Sermon Nuggets Mon Aug 23
Theme- Heaven
Verses- Hebrews 9:24- For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true; but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us”
Realms of Glory
The study this week is on heaven. Charles Spurgeon told his seminary students when you speak on Heaven be sure to smile and make your face light up. And when you speak on Hell….Well, Your ordinary face will do.
There is a great deal of literature and media presentations on the theme of heaven. Many ideas are from our imagination. One young man concluded he was not interesting in going to heaven for as he understood by preachers it is an eternal church service with way too much singing and preaching. Others talk about getting their harps and wings. Still others imagine being turned into angels.
How do you explain something that we have not experienced? Only through figures of speech and making comparisons with what we know, even though it is not just like that. There are things explained to us but it is natural to want to fill in the blanks with what we think it might look like. It is with humility we must recognize the difference between what the Bible teaches and what our own ideas might be. We do not have a complete picture of heaven.
Scriptures pictures heaven as a garden, a city, a kingdom, a throne room, all of which adds to our understanding. We are told Jesus is preparing a place for us, a mansion, a throne, a dwelling. Is Heaven non physical? The Bible talks about it being a place.
I enjoyed reading and teaching a study on Heaven by Randy Alcorn. However, I found his imaginations often falling more into the conjecture than revelation. 1 C 2:9 “No eye has seen nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” That points us to the wonders that are unimaginable because we can only compare a seed to a tree as the vast difference of what God has planned. But Alcorn justifies his thoughts in the next verse “but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”
How can we determine whether revelations come from the Spirit or from ourselves? I’ve never been able to get that straight unless it falls in line with the Bible. When I fill in the spaces with my thoughts, I will try to warn you.
An instant after death the departed saint will know more about heaven than all of the saints here on earth. But until we are called home to be with the Lord, our knowledge is confined to what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us in the Bible.
Like Stephen at his stoning, I believe we will be greeted by Jesus. You will know Him and He already knows you and calls you by name. You will have entered into his presence without a break in consciousness.
I am attracted to his thoughts which picture God as eternally creating. We will not know everything there is to know when we get to heaven for some things do not exist yet, if God is perpetually creating and renewing things. There will be an eternity to keep discovering and having responsibilities and enjoying our growing relationship with our wonderful Lord. I like the idea that just like the angels will be shown more things not yet revealed to them, so we too will found out more and more about God as eternity continues.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues Aug 24
Verses- 2 Cor 12:2-4 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know-- God knows. And I know that this man-- whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows-- was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
Heaven- The Words
Where is Heaven? The word heaven is used in the Bible both literally and figuratively. It is used often to refer to God and his judgments or decrees. Like when it says in the Old Testament. “May they hear from heaven so their sins may be forgiven” or I will lift my hands up to the heavens. Or heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool.
Matthew often speaks of the Kingdom of heaven is here, meaning the rule of God in the person of Jesus Christ. A voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, Hear Him.” That voice from heaven was God the Father.
I find that word heaven used a lot in reference to God and his authority in a figurative way. Solomon admits God is so big the heavens can’t hold him. But like all Bible reading the context helps us understand that when it speaks of heaven in a literal way it refers generally to three levels.
First there is the atmospheric or aerial heavens where the birds fly. This is visible to the naked eye and is mentioned by Jeremiah where he said: “The birds of the heavens have fled”. In this way God made the first heaven as the expanse over the earth. The tower of Babel reached upward to heaven. The clouds and atmosphere make up the first heaven.
Next, there are the stellar heavens from which shine the stars and constellations. Isaiah speaks of the Day of the Lord when “the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light” (Isaiah 13:10). There are also many references of the stars of heaven, and look to the heavenlies. We marvel to see the creation of earth and heavens, meaning all the things of earth and the vastness of the moon, stars, planets, and sun the galaxies of the heavens.
Finally, there is the third Heaven, the celestial. “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true; but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24). Jesus said “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Here our Lord was referring to the third heaven, and He says the Father is there.
