I want to thank you so much for
being here tonight, and you've given us, Charlene
and I, such a wonderful welcome.
You're so friendly and receptive.
It's really a joy to be here and
to share your Christian fellowship.
Now, prophecy has many subjects, and some of
them are obviously more important than others, but
tonight we're going to go to heaven.
How's that?
Now, we're really not getting a load to
go right now, so don't get too anxious,
but we are anticipating the rapture of the
church, and it could happen tonight, and we'd
be on our way.
Now, what would be our experience?
If you're a Christian, and you've trusted in
Christ as your Savior, and you're born again,
when the rapture occurs, it's going to come
without a warning.
Suddenly, you're going to hear that call from
the blue, and before you know what's happened,
you're on your way.
What's going to be your first experience?
Well, the first thing is that we need
a little change in what we are in
order to meet the Savior, and we've never
enjoyed perfect health.
You know that?
Now, some of you look pretty peppy.
Some of you don't, but we need a
new body, and it's going to be a
body that's patterned after the resurrection body of
Christ, a body that looks like our present
body, but a body without sin, and a
body without age, and that's quite important to
some of us, and then a body that
isn't going to die.
It's all going to come in the twinkling
of an eye.
Now, there's a lot of questions the Bible
doesn't answer.
What do we look like?
Well, I never had a man ask this
question, but women sometimes have come up to
me and said, now, how old will I
be in heaven?
And the Bible doesn't really say, but we
know that God does things well, and it
seems like 30 years of age is the
ideal age.
We're sort of the borderline between youth and
maturity, and the priests had to be 30
before they could minister as priests, and Christ
was a little bit more than 30 when
he began his public ministry, so we're perhaps
going to look like about 30 years of
age, and I'm going to look a little
different, I must admit.
I hope so, and some of you could
stand a little facelifting, too.
The nice thing about it is when God
gets through, we're going to look like ourselves,
but we're going to be beautiful.
Now, put that together if you can.
Only God could do that.
Now, some of the women don't want to
be 30, and I think it's necessary.
God will give you a special dispensation and
make you 29.
How's that?
A new body, a wonderful body that's suited
for all eternity to come.
There's some principle in it that renews it
and keeps it going forever and forever.
You're going to have a body, and you're
going to look like yourselves, and that's the
first thing that's going to happen.
Now, the second thing is you're going to
have a new relationship.
The Bible speaks of Christ as the bridegroom
and the church as the bride.
Now, of course, we're not really a married
couple in the ordinary sense of the term,
but it's the nearest that God could get
to describe the relationship of Christ and the
church of that of a husband and wife.
And we're going to have a new relationship.
He is coming as a bridegroom to claim
his bride, and when he claims it, claims
her, as we say, they're never going to
be separated again.
Wherever Christ goes, the church goes.
When he's in heaven, they're there.
In that great second coming of Christ, when
Christ returns to earth with all the saints
and the angels, we're going to be in
that procession.
There's a lot of questions that aren't answered,
especially about the millennial kingdom, but he's going
to be here, and I take it we're
going to be here.
And then when the present earth and heaven
is destroyed, as it will be at the
end of the millennium, and a new earth,
a new heaven is created, a new Jerusalem,
we're going to be with Christ in the
new Jerusalem forever and ever.
That's our eternal destiny.
And so we're going to have a new
relationship to Christ.
And it's also going to be a new
relationship to people we know.
Our loved ones are going to be welcoming
us when the rapture occurs.
And sometimes we've been separated from them for
years, and what a joy it's going to
be for family circles to be put together
that were broken by death.
And we're going to be with our loved
ones, and we're going to know them.
They're going to know us.
People say, well, we know everybody in heaven.
Well, of course you'll know people in heaven.
Christ is going to be Christ, isn't he?
Doesn't the Bible teach the twelve disciples are
going to be the twelve disciples?
That Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are going to
be there?
Of course.
We're going to retain our identity, and our
people will know who we are.
There's a lot of questions the Bible doesn't
answer, but you know God has all the
answers, and you can just trust him.
