The Eternal State

Selected Scriptures

Tonight our study is on the subject of heaven as we close out our prophecy series.  And I can't help but realize in my own mind and I have all week long in preparation for this study, that you just cannot really give an adequate presentation of heaven.  It can't be done.  There are no words really to express it.

Paul expresses the fact that he knew a man that was caught up in the third heaven and he came back and he couldn't speak the things he saw.  There was no language for those things.  And so if you go away tonight somewhat disappointed at the presentation of heaven, recognize that it's impossible to give you more than what scripture says.

And I think if you really know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and you're really sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you can catch something of the magnificence and something of the glories of heaven just by the simple statements made in scripture regarding it. 

Now let me add a thought just to begin with to help you to understand this.  Heaven, of course, is a level of existence that we cannot, at this moment, comprehend.  We all have strange ideas.  I'm sure you maybe grew up like I did thinking that heaven would be just a very boring place.  I mean, who wants to live forever where everything is good and you know there's just nothing but the same kind of thing.  And I used to think like that.

And I'd think well, I used to love sports, you know, and I think well, maybe we could play ball.  But if we did that everybody would be perfect and wouldn't be any contest.  And then I used to have these terrible visions of being bored forever.  And I suppose we've all had some kind of a thought like that in one sense or another.  But remember that heaven is a dimension of existence that we cannot conceive. 

Now for example, there are all kinds of dimensions functioning in our world.  We happen to live on a very physical dimension. We sort of sense things like the floor and the chair and the person next to us and our hands and anything that is tangible and physical.

But do you realize that an interesting thing that this room is filled with other things that you can't sense?  For example, every radio station and every television station in L.A. is now live in this building.  And if you just had a little portable radio you could pick up anyone you wanted.  If you had a portable television, you could tune them and watch.  Because all of those waves are running through this room at this very instant.  You just are not attuned to that dimension.

To give you another thought, do you realize at the same time that I say that that there are spirit beings that occupy this room?  The Holy Spirit for one is here.  Do you believe that?  The angels are here and believe that the demons are here.  And the war is going on.  And you and I don't know it, because we're not on that level of perception.

And believe this, God is here "for where two or three gathered there am I in the midst."  But you and I cannot perceive of that consciousness, because we are trapped in a third dimensional world.  Heaven is going to be the release to a level of consciousness that totally appropriates everything that is God.  That's the only way I can explain it.  And that is a stab believe me.

But you can't conceive of it now because you have no capacity for that level until you're glorified in your glorified body.  And then you'll have perception.  Then said the apostle Paul, "you shall know as you are known."  You will perceive God in the fullness of His existence.  That is something about what heaven is like.  It is total perception of all that is holy and all that is God.

Now, in a sense in our world this is all veiled and as we try with concrete terms and even as we sort of scratch the verge of the abstract and we try to formulate a concept of heaven we're still playing around in a kindergarten of concepts when there is a universe that we can't tap.  But the best we can do is fiddle around with the ABC blocks.  And realize before you disqualify heaven because you can't fit it into your three dimensional world that it's a level of existence that you don't have the apparatus to proceed.

And that's why it has to be referred to in symbols.  I think about Ezekiel.  In Chapter 1, if you want to read a chapter that is one of those chapters you can read and reread and then go away and still not understand it, read Ezekiel 1.  Ezekiel tried to describe the glory of God.  He tried to describe what God would be like.  What it would be like to perceive God.  And incidentally, that's what heaven is.  Heaven is where God is and where I am in full perception of Him.

And so Ezekiel tried to concede to the glory of God and all he could come up with was the most fantastic, and to be honest, confusing picture of a blazing sun, splashing it's light off polished jewels and the light came off like spinning wheels of color.  And all of this was mingled with a whole bunch of angels.  See?  Then you get to Revelation 21 and 22, which is going to be our text for tonight and John tries to describe heaven and he tries to describe the new Jerusalem and he sees it as a prism of light of jewels and gold and pearls and every bit of it is transparent and God's blazing light just scatters itself through a heaven that is nothing but polished diamonds and jewels and the color splatters throughout eternity.

It's staggering, but let me just come down off of that to some concrete things that maybe we can get a grip one.  One, heaven is God's presence fully manifested.  That's what heaven is.  Heaven is God's presence fully manifested.  The veil is gone.  In a glorified body we can take God's presence.  In this world we couldn't, right?  God even said in Exodus, "No man shall see me and live."

