Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Ever wonder what heaven is like? We'll catch a glimpse of it on today's edition of Hope from the Word. Imagine God himself inviting you to take a sneak peek into heaven. You've heard about it, read about it, and maybe even tried to imagine what it's really like. And now, you can actually see it for yourself. Wouldn't that be amazing? Well, that's exactly what happened to the apostle John. Jesus allowed him a glimpse into heaven, and we can read about it in the book of Revelation. Hello and welcome to Hope from the Word, a ministry presented by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.

Our senior pastor, Bill Lubkeman, is nearing the end of his Through the Bible series, and here he is now in Revelation 21.

Bill Luebkemann: Look at the word holy here. It means set apart, you know, as in set apart for God. Holy city, a city that is set apart for God. No sin here. Pure. Perfect. Fresh and new every day. That's not something we know anything about in this world. We don't have any experience with it. Mankind has no idea what it's like to live in sinless perfection except Adam and Eve. And they only have a little bit of experience with it cuz it didn't last that long for them. Only for a very short time. And here it's going to be sinless perfection, something that none of us in this room have ever experienced.

And I also think it's going to be morning always. There's no night in heaven because there's there's no need for light because he is the light. And if there's no night, I don't see any reason to believe there's evening or afternoon. I think it's going to be morning all the time. And you know, morning is kind of a magical time. Those of you who like to get out early in the morning. I don't do it very often. More often than not, I'm going to bed when the sun's coming up. But if I go to bed early and get up early, the few times I do it, it's just something magical about being out there when the sun is rising and the day's beginning and the mist is still in the air.

And there's kind of like an excitement and an anticipation about what is this day going to bring. There's something of a mystery to it. At least there is for me. And I think this New Jerusalem is going to be a place like that. No nighttime, always morning, always something new there. And look where it comes from. I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Look where it comes from. This refutes anyone who says God is going to remake this world or we're going to remake this world. Some people feel the Lord's going to return when we go out there as the church and get everyone saved.

You know, actually, a lot of people believe that. We're going to get enough people saved. Sooner or later, we're going to get everyone saved. And then we're just going to bring peace about here. That that's not what the Bible says. I'm not against those things. We should be doing those things. We should be making an effort to spread the gospel as far and wide as we can. But the new world is going to be just that new. And the holy city, new, different, unique like nothing we ever seen before. And it's going to come about by the Lord's doing.

We're not going to bring it about. We're not going to earn it. We're not entitled to it. We're not going to do anything to trigger it off. It's going to happen when he's ready to do it. And it's going to be totally all about him and nothing about us. We're always discussing here, you know, that we can't earn our way into heaven, that we don't deserve it, we're not entitled to it. And that's just this is just one more verse that shows clearly the action is coming on God's account. He's the one doing the doing.

We're the participants. We may be even be spectators in the whole thing. Those folks who believe, you know, you can we can spread the gospel to the whole earth. I say we should certainly try. But if you believe we can work hard enough and long enough and eventually get to the point where everyone is a believer, I think that's a pipe dream. And it's doesn't matter if it's a pipe dream or not. It's not what the Bible says. This verse tells us that his kingdom is not of this world. It says here, I saw the holy city, perfect, sinless, set apart.

That's the meaning of holy. The New Jerusalem, where was it? Was coming down out of heaven from God. It wasn't going up to heaven from man. God made it and it's coming down from God. And it's prepared as a bride would be be beautifully dressed for her husband. And you know how much effort a bride puts into looking especially beautiful on that wedding day. The it's been said the most beautiful sight a man will ever see is his wife coming down the aisle on his wedding day. Our mind came down this aisle almost 25 years ago.

And you know, if you've ever been involved in a wedding, how much effort goes into just making this perfect. And you know from the wedding pictures that there's lots of pictures of the bride getting dressed and looking just right and with all her bridesmaids and all this effort is put into appearance. I photographed a few weddings in my earlier days when I knew how to work a camera. And I can tell you that, you know, they drive you crazy over those pictures. They have to be just perfect and you got to shoot a lot of them to make sure that you didn't mess anything up.