And it's going to be a wonderful new
list of associations.
Now there's a third line, and I want
to talk about this a bit because it's
one of the most practical lines, and that
is that the Bible teaches that we're going
to appear before what the Bible calls the
judgment seat of Christ.
And there's been a lot of misunderstanding about
this, so let's see if we can unravel
it.
2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 9 and 10.
We make in our aim, whether present or
absent, to be well-pleasing to him.
For we must all, that is all Christians,
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that
each one may receive the things done in
the body, according to what he has done,
whether good or bad.
Now what is this judgment at the judgment
seat of Christ?
Well, notice carefully what it says here.
It doesn't say whether our deeds are sinful
or not, but whether they're good or bad.
That is, whether they're good for something, useful,
or whether they're useless.
And you see it's a judgment of works,
not a judgment of salvation.
Now one of the common questions that's raised
is, what about our sins?
Well, what about your sins?
How many did Christ die for?
All of them.
Christ died for our sins.
And what is the condemnation?
Romans 8, there is no condemnation, you see,
for a Christian.
Why?
It's not because he isn't worthy of condemnation,
but because Christ paid 100% of the
price.
And the judgment seat of Christ is not
a valuation of our life, whether it's sinful
or not.
In fact, the Bible says that we are
justified by faith.
What does it mean to be justified?
Well, it's a legal term where God declares
you righteous.
And do you know that the moment you
trusted Christ as your Savior, you were justified?
Well, you say, I was still a sinner.
Yes, but God looked at you through the
perfections of the person and work of Christ.
Your sins had been taken care of, and
you had not only been forgiven, but you'd
been justified.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, supposing you have a checking account at
the bank, and you draw a check that's
larger than your balance, and the bank has
to make a determination what to do about
it.
Now, they can balance the check and not
pay it.
If you're a real good customer, they may
pay it and then notify you that you're
overdrawn.
Now, a friend could go down there and
pay the amount of the overdraft, or you
could do it, and you'd be forgiven.
But supposing someone goes down and pays a
large amount of money on your account, you
see, it'll not only wipe out the deficit,
but it leaves something for your credit.
That's the way our situation is.
We're credited with the righteousness of Christ, because
Christ died for us, and He paid the
price in full, and now we are justified,
declared righteous by God.
So, it's not a question of sins.
Now, we do have a question, because 1
John tells us, 1 John 9, that if
we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Well, that sounds like we have to confess
our sins before they're forgiven.
Now, in the Roman Catholic Church, they have
this doctrine that you can be forgiven the
sins that you confess to the priest, but
then the trouble is nobody confesses them all,
because they don't know them all.
And so, they teach you have to go
through a purging process they call purgatory to
wipe away the sins you didn't confess.
Now, we as Protestants don't believe that, and
purgatory is not in our Protestant Bible.
It's in some of the writings of the
Roman Catholic Church, but not in our Bible.
We don't believe in purgatory.
We believe that Christ died for all of
our sins, and they all are wiped out.
And so, that's the way it is.
So, it's not a question of sins.
It's a question of what we have done
for Christ that's worthwhile.
And our lives are going to be evaluated.
Now, one of the fundamental truths of the
Bible, of course, is that we are responsible
people.
Now, when we accept Christ as our Savior,
the sin question is solved, but the question
of rewards are not.
And we are going to be rewarded by
Christ, the judgment seat of Christ, based on
our works.
Now, we're saved by grace, but rewards come
from works.
And if you serve the Lord faithfully, you'll
have your day of reward before Christ.
Now, what reward should we have?
Well, that's an interesting question that the Bible
doesn't completely answer.
You know, I believe that one of the
ways by which we are going to be
rewarded is to be given a place of
privileged service.
You know, when you get to heaven, and
the full knowledge of God's marvelous grace that
this Savior, who is so glorious, actually died
a terrible death on the cross to pay
the price for your sin, you're going to
realize then, as perhaps you can't do it
in this world, how wonderful is the grace
of God and how wonderful the sacrifice of
God is for us.
