The Dream Fulfilled
04/15/2007 - What Is Heaven Like?
A few weeks ago, right after we started this new series, one of you emailed me a story that you had seen on CNN. It was a video about a 12 year-old girl from Sandpoint, Idaho, named Akiane Kramarik. Maybe you've seen her. She's been on CNN and Oprah and Good Morning America and a bunch of other well known talk shows. She's a self-taught artist, a prodigy, a genius, who claims that her inspiration comes from above.
She first picked up a brush when she was six years old, but her visions, which she calls "inspirations from God," started when she was just four. At that time she began to describe to her mother, in great detail, her visits to heaven.
"The colors," she says, "were out of this world. There were hundreds of millions of colors that we don't know yet and the flowers were crystal clear." Oddly enough, her mother at the time was an atheist. She didn't believe in God and the concept of God was never discussed in their home.
Her mother says, "We didn't pray together. There was no discussion about God. We didn't go to church. Akiane was home schooled. We didn't have babysitters or even watch TV. We were with the kids all the time and so these words from Akiane about God didn't come from the outside. We knew that. But there suddenly were these intense conversations about God's love, his place in our lives, and she would describe everything in detail."
Akiane told her mother, "You have to believe me. This is a different way. A way that is so mysterious. I have to go through."
So God quickly became part of her daily life and eventually became part of her family's life too and she started painting vivid scenes of heaven. But her talent doesn't stop with her artwork. Just a few months ago she decided to learn the piano and now she's already composing her own music. But it's her painting that she uses to capture these visions of God and of heaven. The picture of Jesus you see on the screen is called "Father Forgive Them" and she painted it when she was nine. And if you go to her website you'll see more of her incredible art work.
"God looks to me," she says, "like bold light. He's pure and really strong and big and his eyes are just beautiful … The visions are how God is explaining himself to me and what he does for this world … I've been blessed by God. And if I'm blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others … The most important thing in this world is faith because without faith you can't communicate with God. It's just so beautiful up there." Interesting isn't it? Visions of God. Visits to heaven.
This morning we continue our series called The Dream Fulfilled: Glimpses of the Kingdom with a teaching I've called "What is Heaven Like?" Two weeks ago we said that for the believer in Jesus to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. In other words, when we die our spirit separates from our body and goes to be with God, while our body returns to the ground in dust or ashes and awaits the great future day of resurrection. And when that glorious day comes our body will be reassembled and transformed into a glorified body, like Jesus had after his resurrection, joined again with our spirit to live forever with the Lord on a resurrected earth.
If you have a Bible meet me at 1 Corinthians 15 and let's read what the apostle Paul says about all this in his great chapter on the resurrection. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:50-57, I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep (the word "sleep" here is a euphemism for the word "die," we will not all die), but we will all be changed -- 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what God has in store for his people. We will not all die, if we're alive when Jesus comes back, and even if we do die our body will be changed because this mortal body of flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God when it comes to this earth in all its fullness. We will need an imperishable, retrofitted body to dwell on an imperishable, retrofitted earth. That's a big part of God fulfilling his dream for you and for me.
And knowing that's in our future look what Paul says in verse 58, Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
That's Paul's way of saying, "Hang in there. Don't quit. Stay on board with the mission of Christ!" The future resurrection of our bodies was intensely practical for the apostle Paul. Glimpses of the kingdom that's coming tomorrow are always meant to motivate us to live for that kingdom today.
So if that's what's going to happen to our bodies some day, what happens to our spirits now? It's been almost two thousand years since Paul wrote those words. He died. The Corinthians died as have millions of other Christ followers down through the centuries. So where are they now? And what are they experiencing while they wait for the resurrection?
The Bible uses primarily two words to describe where the spirits of believers go when they die. The first is the word paradise, used three times in the New Testament. Jesus told the thief on the cross in Luke 23:43, Today you will be with me in paradise. The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:4, I was caught up to paradise. Revelation 2:7 says, To those who overcome I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
The word paradise literally means "a walled park" or "an enclosed garden." It was used to describe the great walled gardens in the royal palace of the Persian King Cyrus. In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of Old Testament, the word paradise is used to describe the Garden of Eden and communicates images of life and beauty and joy and peace. A place where there could be millions of colors we don't know yet and flowers that are crystal clear. Paradise is the word Jesus used to describe the place where our spirits go after death. It's a word that doesn't put fear into our hearts, but longing. Take me there!
The second word used in Scripture for the destiny of believers after death and by far the most often used word is heaven. It's not our final destiny, but it's our next stop on the journey which is why some call it the intermediate heaven. Heaven is where God is.
Psalm 103:19 says, The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 5:2. Heaven is God's realm.
After the resurrection Jesus spent forty days with his disciples speaking about the kingdom of God and then he hiked up to the summit of the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem where he ascended into heaven in front of his disciples.
This is how Luke puts it in Acts 1:10-11, They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11"Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
Jesus went to heaven. And a few chapters later we read that when Stephen was stoned to death as the first Christian martyr he went to heaven too. In Acts 7:56 Stephen cried out, "Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" … While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
Apparently, paradise and heaven are the same place and the spirits of Christ followers go there when they die. Now does that mean that heaven is somewhere way up in the clouds? If we build a Hubble telescope strong enough to examine every square inch of the universe are we eventually going to discover heaven?