But in that day with a glorified body we could handle God's glory.  And so we will be where God is in full manifest glory.  That's heaven.  Now secondly, heaven is a place.  I believe that heaven is somewhere.  Heaven is not an attitude.  Heaven is not just a figment of the imagination.  Heaven is a place.  It's where Jesus is, and believe me, Jesus is in a glorified body, right?

You know, when Jesus ascended into heaven, He was in a glorified body.  The body of resurrection, that's the same body you and I are going to be in and heaven will be a place where a glorified body can exist.  And when we see Jesus coming again, the Bible says that in Acts 1:11, this same Jesus shall so come having been all this time in the Father's house, He will return in the same glorified body that He left in, indicating that whatever heaven is, it's a place where glorified bodies can exist.  It must be a place.

So then it is a place where God is.  Now above that, I can't tell you what it is.  It is a place where God is in full manifest glory.  In John Chapter 14, just a familiar passage that may give you a little insight.  "Let not your heart be troubled.  You believe in God, believe also in and my Father's house are many dwelling places."  Now unfortunately, the old authorized version says mansions.  And we have all gone through that little routine about you're going to have a nice big mansion and if you're not a good Christian, you're going to get a crummy little place across the tracks.  And I've heard all kinds of sermons about sending up wood, hay, and stubble and what kind of a deal can you build with that?  And you're going to spend all eternity wishing you lived on easy street, you know, and all that.

That isn't so.  It says "In my Father's house are many dwelling places."  What it means is apartments.  We're all going to be living in the Father's house just in different apartments.  And I'm not convinced that they're going to be furnished any differently.  I think they'll be the same.  The joy of it's in the Father's house, not down the street and to the left.  It's right in the Father's house.

All right, he says, "If I go and prepare a place for you," it's a place.  It's a place that has to be prepared and He's going it now.  "I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also."  It's a where place.  It's not a state of mind.

So heaven will be an actual place and you and I will live there in actual glorified bodies and it will be where God is.  Now let me give you another thought that I think is exciting.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus is going to come and take us to heaven.  Did you get that?

You say oh, no.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus is going to come and take us to heaven.  You know what it says?  Jesus is going to come and take us to Himself.  Take us to the Father's house.  The emphasis is the fact that heaven is where God is and where Jesus is and where the Spirit is.

So though it is a place, most of all heaven is the full presence of the Trinitarian glory of God.  You say, well, how do you get there?  Well, that's exactly what the question was in John 14.  Jesus said, "I am the way.  I am the way."  Well, those of us who have received Jesus Christ, those of us who know and love Him, we are already citizens of heaven, right?  Paul said our citizenship is not here, it's in heaven.

You know, I get excited about thinking about home.  I can't remember one time when I was back in college and Lenny has reminded me of this a couple of times, we were back in college and we were in a quartet together and he was playing the piano and I was singing with the other guys and one summer the whole quartet was going to come out here.  We were going to do some television with Voice of Calvary and some other things and my family had moved to a new house and I had never been to that house.  But you know something, that didn't effect my wanting to go there.  Even though I had never seen the house, everything I loved was there.  My father was there.  My mother was there.  My sisters were there.  My bed was there and that cot in the dorm was for the birds.  All the things of my life were there.  That was my home.  It didn't matter whether I'd ever been there.  The place itself was inconsequential.  Everything I loved was there.

And I remember Lenny used to kid me because just the way the transportation worked out he got to my house before I'd ever been there.  But you see, it didn't matter that I hadn't been there.  I think of heaven the same way.  I know I haven't been to heaven, but that doesn't matter.  Everything I love is there.  You see?  That's my home.  I don't care whether I've seen the place or not.  All that I love is in heaven.  For example, my father is there.  "Our Father who art in heaven," my Father's there.  Not only that my Savior is there.  When He had offered a perfect sacrifice and finished His work, He went to heaven and He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High.  He's there.

You know something else, my brothers and sisters are there, the church of the first born is there, Hebrews 12.  And all the heroes of my life are there throughout the Old and the New Testament.  You something else that's there, I like this.  My name is there.  There's an apartment reserved for me.  My life is there.  I have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlys in Christ Jesus.

In Ephesians Chapter 2, verse 6, just so I quote it right, let me read it to you.  He had the same idea.  Ephesians 2:6, "Hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places."  I've got a reserved seat.  I've got an occupied area.  I'll give you another thing.  My affections are there.  My affections are not on the things of the earth.  Colossians 3, "My affections are set on things," where, "above."  Everything I love is there.

