HEAVEN

Where Heaven Is and What It Is Like

Selected Scriptures

     Well, let's talk about heaven then and I hope you have your Bible handy and an eager heart as we come to the second in our series on messages on "Looking Toward Heaven."

     Paul told the Romans that they should be rejoicing in hope.  That's Romans 12:12.  Rejoicing in hope...what he had in mind, of course, was the hope of heaven.  And the hope of heaven should bring joy to our hearts.  The preacher in Ecclesiastes, way back in the Old Testament, chapter 7 verse 1, was right when he said, "The day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth."  But when he said it he meant it in a cynical way.  He said the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth because life was so meaningless to him. But we can say it because we have the hope of heaven, the hope of rejoicing.

     Paul said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."  And voiced the same joyous and wondrous hope.  And what is it that makes death joyful?  What is it that makes hope joyous?  It is the prospect of heaven.  We who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ are headed for an eternal dwelling place the Bible calls heaven.

     Now last week we learned a few things about heaven.  One is that it's the abode of God.  Heaven is the abode of God.  It is uniquely God's home.  And though He is everywhere at all times, the very unique place of His residence, His abode, is heaven.  Everything that is precious to us is in heaven.  We saw that our Father is there, our Savior is now there, our fellow saints of Old Testament and New Testament times are there, our name is there, our inheritance is there, our reward is there, our treasure is there, our citizenship is there.  Heaven is our home.  And we saw that we're only aliens in this life.

     The Bible tells us, also, that the holy angels are there.  In Isaiah 6 you have a picture of God high and lifted up, exalted on His heavenly throne and surrounding Him are the holy angels.  You find again in Matthew 22:30 and Luke chapter 15 verse 10 that the angels are in heaven.  It states clearly that that is the place where the holy angels dwell.

     So, heaven is the abode of God.  Heaven is the abode of the holy angels.  And heaven is the place where the saints dwell now who are already gone from this world and where all the rest of us will some day go.  Even now though we're not in heaven we saw last week that we are living in the heavenlies.  That is we have a foretaste of glory divine because we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and we can already see the heavenly power of God working through us.  We know something of the joy of heaven, something of the love of heaven, something of the power of heaven, something of the blessedness of heaven granted to us in Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit who gives us love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self‑control, all of those things in full bloom come to reality in heaven.  The Holy Spirit then is the pledge, or the down payment or the guarantee of the blessings to come.  It's almost as if being a Christian is sort of indulging in the hors d'oeuvres before the main meal comes in heaven.

     We already enjoy heavenly life.  We are possessors of eternal life right now.  We are members of a new family.  We are possessors of a new humanity.  We enjoy new affections.  We are partakers of the divine nature.  We are aliens here and really belong to a heavenly environment.  Some day we're going to go there and live in that place.

     Now as I said, many are already there waiting for us.  Old Testament saints are there and those who have died since the death and resurrection of Christ are there as well.  We'll learn later on that their spirits are now there waiting for the resurrection of their bodies.  So they are there now in spirit, that is the real person is there, but not yet the glorified body which awaits the time of the Second Coming of Christ.  But they're nonetheless there now.  The Old Testament saints, the New Testament saints, that is on either side of the cross, those who in faith accepted the will and the way of God to salvation are there in the presence of God right now.

     And I really believe, and this after years and years of Bible study, that the moment any saint of God died, they went immediately to heaven...whether Old Testament or New Testament.  Some people, some Medieval theologians taught that when an Old Testament saint died he went into what was later called limbus patrum(?), the limbo of the fathers.  He went into a sort of holding tank, a sort of a nowhere place where you waited until Christ died.  And after Christ died and went to heaven, then you could get into heaven.  But I don't think the Old Testament really verifies that.  I think there is nothing to indicate in the Old Testament that there was a holding tank, or a waiting place.  I think when an Old Testament saint died, he went into the presence of God.  When a New Testament Christian dies, he goes into the presence of God.

     For example, if we were to look at the Psalms, just as a couple of illustrations.  In Psalm 16 it says in verse 11, "Thou wilt make known to me the path of life."  Now here is the psalmist hopeful as he faces death.  He says, "The Lord will not let his flesh see corruption.  He will not abandon his soul to the grave or Sheol, but You will make known to me the path of life."  Then this statement, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy, in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever."  The anticipation of the psalmist was that leaving this world he would go into the presence of God at His right hand to find pleasure forever more and fullness of joy.

