Heaven Now, Heaven Later

You have your Bibles with you turn with me if you would Revelation chapter 21.

Looking at verse one then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more that with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly father, we praise you today because you are sovereign, merciful, gracious, loving and good you are worthy of all praise and we are guilty of not praising you enough in the midst of this disease that is spread across our world. We cry out to you for help. We need to learn through this crisis we need to learn that our trust needs to be in you and you alone not in government, not in our bank account not in doctors or politicians or even friends. We must trust in you don't let us waste this crisis but use it to conform us into the image of Christ.

I pray for our brother Jim Henson is tested positive for this virus may get Whalen would you keeping strong. I pray father that you administer healing to all those who are suffering from this heavenly father during this crisis are minds of focused on death.

We realize that this life is fragile and we are not promised tomorrow. It is not by accident that we begin today in Revelation 21 the rest of the book is pointing us to heaven make these studies comfort us, challenge us and convict us to become radically heaven centered open the word of God to us today. Please keep my lips from arrow fortis in the precious name of Jesus that we pray. Amen for going on two years now we've been studying the book of Revelation. Verse by verse.

Today I will be giving you some background material that hopefully will help the next two chapters of the book of Revelation to become clearer and more understandable. My goal today is to show you the difference between heaven nail in heaven later. Is there a difference and yes there is an absolute difference heaven nail is unbelievably glorious but heaven future will far surpass it and what I like to do now is to is to share with you an illustration to help us slip into this discussion in North Korea.

Right now there is a revival taking place.

It is a God sent Christ exalting Spirit anointed revival in a place that is atheistic and communistic in a place where one of the most wicked dictators in the world is still ruling it all started this way. There was a little humble pastor in North Korea. That was just faithfully in an obediently and boldly proclaiming the gospel. People started coming to his house. The crowds got bigger and bigger. As these people were just hungry for Jesus.

They wanted to hear the word of God. The communist found out about it and they went to his house and they totally this is got to stop. You can't preach any longer.

He refused to stop preaching. He continued to do it. So one day the squadron of a squad of communist soldiers came to his house. They kick the door down.

They walked in they grabbed him, his wife and his four kids, they put them in handcuffs and then they march them out of their house and with pretty much the whole town following after they went to the center of this little town and get ready to build a building they are. They had dug the foundation and they had a whole layer in the middle of of this tale in an I took him to the very precipice of that hole and stood them up. They are, and then the squad leader said to him, listen, you're gonna have to denounce Christ and if you won't do it. We gonna start these bulldozers up with you to push you into this hole and we will bury you alive now spends the squad leader will you denounce Christ and the pastor shook his head no squad leader turned around. He told the men that were driving the bulldozers to start their engines. I did and I started moving forward. About that time the pastor's little five-year-old girl started crying and she looked up at her daddy and she said daddy I'm scared. I don't want to die.

The father thought to himself, you know, it's one thing for me to give my life for Christ, but I'm supposed to take care and protect my children. I started to raise his hand to stop the bulldozers. About that time his wife reached up, she grabbed his hand. She pulled it back down. She turned around she looked right at her daughter and she said honey hush, don't say another word.

Everything's gonna be all right in just a few minutes. Were gonna see Jesus face-to-face. The bulldozers came forward they push that family into the into that whole and then the bulldozers poured dirt on top of them and buried them alive.

They died very very quickly when the last bulldozer cut off his engine, the entire of the entire town was standing there and all of a sudden they raised up their hands to heaven and they cried out to God. Praise the name of Jesus.