And you know, if we really love the
Savior, as we should, we're going to want
to do something for Him.
If you love somebody, you want to do
something for them.
That's the natural thing.
And our overwhelming emotion in heaven is going
to be, what can I do to God
to show how grateful I am for what
He's done?
And so, I take it that we're going
to be given a privileged place of service.
Now, what will that be?
I don't know.
But the Bible doesn't say much.
It just says, if we suffer with Him,
we shall reign with Him.
Apparently, in the millennial kingdom, they're going to
have administrative posts to help govern the world.
He may send you back to Vista as
a mayor or something.
You never can tell.
We're going to have a job to do,
and that's going to be part of our
job.
But I take it that our position, whatever
it is, is somehow linked to how we
serve the Lord.
Now, I don't think we're going to have
medals on our chest.
Now, in the military, you know, they put
medals on their chest and show all the
battles they've gone through, and they can expand
their chest and be very happy about all
they've accomplished.
But that isn't it.
I once heard the story about the man
who had perfect attendance at Sunday school, and
each year they gave him a little card,
perfect attendance in the year, and they put
it on a ribbon.
And the ribbon got longer and longer until
it touched the floor.
You know what happened?
He tripped on the ribbon, broke his leg,
and spoiled his attendance.
Now, you wouldn't want that to happen in
heaven, I'm sure.
So you see, that's not some physical token,
but it's going to be how we can
serve Him.
Now, when I was in college and high
school, I went out for athletics, partly because
I was big, and among other things, football.
And we would practice all week.
And back in those days, they didn't have
an offensive and a defensive team.
You just had one team, and you played
all 60 minutes, because they had a rule
that if you were taken out of the
game in one quarter, you couldn't go back
to the next quarter.
See, that knocked out the idea of having
different teams.
And so the goal was to get on
that first squad, 11 men.
Everybody else was a substitute.
And so you'd pray all week, and you'd
try to persuade the coach you were the
best football player you'd ever seen.
And then on Friday, he would announce who
was on the 11 for the following day.
And you knew that when you got home,
pulled down the evening paper, there would be
the account of the coming game and the
first 11.
They were the members of the team.
How did he choose them?
Well, obviously, by what they practiced, how they
worked during the week, how faithful they were.
And even a star player, if he took
advantage of it and laid out from practice,
he might put them on the bench to
teach them a lesson, you know.
No, you're awarded according to your works, and
that's the way it's going to be at
the judgment seat of Christ.
Now, there's a lot of questions that aren't
answered here.
You know, Cliff Barrows is Billy Graham's music
man, and he told Billy one day, he
said, You know, when I get to heaven,
I'll still have a job.
I'll be leading a choir.
What are you going to do?
Well, the same could be addressed to doctors,
I suppose, and dentists, and a few others
that are in occupations that don't continue in
heaven.
So there's going to be some retraining, but
I take it there will still be places
to serve the Lord for all eternity.
And in eternity, we have the same thing.
In Revelation 22, it simply says, And what
a joy it's going to be in that
small way to somehow say to the Lord,
I love you, I want to serve you,
I want to be faithful to you in
this situation.
Now, if that's true in heaven, it should
be true that I hear it.
Well, you know, you should ask the Lord,
am I being faithful to you and serving
you as I should hear?
So we're going to get a new occupation,
and that's going to be a very wonderful
experience.
Now, there are several illustrations in the Bible
of the judgment seat of Christ that help
us to grab this a little bit better
than just the bare statement of it.
One of them is found in 1 Corinthians
chapter 3, where our life is compared to
building a building.
Now, some people think it's talking about the
local church, and it might, but it certainly
applies to the individual.
And it states there that no foundation can
be laid which is already laid, which is
Jesus Christ.
In other words, you begin the Christian life
with Christ, and that's the foundation of your
life.
If you're not a Christian, you can't build
a life for Christ, you see.
You have to be a born-again Christian
before you can do that.
But if you are, then you can build
upon this.
