Telling the Truth

Host (Male): Today, guest speaker Charles Price closes out his message "A Living Hope" and encourages you with biblical truth about the greatest hope for those who are in Christ: our eternal hope. He'll get started in just a moment. But first, the generosity of friends like you keeps broadcasts like this one going out around the world so you and others can experience life through the biblical teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

As thanks for your gift today, we'll send you "Powerful and Effective Prayer," a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill that will give you timeless wisdom on the subject of prayer and help you build a more consistent and inspired prayer life. So call today to request yours: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Charles Price with today's teaching.

Charles Price: 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. 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 discomfort even. And 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 your own probation. There's no indication of soul sleep, as some speak, that you go to sleep and you wake up on the judgment day.

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." Absent one moment, present immediately. Absent from this body, present with the Lord. So Paul was anticipating an immediate transference into His presence.

Philippians 1:23, "I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. But it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body." So there he says, "I want to die to be with Christ," not to go into some waiting room to then be with Christ. If that's the case, I'd rather stay around here and be useful. And then when I have to go to the waiting room, well and good.

But no, my desire is to depart and to immediately be with Christ. But I'm staying here as long as He keeps me here. But Paul's understanding clearly was an immediate—this moment, that moment, on earth, in heaven, in the body, in His presence.

So that's the first thing: it's a place. Secondly, it's a party. Now, I'm going to use that word—it may seem flippant. I'm only using it because it begins with P. They'll all begin with P. But I think it'll convey some of the idea as well. Because in 1 Peter 1:4, Peter writes about an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you. It talks about inheritance, about a celebration.

Now, what is that? Well, we could say that it's all we inherit in Christ now, but maxed out to its fullness. I mean, Ephesians 1:18 says, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for those who believe."

So he's saying there that one of the hopes to which we've been called is the riches of everything we have in Jesus Christ being made full in our experience. His love for us will be full. Our love for Him will be full. His power in us, he mentions here, will be full. C.S. Lewis says joy is the serious business of heaven. It'll be a place and time of joy and excitement.

You know, elsewhere Jesus talked about gaining treasures in heaven. Matthew 6:20, he said, "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven." Now, what are these treasures that we are to store up in heaven? Do we measure treasure in heaven the way we measure treasure on earth? I doubt it very much.

Revelation tells us the streets of heaven will be paved with gold. I wonder why. Is it because he is portraying that the streets are of such great value, paved with gold? Or is he portraying the idea that gold won't be worth anything more than paving? I think that's what's portrayed. All of the values of this life will be turned on their head. Gold won't mean very much. You can pave the streets with it.

So how do we measure treasure in heaven? This is a difficult one because if there's treasure in heaven, there's lack of treasure in heaven as well. And we thought everybody's going to be happy there, there's no tears, there's no sadness. If some people have treasure and some don't, what about the people who don't? Are they going to walk around feeling a little shame all their lives, all their forevers? "Oh, I wish I had not done that. I wish I had been more obedient. I wish I had served more."

I doubt it. I doubt there will be shame or even regret in heaven. So what is the treasure? I once heard a man suggest an idea which I like and have thought about. He said treasure will not be about possession so much as about appreciation, about love of Jesus. Let me illustrate the way he illustrated it. He talked about people having a different level of appreciation for art, for music, for ballet. Two people can look at the same thing and one is bored, the other is enthralled.

Host (Male): This is Telling the Truth. And today, Charles Price is giving you a hope-filled picture of what eternity with God will be like for those who trust in Christ. We'll get back to him in a moment. But first, a note from Irene in Georgia, who says, "Love this ministry and how you're reaching the lost for Christ."

Thanks, Irene. Do you ever feel like your prayers are bouncing off the walls instead of landing in the presence of God? Or do you pray more out of obligation than relationship? Maybe you recognize a lack of passion in your voice even as you pray, and you're left to wonder, "Does God even hear my prayers or will He answer them?"

We'd love to help lead you toward a more inspired and vibrant prayer life by sending you a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill called "Powerful and Effective Prayer." This one-of-a-kind resource is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life in Christ through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth.

Your support enables countless people across the globe to stand strong in the unchanging truth of Scripture, and we're so grateful for friends like you. So request "Powerful and Effective Prayer" when you call to give: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Charles Price with more of today's message.

Charles Price: When it comes to art, my appreciation is rather superficial. Many years ago, I was in London and the National Art Gallery is just off Trafalgar Square. I had a meeting and I had time on my hands and it started to rain, so I went into the National Gallery because it was free and I knew there were some famous pictures there. I knew there were some Rembrandts. I knew there were Constables, Picassos, Van Gogh, etc.