They went home that night. Eight of those 10 soldiers from that squad came sneaking back into town to find somebody who could tell them how to come to know the God that this family had died for eight of those 10 soldiers that night came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ boats. That's when the revival started in under great persecution under terrible, horrible suffering is not ended. It's still going on today and people are still coming to Christ on a daily basis. Now why would that family make such a sacrifice, that they made it because they believe second Corinthians chapter 5 verse eight the Christian to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord now clears the Lord present today. He is in heaven today, which means that if you and I as Christians die right now. We immediately go into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ by Revelation 21 speaks of the new heaven and a new earth that we will not see until the second coming of Christ until after the final judgment. So that leads to the question, is there a difference between heaven nail in heaven. Future. And the answer that is absolutely yes there is that theologians call heaven nail with that use the term the intermediate heaven with the intermediate heaven is not our final destination that you might remember from last week's sermon on hail. I shared with you that what when a unbeliever dies immediately goes to hail, but that is not his final destination.

The time is coming when there's going to be a resurrection of the just and unjust. In the unbeliever will receive a new body. It's a body that will be eternal, but it can experience pain and it will have a memory and it will have a sin nature, and that body will stand before God and and the Lord Jesus Christ will judge them and then the Scripture says that death and hail will be cast into the burning like a fire so hail is not their final destination. The burning like a fire is her final destination invokes the intermediate heaven is not our final destination, but the new heavens and the new earth is our final destination Nephi intermediate heaven is not our final destination.

The wash get so excited about it. Here's why.

The intermediate heaven is more glorious, more grand than anything that you and I can even begin to imagine. In first Corinthians chapter 1 and verse nine that the Scripture says, for I have not seen, nor ear heard north entered into the heart of man the things that God had prepared for those who love him, but over and above all of this, the greatest thing about heaven is that Jesus will be there. I tell you what if heaven was nothing but a log cabin in the middle of Islam and Jesus was there I would take it and I would love it and so would you mirror years ago. John Piper gave a hypothetical question and I've used it often and I thought it's a great challenging question. He says undulate you eat.

To give you up a question that will make you make a choice and he said this is the choice. AA said you can know that you're going to heaven when you die and and when you die you will receive a new body.

It will be a body that can never get sick.

That can never get all that can never die.

You will be with all your friends and all your loved ones and you will be with them forever and it will be a place where there's no pain there's no anguish there's no frustration. Nothing but just perfection, but here's a stipulation.

If you take that choice then you will never see Jesus you will never see Jesus for all of eternity. He will not be there and you will never seem would you take that choice. I remember just a few weeks before my dad passed away.

I took him to the barbershop. We were talking the way the barbershop and I shared with him that hypothetical question that John Piper asked and in then when I got through with that. I said dad would you take that choice and he looked at me said are you crazy hey hey said I heaven without Jesus would be hail please and I would run from that choice brothers and sisters, let me ask you that question would you take that choice. Bless God I hope you wouldn't take it. It's not the place of heaven love or not the biscuits off your table is the person of heaven. Jesus Christ I say I don't get too excited about the pearly gates for the streets of gold, or the river of life, those things I know are going to be something special that they were created by God.

We are to be absolutely awestruck by that but the thing that excites me about heaven is Jesus Christ. I'm going to be able immediately to bow down in his presence. I'm going to be able to reach up and feel the nail prints in his hands coming to be able to worship at his feet, to be able to see the love and as I zoom to be able to see the glory and the holiness in his countenance, and I'm not going to have to wait.

It will be immediate as soon as I die I will be in the very presence of the Lord to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ.

Second Corinthians 58. In his book biblical teachings on the doctrine of heaven and hail Edward Donnelly said the following in the New Testament. Heaven means being with Jesus.