My treasure is there.  I don't want to lay up treasure on earth.  I lay up treasure there.  My heart is there because of that.  "For where your treasure is," what, "there will your heart be also."  My inheritance is there.  My inheritance is there.  Peter talks about that.  He says in 1 Peter 1:3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled that fadeth not away reserved," where, "in heaven for you."  That's where my inheritance is.

And the Paul says in Philippians 3:20, "My citizenship is there."  Listen, that's my home.  Now, I remember when my parents moved into that house that I mentioned earlier, I wanted to know what that house was like.  And I feel the same the way about heaven.  I want to know as much as I can.  Now I can't know too much, but I'm sure going to dive in where I find some glint of Revelation.

Now turn in your Bibles to Revelation 21 and we have to go to this place, because this is the only glimpse of heaven we have other than what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, and he says, "I went to the third heaven, but I can't tell you what it was."  Which is no help at all.  You hate people that do that don't you?

But anyway, and you come to Revelation 21 and you get a little idea of what heaven is like, apart from the fact that it's just a place where God and Christ are and the Holy Spirit shall be.  Now in Chapter 20 of Revelation, just to give us a little back drop, we saw the end of Christ's kingdom on earth.  Chapter 20 the millennium ran it's course and Satan was finally cast into the lake of fire.  The reign of Jesus Christ ended in a terrible rebellion which was put down and then all of the God hating, all of the rebellious, all of the unsaved of all the ages were brought to the great white throne. And Chapter 20 ended with the great white throne and all those folks were sent into the final Hell.

So all of that is past.  The story of the unblessed is over.  Now we find that in Chapter 21 we have the story of the blessed.  While the ungodly spend eternity in Hell and are cast aside in the lake of fire, what happens to the godly.  What happens to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ since the cross?  What happens to those pre-cross who were saints, who believed God and it was counted to them for righteousness?

Well, their story is beginning in Chapter 21.  And it talks about the reward of the blessed, the eternal dwelling place.  The whole course of history beloved ends with the great white throne judgment.  The unredeemed are punished and then comes the eternal state, the eternal heavens. 

Now, there are five features in the text that I want to point out.  Just five features, the preparation for the eternal place, the presence, possessors, the paradise, and the promise.  We'll take them one at a time.

First of all the preparation, before God gets everything finally together, He has to do a little bit of work.  The preparation for the eternal place is in verses 1 and 2.  Verse 1, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.  For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea."

Now, before God can create a new heaven and a new earth, He's got to get rid of the old.  In order to replace with the new.  Now notice in Chapter 20, verse 11, "I saw a great white throne," and here we come to the great white throne, "and Him that sat on it and," it says of this great white throne and Him that sat on it, "from whose face the earth and heaven fled away and there was found no place for them"  As easily as God created, He destroys.  And the entire universe, which has been corrupted by sin both in the angelic realm and on earth in the human realm is just completely erased by God's tremendous power.

God just obliterates the universe.  Now you say that's pretty revolutionary MacArthur.  No, it's not.  It's old stuff.  Isaiah 65:17, "For I behold create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind."  Listen the glories of the new heaven and the new earth are going to make you forget the old.

Isaiah 66, "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain."  God has said, I'm going to destroy the old.  In Hebrews Chapter 1, verse 10-12, the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 102 and he says this.  "Thou Lord in the beginning has laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of thine hands."  Listen, "They shall perish but though remainest, they shall become old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt thou roll them up and they shall be changed, but thou are the same and thy years shall not fail."

And there's a statement from the Psalm repeated in Hebrews that the old will be done away.  So God has to prepare for the new heavens and the new earth by getting rid of this one.  And believe me at the rate it's getting messed up, it's going to need it.  There's no question about it.  Peter said in 2 Peter 3:13, "Nevertheless, we according to His promise," listen, "look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."  And there you have the key to the destruction of the old.  God wants one where indwells what?  Righteousness.

And so He just cleans out as easily as He created the universe, He just uncreates it.  Now we know since the fall of Satan, the heavens have been under the curse, the heavens themselves, the domain of demons.  Job said in, I think it's Chapter 15 he said "The heavens are unclean in His sight."  "The heavens are unclean in His sight."  And Isaiah said in Chapter 24:5, Isaiah said the earth is polluted under the inhabitance thereof.  So the whole thing has been tainted with sin, and for the new eternal state God's just going to do it all over again.