     Look at Psalm 23.  In Psalm 23, that wonderful shepherd's Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters.  He restores my soul.  He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name sake."  Then this, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for Thou art with me."  There is no place that you go when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death where God is not with you and heaven is where God is.  "Thy rod, Thy staff, they comfort me, Thou doest prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows, surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life," and then what?  "Then I will dwell in limbo."  No, there's no limbo here.  "Then I will dwell in the...what?...the house of the Lord."  And where is the house of the Lord?  Where does God dwell?  He dwells in heaven.

     The hope of the psalmist was to be absent from the body to be present with the Lord.  Exactly what the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.  So I believe that when an Old Testament saint died, he went into the presence of God.  If you look, for example, at Matthew 17 and the transfiguration of Christ, you will remember that on that mount where Christ was transfigured Moses and Elijah appeared.  They appeared.  Keep in mind that Christ had not yet died and had not yet risen from the dead and yet there were Moses and Elijah obviously...obviously safe in the presence of God and brought to that wonderful scene.

     Take, for example, Luke 16 where you have Lazarus, the beggar, who died, it says, and when he died he was seen in Abraham's bosom.  And both he and Abraham are seen in a place together, a place of blessedness, I believe a place in the presence of God.

     Now if you understand what Abraham's bosom means, or Abraham's chest, it might help.  The picture is...is a picture of an eastern banquet where they would recline.  That was the way they did it.  They had couches and a banquet was a very elongated prolonged event where you reclined and you ate and there was feasting and celebration and music and conversation and a banquet could go on for a long time.  In fact, a wedding could go on for seven days of eating and eating and...and the guests would stay in the home.  And so, reclining at the table was very common. The configuration of the reclining caused the head of one person to be against the chest of another one.  For example, let's say that Abraham is reclining this way and Lazarus is reclining this way, Lazarus will be talking to Abraham from just about the level of his chest.  That's the imagery.  And if you were sitting across the table, it would appear to you as if almost Lazarus had his head upon the chest of Abraham.

     Very much the same way that it was John the Apostle who was placing his head on the bosom of Christ at the Last Supper.  Having that reclining position overlapping their heads, they would hold conversations that way.  You certainly didn't want to hold a conversation with someone's feet and so you would position yourself where two heads were together and then two heads were together over here.  And so, to be in Abraham's bosom meant to be reclining at a banqueting table in a celebration of joy.  And the picture is the presence of God, the house of God, the table of celebration, that's the idea.

     And furthermore, the most honored man in the history of the Jews was what man?  Abraham.  And if you were reclining near the chest of Abraham, you were seated next to the guest of honor.  And here is a beggar who spent all his life with absolutely nothing having personal intimacy with the greatest person who ever lived up to that time...with the exception of John the Baptist.  But in Jewish history, the greatest.  Here is this no‑account beggar reclining next to the guest of honor. The picture then is a picture of a banquet, a picture of a celebration, a picture‑‑if you will‑‑of the house of God and the feast that He lays out for those who have come into His presence.  Lazarus may have had a diseased earthly life and he had to beg to exist, but here was the place of highest honor with the greatest father of Israel, namely Abraham.  And so you have that place called "Abraham's bosom."

     You also have another term used to speak of heaven in the Old Testament or in the time before the resurrection.  Look with me for just a moment at Luke 23 and we'll go on from this particular point, but I want to establish it in your mind.  Luke 23, now do you remember the thief on the cross?  That...this is the account of that.  And he says to Jesus in verse 42, "Remember me when You come in Your Kingdom."  And He said to him...now keep this one in your mind, we're going to come back to this..."Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in...what?...paradise."  Where's that?  Somebody says, "Well, that's the same limbo."  No, where is paradise?  Well, you're going to be there today, you're going to be with Me there today, it's not a post‑resurrection place, then, cause Jesus doesn't come out of the grave for a couple of more days, this is paradise.  Now what is paradise?

     Well, to find out all you need to do is see if you can find paradise somewhere else in the Scripture.  And we can in 2 Corinthians 12.  This is long after the resurrection, long after the crucifixion.  And Paul says, verse 2, "I know a man," he's speaking of himself, "in Christ who 14 years ago whether in the body I do not know or out of the body I do not know."  In other words, he had an experience that he really doesn't understand.  God knows.  "Such a man was caught up to the third heaven.  He said, The Lord took me to heaven."  He says, "I know how such a man whether in the body or apart from the body, I don't know, God knows, was caught up into...what?...paradise."  So whatever paradise is it was before the resurrection and it's still after the resurrection.  And the only conclusion you can make is that paradise is heaven.  Abraham's bosom is heaven, paradise is heaven.  Wherever a saint goes when he dies, it's the presence of God, it's heaven, it's the celebration time, it's the feast time, it's the Father's house and He lays out the banquet and you're there for all the joy that God can possibly provide His saints.  Whether you're before or after the resurrection, I believe absence from the body is present with the Lord.  I don't think the Old Testament saints went into a waiting place, a holding tank, I think they went into the presence of God.  "And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever," so says the psalmist.