And in this illustration in 1 Corinthians 3,
he mentions that you build out of the
materials of gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay,
or stubble.
Now, these are various degrees of worth, but
then we learn that the building is going
to be tested by fire.
Now, the gold and the silver and the
precious stone are not burned up.
You see, they've already been through the fire,
and they represent what kind of wood will
survive.
But the wood, the hay, and the stubble
represent various degrees of human worth.
But when fire is applied, they all reduce
to ashes.
And I'm afraid a lot of the things
we spend so much time doing in this
world are going to be destroyed.
They're not worth eternal value.
It's a good question to ask, what have
I done today that's worthwhile from the standpoint
of eternity?
Now, the Bible here doesn't explain the gold,
the silver, and the precious stone.
But in the Bible, gold is a characteristic
of the glory of God.
It's very prominent in the tabernacle and the
temple.
It speaks of God's deity.
And I think that anything we do that
glorifies God can be understood to be gold.
And that's very important.
Now, what glorifies God?
Well, I take it that it isn't very
complicated.
It's something that manifests how God has worked
out his wonderful grace in you and made
you gold when you weren't naturally gold.
I remember one time, I was holding a
meeting in New Orleans years ago, and I
was using the tabernacle and its typology to
illustrate biblical truth.
And among other things, I said the priests
had to wash their own dishes.
You see, in the sacrificial system, they had
dishes to use, and the wives were not
permitted in the temple there.
So the priests had to wash their own
dishes.
And I said, you can even wash dishes
to the glory of God.
And that struck fire with one of the
ladies, because she was the counselor for the
young people that met on Sunday night.
And they would have refreshments at their meeting
and then go off to the meeting.
They'd leave her with all the dirty dishes.
And she was getting tired of washing the
dishes.
She said, I never knew you could wash
dishes to the glory of God.
Well, I think she should have got some
help and not try to do it all
herself.
But nevertheless, she learned a lesson.
Even a simple thing that's done because you're
a Christian.
A kind word, a visit of a lonely
person, something that's thoughtful.
It's so easy.
And so often we love it because in
the world, we don't realize that people are
watching us to see whether our Christianity is
real or not.
And we have opportunities to demonstrate the gold,
demonstrating God's working in their hearts.
Then we have the silver, which is the
medal of redemption, speaking of salvation and of
leading souls to Christ by one means or
another.
Then we have the precious stones.
And they're not mentioned because there's so many
ways in which you can honor God in
your life as a Christian in this life.
And that's going to be recognized at the
judgment seat of Christ.
Now, there's a second illustration, and that's found
in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24 to 27.
And our life is likened to a race.
Now, in Corinth, they love to run races
and strive to win.
And the person who won the race would
get a crown made of leaves.
Not as worthless after a couple of days,
but it was a token of victory, you
see, and they worked hard to win that
crown of leaves.
Now, Paul tells us that our crown is
not going to be corruptible, something that fades
away like leaves.
Ours is going to be a crown that's
going to continue.
And we need to run the race.
And there's another factor that's very important.
Now, in Corinth, only one person won the
race.
But in the race of life, everybody can
win.
You see, you're not running against somebody else.
It's not a question of beating your neighbor
or somebody and running better than they do.
Everybody is running against what is possibly his
best race.
And you can win the race just alone
by running according to the rules.
Now, in high school and college, I also
went out for what they call track.
And I had carried too much freight to
be a good runner.
But I can't run at all.
Hardly can walk now, but I could do
certain things.
I heaved the shot put and threw the
discus and did well enough at least to
get my letter in the sport.
But we had on our track team in
college a phenomenal runner.
And he later on became a missionary to
Africa for many years, and finally came back
and retired, I understand.
But he had always run.
He never walked.
He just ran.
That was his standard diet.
On a race, he'd line up, you know,
and run the half mile or the mile
or the two mile.
He almost always won the race and was
out in front.
Now, there's certain rules about running a race.
First, I noticed when he came to run
the race, he didn't put on his top
coat.