Some people think so. But personally, I believe heaven is more like another dimension, a dimension that's every bit as real as our own, but invisible to the human eye. I think heaven is not way out there somewhere. I think it's very close. In fact, I think heaven is all around us we just can't see it right now.
There's a story in the Old Testament that describes a battle between the people of God and the Arameans who have got the Israelites surrounded. And at one point Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha, has a panic attack and says, "What are we going to do? They've got us surrounded. We're dead!" And Elisha says, "Chill out. (That's the original Hebrew translation!) Don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
And in 2 Kings 6:17 we read that Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so that he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
God opened Gehazi's eyes to see another dimension of reality, this spiritual, heavenly dimension that's all around us. The apostle Paul mentions that dimension in Ephesians 6:12 when he writes, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Heaven is this very real, invisible dimension where God lives. I read an interesting article this week that said that scientists at schools like Yale, Princeton, and Stanford talk about the possibility of as many as ten invisible dimensions along with an infinite number of imperceptible parallel universes. Hey, if there can be ten invisible dimensions, why not one called heaven?
Heaven is where God dwells and earth is where we dwell. All throughout this trilogy on the dream of God we've been saying that heaven is not some place far, far away. Instead, heaven is very near, near enough to overlap and intersect with earth. And as we read God's story we see times when the curtain is pulled back and heaven just bursts onto the scene, when the normally invisible, becomes visible.
Heaven overlapped with earth in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1-2. Then God steps out from behind the curtain when he calls Abraham and meets him in the desert. Jacob sees a ladder between heaven and earth with angels going up and down. Moses sees a bush that's burning and discovers he's standing on holy ground. A pillar of cloud by day and fire by night lead the Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus. And after they miraculously cross the Red Sea on dry ground and get to Mount Sinai, God appears to Moses on the summit and gives him the Ten Commandments.
The tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, is set up in the middle the camp where God meets with his people. It's the place where heaven and earth come together. Later on, once Israel is settled in the land, the Temple is built in Jerusalem. And it becomes the place where heaven and earth interlock. Then Jesus comes and more of heaven comes to this earth than ever came before. And now Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is within you." We, his followers, citizens of heaven, temples of the Holy Spirit, are the place were heaven and earth intersect.
Heaven is this invisible realm that's all around us and overlaps and interlocks with earth at different times and in various ways and some have had the privilege of seeing it. Maybe Akiane is one of them. We know the apostle John was one of them. He gives us the most vivid description of heaven anywhere in the Bible. The door to heaven he says was propped opened for him and he got the rare privilege to look in to that other dimension. Turn to Revelation 4 and listen to what he saw.
Revelation 4:1-11, After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." 2At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. 4Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. 5From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. 6Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." 9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: 11"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
Wow! What a place! A few years ago we studied this passage in detail, but let me just say that John got to see God's realm as it exists right now, beautiful, majestic, and awesome, full of glory and praise and worship coming from all of God's creatures, people and angels and animals. That's going on right now behind the door, in that other dimension that is all around us.
Turn to one more passage in Revelation 6:9-11. Listen to what John writes here, When he (that's Jesus, the Lamb of God) opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" 11Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers and sisters who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
In his book called Heaven Randy Alcorn makes twenty-one observations about heaven from these three verses. Let me give you just some of them. When these believers died their spirits went to heaven. The ones mentioned here had been martyred for Christ, like Stephen in Acts 7. They're able to express themselves to God and ask him questions. They're conscious of things that are happening on earth and are asking for God to intervene, but it's not time yet. They remember their life on earth and what happened to them and have a deep concern for justice to be done. They feel a sense of connection with their brothers and sisters on earth who are also suffering. And God responds to their cry and tells them to wait a little longer until he makes all things right. That's what heaven is like right now.
And God tells these believers essentially the same thing Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:58. "Hang in there. Be patient and wait until I make all things right." And of course the rest of the book of Revelation shows us how God is going to do just that. And the story ends with heaven, God's realm, and earth, our realm becoming one.
Glimpses of heaven and God's future kingdom are always meant to give us hope and to keep us running the race all the way to the finish line knowing that one day all the struggle will be worth it.
A number of years ago a young woman named Florence Chadwick stepped into the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island, determined to swim 20 miles to the shore of mainland California. She already had been the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. The weather was foggy and chilly. She could hardly see the boats beside her. Still, she swam for fifteen hours.
When she begged to be taken out of the water along the way, her mother, in a boat alongside, told her she was close to shore and that she could make it. Finally, physically and emotionally exhausted, she stopped swimming and was pulled out of the water. It wasn't until she was on the boat that she discovered the shore was less than half a mile away. At a news conference the next day she said, "All I could see was the fog …. I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it."
This world is in a fog. But for believers, the shore is Jesus Christ and his coming kingdom. And glimpses of his kingdom now in heaven and one day coming to this earth can keep us swimming one more stroke.