Telling the Truth

Host (Male): Hope is one of the great virtues that enables the Christian to live in dark and difficult times. And as special guest speaker Charles Price shows us in today's message, hope isn't a wish or a kind of uncertain optimism. It's a confident expectation. He'll explain more about that in just a moment.

Building a consistent prayer life can be a challenge. That's why we want to let you know about a special opportunity to soak in Stuart and Jill's wisdom on prayer through a newly curated collection of their messages called *Powerful and Effective Prayer*. This resource is our thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ through the global ministry of Telling the Truth.

Call today to request your copy of the special collection at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Here's Charles with today's message, "A Living Hope".

Charles Price: I'm going to read to you from 1 Peter Chapter 1. Before I do so, I'm going to take a few minutes to set the scene and remind you of 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 where Paul writes, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love." We're looking at these three virtues of Christian experience. Faith, which is primarily about our attitude to God. Hope, primarily our attitude to the future. Love, primarily our attitude to others.

These three virtues of faith, hope, and love are like a three-legged stool on which Christian experience rests. If one leg breaks, the stool collapses. We're not at liberty to say, "I'd like some love and I'd like faith, but I'm not so sure about hope," or "I'd like hope, but not so sure about love." These three must remain intact and remain together.

Today, I want to talk about hope. There are 158 verses as far as I can see in the Bible that address hope. It is one of the great virtues that enable us to live in dark times and difficult times such as are inevitable in life and in the Christian life. Let me just define how this word is used. This word is not used as an unsure optimism, such as "I hope this sunny weather will last for the next month."

I hope so. That's a rather uncertain optimism. Rather, this hope is a confident expectation. "I hope to sleep in my own bed tonight." I've got no other plans, so I hope to sleep. That's a confident expectation. The way that the word hope is used in the New Testament is as a confident expectation. It has within it an optimism, an expectation, a promise of better things.

In practice, hope orients our lives around a better future. That is not to be escapist about the present, but because there is a better future. Whatever we're going through now, there is a better future ultimately that we are going to experience and enjoy. Let me just comment first on why hope is essential. I have quoted to you before Viktor Frankl, whose writings I appreciate very much.

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian Jew who was imprisoned in Auschwitz, one of the worst of the concentration camps during World War II. He survived his time there, though his new wife died there and his parents died there. Frankl had trained to be a physician in Austria, in Vienna, and his experiences in Auschwitz led him to observe the value of hope.

Those in the prison camp who had a sense of hope, who would talk about the future, who would talk about what they would do once they got out of this and once the war was over, they're the ones who survived the natural causes of death that seemed to wipe out so many others. It didn't delay any gassing in the chambers, but the natural causes of death from which so many of them died.

After the war, he developed a branch of psychiatry called logotherapy. His theme was to survive any hardship, life needs to be oriented to the future. He believed the key to a person's life lay in what they hoped for. He observed that psychologists often spend hours unwrapping people's pasts. In reality, it was their sense of future that gave meaning and purpose to their lives.

It was their sense of future that gave them the courage to deal with difficulties and issues from their past. When a patient came to see him with a multitude of torments, he would listen to them and then often he would ask them this question: "Why don't you commit suicide?" That's not the most reassuring question to be asked by your doctor, but he said the answer they gave to that question revealed the key to their life.

One might say, "Because of my children. That's why I don't commit suicide." He saw in their children a sense of hope and meaning and significance. Somebody might say, "Because I have a talent that I want to use that I haven't yet used to its potential." That would be the key, he felt, or a key to their life. Another might have memories they want to preserve. Another had something they want to achieve, a relationship they want to better.

He said this thing that they hoped for, that was bigger in value than death when all their life was falling apart in every other area, was the key to their will to live. Without hope, we have no sense of joy and meaning and life. Some place hope in wealth. If that becomes shattered, they no longer have any value left within themselves.

Hence, even during the recession of a few years ago, a number of suicides by people who built their hope in wealth. Some build their hope in science, some in technology, some in human nature, some build their hope in marriage, some in politics. All numbers of things that people place their hope. The Christian places their hope in God who transcends all of that.

Host (Male): We're hearing from our guest speaker Charles Price today on Telling the Truth. He'll share more biblical truth about the hope of the Christian in just a moment. Okay, let's be honest. Prayer can sometimes feel like a bit of a mystery. Some people feel so confused by how prayer works that they'll just forget it all together.

But Scripture paints an exciting picture of what a life of prayer can be and how you can experience it yourself. That's why we want to send you a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill called *Powerful and Effective Prayer*. These five eye-opening messages will help you push past today's commonplace platitudes on prayer and develop the rich and vibrant prayer life you're longing for.

