THE STORY WE FIND OURSELVES IN
THE STORY OF THE EVER AFTER
DR. JIM DIXON
HEBREWS 11:8-16
NOVEMBER 27, 2005
Plato dreamed of Atlantis. Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed of Xanadu. James Hilton dreamed of Shangri-La. The Greeks and the Romans dreamed of the Elysium, sometimes called the Elysian Fields. Of course, the Vikings dreamed of Valhalla and the Buddhists have always dreamed of Nirvana and the Tibetan Buddhists of Shambala and the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians dream of paradise in heaven because everybody wants to live happily ever after.
Even Hollywood has made many movies on the subject of heaven. Of course, Hollywood movies on heaven tend to be kind of new-Age. All dogs go to heaven. All people go to heaven. Everything and everyone goes to heaven. But of course dreaming of heaven doesn’t make it so. There are, beyond the grave, two destinies. As Christians we do not judge the world. All judgement waits for God, but we know this: We who believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior are going to live happily ever after. So this morning we take a glimpse of what the Bible has to say on the subject of heaven. I have two teachings this morning and the first teaching is this: If you’re a Christian, then heaven is your home. If you’re a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your home is in heaven.
In 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, the Apostle Paul writes that he would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Paul wanted us to understand, and God wants us to understand, that as long as you’re in that body, the body you’re in right now, you’re away from home. As long as I’m in this body, I am away from home. And so, in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, the body that we now have is called a tent because, if you are in a tent, typically, you’re away from home.
I remember in 1978, Barb and I bought our first tent. Our son Drew was one year of age and our daughter Heather was four. We thought, “It’s time to buy a tent. Families need to go camping and we need to get a tent.” We did not have much money. We went out to Aurora and looked at Gart Brothers. They were having a sale on tents. We found this one tent that nobody seemed to want and so they had radically reduced it. It was blue and orange, and for those of you who are Bronco fans, I know it’s hard to imagine that anything blue and orange could be ugly, but this tent was really ugly. But it held four people and it was cheap, so Barb and I bought it. We took that tent and as a family we used it for years. We camped at Wellington Lake near Bailey a number of times. We camped at Granby Lake, Shadow Mountain Lake. We went camping up at the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. We had a lot of fun but every time we went in that tent, we were away from home.
Now, it’s true there were occasions where we put the tent up in the backyard and Heather and her friends would sleep in the tent or Drew and his friends would go sleep in the tent. Late at night I’d go sneaking outside and pretend that I was a bear and make growling noises outside of the tent. It kind of seemed to work on the girls. It didn’t seem to work on the guys so much. But even then, they were at least pretending they were away from home because when you’re in a tent, you’re away from home. So, Paul says, “These bodies you have now are tents. Someday you will get a new body.” And he uses the Greek word “oikia” or “oikodomeo,” and those words refer to a permanent dwelling. The new body will be a permanent body, but this body, the one you have now, is a tent. So, God wants you to know every time you look in the mirror and you see that body, you should think, “I’m not home yet.” Every time I look in the mirror, I think, “I’m not home yet but I’m getting closer.”
There are a number of words in the Bible in the Greek that describe our life as Christians on this earth. These words, from “allotrios” to “xenos,” from “parepidemos” to “paroikeo,” all describe the Christian life on this earth, and they all mean a similar thing: “stranger,” “alien,” “exile,” “sojourner.” That is what the Bible says we are. On this earth we are strangers. We are aliens. We are exiles and we are sojourners. This world is not our home. We are just passing through. One day we are going to go home.
Now, understand in the Bible there is an eternal heaven and there’s an intermediate heaven, what theologians call the intermediate state. We need to understand that when we die, we leave these bodies behind and they go “dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and our souls are set free and we go home. We go home to be with the Lord. But when we first go home, we go to the intermediate heaven because the eternal heaven has not been made yet. The Bible describes the eternal heaven as involving a New Heavens and a New Earth and events surrounding the consummation. When you first die, you go to the intermediate heaven, and we don’t know much about it, but we know Jesus is there and so you’re home. Wherever Jesus is, that is home. So when you die, your soul leaves your body. As Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in paradise,” and you go immediately to be with Jesus. You go home.