Now, Peter gives us somewhat of a description of the dissipation and destruction of the old in 2 Peter 3 that might be important for us to look at.  2 Peter 3:4, he's talking here about the fact that God once purged the earth with water in the flood and verses 5 and 6, and then in 7, "The heavens and earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

Now once God destroyed the earth by water, but next time He's going to destroy the whole universe by fire.  What a fantastic thought.  Verse 10, "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise."  It's going to be noisy when the heavens pass away.  "And the earth's elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also in the works that are in it shall be burned up."

Now, that is the destruction of the universe.  And it's a fantastic thing to think about.  I suppose, you know, many years ago people would have had a terrible problem with that.  We don't have so much of a problem because we know a little bit about nuclear science.  In Luke 17:29, "The same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.  Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."

God has control of the elements and can easily translate them into fire.  Now think about this, interesting thought.  The discovery of the nuclear bomb and the capability of splitting the atom has really revealed to man that the entire universe is a time bomb.  Now one of the great fears in nuclear science is that you could set of a chain reaction that would obliterate the whole universe.  If the earth itself ever got into such a conflagration where the atom was being split, the atmosphere made up dominantly of H2O would then separate and it's atoms would go and the whole entire universe could be obliterated in an atomic reaction.

Incidentally, that would be fiery and it would be noisy.  There's another thought that's interesting in terms of this idea in regard to the earth and that is that the structure of our earth has a tremendous fire potential.  Now we live as I understand it on the crust of planet 25,000 miles in circumference and a diameter of 8,000 miles.  And the diameter of the earth is dominantly fire.  It is a lake of fire.  And the crust is what we live on around the edge.  One...several ways to illustrate this is that this every once in a while, historically, this flaming, boiling liquid lake of fire in the center of the earth has build up pressure against the surface and blown the lid off the surface and it gushed out.  And what do we call that?  A volcano.

Well, you can imagine if God so designed that He could explode the whole crust of the earth in one great fire.  So God is going to destroy the heavens and the earth.  How, I don't know, but certainly the earth and the heaven is a bomb that could go off and easily be wiped out.  Now I want you to just catch the idea too that in Revelation 21, He is going to create a new heaven and a new earth.

It's important to know that in Greek there are two words for new.  One is neos and the other is kynos.  Neos has to do with new as opposed to old in sequence of time.  Kynos it has no relation to time at all.  It has to do with quality.  And the word here is kynos.  Sure it'll be new as opposed to old, but the idea is new in terms of quality.  It's the same word used in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ, he is a," what, "new creature."  You see, it's not so much new in time as it is new in quality.

But you think you've got a nice earth now, you haven't seen anything yet.  The quality far beyond and we'll be enjoying it in a glorified body, similar to the one we have now like the one Jesus had in His resurrection.  Now "I saw a new heaven."  Just think about it.  The fantastic transformation of the sky.  No more thunderbolts, no more gloomy skies, who knows what that means.  "And a new earth." 

I've, I know you have too, been on certain spots of the earth that are still lovely that haven't be adulterated and these last few clear days you kind of can think about how it must have been before we got it all concreted up.  And then are still carpeted places with green and flowers and there are still mountains that are snow-capped and shady trees and waving grain crops.  And there are still places like that, but basically it's an earth that is full of disease and pollution and death and disorder.  It's been ripped up by the miseries of godliness.

But imagine what the new earth will be like.  No longer smarting under the curse of sin.  No longer ever torn by steal to yield its wealth.  No longer infected with thorns and thistles.  Eternal soil never cut for ever a grave. Sod never moistened with blood or tears.  An earth who's forever hills will flow with salvation whose eternal valley is known only as the sweet paradise of God.

And then he says interestingly enough in 21, "the first earth was passed away and there was no more sea."  You say what is the significance of that?  I'm not sure.  There's a couple of possibilities.  In ancient times, the sea was a very foreboding and dangerous element.  Men were fearful of the sea.  The conjured up all kinds of ideas about monsters in the sea.  And the sea represented a fearful thing.  But I think more significantly than that, the sea always represented terrible boundaries between nations.

And until recent days the sea separated men.  But there will be no more separation in the new heaven and the new earth there will be nothing to separate.  Nothing to create fear.  You say, will