You see, you dress as lightly as you
can.
You have shoes that have spikes that hit
the ground and hold.
And you wear a light track suit.
You cover, turn away from everything that'll hinder
you.
That's a pretty good lesson for life, isn't
it?
Don't let things hinder you that aren't important.
Don't carry needless weight.
And then he would line up with the
others, and the starter would say, On your
mark, get set, go.
What did he do?
He left.
I never saw him once turn around to
the starter.
Did you mean me?
You know, we Christians, when the Lord tells
us to do something, Did you mean me?
Even Moses wanted Aaron to do everything.
You know, we're great at wishing things on
Aaron.
And that's natural for us, but it's not
the way to win the race.
No, he would take off.
And he followed certain rules.
First of all, he stayed on the track.
A Christian that gets off the track morally
or some other ways is disqualified.
He can't win.
And then he would never look back to
see where the other runners were.
He'd always be in front.
When you look back, you're apt to stumble
and maybe lose the race.
So, you never look back.
And then when you go by the grandstand,
you don't wave at the grandstand.
See how good I'm doing, you know?
It's a funny thing when Christians serve the
Lord, they want people to observe.
Did you notice that?
They want everybody to notice how good they
are.
And you notice they never stop to pick
daisies.
Now, that's not a great crime in picking
daisies, unless there's a big sign, Don't pick
the daisies.
But while you're picking daisies, you're not running
the race.
And the trouble with a lot of us
as Christians is we're picking daisies.
We're not doing anything bad.
We're not disgracing our family or the church.
We're not going to jail.
But we're picking daisies, doing really nothing that's
worthwhile, nothing that advances the race.
And it's a good idea to ask ourselves,
as we run the race of life, are
we running to win the prize?
And that's the possibility for everyone.
Now, there's a third rule in this third
illustration.
And I like this one especially.
It's found in Romans chapter 14.
This is a chapter that deals with doubtful
things, that some people may count wrong and
others not.
But it's dealing with the question of human
works.
And in verse 10, it asks a very
pointed question.
Romans 14.10, why do you judge your
brother?
Or why do you show contempt for your
brother?
You know, it's an amazing thing how people
judge others.
And sometimes they don't realize it.
But the reason they're judging the others, they're
trying to prove to themselves that they're better
than they are, you see.
We had a student in Dallas Seminary who
was known to be very critical of everything.
And he would go to class, and the
only notes he'd take is where he disagreed
with the teacher.
And he had a service, a preaching service,
and he would spend all his time criticizing
other preachers.
And he got tired of it, and they
fired him from that.
And he got a Sunday school class, and
the same thing, got fired from that.
And the question came up in faculty meeting,
are we going to graduate a student that's
complaining about everything?
It didn't seem to us like he was
a good candidate for the ministry.
And as problems usually go, and you have
a toughie, they assign the president the job
of talking to him.
So I talked to him.
I said, why do you criticize everybody?
He said, well, God has given me the
gift of criticism.
Well, I felt like saying chapter and verse,
you know.
And they didn't let him graduate.
He went on to the ministry, and strange
to say, ended up in his pulpit one
time on a chain of prophecy teaching.
But we didn't discuss his past.
I guess maybe he learned his lesson.
I hope he did.
You don't get anywhere by being criticizing other
people.
What should you be doing?
Take a good look in the mirror, the
word of God.
Ask your question, what am I doing that's
wrong?
That's the real issue, you see.
What he's doing is none of your business,
really.
And we should not show contempt for our
brother.
And then he goes on to give some
solid reasons for it in verse 10.
For we shall all stand before the judgment
seat of Christ.
For it is written, as I live, says
the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then, each of us shall give account
of himself to God.
These two scriptures are loaded here.
First of all, the fact that everybody's going
to bow the knee.
Well, that's what you should be doing now.
Psalm 2 begs us to show devotion to
Christ now.
In eternity, the unsaved will have to acknowledge
who he is, but it's too late.
It's too late.
The time to bow the knee to Christ
and to yield to him is now.