There is a story that I sometimes have told at our donor appreciation dinners, and I want to share it with all of you. The story took place in June of the year 1910. There was a great ship that came into New York Harbor. On that ship there was a missionary couple. I have read this story in a number of places, and I’ve seen a number of different versions, but in most of the versions this missionary couple is named John and Sarah Jacobson. They had been missionaries in Africa for 37 years and they had spent the whole of those 37 years serving Jesus Christ in Africa and they had never come back to the United States, not even on furlough. So here they were coming into New York Harbor after 37 years, June 1910.
Now, they were amazed as they came into New York Harbor because they saw tens of thousands of people gathered to see the ship come in. The people were there because on that ship was Teddy Roosevelt, the former president of the United States. Teddy Roosevelt was beloved of the American people because he had ascended the Presidency in a time of national crisis and national mourning with the assassination of William McKinley. So September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt moved from vice president to president. Of course, he was beloved of the American people because he was a Spanish-American war hero and he had led the Rough Riders. He had won the Battle of Kettle Hill and the greater battle of San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War.
He was beloved of the American people because he was a great outdoorsman. It was Teddy Roosevelt who established the National Forest Service. He added millions of acres to our national forests. Of course, it was Teddy Roosevelt who received the first Nobel Prize, the first American to receive a Nobel Prize. In 1906 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating peace between Russia and Japan. The American people loved him for that. The American people loved Teddy Roosevelt because he brought to fruition the dream of the Panama Canal. And Teddy Roosevelt’s face is etched into the stone at Mount Rushmore.
And so here he was, June 1910, on that ship coming into New York City. He’d been to Africa on a big game hunt. Now he was coming back, and the crowds were there en masse, tens of thousands. The missionary couple were on that ship too. As they came into the harbor, the husband said to the wife, “I know I shouldn’t feel like this, but we’ve been gone for 37 years, we’re coming home, we’re going to live in a Baptist retirement home here and we don’t know anybody. We are coming home and there is no one to greet us. Here the president goes on a hunting trip and comes back to tens of thousands. It just seems wrong.” His wife smiled and said, “Dear, you’re forgetting something.” He said, “What’s that?” She said, “We’re not home yet.”
I love that story because it’s so true of all of us who belong to Christ. We are not home yet. Someday we are going home and when you get there, there is going to be people to greet you and it’s going to be a celebration I know, but remember this first teaching—heaven is Home! The body you live in now is just a tent, a temporary dwelling. This world is not our home. We are just passing through.
There is a second teaching this morning and the second teaching this morning has to do with what happens when we get to heaven. We are going to try to have a little fun with this. What happens when we get to heaven? We approach this with humility because, on this side of heaven, the other side is a mystery. The Apostle Paul was taken into the Third Heaven, taken into Paradise, and Paul said he heard things he’s not permitted to describe for us, saw things he’s not permitted to tell us. God wants, at least in some measure, for heaven to remain a wonderful mystery. But the Bible also gives us glimpses of what the ever after is going to be like. So we take a glimpse of what is going to happen when we get home.
First of all, when we get home, we are all going to receive psychotherapy. That is the first thing we are all going to receive when we get home—psychotherapy. Now, the word psychotherapy comes from two Greek words meaning, “healing of the psyche, healing of the soul.” That is the meaning of psychotherapy. Healing of the soul. The Bible says we are all “soul sick.” When we get to heaven, when we go home, our souls are going to be healed. Jesus, the Bible tells us, is “Pele Yoez”—the Hebrew words in Isaiah, chapter 9 meaning, “Wonderful Counselor.” He is the Wonderful Counselor. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. There will be no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore because our souls are going to be healed.
Of course, on this earth even the best of therapists (and they are many wonderful counselors) are unhealed healers because counselors and therapists are themselves in need of healing. So, therapists here on earth are at best unhealed healers. Of course, whatever healing they can provide is only in small measure.