     So, heaven is the place where God lives and is holy known and experienced by His adoring angels.  And heaven is the place where the saints who have died live in their spirits and their bodies will be resurrected to join their spirits.  We'll learn more about that later.  And until we get there, we live in the heavenlies which means that we enjoy eternal life and all the blessing of the fruit of the Spirit here and now which is a foretaste of glory divine.  And we await the day when we'll be like Christ when we see Him as He is, when we see the Christ who brought life and immortality to light in a new kind of resurrection humanity.  We'll await to see that and we'll be like Him when that comes to pass.

     So, heaven is a place where God dwells.  Angels dwell.  And the redeemed who have died dwell.  That answers the question, what is heaven?  Here's our second question.  Where is heaven?  Are you ready for that?  Where is heaven?

     Now I want you to know heaven is a place.  It's a place like Los Angeles in that Los Angeles is a place, it's not a place like Los Angeles in terms of what Los Angeles is, it's a place like Los Angeles in terms of the fact that Los Angeles is somewhere, and so is heaven.  It's a place like China, or South America, or the Alps.  It is a place.  But don't ask for a map because there are no maps.  You can't chart its longitude and you can't chart its latitude and it can't be located in terms of geography and it can't be charted even in space...yet it is a place.  It is a place where people who have glorified bodies, like Christ's resurrection body, will actually move around and live and function.  Jesus, when He came out of the grave, could eat and walk and talk and He could drink as He did at the table with His disciples.  And He could be touched and felt and recognized when He gave people the revelation that made Him recognizable in His glorified form.  So heaven is a place for glorified people who are real...not a ethereal but real.  It's a place.

     You say, "Well, now where is it?"  It is up...heaven is up.  Paul says he was caught up into the third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2.  Jesus reminded us that when He came to earth He descended and when He left to go back to heaven He ascended, Ephesians 4:8 to 10.  It's up.  He came down and went back up.

     Now the angels told the early disciples in Acts 1:11 that this same Jesus who is taken up from you shall so come in like manner as you've seen Him go.  When the Lord returns, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says, He will come down from heaven and we will be caught up from earth into heaven, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 says we'll be caught up.  When God contemplates His creatures, Psalm 53:2 says He looks down.  And when man contemplates God, according to Psalm 121:1, he looks up.  When John was given a vision of heaven in Revelation 4, the word came to him, "Come up here and I'll show you heaven."  The new Jerusalem which is the eternal dwelling place of the saints is seen coming down out of heaven.  So clearly these and other scriptures tell us it's up...it's up.

     You say, "Well, that's a fairly general designation."  You're right...very general, it's up.  You say, "Well, up where?"  Up in the third heaven.  And beyond infinite space is the third heaven.  It's beyond them all.

     You say, "Well...well, how far is that?"  I'm glad you asked.  Pioneer 1 in Fall of 1958 went 70,000 miles into space and didn't get there.  Pioneer 1 is not in heaven.  Fortunately neither is the Soviet Lunic 1, it went in 1959, it orbited the Sun, sent back observations from 373,000 miles up and it's not in heaven either.  U.S. Pioneer 4 went 407,000 miles up and we've been sending them out further and further and further and so far none of them are in heaven.  Heaven does not have little metal things floating around in it.  None of them are there.

     You say, "Well, how far do you have to go to get there?"  Well, let's think about it...a little science lesson.  The Moon is 211,463 miles up.  You could walk it...well, in theory you could walk it in 27 years if you did 24 miles a day...so it's not that far.  But when you get to the Moon, when you get to the Moon you won't be in heaven.  A ray of light reaches the Moon in 1.5 seconds because it's going 186,000 miles a second.  Now let's just get moving at that speed and maybe we can get to heaven.

     If we could go that fast we'd be at Mercury in 4.5 minutes, it's only 50 million miles.  If we were going at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second.  We'd be in Mars in 4 minutes and 21 seconds, it's only 34 million miles.  We'd be in Jupiter, that would take a little longer, 35 minutes and 11 seconds because it's 367 million miles.

     Now if we're going at the speed of light, we'd hit Saturn in about an hour and 10 seconds, that's 790 million miles.  Uranus, that's from the Greek word ouranos which means heaven, is 1.5 billion miles, that will take a little longer.  Neptune is about three billion miles and Pluto, billions more.  And we could just, as long as we're going we'll just keep going.  And when we got past Pluto and we're way out there, we're still not in heaven.  We haven't gotten there yet.

     Now let me give it to you from another perspective.  Our