And it's annoying to get them all right. But we're talking about the most important event in our lives short of accepting Christ is probably getting married. And this most important event in our future has the Lord preparing his bride in a similar way. I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men. And he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.

It doesn't say who this loud voice is, by the way. It might have been God, but later on in verse 5, God does speak himself. So I kind of think maybe this might be an angel standing next to the throne of God who's making this pronouncement and saying, the dwelling of God, the tabernacle of God will be with men. You know, the dwelling of God some uh translations would use the word tabernacle. I got to thinking about the various tabernacles of God. You know, back in the time of Moses, God had Moses build a tabernacle which was just a shadow of what was to come, a reflection of what heaven is like.

It was the dwelling of God on earth at that time and his presence inherited that place even though it was just a tent. And later on, Solomon built the first temple and God's presence was in that so much so that when it was dedicated, they couldn't even go inside of it cuz God's presence there was so strong. But if you look at John 1:14, you see that Jesus tabernacled among us. He cast his tent of flesh, it says, here on the earth amidst us for a time. And today he tabernacles in our hearts when we call upon him as our savior and Lord.

We see God's presence, you know, uh first in a tent and then in a building. And then here on the earth walking around with flesh and blood and and then in our hearts. And now we see coming this day in the New Jerusalem when he'll live there with us. We'll actually we'll we'll see him. We'll know him more fully. We'll be able to go and speak to him directly and he'll have time to talk to everybody. I don't know how that'll work, but he will have time to talk to everybody. I don't know if there'll be like a long line.

I better get there early. Do they want to talk to God? There's always a long line on Saturday mornings. Probably try to get there at 6:00. You know, who knows how that's going to work. Sometimes you hear people talking, what's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? I think this is it. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. Do you need anything more than that to your purpose for your life? That's the purpose of our life to be his people and for him to be our God.

The only other time that a human did this was in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve messed it all up for the rest of us. And by the way, if they didn't mess it up, we would have messed it up anyway. So when you get to heaven, don't go blaming them. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Look, you can't hide from God today, but there was God in the garden walking around with Adam and Eve and they heard his footsteps and they hid, you know, because they had sinned.

And they knew they were naked. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? You know, whenever God asks a question, he isn't looking for information. He's asking a question for your own benefit. That's the only other time that mankind walked around with God. But in this place called heaven, in this New Jerusalem, in this New Heaven and New Earth, we're going to be able to do that for all of eternity. Got a question that you don't know the answer to, you'll be able to go ask, hey, what's the answer to this question?

Right now we go to our friends, settle an argument, who's right? You tell them your side, the other person tells their side, you ask someone to settle it. They they they say what they think and then the person who's wrong still disagrees. See, in heaven you'll be able to go and ask, you know, we're having a little argument here, who's right? You'll get the answer and that'll be the end of it. Move on to something different. The the purpose of mankind here, our purpose in life it's not to get all the money we can get.

You can't pitch a U-Haul to a hearse, you know. Well, you can, but you know, it doesn't serve the doesn't serve the intended purpose, right? This is the purpose of life. You can accumulate massive wealth, have stacks of cash, you know, piled up, have a house on LBI even. But the purpose of here is that this, the purpose of mankind, the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them. That's what he wants. That's what he created us for. He created us to live with him, to be his people. He didn't create hell, you know, because he didn't say in the beginning, I'm going to create some to come to heaven, some to go to hell.

I'm going to set up a hell and uh I think I'll send you and you and you and you there. He didn't do it that way. He he hell was created for the devil and his angels. We were made to walk with God. We were made to be his people. And only by rejecting the freely given gift, only by completely turning away from him would anyone experience condemnation. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying. For the old order of things has passed away just to be even more clear here.