I want to tell you a story to kind of explain that. The story kind of concerns Coca-Cola. Many of you, or at least some of you, might know this story. Of course, you know that Coke and Pepsi are at war and both of these companies spend billions of dollars on advertising globally, literally billions of dollars seeking desperately to win the war. It was not always so. There was a time when Pepsi-Cola did not exist, but Coke did (because Coke predates Pepsi). Coke was created in 1886 by Dr. Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a druggist. He came up with the original formula in 1886 and I think many of you know that original formula included cocaine. Coke had cocaine in it and the truth is Dr. Pemberton was probably a cocaine addict.
As the years passed, by the year 1909, Coca-Cola was at war with sixty-nine other companies. Sixty-nine other companies were producing similar products and all of them were laced with cocaine. Around America, doctors and psychologists began to notice people were acting strangely and people were having headaches. Some people were exhibiting more bizarre manifestations and full-scale psychosis, so in 1914 we had the Harrison Narcotics Act and cocaine was no longer available for common everyday use.
But you might think, “How could all of that happened?” It all goes back to 1884, two years before Dr. Pemberton came up with the formula for Coca-Cola. In 1884, a paper was written in Europe called “Uber Coca” on cocaine. That paper was written by Dr. Sigmund Freud. In that paper he recommended cocaine to the world. Sigmund Freud consumed vast amounts of cocaine and his friends consumed vast amounts of cocaine. Many of his friends had cocaine psychosis and many of his friends were addicted. Sigmund Freud was recommending cocaine to the world, and he impacted Dr. Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. Of course, Sigmund Freud was a mess. He really was messed up. Throughout most of his life he smoked a full box of cigars every day (which is not easy to do). He smoked a full box of cigars every day and at the end of his life he had so much mouth cancer he had lost his entire jaw. He still smoked cigars until he died from a physician-assisted lethal dose of morphine. The man was a mess and he founded psychoanalysis and influenced counselors all over the world.
Of course, you understand we’re all a mess. Some people have borderline personality disorder. Some people are bipolar. Some people have schizophrenia. Some people have clinical depression. Some people have chronic anxiety syndrome. But we are all damaged at the core.
I know there are some of you who think you are not damaged at the core, but your wife knows you are, and your husband knows you are. If your kids do not know you are damaged at the core, some day they will. Someday they will know because we are all damaged at the core. What is it going to be like when we go home? What is that going to be like? It is going to be awesome. We are going to receive psychotherapy in our souls. We are going to be healed by Jesus Christ. How awesome that is going to be. That means our sin nature will just disappear. How great will that be when we get to heaven and when we go home?
When we go home, you are also going to receive the keys to the city. When you get home, you are going to receive the keys to the city. We all have keys. We have all experienced the frustration of losing our keys. I know I have lost my keys. My kids have lost their keys. Barb has lost her keys. You have car keys, you have house keys, you may have a key to a safe deposit box. Maybe you have a key to a building somewhere. These are important keys, but remember the most important keys are all held by Jesus. Jesus has all the really big keys. That is why in Revelation, chapter 1, Jesus says, “Fear not. I am the Living One. I died but I’m alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and Hades.” Now, a lot of people seem to think that Hades refers to Hell, but it does not. Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “sheol,” and it simply referred to the “keeping place of the dead where people were kept until the final judgement.” When Jesus said, “I have the keys of death and Hades,” He simply means that for you he can unlock death. He can set you free from death. That is an important key, right?
In Revelation, chapter 3, Jesus introduces Himself saying, “The words of the Holy One, the True One who has the keys of David, who opens and no one is able to shut—who shuts and no one is able to open.” What does Jesus mean there when He says He has the keys of David? Well, scholars now know that the keys of David were used to open the Royal Treasury in the Royal Palace in the City of Jerusalem, so the key of David opened up the treasures of the City of Jerusalem. But Jesus was not speaking of earth or any earthly city. Jesus was speaking of the heavenly city, and He has the key that opens up the treasures of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. This is part of the blessed hope. When you get home, you will be given the keys to the city.