The third Heaven is treated as a place. It was the dwelling of Christ before His Incarnation. He said: “I came down from Heaven” (John 6:38). Heaven was also the place to which He ascended after His resurrection as Luke says: It is the place where the glory and power of God are set forth. Jesus is there now, “Set (or seated) on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” (Hebrews 8:1). Our Lord said: “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). When Jesus went away He must have gone somewhere to a place.
Some people have concluded that because heaven could not be found, there is no such place. But the great expanse of the Almighty God is not within the measuring lines of man. True, the astronomer has located the North Star over 400,000,000,000 miles away, but neither is that far when one reckons distance with God. We believe in the Biblical idea of heaven as a definite, tangible place.
But do we know the location of the third heaven where God, Christ, the angels, and the disembodied spirits of the believing dead are? In other words, exactly where is heaven? If this question were asked of a small child, the answer doubtless would come back in the form of a finger pointing up, and perhaps the accompanying words, “Up there.” Heaven to almost everyone is “up.”
Karl G. Sabiers asks: “Which way is ‘up’? If we say it is in the direction at right angles with the earth’s surface wherever we may happen to be, then it would be in a different direction from every point on earth. From North America and from China it would be in exactly the opposite directions. According to this, ‘up’ would be everywhere in general and nowhere in particular.” When Satan rebelled against God, he said: “I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will set upon the mount of congregation in the uttermost parts of the north” (Isaiah 14:13 ). No matter on what part of the earth one is standing, north will always be “up.” When the prophet Ezekiel got his vision from the Lord, he wrote: “And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north” (Ezekiel 1:4). It would seem reasonable to conclude that heaven is somewhere in the northern heavens beyond the reach of the astronomer’s powerful telescope, or it is just invisible to any human apparatus.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds Aug 25
Verses- Rev 21:18-23 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
Heaven -The Wonders
“Some do not yearn to be near God because they do not find sin utterly repugnant or goodness wonderfully attractive.” C.S. Lewis stated “We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what it meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
So it is in our world. We are content with the mud pies the best we know because we can’t really imagine what heaven will be like. But Revelations helps us know more.
In Rev 21:1-22:5 pictures heaven as the new Jerusalem, the Holy City coming to a new earth. It is no surprise that holiness will characterize the eternal city. God is everywhere revealed as God of infinite holiness. No sin will abound in this place. It is eternal and everlasting. How
can we understand perfection?.
If we can say anything about heaven, the Bible uses figures that sort, kinda, like describe it’s beauty. “It’s kind of like this, it is sort of like that.” But the bottom line is our minds cannot comprehend it as the experiences are incomparable. There are no words invented to describe the glories of heaven. So lets take the best things we can think of and combine them together.
Take the whiteness of the winters in the woods, the majestic mountains of Switzerland, the awesome moonlight reflections of the boundary water lakes. The balm trees of California, the vastness of the Grand canyon, the glories of the stars in the videos from our space ships. Take the botanical gardens of Vancouver Island, or serenity of Hawaii, and combine them together. But that isn’t good enough.
If in a world cursed by sin God has made so many beautiful things, how much more beautiful must be that home where there is no sin to mar His perfect handiwork.
The most important part of heaven is that it is the dwelling place of God and we will be with Him. The unveiled presence of almighty and Holy God is the essence of Heaven. Just as Moses face shined for days when he was for in it every person and every thing will echo the glory and the holiness of God. All powers of evil and all unbelievers will have been cast into the lake of fire forever. This means that every possibility of sin will have been expelled.
The fellowship in Heaven will surpass anything that we have known on earth. Up there “God is with men; He will dwell with them, and God Himself shall be with them.” We shall enter into a fellowship with the triune God that is utterly unknown on earth. Men dwelling with God Himself.
In addition to having fellowship with “God Himself,” Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we will commune with the company of angels, as well as the saints who went on before us.
Revelations 21 also tell us there will be no Tears, no death, no pain, no suffering.
There is complete righteousness, justice, and truth. There are no legal loop holes that people seek to cheat one another. There will be no lying lips or a judge that does not understand even the heart of the matter. God knows my heart and my intensions and my confusion and my doubts now. I don’t have to explain myself.