So I walked around, I found the famous ones first. "Oh, that's a Rembrandt. My, look at that." And this is a Picasso. You kind of look at it from different angles to make out exactly what it was. I walked down a few corridors where there were paintings on the wall and I looked at most of them as I walked by. After 20 minutes, I'd done the circuit and I came back. It was still raining. I still had some time, so I thought I'll do the circuit again.

When I came down one of the corridors, there was a man standing looking at a painting. He'd been there the first time I came round, and he'd just been standing looking, staring into this painting. Well, there were about a dozen paintings on the wall, I suppose, so I'd come down the corridor and I looked at this painting, and then look at that painting, and then look at this painting, then look at the next painting, then look at the next painting.

And then, "Oh no, he's—I'll be in his way if I walk past." So I stand, look at the painting next to him and glance over at his. "What is it?" And eventually, "Excuse me," and I walked past him, the other side, look again at the painting he's looking at. I came round the second—he was still looking at that painting. I thought, "Goodness me, what is wrong with him?"

When I went home that night, I told Hillary, "I saw a lot of pictures today. It was raining." He would have gone home and said, "I saw the most beautiful, exquisite work of art today." He had a depth of appreciation that I simply don't have. And maybe there'll be those who have a depth of love and appreciation and relationship with Jesus that others won't have.

See, I didn't go home feeling I'd missed something by not absorbing myself in that painting. It just didn't touch the things of me it was touching in him. Maybe some will have a deep relationship and love for Jesus; others will live in a poverty of that love, in a poverty of that appreciation, in a poor quality relationship.

And if you say, "That's okay, that's no big deal," well, that illustrates the point. It'll be no big deal to the non-appreciation of art. It was no big deal—I just didn't enter in as he could. And I will never know what I'm missing in contrast to what he was absorbing. And we may spend eternity never knowing what we're missing in contrast to those who will have that full or fuller appreciation of Jesus, His love, their love.

But it is going to be a party. It is going to be joy. It is going to be celebration. There will be no tears. There will be deep appreciation and love. Third thing: it's permanent. It's a place, it's a party, it's permanent because in verse 4 he speaks of an inheritance that can never perish, never spoil, never fade. That word "never" is the important word: unending.

It's very difficult for us to talk about the nature of eternity. We have no experience of it. We know it's not just unending time. We know time had a beginning. Time has not always been. It's a created thing. Genesis 1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." So that means there was not only a beginning, there was a before the beginning. And before the beginning, God was already in existence. So when the beginning began, God was the one who was behind the beginning and God was the one who was already there.

So where was God before the beginning? He was in eternity. Eternity is not measured by time. Now, because we only know time and we only know space, it's hard for us to begin to think outside of terms of space and time. We live in a very secure, continuously moving, progressive thing called time.

Tomorrow becomes today. Today becomes yesterday. And we are simply passing through it. The future becomes the present, and then the present becomes the past. We measure time by seconds, by moments. We measure it by hours, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, decade by decade, century by century, millennium by millennium. We can add any figure around it to measure it.

But what we cannot do is look everlastingly backwards. There's a beginning. Science will tell us that. They will tell us there was a beginning and there was a time when there was no time, if that's not an oxymoron. And scripture tells us that as well.

But eternity's outside of time. We don't have a tomorrow. We don't have a yesterday. We have a now, and that now is never-ending. And that is—that is a mystery to us. If you think of it in 10,000 years, you might think, "I'm going to get bored in 10,000 years. What on earth am I going to do? It's fresh and different." No, it's an ever-now. It's an eternal now, and we can go no more than say that.

But then the fourth thing, if that is that it's permanent, fourth thing is it's perfect because verse 5, 1 Peter 1, he speaks of the salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time. What is the nature of that salvation that is to be revealed at the last time? We know the nature of our salvation now. What about the last? What's being added to it?

Now, I love a verse in Jude, verses 24 and 25: "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, now and forevermore."

The part that struck me and that I looked at in the last couple of days: this statement to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy. Can you believe that? That the Lord Jesus will one day say to His Father, "Father, here is Charles Price. He is without fault, and I present him to you with great joy."

When I wrote those notes yesterday, I found tears began to come to my eyes. That there will be a day when I'm without fault. And Jesus will not embarrassingly introduce me to His Father. "This is Charles Price. He messed up here, there, and everywhere, you know, but I'm going to give him to you anyway." No, with joy. This is one of my greatest anticipations of heaven: that the old nature that constantly fights against the spirit, the new nature, will be gone. We'll be new nature purified.

And maybe it raises a question: can we—can we sin in heaven? It's a good question because Lucifer sinned in heaven. He was the most perfect of all God's angelic beings. And there was a time before time, back in the eternity past, before the creation of the world, when Lucifer wanted to be like God. He was the most beautiful of all the angels. He was the most senior of all the angels.