On one occasion, the Lord is speaking to his troubled disciples reassuring them about a future which seems uncertain and threatening. How does he do it with what details about the life to come to the sink to and lay their anxieties and keep hope alive in their hearts. I will come again. He says, and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. John 14 three is such a simple, yet all embracing statement in the world to come. You will be with me is all that he tells them so the intermediate heaven or heaven nail is a transitional time between the time that we die in the time that Jesus comes back the second time in first Thessalonians 4 were Paul is teaching about the second coming of Christ we find out that there are some people in the church in Thessalonica that were very sad and they were grieving and they were sorrowing and why were they sorrowing because some of their Christian loved ones had died and I didn't know what happened to them or what would happen to them how you knew about the second coming and they knew a lot about that. But what would happen to a Christian when they die. You know what would take place did they just miss out yet. Is there any hope for them. What happens to a Christian when physical death comes and Paul gives in some answers. Paul says this in verse 13 he said, but I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who have fallen asleep or who have died that you saw are not as others who have no hope what Paul was saying was the Essex payee was a look. Don't be sorry for your Christian loved ones who have died there a whole lot better off than you are there with the Lord that are not in the new glorified body, yet that will come later, but what they are experiencing is much, much greater than anything that you will experience on this sin cursed earth that that's why the apostle Paul was able to say in Philippians 121 for me to live is Christ, but to die is gain in two verses later, and in verse 23 Paul says the frame hard-pressed between the two having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. So having said all that, what is the difference between the intermediate heaven and the new heavens and the new earth. Three points that I want to share with you this morning.

Number one, the intermediate heaven is glorious but is not permanent. Go back to Revelation chapter 6 and look at verses nine through 11 when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witnesses that they had borne they cried out with a loud voice owes sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete who were to be killed as they themselves had been when Gruden said it this way. It may seem strange to say, that the heaven we go to it.

Death is an eternal but that's true Christians often talk about living with God in heaven forever. But in fact the biblical teaching is richer than that. It tells us that there will be a new heavens and a new earth and entirely renewed creation and we will live with God. They are there will also be a new kind of unification of heaven and earth. There will be an joining of heaven and earth in the new creation in the intermediate heaven we will realize that this is great, but something even more glorious is coming. The intermediate heaven heaven nail is temporary. Think of it this way would just give you this illustration, let's say that you live in a homeless shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina while you are there you receive a message that you've inherited a beautiful house a beautiful home and set up in a heel launched in Santa Barbara, California, and that not only have you inherited that home but you have a job when you get there that you have dreamed of all your life. Not only that but many of the people who you love that lived in Charlotte several years ago had moved in. They live in that very same neighborhood in Santa Barbara on your flight to Santa Barbara, you have to change planes usually stop off in Dallas Texas. You have to wait for three or four hours and then you get on another plane while you're waiting there could be other people that you knew and hadn't seen for a long time ago to become in the end they'll get on the plane with you in Dallas and then you fly from there to Santa Barbara and when the Charlotte ticket agent ask you where you going, what you gonna say to them. Are you to say to them, I'm going to Dallas know you're not gonna say that because Dallas is not your final destination. Santa Barbara is your final destination. You may say will I'm going to Santa Barbara with a stopover in Dallas but Dallas is not the final destination. If you were only going to spend a few hours in Dallas you would not make Dallas your focus point. The final destination is Santa Barbara and that would be your primary focus point that is also true about heaven the intermediate heaven is wonderful as it is is will still not be my eternal home. If I die right now I go to be with the Lord in heaven nail in the intermediate heaven and I will be there until the second coming of Christ when I will be resurrected receive a new glorified body and I will live forever in the new heavens and the new earth. So why can't we just stay in the intermediate heaven forever will it takes is to point to the intermediate heaven is pure but not as pure as the new heaven second Peter chapter 3 verses 10 through 13 but the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved in the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in the lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved in the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn, but according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. The earth and the heavens are going to be burned up its could be like nuclear fission and what happens in nuclear fission. Adam split now is interesting verse in Colossians chapter 1 verse 17 it says that it says the is that he, Jesus is before all things, and by him all things consist out what is the work in CS mean that means held together that Jesus holds all things together scientist today cannot give us a definitive reason for why the atoms hold together. Everything is made of atoms.

What holds the atoms together. There's a force that doesn't and the scientists can't figure it out. I think Colossae and 117 may give us the answer that by Jesus all things consist. Perhaps in that day in that last day after the final judgment, Jesus will just let go of his power, Jesus will let go of his mighty force, and when that happens, there will be something like nuclear fission. It will be such a powerful, radiant, intense heat that even the elements of this earth and heaven will melt and that will melt and then there will be a restructuring arena creation of the new heavens and the new earth.

