then he heard God the Father say, as we do in the parable of the father and the prodigal son, remember what he said? Put the best robe on him.

Think of what God gives us. A robe white, as bright as the day, pure as light. When Jesus was transfigured on the mount, something happened to Him. Not just his countenance, His face, something happened to His clothes. He became white as light, and that’s the reward for all who’ve been completely forgiven to be invited to walk before God. That’s what believers were motivated by throughout all the centuries.

Who invites us to Heaven? Our Creator. When you think about what God said in Isaiah 46, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth. Do you know who was with the attending physician wherever you were born? Maybe you had a midwife. Maybe you had a PA. Maybe you had a physician’s assistant, or you had an actual obstetrician. Doesn’t matter. Do you know who else was in the room? That person probably doesn’t even hardly remember your birth. They do hundreds. Look what the Bible says, I have upheld you from birth. I have carried you from the womb. Even to your old age, I am He, even to your gray hairs, I will carry you. I made you, I will bear you, even I will carry and deliver you. Jesus is the only one that stuck with us all of our life. He was there at our birth. He carries us to the end.

By the way, he never sleeps. He’s the only person in your life that never sleeps. It says in Psalm 121, Behold, he who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. What is He doing? Paul tells us He’s working everything together for good because we love Him and He called us to do His purposes.

By the way, He’s the One who invented our DNA. Everything about us. David said, You formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works. We’re going to live with Him who actually designed everything about us.

He is our creator. He is our guardian. He designed us. But He didn’t just check out. He’s our friend. See why David was a man after God’s own heart. Do you know what he said? He said, God, You’re showing me the path of life. In Your presence, there’s fullness of joy.

By the way, you can tell, I can tell, let me see. Oh, there aren’t any cell towers very close. I don’t even have, oh, I have one bar on my phone. Do you know what I could do if I wasn’t having to finish? I could walk in several different directions until I figured out which direction the cell tower was. I don’t know which direction it is, because it makes more bars show. Do you know my phone loves to be around cell towers? It shows me how close it is to a cell tower, and I can see because stuff goes faster, and it works. Do you know what the Bible says? You will show me the path of life. How do you know if you’re following the path God has planned for you? Because in your presence is fullness of joy.

It’s like the cell tower. The Lord is like a cell tower. He always is there. It’s me that gets far away, and I don’t have the fullness of joy. You can tell how close you are to the Lord by how full your joy is. If you are one that can’t stand like the people in the camp last hour, the camp of the saints, they want to be as close to the Lord as they can. If you’re like that, you’ll be full of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore, as He shows us the path of life.

My question is, we’re all headed to the next event in our life which is standing in front of Jesus. Now, I know we’ve got to live however many long years we have left, but He’s only going to ask us one question and you know about it ahead. It’s like getting ready for a test. He’s going to say was your life lived for Me or just wasted on everything else?

Now Bonnie and I, as missionaries, have traveled by car. We’ve been to, I don’t know, 50, 60 countries, but we’ve driven in 35 of them on both sides of the road. Poor Bonnie, when I’m driving on some jungle road, on the wrong side of the road, and the cows and the oxen and the carts and there’s no guardrails, poor Bonnie. But once in a while she’ll say to me, honey, can I drive? I always say, oh sure, and I reach, I don’t have my keys. Okay, imagine I have my keys. This is how I do it. I say, yes, you can drive. I pull the car over to the side, I put it in park, I turn it off, I pull the keys out, I get out of the car, I walk all the way around, I open her door, and I hand her the keys. That’s how I’m letting her drive. Most of the time, what do I say? I go, oh sure. But I never let her drive. I drive.

Are you going to pull your life over every day? This is what dedication is. This is what last week we started with the circle on the ground where you stand in the circle and surrender and say, I’m going to seek first Your rule in my life. Are you going to pull the car of your life over once a day? Hand the keys to Jesus Christ, go around and get in the passenger seat, and do what Galatians 2:20 says. I’m crucified with Christ, but I’m still alive, but it’s no longer me driving, but Christ.

Do you know the whole purpose of the book of Revelation is to let us get ready every day for this eternal life with God? There’s only one thing before we get in that He asks us, how much of your life did you stop and surrender and pull over and give the keys of your life to Me? That’s what lasts forever.

So actually, this was a course about prophecy, it was about Church History, and it was about theology, and it was about sanctification. But really the bottom line is that it was about, are you getting ready? Do you live like Jesus is all you need? Or are you statistically like Gallup and Barna who found how almost all American Christians are? There’s not a statistical difference between saved and unsaved people in America. They get divorced at the same rate. They get drunk at the same rate. They live together before marriage and outside of marriage and every other way. Statistically, Christians cannot be found to be different than unsaved people. Now, I’m not talking about Word of Life people. I’m talking about how American Christianity has eroded to the point that knowing Christ doesn’t really change anything. He wants to change everything. That’s what this class is about.