We're excited to send you this one-of-a-kind resource as thanks for your gift today to help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's love with people around the world through Telling the Truth. Call today to request *Powerful and Effective Prayer* when you give at 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

For many, our smartphones have become our social connection. But we want to help you make a spiritual connection with the Telling the Truth mobile app. You can listen to daily programs, engage in Bible reading plans, journal, and share your thoughts and prayers on the community wall. Get the Telling the Truth app through your App Store or log on to tellingthetruth.org/mobile-app. Let's return now to today's message.

Charles Price: Of the 158 verses that address this theme of hope in the Bible, many speak of "the hope". The hope of the believer. When it speaks of the hope, it is usually speaking of the ultimate end of this life and the transference from this life to another life, from this place to another place. It is speaking of Heaven.

I'm going to read to you from 1 Peter Chapter 1. Peter writes, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time."

One of the great hopes of the Christian is the hope of Heaven, the hope that this life is not what it's all about. It is not the sum totality of our existence. Now, I confess I've hardly ever preached about Heaven in the many years I've been preaching. Partly, it's because we don't know very much about it. We know it is there, but the Bible does not give much detail as to what kind of life it's going to be.

I thought it'd be valuable to just think about Heaven as the great hope of the Christian. Let me clarify the use of this word first because the Bible speaks of Heaven or heavens in three different ways. It speaks of the heavens as being the clouds, for instance, or the Earth's atmosphere several times. For example, Genesis 7:11, when the flood came in Noah's day, it says the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

That's the clouds and the rain came beating down. Genesis 11, when they wanted to build the Tower of Babel, they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so we may make a name for ourselves." What they meaning is it reaches to the clouds. That's the first use of the word heaven or heavens.

Secondly, it's used of the sky, of the stars at night, of the visible universe. Genesis 15:5, God said to Abraham, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them." So there it was looking up at the night sky. "When I look at the heavens," one of the Psalms says, "and I see the marvel of your creation."

But the third use of the word Heaven is as the place where God lives. His home. The Book of Revelation pulls back the curtain on mysteries that we cannot know in this life apart from by revelation, and he takes us into Heaven. We see great scenes around the throne of God. It's the place from which Jesus came.

He said in John 6:38, "I have come down from heaven, not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me." I've come down from a place. It's the place where my Father lives. When Paul talked in 2 Corinthians about a man being caught up into the third heaven, hearing inexpressible things he was not permitted to tell, this third heaven is the dwelling place of God. This is also the future home of those of us who are in Christ.

One reason why I have not preached about Heaven very much is because the gospel is not primarily about a place. The New Testament never gives us that impression. It is about a person, of course. It's about being reconciled to God. It is entering into a relationship with God, an active living relationship with God that permeates both time and then eternity.

So when Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:10, "Christ died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him." By awake he means alive, by asleep he means dead. Whether alive or dead, awake or asleep, on Earth or in Heaven is actually irrelevant to the relationship which we've been called, which is to live together with him.

Heaven is not dangled as a bribe to get people to trust Christ. If it is, we'll be more interested in Heaven than we are interested in Christ. That's like getting married and being more interested in your new house than you are on your new wife or your new husband. You need a house to live in, there is a place to go, but the central issue of that place is the relationship which we have with God and with the Lord Jesus Christ.

What do we know about Heaven? The answer is not a lot. All we do know is by revelation that comes to us in Scripture, and therefore to know anything about Heaven means we must trust this book. No one's gone there and come back and given us a record. There are a few questionable books around, but don't take them too seriously.

Our source of understanding and information is what the Scripture tells us. For most of us, talking about Heaven is a bit like talking about Antarctica. We know a few things about it, most of us have never been there, although there is somebody in our congregation who used to fly airplanes in the Antarctica.

But for the rest of us, it's like it's cold, what does that mean, what does it feel like? Or talking about Mars or talking about Pluto. We just discovered some new things about Pluto. We can talk about it, but we've no experience of it. It's just cold facts by and large. But I do want to give you some things that we know.

There are five things that are all either implicit or explicit in these verses in 1 Peter. First of all, we know about Heaven is it's a place. It is a location. He speaks in 1 Peter 1:4 of an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you. It's an actual place. Jesus said in John 14, "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I'm going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

In those verses, he talks about buildings, he talks about rooms, he talks about mansions, he talks about places. It's a place. As to where in the universe, we have no idea. Heaven is not limited by the normal boundaries of time and space, but Scripture does teach us it's a real place that can be seen, touched, inhabited by beings with material bodies.