That's easy to understand why the earth would need to be re-created because we're on it. We live on it.

We polluted it with the file that we abstained it with our own sin. And so that had to be that completely demolished and and completely melted down in order that that the Lord could re-create it and make it godly and clean and perfect and what a glorious thing that is before the creation is going to be an unbelievable destruction and unbelievable demolition. I love what John MacArthur said to a rabid environmentalist AL a while back.

He said hey if you think were messing this earth up. He said just wait and see what Jesus is going to do to it so we understand why the earth would have to be cleansed and purified in an inmate perfectly clean but what about heaven. Why would heaven need to be purified will think about it. The first lien that was ever committed was committed in heaven. It was committed by Lucifer and then Isaiah chapter 14 Lucifer stood up and said I will exalt myself above the stars of heaven, I will be like the most high God. So even heaven, must be purged, cleansed and purified in the future there will never be a sinful fault, a sinful action or sinful deed perfect, glorious holiness in the passage that I read a moment ago said that the martyrs in heaven or under the altar, and their crying out to Jesus in their say and him. Oh Lord, how long must we wait before you serve justice on this wicked world in heaven that when they're in the new heavens that will never be sent is being said and intermediate heaven right now but it's not will not be saved in the new heavens for the new heavens justice perfect justice Will Have Already Taken Pl. in Jesus will never have to make anything right again, heaven is a glorious place. Now a glorious place in the present, but in the future.

It's can be even more glorious white .3. In the intermediate heaven we will be with Christ but not complete. Luke submit Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 through 21, but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself that the question arises if it if we don't have our new glorified bodies and in the and in the intermediate heaven if we don't get them immediately, then what are we gonna be like when we gonna look like or we gonna be just disembodied spirits.

Are we gonna be like a ghost or a phantom or an apparition in Luke chapter 16 a story of the rich man and Lazarus.

The rich man looks over across the golf and when he looks over across the gulf he sees father Abraham he sees Lazarus, Jesus father Abraham to Lazarus to to to dip his finger in cold water and bring it over here and touch it to my tongue Fryman torment in this flame. Here they are after death and and what are they talk. It was he talking about is talking about his body parts.

He's able to cease talking about his eyes. He is able to to to feel something with his finger into touch something on his tongue, looks when he looks over and he sees Lazarus. He doesn't see a ghost doesn't see a disembodied spirit he sees a recognizable body he sees Lazarus. Now I'm not saying that this is the final glorified body. It is not that bodies can be much, much greater, but I am saying that in heaven before the resurrection day before that day takes place we will have some type of temporary temporary spiritual body.

We will not be disembodied spirits listen to what Paul says about this and and second Corinthians chapter 5 verses one through five. For we know that if this can't that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens for in this tent, we grown longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it all and we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we grown being burdened.

Not that we would be unclothed but we would be further closed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He was prepared for us for this very thing is God who is given us the spirit is a guarantee, Randy Alcorn said the following about this passage. Second Corinthians 5 135 is a Paul is longing to be with Christ but he cannot long for a state of platonic nakedness, which he considers repugnant, Paul is saying that it death. We are immediately close by heavenly dwelling in which we will await our resurrection. There is evidence that suggest that this position is correct. For instance, the martyrs in heaven are wearing close disembodied spirits don't wear clothes. Many consider the close purely symbolic of being covered in Christ's righteousness.

Of course they could also be real close with symbolic meaning. Just as Ark of the covenant has symbolic meaning, but was a real physical object in Revelation 6. Nine.

The martyrs recall souls so some insist they must be disembodied spirits but the Greek word for salsa K is typically used to describe the whole person. According to Kittle's theological dictionary of the New Testament. The word solar CK does not carry with it any clear distinction between a non-corporal and a corporal state.

The reference is not to part of a man that is survive death, but to the total existence of man, one incident to consider is the Transfiguration of Christ Jesus took Peter, James and John up on the Mount of Transfiguration. I got to the top of the mountain and Jesus turned dazzling gloriously white when he did to me and appeared with Jesus and those men were Moses and Elijah Mel what happened to those men or your member. The Scripture tells us in Deuteronomy 34 that Moses died and that when he died.