I know sometimes I make a decision and I’m 49 % one way and 51% the other way, but the act or the decision is made while I vacillate over the two. People cannot understand completely intentions but only actions. God knows all.
In verse 6 it describes water of life that is satisfying. When Jesus was at the well he said I will give you water where you will not thirst again. She wanted this super bottled water. But she was looking for love in all the wrong places with all the men she lived with, But Jesus was able to give her pure love and in that context find fulfillment that she had been looking for. Verse. 7 reminds us of an incredible inheritance All things. It will all be ours for the living. But the Bible does not teach universalism that everyone will be saved and going to heaven. It also talks about those who are excluded. There are people who do not respond to the revelation and truth they have received.
As I look at the rest of the chapter the angel carries John to a mountain. Sounds better than light rail or an airplane! What he saw there was the shining from the glory of God and brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel jasper clear as crystal
The passage above is described as a temple where the dwelling of God is with a great high wall, 12 gates as tribes of Israel serve as an entrance into place now for all nations. But you don’t need a temple because the light is from God and the Lamb.
In Heaven there will be no more death. God has arranged a time when death itself shall be removed. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’”
The 22nd chapter continues to gives us figurative and picturesque views. People all over live by rivers and water for drinking, refreshment, irrigation, and transportation. That pictures of all those shows there is a river of the water of live clear and clean and plentiful. Just like God had water come from the rock. Jesus is also that living water from the throne. With tree of life 12 crops of fruit, Recreation in perfection.
Heaven is too splendid for our human hearts and too vast for our finite minds. So we see only a glimpse of glory. The street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass; The wall was made of jasper the twelve gates were peals, each gate made of a single pearl. But none of these are the main attraction. They are only symbols of its glory. The central glory is God Himself. He is the chef attraction.
John wishes he had words to describe it.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs Aug 26
Verses- Matt 25:21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
Rev 22:3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
Heaven- The Work
Huck Finn thought heaven was a place where a person would go around all day long with a harp and sin, forever and forever. We have many hymns that teach us about heaven, and unfortunately we get more of our ideas from hymn that men write than from the Bible which God wrote.
God works and his creation works. We have purpose and meaning in work that is not toilsome as we’ve been under the curse. Jesus in his life here worked as a carpenter after the trade of Joseph. God is working every day all the time, and has prepared for us meaningful work in heaven.
In the parable of talents those who have been faithful in little things shall be given responsibility over much. There apparently is rewards that include various responsibilities based on our faithful work here on earth. Doing what God wants us to do with whatever God chosen to give us. Some have many talents others few, but use them by Gods Spirit and for Gods’ glory and it will produce for you greater joy in heaven.
The implication of this and other passages is that there will be responsibilities and service in the afterlife. Not toilsome like the curse, but rewarding like the responsibility God gave Adam to care for the animals and name them.
Work is true in every well ordered home on earth. Some people are so overworked that their greatest longing is for rest. The Bible verse that most appeals to them is “There remains therefore a rest to the people of God. Heb 4:9. But the time will come when they will be rested and will become weary of doing nothing. Each one will be given exactly the taste that suits his powers, and his tastes and his abilities.
The saints “shall serve Him day and night in His temple”. By no means does the “rest” of the redeemed mean idleness. When we rest from our labors, I think it implies the hard labor that came with the curse. The heaven responsibilities we must handle in a fallen world. When Adam and Eve sinned, part of the curse was that hard work was not the joy that they experienced in the garden, but thorns and thistles, sweat and weariness were added.
In Heaven we shall serve Him unhampered by earth’s enemies and limitations, without painful stress and strain and sweat. “And what will we be doing?” someone asks. David said: “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11). On earth we are hampered by so many things. The Apostle John realized that believers were enjoying merely a measure of that which God had for them. He wrote: “These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:4). In Heaven the joys and pleasures of our union with Jesus Christ will be appreciated and apprehended to the full, unhindered by the disturbing and distracting things on earth.