And confess him as your personal savior.
But then each of us shall give account
of himself to God.
In other words, you don't have to give
an account to your neighbor ultimately, though it
may be important what your neighbor sees in
your Christian life.
But it's a question of what God thinks
about your life.
That's a very searching question.
At the end of the day, ask the
question, what does God think about what I've
been doing and saying?
That's a very pointed question.
Everyone ought to give an account of himself
to God.
Now, the figure that's used here is the
figure of a trusteeship.
What is a trustee?
A trustee is one who, according to the
laws of the land, receives something that's of
value, and he's given the legal obligation to
take care of it.
And he's obligated to report from time to
time.
A bank, if they're a trustee, they have
to report to you what they do with
your money.
In other words, it's a trust.
Now, there's a sense in which our life
is a trust.
What of you that you have not received?
Did you choose your parents?
Did you choose where you were born?
Of course not.
And you were endowed with certain physical things,
health perhaps, a good mind, education.
Perhaps your parents were able to give you
what you needed to accomplish things in life.
Now, you see, what of we that we
have not received?
See, everything, regardless of where it came from,
is a gift from God.
And we're trustees.
You see, at the judgment seat of Christ,
the question is going to be, what have
you done with what I've given you?
You see, he hasn't given all of us
the same things.
Some of us have more money than others.
Some have more brains than others.
Some have more ability.
Some have more physical strength.
Some are younger and more energetic than we
are.
We all are limited.
But what we have got, we have to
give an account for.
And at the judgment seat of Christ, God's
going to say, what have you done with
what I've trusted you with?
You see, that's the great equalizer.
You can be a very obscure person in
the church.
And perhaps you're not a preacher.
Perhaps you're not a Sunday school teacher.
Perhaps you're not an officer of the church.
Perhaps you aren't in any place at all.
It's important.
But you see, you're not responsible for what
you don't have.
You're responsible for what you have.
And the amazing, levelizing thing that this is,
is that everyone has a chance to hear
God's well done.
It's a question of what you do with
what you have.
So don't belittle what you are.
But what you are, be sure to use
it for God.
And then he will reward us.
Now, I take it that our rewards are
going to be in the form of privileged
service.
The Bible doesn't give us clear light on
this.
But we're going to be enjoying eternity with
Christ and living for him.
And that's going to be our wonderful future
experience.
How soon is this going to be?
Well, it could be tonight.
You see, this is going to begin abruptly
when the rapture takes place.
And I believe it could be near, it
could be delayed.
But sooner or later, whether through the rapture
or through death, you go to heaven, you're
going to appear before the judgment seat of
Christ, every one of us, to give an
account of what we have.
So don't envy people who have a lot
that you don't, money or talent or whatever.
You're not responsible for what they have.
You're responsible for what you have.
And the more you have, the greater is
the challenge to put it at the Lord's
feet and let him use it to the
glory of God.
Now, what have we got so far?
You have a new body without sin, without
age, without death.
You have new relationships to Jesus Christ and
to renewed fellowship with all your loved ones.
And now you have a new occupation.
We're not clear as to what it is,
but we'll have something to do.
We're not just going to twiddle around, strum
a harp on a cloud.
We're going to serve the Lord in some
useful way throughout all eternity to come.
Now, when the rapture occurs, we go to
what we call heaven.
And I don't know where that is.
Once in a while, people want me to
tell them where it is, and I don't
know.
Nobody knows, but it's a place where God
is.
And we're going to go to heaven.
And we're going to be there while the
end time events take place on the earth,
including the terrible catastrophes and judgments that God
is going to pour out on the world.
And then comes the time for the second
coming of Christ.
And Christ comes back to judge the world.
And Revelation 19 gives us this glorious picture
of the sky is going to be full
of the glory of God.
And it's going to take a long time.
It's going to take perhaps 24 hours.
And during that 24 hours, the earth is
going to turn, you know.
And while the destiny of all the saints
with Christ are going to be back in
Israel, according to scriptures, though there's a lot
of questions that aren't answered, the whole world
will be able to see it.