So, in our passage of scripture for today, we are told that Abraham himself looked forward to the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. In that same passage of scripture, Hebrews, chapter 11, we are told that “all the people of God died in faith, not having received what was promised but having seen it and having greeted it from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” People who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. “If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country; that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God and He has prepared for them a city.” When you get home, you are going to be given the keys to that city and all the treasures of it and it is going to be great.
There is a book here written by Randy Alcorn called “Heaven.” Some of you have read this book I know. Some of you are in groups that are studying this book. It is a fun book. This book by Randy Alcorn on heaven is a fun book and there are a lot of interesting observations in it, but I get frustrated. I get frustrated when I read it because the book is just filled with incredible speculation. Oftentimes it seems, to me, at least, Randy Alcorn does not honor the literary genre of scripture and so he takes allegorical parabolic passages and he treats them as though they were literal or historical. And that frustrates me. We come to Revelation 21 and 22 and there is a passage on the New Jerusalem. But it is apocalyptic literature, and the passage is allegorical, and it is describing the church of Jesus Christ in glory through allegory and probably not describing the literal physical Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem. And yet he takes it that way. I guess that is okay. I mean, it is fun. If you look at Revelation 21 and 22 and it is describing literally the New Jerusalem, then I can tell you this. The New Jerusalem has streets of gold and gates of pearl. I can also tell you the New Jerusalem is massive—12,000 stadia in every direction, length, breadth, and height, which would mean that the footprint of the New Jerusalem would be 2,250,000 square miles in size—15,000 times larger than the footprint of greater London, 40 times larger than all of Great Britain. Depending on how you take the height of the city as 1,400 miles, you could fit within the New Jerusalem every person who has ever lived on the earth twenty times over and everyone could have a vast lavish estate. Huge! But, you see, it does not matter that we know exactly what the New Jerusalem is going to be like. We do not have to know that. We just know it is great.
So, it says in Hebrews 13, “Here we have no lasting city. We look forward to the city which is to come.” It says in Hebrews 12, Where there is a glimpse of the New Jerusalem, “If you have come to Mt. Zion, to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…” and then it describes the inhabitants of the city. It says there will be innumerable angels in festal gathering. Wow! Talk about City of the Angels. Talk about Los Angeles. The New Jerusalem is the City of the Angels. Innumerable angels in festal gathering.
The spirits of just persons made perfect. Who are the spirits of just persons made perfect? Most Bible scholars believe they are the Old Testament saints, perhaps other persons through history. Then in the New Jerusalem we are told there will be the assembly of the firstborn registered in the heavens. Who is in this assembly of the firstborn registered in the heavens? Bible scholars all know—there is no disagreement on this—because the Firstborn is the title of Jesus Christ in the Bible that He is the Firstborn. And the word assembly in the Greek is “ekklesia,” which means, “church,” so the assembly of the firstborn is the church of Jesus Christ, enrolled in the heavens.
So, who is going to be in the New Jerusalem? Innumerable angels in festal gathering, the spirits of just persons made perfect (the Old Testament saints), and the church of Jesus Christ enrolled in the heavens. How incredible that city is going to be. There is going to be fun people to hang out with. You can talk to angels if you want to. You can talk to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What an incredible place it’s going to be. I believe surely it will be a place where there is culture and arts, entertainment, and sports because all of this is God’s gift. But none of it will be tainted by sin, not anymore. There will be worship there. Worship will be glorious. It will be awesome. Of course, there will be incredible fellowship, friendship, and laughter. When you get home, you are going to be given keys to the city and that city will be great and beautiful.