But we will not only be servants for the Bible speaks as well of authority to his faithful servants. All those in authority are also servants of the company or church, or government. I suppose the difference would be if you own and operate your own company, but even then most of a board under which they must give an account. But there will be no competition or slackers in heaven, no trying to beat the other guy. I believe that just like angels have different ranks of responsibilities so will we, based on the works of this world. Will the Lord find you faithful now?
Pastor Dale
Sermon nuggets Fri Aug 27
Verses- Rev 14:1-3 Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.
And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.
And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.
Heaven- The Worship
The way the Bible implies Heaven is home. Jesus told his disciples that he will go and prepare a place for them, in my Fathers house. This will be in the presence of God the triune, Father Son and Holy Spirit.
But the Father’s house will be happy because there will be nothing to make it sad and there will be music. I think of the variety of styles and preferences of worship music. We are limited also in this earthly realm. I wonder if those who love praise choruses and drums will be in one section and those who love classical hymns over in that corner; southern gospel to the right and spirituals to the left?
Now some people’s work is music. There are musicians that enjoy making music and spend all their professional life writing, composing, practicing and performing. Is that work? All of them will tell you there are times when they do not feel like doing it and it is a chore, but there are times more often when it is a delight. And reward isn’t in the paycheck that may come, but in the engagement of the communication of emotions that music is known for. How wonderful would the music be when it flows out of a full heart and not out of obligation to get the job done. That is how it will be with all work. But in the Bible worship holds a special category in heaven.
The entire opening part of Revelations 19 is devoted to a scene of worship in heaven. Many of the Psalms are filled with expressions of worship, assigning praise to God. The book of Psalms is a book of hymns, but the book of Revelations has 14 songs in it all of them by groups appearing in heaven, some by angles some by elders, but a number of them by the redeemed saints.
In Revelation 4:10-11 we are clearly shown that in heaven some will worship our Lord and cast down crowns before His throne. On earth He is not worshipped and adored as He should be. Our so-called worship is sometimes no worship at all. How often we have gone through the motions when our hearts were not right! We enthrone self and steal the crowns to the boast of what we have done. But some day we will see Him as He is and we shall give Him our all. The more we focus on the person of Christ and what He has done for us it should lead us to more delight of heart and faithfulness of service while we are on this journey here and now. But when more is revealed in glory we will know Him who has redeemed us and brought us to our eternal dwelling place. We will see with different eyes how He as loved us and won us unto Himself.
Man is the apex of God’s creation, the crown of all that our heavenly Father has brought into existence by His own mighty power. The remarkable strides that men have made in scientific research, in industrial progress, in agricultural development, and in the civilization and evangelization of the peoples of the world are an indication of the treasures of genius which God has given to mankind. But think of how limited we are here and how much more we will be able to enter a realm where even the confines of our scales and notes will be expaned. I think there will be music beyond our imaginations. There will be new sounds and voices. There will be new instruments and new sounds and new music.
Some day a message will be given by the Father above and say to an angel it’s time to bring Dale Cope home. All who know Christ personally are given freedom from the fear. It is going home to the one who loves us most.
Perhaps you are not a Christian or not have the confidence of going to heaven when you die. Some day you are going to die. To you death will be a terrible agonizing enemy. You will be banished from the presence of God in hell. Right now you can receive the love of Christ and take Him as your Lord and Savior. You can renounce your sin, turn by faith to Him, and ask Him to save you. Will you do that?
But we take courage and press on hopefully, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Today our knowledge is confined to the revelation that God has given us in His Word. But in that day--“face to face!” Face to face with family and friends whom we have loved long ago. But more wonderful still we shall see Him as He is, “face to face.”
As the old Swedish Hymn says, “ Face to face with Christ my Savior. Face to face what will it be—when with rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ who died for me? Face to face I shall behold Him, far beyond the starry sky face to face in all His glory, I shall see Him by and by.
Only faintly now I see Him with the darkened veil between. But a blessed day is coming when His glory shall be seen. What rejoicing in His presence when are banished grief and pain, when the crooked ways are straightened and the dark things shall be plain.” (Grant Tullar)
Pastor Dale