And he challenged God and was cast out of heaven. And according to a reference in the book of Revelation, up to a third of the angels joined him in his rebellion. And they were cast to the earth when the earth was created. This became their initial dwelling place. And we know them today as demons, and Lucifer we know as the devil.

So he sinned in heaven. Can we sin in heaven? Are we going to be free agents with a choice and a mind of our own? I think we have to be. We're not going to be robots, supercomputers. I like to think of it like this: I have a three-month-old granddaughter. She lives on a 19th floor of an apartment block in Toronto.

If I ask the question, can her mother—that is my daughter—can her mother throw that baby off the balcony of the 19th floor? What is the answer to the question? The answer is physically, yes, she could take that baby and toss it over and gravity would take over and she could crush that baby.

But the true answer is no, not in a million years can she throw that baby off that balcony. She'd rather throw herself off, and she would rather than throw off that little baby. Why? Because her heart is so wrapped around that baby. Of course she cannot throw her off.

Will we be able to sin in heaven? The capability must be there, as it was with Lucifer. But will we? Absolutely not. Not in a billion years, not in an eternity. Why? Because we know the utter sickness of sin. We have seen it, we've experienced it. But we remain people with a mind and a will and a love and a responsiveness, rather than just controlled. So it's going to be perfect.

Host (Male): We'll be back in a moment for Charles Price to wrap up his message. "I'll pray for you. Just pray about it. Prayer changes things." You've probably heard statements like these from other Christians or said them yourself. But if you ask most believers how prayer works, the answers are likely to be all over the map.

So how does God want us to use prayer in our lives? Is He listening to every single request, and can prayer really make a difference? To help answer questions like these, we've put together Stuart and Jill's five-message teaching series, "Powerful and Effective Prayer." This collection of messages can help you uncover the secret to a more vibrant prayer life, one where you lose yourself in the presence of God and have confidence that your prayers are rising, making a difference.

You'll gain wisdom and insight on prayer from Stuart and Jill's decades of ministry. "Powerful and Effective Prayer" comes as our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life in Christ through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth. We're so grateful for friends like you. So be sure to request your copy when you give a gift today. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Here's Charles to bring it all home.

Charles Price: And the fifth thing and the last thing quickly is the process. It's a place, it's a party, it's permanent, it's perfect. The process: so how do we get there? 1 Peter 1:3 says, "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." Notice that: it is new birth that He has given us into this living hope. New birth.

Jesus said to a religious man, Nicodemus, in John chapter 3 and verse 3, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." What does it mean to be born again? What is this new birth? It is the reception of spiritual life because we are by nature spiritually dead. Scripture is clear about that. And the new birth is the birth of that new life.

How does it come about? By acknowledging my deadness, acknowledging my need, acknowledging my sin and saying, "Lord Jesus, You died to pay for my sin. You died to settle the score with Your Father and take all the judgment of my sin upon Yourself. And having done so, I want to thank You. And I ask You to come and live within me."

And we're born again to a new life—a new life that will be rich in this life on earth, but it's a new birth into a living hope that will last beyond and take us forever into the presence of God. There is no other way. There are not three options. There are not two options. There's one way: you must be born again. Can I ask you: have you been born again?

Have you confessed your sin, your need, and received Jesus Christ into your life with all the joy and fullness of that here and now, but with the confident expectation that this living hope will take you through the grave, through death, to an eternity in His presence?

Just one more thing about this before I finish. Jesus said in John 14:3, "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." The bit I want to stress: He said, "I will come back and take you." This is Jesus himself who will come to us at death, who will meet us at death, who will take us at death to be with himself.

He doesn't delegate this to angels. He doesn't delegate this to sweet chariots coming for to carry me home. Forget the chariots. Forget the angels. Your first awareness at death will be Jesus himself. "I will come." And as we spoke about in His eternal nature, Jesus is able to hear every prayer as though it's no other prayer, so He will meet with you as though there's nobody else dying at that particular moment, and He will meet with you, and He will welcome you, and He will take you home.

All of us are going to die. Some of us have faced that reality this week; there are those of us who have seen loved ones of long lives, but their time had come and they have died this week. We all face that at some point. But are we ready to face it? Are we ready at that moment to be absent from the body but to be present with the Lord?

Host (Male): Thank you, Charles. We hope today's message encouraged you. Before we go, remember that when you give today to help keep Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one going out, we'll send you "Powerful and Effective Prayer," a newly curated collection of five messages from Stuart and Jill that can help you start moving from a mundane prayer life to one that's rich and vibrant.

So call now to give and request "Powerful and Effective Prayer" with our thanks: 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for listening today. Come back next time as Jill Briscoe shares with you an invitation to know God and experience an intimate relationship with the Almighty. That's tomorrow here on Telling the Truth.