Well finally, when you get home, you are going to receive unlimited frequent flyer miles. Do you like to travel? How many of you like to travel? Barb and I love to travel. We are not very good travelers. We kind of grump and complain a lot but we love seeing new places. We love traveling. Even just the luggage is kind of a pain. You have to pack it all up and get your luggage ready. Then of course you put it in the car, and you take it to the airport. You check it all in. Then you get to your destination, and you pick it up at baggage claim and you try to get it out to some van so you can get to your car rental. You get it on the van. You get it to the car rental. You put it in your car. You drive it to your hotel. You take it up to your hotel room. You unpack it. Of course, before long you’re packing it again. Traveling can kind of be a little bit of a pain but it’s so fun to see new places. Don’t you like to get out a little bit? Don’t you like to see some new places? You will not believe what it’s going to be like when you get home.
Now, just imagine for a second that you could travel right now wherever you wanted to travel.
If you looked at pictures that come from the Hubble Space Telescope, you’d see pictures of quasars, you’d see pictures of nebula, novas and supernovas, galaxies, elliptical galaxies, inordinate galaxies, and spiral galaxies. You’d see vast sections of space. It is majestic. The Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,” but you can’t go there. You surely know that. If you could travel at the speed of light, 186,282 miles per second, it would still take you one hundred thousand years just to cross through this spiral galaxy that we are in called the Milky Way. Our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe. Incredible.
Of course, the nearest spiral galaxy is Andromeda and beyond that, M13, but traveling at the speed of light it would still take you 2.2 million years to reach Andromeda, the nearest spiral galaxy. So vast is this cosmos, this universe. You can’t go there. Not now. Have you ever wondered why? Why did God create it all? Is He just arbitrary and capricious or does God have a plan? Does God have a design? God always has a plan. God always has a design. So understand that when you get home eventually you’re going to experience the eternal heavens. And the Bible says God will create a New Heavens and a New Earth wherein righteousness dwells.
There’s a big debate about the meaning of 2 Peter, chapter 3, and the meaning of Romans 8. We don’t know whether the universe is going to be destroyed and remade or whether it’s just going to be kind of purified. But it will have some kind continuity, probably, with its past, just like you and your new body will have some continuity with who you were before. That New Heavens and that New Earth will all be for you, the people of God, and heaven will encompass all the works of God’s hands and “you will rejoice,” the Bible says, “and be glad in all which I’ve created.” You will rejoice and be glad.
Do you like to travel? Or maybe you just like to stay at home? Maybe you just want to hang out at the New Jerusalem? There will be a New Earth. Maybe you will just kind of want to come back and hang out on earth, but understand that you are going to have unlimited frequent flyer miles. I do not know how it works. I don’t know whether your new body will be capable of energy-mass conversion, and you can just move telekinetically at the speed of thought. I don’t know. I do not know whether, with the fullness of our minds, we will be able to create space vehicles. I do not know. I just know we are going to get around and it’s going to be a whole lot of fun. The Bible says the New Jerusalem itself will somehow descend from the heavens to earth and all of that will be part of “home.”
You look at the Christian church through history. We really have not done a very good job of envisioning heaven. We are much better at talking about hell. So, you look at Dante. I mean, Dante’s heaven really is not very exciting, but Dante’s hell and Dante’s purgatory are absolutely fascinating. You read Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and it captivates you. I mean, “Paradise Lost” is just fascinating, but you read his “Paradise Regained” and it is just a bore. Somehow as Christians we have not done a very good job of capturing the glories of heaven. But understand it is going to be glorious.
In this book by Randy Alcorn there are some great quotes. One quote in here is from David Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister of England during World War I. He says this: “When I was a boy, the thought of heaven used to frighten me more than the thought of hell. I pictured heaven as a place where time would be perpetually Sundays with perpetual services from which there would be no escape.” We try to make church fun and certainly God wants us to assemble as believers, but heaven is not going to be one big church service. It is going to be diverse, and it is going to be incredible. Of course, even our worship is going to be a lot better. When you are singing songs, do you ever get chills? When you are singing praise songs, do you ever just kind of sense, just for a moment, the presence and power and glory of God? Think how it is going to be when we see Him face-to-face. Heaven is home and when we get there, we are all going to receive psychotherapy and we are all going to be given the keys to the city and we are all going to have unlimited frequent flyer miles. Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.