Hope and Healing: The Promise of Heaven

We are overwhelmed with emotion. We are there and we are feeling this love and this joy and this compassion like no feeling we have ever felt before. It is beyond our comprehension. These are tears of worship and praise, not brokenness. God says, behold, I make all things new. And as Maggie said, he was going to start all over. Everything is going to be brand new. [00:28:35]

These verses convey the message that heaven is a place of profound happiness with peace and freedom from pain and sorrow. And based on these verses, I suspect there is never going to be another bad day in our lives. Never going to be another bad day in our lives. [00:29:19]

There will be no more pain. There's not going to be any more mourning. There's no more grieving. There's no more crime. There's no more bullying. There's no more evil. There's no more gossiping of any kind. [00:29:50]

Satan has been thrown into the lake of fire. And every person we meet will be likable. Imagine that. Will be likable. Will be fun to hang out with, including you and me. [00:30:06]

If it's not enough that there's not going to be any more sorrow or pain, we are also surrounded by unimaginable beauty. Revelations 21 -22 provides a vivid description of heaven. John saw the holy city, this dazzling city, the new Jerusalem, come down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. [00:30:27]

The city is described as having streets of pure gold. Pure gold. There's no asphalt. There's no gravel roads in heaven. Living in the country, I really appreciate that. Gates of pearl. Foundations adorned with every kind of precious stone. [00:31:05]

Our eternal home is a real place. Like San Diego, Seattle, Orlando. In our gospel today, our Lord says, there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And it's a place where we will be in real, physical bodies. [00:31:37]

We will be set free from shame, guilt, and the past. We won't remember it. [00:32:25]

Well, based on what I have learned during my study on this book in Revelations, where it says we will be free from our own shame, guilt, and the past, when I get up there, I doubt very much. I'll even remember the question to ask. I wonder where that person is. Did that person make it? I won't know. I won't know, and I will never find out, unless I happen to see them. Otherwise, I won't remember. [00:33:45]

In Revelations 22, John is shown a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Down the middle of this great street of the city is this river flowing through. And on each side of the river stands the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. [00:34:31]

When you think of heaven and the eternity, there really isn't any measurement of heaven and eternity there. Until now. In verse 2, when it says that the tree of life produces its fruit every month, it indicates that leaves marks time. It'll be a different kind of time, I suspect. There's no end of this time. But I found that interesting. [00:35:10]

Now the tree of life reappears in the new heaven, and its leaves and fruit are a reward to the believers. There's food in heaven. We get to eat. And it's not...Not for sustenance, I suspect. In one commentary I read, it is more just because we like the taste of food. [00:36:55]

And now it appears in the new Jerusalem. One tree of life on each side of this crystal blue river. There'll be no more curse. Jesus has redeemed us from the curse. [00:37:54]

And when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the apple, that's when God pronounced that curse. And he cursed the serpent and the man and the woman. And God said, you will surely die. And that is when the dying process began. And it was the ultimate curse. And it's been handed down to us throughout generations. We are still under that curse. And Jesus broke the curse so that whoever shall believe will have eternal life. [00:38:14]

We will see his face. And he will print his name across our forehead. Somehow. For some of us, it may be our first tattoo. I don't know. Somehow, he's going to print that name across, his name across our forehead. And there'll be no more darkness. We won't need a lamp for light. But we don't need the sun for light. Because the Lord God will give us our light. [00:38:47]

Recent polls suggest that nearly 80 % of Americans believe there is a place called heaven. Now, I'm talking only Americans. 80 % of Americans believe there is a place called heaven. I think that statistic is encouraging. Especially because it tells me that even in this skeptical age, that many people down deep in their human souls believe there's got to be something better. [00:39:24]

The hope of what is to come should motivate us to live our life in such a way as to honor Him and represent Him well by caring. that's the way. do it. Get in the path and sharing and forgiving and being polite and we might think that is just such a minor thing but it's huge these days because there are so many people who lack it just to be polite these days. [00:41:18]

And here's the big one and to share what we know with others the truth that we know to share it with others when we are getting that quiet spiritual nudge because words as you've heard are a dime a dozen and the world is not short on words it is short on action and sharing those words. [00:42:12]

Heaven is a place of perfect joy and happiness beyond our comprehension and if it takes a dinosaur for being in heaven to make a little boy happy then dinosaurs will go to heaven too amen [00:42:53]