We see the things that are going to be gone. There's not going to be any tears there because there's not going to be any reason to cry. When it says he'll wipe the tear from their eyes, his very hand wiping the tears from your eyes. I picture that being, you know, whatever we were crying about here on earth is going to be gone when we're in heaven. There's not going to be any more death or mourning or crying or pain. There's no sickness. These things are going to be gone. Mankind wasn't made for sin and wasn't not designed to deal with death.

That was not God's plan for man. It was ruined by mankind. But now all the bad things, the evil things, they're all going to be gone. Some professions will be unemployed, and I'm glad to say one of them will be my urologist. He'll be out of work. He'll have to find something different to do. Until I turned 40, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a urologist. And oh hell, I wish I could return to that ignorant state. Forest, they might have some work to do in heaven. Forest could be busy. And I think other professions maybe musical instrument makers might have something to do.

What a joyous place is going to be though, just not having any doctors and not getting any sick. That that just does it for me right there. But beyond that, no elections, no politics, no, you know, arguing about this one's right, this one's wrong, and you know, who's right. No none of that stuff here. Only God sitting on the throne. Ain't no one going to argue with him anymore. The ones who did will be gone. We want to find out what happens to them, read the end of the previous chapter. Some people would say, you know, you're you're an idiot for believing that.

What a fool you are. They might call us escapists. You can't even cope with reality. You have to believe this fable here. The truth is this is reality. And what we experience here on earth, this is temporary. And the the truth of the matter is if you can show me someone who can cope with dying without knowing the Lord, that'll be the person who's not coping with reality. If they think they can live all their life, get all the they want to get, have the most stuff, if they think, you know, he who dies with the most stuff wins, that's not true.

The the truth is he who dies with the most stuff still dies. And someone else gets all his hard-earned stuff. They divide up your assets, you know, whoever you told them to leave them to. You can leave your final will and testament. They'll give them away. You can't write on there that you want to take it with you. Even if you have them, you know, put it in your in your grave. Like the lady whose husband died and uh his last will was he wanted all his money put in the the the the casket with him.

And her girlfriend said, you're not really going to do that, are you? Well, it was his last you know will and that's what he wanted. So she said, but I I I gave him a check. And uh you know, if he can cash it, then he can have it. And uh if he doesn't cash it, then I'll keep it. Dying in ignorance is foolish. I would rather be informed and I would rather know what's in store for me and know how I can get the Lord's favor. And this is what's in store for us, a day when he'll wipe every tear from our eyes.

You know, some people say, well, what about my unsafe friends? I'm I'm going to really miss them if they're not safe. And we we should be praying for our unsafe friends. And we should be sharing the Lord with them. You can invite them to the Harvest Crusade. That's just one way to do it. You can share the Lord with them any way that God leads you to do it. We should be doing that. But the truth of the matter is not everyone we're friendly with is going to ever is going to receive the Lord. In spite of all of our prayers and all on all of our hopes and dreams, not everyone is going to receive the Lord.

But you're not going to be bumped out about it because it says here in Isaiah, the former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind. You're not going to be sitting around. If you think you're going to be sitting around in heaven for all of eternity crying because your best friend didn't make it because they didn't accept the Lord. That's not what it says in scripture. Those things are not going to come to your mind. Your mind's going to be so full of the things of God. Maybe there just won't be any time to think about it.

The truth is we don't need to die in ignorance. That's the foolish thing. That's escaping reality. If you look down in verse 22 and verse 23, there's some more things that there we won't have in heaven. There's no temple in heaven because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. There's no need for the sun or moon to shine on it because well, the glory of God gives it light. And the Lamb is its Lamb. It has gates, but they're never shut. It says in verse 25, on no day will its gates ever be shut.

For there will be no night there. You know, they close the gates of the city at night to keep the enemies out. No night, no enemies, no need to close the gates. And by the way, if you read further, they have an angel guarding every gate anyway. I wonder if they take turns or something. He who is seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. This is God talking himself now unlike what might have been an angel before. And he says here, he's making everything new.