People used to say, how could the whole
world see the second coming of Christ when
only half the world can see half the
sky?
Well, that's the answer.
It's not an instantaneous event like the rapture,
twinkling of an eye.
This is a magnificent procession from heaven to
earth.
And we're going to come back with Christ
for the millennial kingdom.
Now, there's a lot of questions that aren't
answered about this, but you don't have to
worry about it.
You know, people say, how can God do
this?
Well, you got a big enough God, you
don't have any problem.
Do you know that?
Hasn't your God created billions of stars, trillions
of them?
Hasn't he set the whole world in order?
Hasn't he existed from eternity past and exists
as eternity future?
If you have a God like that, don't
worry about how your body will be raised
in the dead if you die.
Of course, he can handle that.
No matter what's required, he can handle it.
And he'll do everything he needs to do
to care for you through time and eternity.
Now, when the millennial kingdom's over, we read
that the present earth and heaven will be
destroyed.
Nothing will be left of it.
I don't believe it's going to be remodeled.
I believe it's going to be completely restored,
completely wiped out, I mean.
And just as the world came into existence
out of nothing, at God's command, it's going
to go back to nothing.
And we believe in the eternal state.
There's going to be no stars, no sun,
no moon.
The earth is going to be round, but
we know very little about it off the
side of that.
And the universe is going to be there.
And space out there, we don't know much
about it.
But we do know that we'll be in
the new Jerusalem, which will be our ultimate
home.
And that's the final picture, isn't it?
You have a new body, a new relationship,
a new job, and finally, a new home.
Now, if the four walls that are your
home today don't please you this way, you
have a Savior who is your lover and
who's going to create a home for you.
He's infinitely rich, infinitely wise, and he's got
perfectly good taste, you know.
It won't be a garish home.
It'll be one that's suited for you.
And he's going to take care of you
like a man takes care of his wife.
And the man is increasingly, wonderfully wealthy.
He loves you.
And he's going to create this home for
you.
And it's described in Revelation 21, 22.
We're told that the new Jerusalem is a
gigantic city, some 1,400 miles or 1
,400 to 1,500 miles square, and that
high.
If you take that city of 1,500
miles high and divide it up in the
root floors of about 10 feet apart, you
have an incredible amount of space.
If you don't like what you have now
this way, you'll have a couple acres in
heaven at least.
And you'll be able to roam around without
any problems.
No, we have a wonderful future ahead, and
God's going to take care of us.
And in the new Jerusalem, God is there.
We're going to be able to see Him.
We're going to be able to serve Him.
We're going to be able to live for
Him.
And Israel's going to be there.
That is the saved of Israel and the
saved among the church.
They're going to name their own foundations.
And the whole thing is going to be
indescribably beautiful and filled with the glory of
God.
And all the materials seem to be translucent.
Even the streets of gold are said to
be like glass.
It's not solid like we have gold.
And light's going to go right through this
city, and every color of the rainbow is
illustrated in the jewels of the foundation of
the city and other jewels that are mentioned.
It's going to be indescribably beautiful.
So if you find this world a little
sordid and not quite to your liking, just
wait.
As a Christian, you have a wonderful, wonderful
home that's going to be yours forever and
forever.
And our loved ones are going to be
there, our loved ones in Christ.
And we're going to have fellowship with them.
There's going to be no more loneliness, no
more death, no more sickness, no more sorrow,
no more pain.
It's going to be a wonderful life.
And the marvelous thing is it's all because
of the grace of God.
We don't deserve it.
We didn't earn it.
We didn't attain it.
It's not ours because we should have it.
It's ours because a loving God has seen
fit to stoop down and save us by
sending His Son to the cross and then
providing this glorious future for us.
Now, if the rapture occurred tonight, would you
start out on that journey?
I mentioned earlier how important it is to
be saved.
And churches like this where the gospel has
been faithfully preached and people come out on
a Sunday night to hear a preacher talk
about heaven, we'd assume that they are Christians.