It's not sort of ethereal floating around as spirits. We have new physical bodies. Will we know each other there is a question people often ask. I have absolutely no doubt that we know each other there. I don't think I'm going to be walking around Heaven for a million years and one day I bump into a woman, get into a conversation and say, "What's your name?"

She says, "My name is Hillary." I say, "Oh, really? I used to be married to Hillary back on Earth. Where were you living?" "Well, we lived near Toronto in Canada. We were living there in the 21st Century." "No, I was there in the 21st Century. What was your address?" "Oh no, that was my address. Are you Hillary Price?" "Yes. Are you Charles Price?" "Oh my, fancy meeting you here after a million years. How have you been getting on?" No, I don't think so.

We do know some things are going to be different. There'll be no marriage in Heaven. We know that. We're told there is no marriage. Jesus was asked about a woman who married the eldest of seven brothers. They said this woman married the eldest of seven brothers and then this brother died. So she married the second brother and he died.

So she married the third brother, he died. She married the fourth brother, he died. She married the fifth brother, he died. She married the sixth brother, he died. Then she married the seventh brother and he died as well. If I was her father-in-law, I'd want to know what she's putting in the soup.

But all these seven brothers died. Then they said to Jesus, "Now here's a problem for you. Whose wife will she be when she gets to Heaven?" Jesus said to them, "At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."

Host (Male): Charles Price will be back shortly with some closing thoughts today. You probably hear people talk about prayer all the time. But aside from knowing that you ought to do it, how much do you truly know about prayer? For example, how does God want to use prayer in our lives? Is he listening to every single request, and can prayer really make a difference?

We'd love to help shine some much-needed light on the subject of prayer by sending you Stuart and Jill's new five-message collection *Powerful and Effective Prayer*. This specially curated set of messages is our thanks for your gift to share the life-changing truth of God's word around the world through Telling the Truth.

It's only thanks to the support of generous friends like you that broadcasts like this one can keep going out, reaching others with God's love so they can experience life in Christ. So if you haven't given before, please consider a gift today and remember to request *Powerful and Effective Prayer* when you call and give.

Just call 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Once again, here's Charles Price.

Charles Price: So it seems that angels are genderless and apparently so will we. That seems to be one insight. Don't ask me the implications of that. All we know is that particular insight that Jesus gave. But we do know that there's actually going to be a marriage in Heaven. We're all going to be involved because it's going to be the great wedding feast to which we're all invited.

In fact, we're all to participate as the bride of Christ, marrying him. Our relationship, our love relationship will be something deeper we can ever know here on Earth. When you get to the end of the Book of Revelation, you don't know it's going to be a marriage until then. If you start in the beginning, you work your way through, you do not know until the last two chapters this is a love story and there's a marriage at the end of it.

Are there going to be animals in Heaven? Apparently, the Pope recently said that our pets will be there. I don't know where he got that from. I don't know whether he was having a bad day or whether he had some fresh insight. But apparently, I haven't found the actual quote, but I saw in the newspaper the Pope says our pets will be in Heaven. I hope ours won't be.

If she is, I hope she wanders for a million years in the other direction. The only comment that Jesus ever made about that was when he said in Matthew 6, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys." There's going to be no moths in Heaven apparently. Or if there are, they're not going to be destructive.

They will have been converted. I think as a basic rule of thumb, I think we can say everything good here on Earth will be better there in Heaven. Everything beautiful here on Earth will be more beautiful there in Heaven. It won't be a step down in terms of the pleasures that we enjoy here. It will be, in fact, a step up.

I think we can assume that on the basis of all the metaphorical images it gives of Heaven that are indescribable in their beauty and their wonder. Revelation 7, John has a vision of a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language. They've come through a great tribulation and they have been washed and they have been cleansed.

It says of them in Verse 16 of Revelation 7, "Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

That's a beautiful picture. No hunger, no thirst, no fear, no tears. And such tears that are will be wiped from our eyes. No discomfort even. Our access to Heaven is immediate on leaving this Earth. There is no biblical indication of purgatory, for instance, or a waiting period where you do a little bit of probation because Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:8, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord."

Host (Male): Thank you, Charles. Before you go, we want to remind you to request Stuart and Jill's newly curated five-message collection *Powerful and Effective Prayer*. It's our thanks for your gift today to continue sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts and resources.

So please request yours when you call and give 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. We're glad you've joined us today. Come back next time for more biblical truth here on Telling the Truth. We'll see you then.