More clarification that the old will pass away. It's going to be the completion of something that starts in our lives when we accept the Lord in 2 Corinthians 5:17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. That that began when you accepted Christ. You asked him into your heart to forgive your sins and to be your savior. When that happens, you are a new creation immediately at that point. And the old has gone and the new has come. And this is just more new here. And this is a whole new city, a whole new dwelling place.

It just continues that process that began when you accepted Christ. And God told him, write this down. I think maybe John, just my speculation, but he was probably a gaga at looking at all this stuff. I mean, how could you take it in if God if you went to bed tonight and while you were sleeping, God showed you in a dream, you know, what this was like, you probably wouldn't be able to move in the morning. It's way more than we can comprehend, way more than we can imagine. I kind of think God saying, you know, get back to writing it down.

You're not writing. You know, you you wrote everything up to this point. Get back to doing it. Write it down because it's important. These words are trustworthy and true. In other words, you can rely on them. You can count on it. You can't count on anything else. Used to be, you know, if you bought a house, you could count on its value rising. You can't count on that anymore. If you have a retirement plan, you could count on that rising or at least stay in the same. You can count on that anymore. You look around in the world today, what can you count on?

You can count on this. These words are trustworthy and true. I am making everything new. And he'll do it in your life today if you accept him today. And he'll do it even more so in eternity. It just it just continues there to an even greater degree. Maybe you're here today and you have never put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. This guy I was with yesterday, Steve Wilburn, you know, he his favorite line when he when he got to the point was to tell people there's a God in heaven that loves you.

And he made the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth and he made you. One girl, we talked to her for 20 30 minutes. She said, well, you know, I really appreciate your your sincerity and I could tell you really believe. I just don't agree with you. A couple other people weren't quite ready. Well, we're we're thinking about it. And we told him, he told him we would pray for them and we will that they make a decision for Christ before something happens because it can change in an instant. At Greg Laurie's church a couple years ago, a girl was in the youth group decided to sneak out during the service and run down to the equivalent of the Wawa to get a soda, crossed the street, got hit by a car.

And that was it. It can change in an instant. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. The Bible says today is the day and this is the hour for salvation. And we can choose the Lord today. Tomorrow, as that song says, very well might be too late. Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth you confess and are saved. And down in verse 13 it says, for all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And I encourage you today if you haven't done that, if you haven't put your faith and trust in the Lord, do it today.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a Through the Bible series. You can hear this message or more Hope from the Word with pastor Bill Lubkeman by going to ccmarlton.org or wherever you find your podcasts. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. And finally, if you'd like a CD copy of the message, please call 856 983 1662. Again, that's 856 983 1662. We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 a.m.

and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you take a moment to write to pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856 983 1662. We have a little time left, so let's take a peek at what's coming up tomorrow.

Bill Luebkemann: Some people say today, well, if you make a decision to accept Christ, well, some people say you can't make a decision to accept Christ. You know, you're either one of the ones who's chosen or you're not one of the ones and it has nothing to do with you. You can't you can't make a decision. I disagree with that. But when we make a decision to accept Christ, it's not that we've earned it or entitled to it or that it's not that we did any good thing really. We just took the glass and drank it. And he's going to provide for us here in a sense uh forever.

To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life, not just H2O, but the water of life. The water that'll keep you going for all eternity in heaven. He who overcomes, verse 7, will inherit all this. And I will be his God and he will be my son. Look, how do we overcome something? If we look in 1 John 5:5, it says this, who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. Look, overcoming, this is not like uh you have to pass the ropes course in basic training so that you can get through it.

This is not like the admission exam to to college taking the SAT or something. This isn't like doing your thesis so you can get your doctoral degree. When it says overcoming, this is not toughing it out so that uh you can achieve something by your own hard work. This is this. This is what it means. Who is it that overcomes? Only he that believes that Jesus is the son of God. In other words, there is no other way. There is no other possible path here to follow. The ones that overcome are only those who believe that Jesus is the son of God.

They're the ones that overcome because that's the way to overcome. This is Hope from the Word coming to you from Calvary Chapel of Marlton. May the Lord richly bless you.