But you know, in every situation, it seems
like there's some going through all the motions.
Everybody thinks they're a Christian.
Everybody thinks they're what they ought to be.
Everybody thinks they're going to go to heaven.
And there's some that haven't met all the
conditions.
They're not born again.
And like Nicodemus, the godly Jew that we
all turn to for illustration, we are not
capable of entering the kingdom of God unless
we have supernatural life through a supernatural birth.
And I think we can know if we're
born again because it's not something we deserve
or earn or attain.
It's a question of whether you're spiritually alive.
And I think there's a witness within, according
to the scriptures, there's a voice that says,
you belong to me.
You've come to Christ.
And of course, Christ made it so simple.
He died for us.
This is terrible.
But he said, him that cometh unto me,
I will in no wise cast out.
If you haven't, aren't saved tonight, and you
know it, there's just one reason.
It's not because you're bad.
Not reason because there's other things in your
life that aren't good.
It's because you haven't come.
Salvation is by grace without works.
Now, work should come from it as a
result, but not as a cause of your
personal salvation.
You need to trust in Christ and be
saved.
And I hope tonight, if this is you
that I'm talking about, that you won't leave
this church without getting the help.
There's a prayer room to my left.
And I'd be glad to help you and
point the way so that you can have
absolute assurance that Jesus Christ died for you
and that you'll be saved.
And when the rapture occurs, you begin this
great journey with a new body and all
the rest of the things I've mentioned tonight.
And ultimately, join your loved ones in Christ
in the new Jerusalem forever and forever.
There's no ending to Christian life.
Even the unsaved are going to last forever.
But in torment and judgment, because they refused
the marvelous grace of God that he's provided
for us.
They choose to spend their eternity with Satan
in a place that God prepared for Satan
and the fallen angels.
But God wants you.
He desires you.
2 Peter 3 says he's not willing, not
desirous that anybody be lost.
He wants everybody to be saved.
That's why he's waiting.
I sometimes wonder how in the world God
can be patient with this present world with
all of its sin and rebellion and contradiction.
You know why?
He's just waiting.
He's waiting for some to get saved that
aren't.
He's waiting for some to hear that haven't
heard.
But the day is going to come like
Noah's Ark, remember?
Remember when the door is shut and the
judgment of God is going to come.
Now is the time to trust him.
If you haven't done it before, do it
now.
Now, whenever I leave a church like this,
I realize I may not be back.
Life is uncertain and we don't know what
the future holds.
But we never say goodbye.
What do we say?
So long.
We're going to meet again.
And I don't know how much memory we're
going to have in heaven of these meetings,
but we're going to meet again.
And if we're at the Savior, belong to
the Savior, we're going to share eternity together
and all that the marvelous love of God
can give us.
And so I trust the Lord will bless
you and cause this church to prosper, to
reach out in the community and win many
precious souls for Christ, carry on its worldwide
influence through missions and be blessed of God.
Every day, until perhaps soon, Jesus will come.
Shall we pray?
Our Father, how wonderful is our Christian faith
that reaches beyond this life and assures us
of all these wonders that the Word of
God mentions.
And we pray that thou wouldst help us
now, Lord, to enter in fully into what
God has prepared for us and to do
the things that are well pleasing in his
sight, thinking always of how can my life
really show my love for Christ and my
desire to be obedient to him?
For we ask in Christ's precious name.
Amen.
Let's stand
together.
John writes, behold, what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us that we should
be called children of God.
Therefore, the world does not know us because
it did not know him.
Beloved, now we are children of God and
it has not yet been revealed what we
shall be.
But we know that when he is revealed
that we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is.
And everyone who has this hope in him
purifies himself just as he is pure.
Are you a child of God tonight?
If you're not and you would desire to
make that step of giving your life to
Christ, up front here are some pastors, some
brothers and sisters, some men and women in
the fellowship here who would love to pray
with you, who would love for you to
walk out of here sure that when we
go to heaven that you're going to be
there.
We have so much to look forward to,
don't we?
What a blessing.