The Lord actually buried him.

He died on Mount Nebo, the Lord buried him in a valley in the land of Moab. Elijah never died.

Lodge was translated he was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot, and so Elijah and Moses are here on the Mount of Transfiguration there talking to Jesus about his soon coming death, and when the disciples saw them.

They recognize them that they didn't see some kind of ghost or apparition that was not recognizable.

They solve Moses and Elijah and they recognize them.

In fact, Peter jumped up as a Lord you want me to make three tabernacles one for you once were Moses and one for Elijah. Will the question comes up will.

Maybe God had a given Moses and Elijah, their new glorified bodies.

He just gave that gave it to them early. They had it before everybody else would. While that can't be, because it would be a violation of Scripture.

In first Corinthians chapter 15 in verses 20 through 23 Paul said these words. But in fact Christ has been raising the dead, the firstfruits of those who had fallen asleep first by a man came death, by man is come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

But each in his own order Christ, the firstfruits, then at his coming. Those who belong to Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ of the dead when he rose from the tune was the firstfruits that was the first person who was resurrected that had a new glorified resurrected body.

The final body that he would have now when Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus about his soon coming death.

That was before Jesus had died and way before he was bodily resurrected from the dead from his tomb so if they had glorified bodies, they would have been the ones that were the firstfruits, but they were not. Jesus was the firstfruits Jesus was the first one to ever be resurrected with a perfect glorified resurrected body. So when will Moses and Elijah receive their glorified body. Verse 23 tells us this is but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, after those who are Christ and he is coming. I believe that if we are were to die today, we would immediately go to the intermediate heaven we would immediately enter into the very presence of Jesus Christ himself.

We would be there in a temporary spiritual body. We would be there with our Christian loved ones.

We would be comforted.

We would be very conscious. We would be filled with joy and peace and great great excitement and you know in heaven were to be learning. I think God every day is gonna pull back a little bit of his glory and literacy a little bit more of who he is and to every day will be learning more and coming to understand more to this great God really is me ask you something. How could it get any better than fat. How could it happen here.

Sale in the intermediate heaven will get a lookup and we can see Jesus in his glorified body.

We are going to be absolutely awestruck. We are going to see perfect holiness, wordlessly unbelievable power. We are going to see unbelievable beauty. We get to see just his glory just radiating from his countenance, and you know organizing one day on the resurrection day we can have a body just like that we can have a body just like Jesus hands a body that is not limited by time and space, a body that could walk through a stone wall, a body that could appear and disappear, a body that could be here one second and hundred miles away.

The next second, a body that is absolutely perfect. I would not work and I have that body Philippians chapter 3 verse 21 gives us the promise Jesus will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorified body that is promise and we will glory in it. In the intermediate heaven. Why should we think about eternity today.

We should think of eternity because we've all got a terminal disease is called mortality. Hebrews 927 says four is appointed under men once to die, and after that the judgment did you realize that every second on this earth right now.

Every second three people die every minute hundred and 80 people die every hour over 11,000 people die in a 24 hour. In a 24 hour. One day 250 people in our world die. That means that every single day.

1/4 of a million people on this earth either go to heaven or go to hail what will it be like to be with Jesus in the intermediate heaven will be in a spiritual body will be conscious will be comforted and most of all, in the presence of Christ.

But this will no this we will rejoice in the past is yet to come, was pray father. This study is being used in my life to fill me with peace.

May that be true of every Christian is listening to the sermons you are hope our peaks are joy. Everything else come short, everything else lets us down father's we meditate on heaven, may we glory in second Corinthians 58 to be absent from the bodies to be present with the Lord made that promise. Embolden us to stand strong when circumstances are frightening. May we use the book of Revelation to challenge us to look to Jesus. We love you Lord, because he first loved us and we pray this prayer in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A man