A River Runs Through It: Part 1
A Two-Part Sermon on Heaven
By Dave Redick
Hwy 20 Church of Christ, Sweet Home, OR

"And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb..." - Revelation 22:1

Introduction

A preacher and a song leader were both avid baseball fans. These guys didn't just like baseball, they lived, breathed and ate baseball. What time they weren't about church duties, they were attending a game, watching a game on the tube, or coaching a Little League game in the park.

One day, one of them mused about whether there would be baseball in heaven and quite a conversation ensued. Every thing is perfect in heaven, isn't it? We will want for nothing in heaven, will we? Surely there will be baseball in heaven!

They finally made a pact that whichever one got to heaven first would somehow try to contact the other and let him know for a fact whether they had baseball.

As it turned out, the preacher died first. A week later he appeared to the song leader in a dream and said, "Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, there is indeed baseball in heaven. The bad news is, you're scheduled to pitch this Saturday."

You and I have an appointment with death. It might not be as early as Saturday, but it will come. Whenever it does, it will not be one we can skip. C.S. Lewis once remarked that the statistics on death are very impressive -so far it's one out of one!

The Christian has reason to be confident against death. We know that we will die in God's time and we know that whatever happens to us, if we are ready, it will not be the end.

I have conducted funerals for both Christians and non-Christians. The difference of atmosphere between the two is striking. At the funeral of a Christian, there is joy mixed in with the sorrow. In the funeral of the unbeliever there is only grief marked by desperation and hopelessness.

We will all follow one of those two kinds of people to the grave unless Christ should return in our lifetime.

Supposedly, there is a tombstone in Indiana that bears these words engraved on it:

Pause, Stranger, when you pass me by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so you will be
So prepare for death and follow me

Underneath those words it is said that an unknown passerby scratched this reply:

To follow you I'm not content
Until I know which way you went

Which way we go is determined in this life. At death our destiny is unalterably fixed. For those who have the benefits of Jesus Christ including the gift of eternal life, death leads to the place God lives, a region called heaven.

Heaven is a marvelous place, according to the Bible, a place of eternal bliss.

A little girl was walking with her daddy under a starlit sky. After several moments of silence, she remarked, "Father, I've been thinking. If the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, just imagine what the right side will be!"

While we don't know all there is to know about heaven (God has not revealed it fully) it is important for us from time to time to contemplate the things that we do know.

Why is the contemplation of heaven important?

For one reason, a contemplation of it helps us keep our perspective on life. Imagine a solid steel ball the circumference of the earth. Put an ant on a place that would roughly correspond to the equator and start him walking. How long would it take for that ant to wear a path on inch deep? How about two inches? How long would it take for that ant to wear a path so deep that it cut the ball in half? I don't know what the answer is to any of those questions, but this I do know. The two halves of that steel ball, worn in half by that ant, would be long rusted and disolved away before eternity is over. The length of time we stay here on earth wouldn't even be one lap for that ant compared to eternity. Actually, an apt comparison of this life to eternity would be even more drastic than that. I don't really know how to describe it to you.

Even the most difficult problems we face here are nothing compared to what is in store for us in eternity if we remain faithful to God.

Paul spoke of the perspective that an understanding of heaven gives us in Romans 8:18 -

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

Another reason it is good for us to contemplate heaven is because we need to be about the business of investing our time, energy and money in things that won't burn.

No one would spend time redecorating a room in a house that is on fire. Why waste the effort on something so temporary? Yet look around you. Everything you see will one day burn up, including many of those things we spend much time, money, and effort on. We need to be reminded to send some of our investments on ahead of us where they will have permanent value and reward.

If you've ever had the privilege of traveling across the country on a vacation, you know how much you anticipate the trip as the day of departure draws near. You get all excited. You review the travel brochures or your maps. You recheck your luggage to be sure everything is in it. You plan so that everything is just right for the trip. I've heard it said that the anticipation is half the fun. That is another reason to spend some time contemplating heaven. We need to be anticipating our departure.

Knowing about heaven also will take the dread out of death. A dying woman once told her children,

"Don't give me any further treatment...Don't interfere with God's plan for my glorification."

Why shouldn't we all strive to have that kind of attitude? That was Paul's attitude when he said,

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day..." (II Timothy 4:7-8)

He had his bags packed and was ready to go!

Contemplating heaven is also important if we have friends and loved ones who have died in the Lord. We wonder what our friends there are doing - what it will be like to meet them again someday. Paul implied that we have every right to know all that has been revealed about those who have "fallen asleep in Jesus" so that we might not grieve like the rest who have no hope.

The reasons I have given you for knowing all that we can about heaven are compelling. I want, therefore, to share with you some things that I hope will sharpen your perspective on heaven. There are at least five great gifts from God that we will experience in the life to come that are very important to understand. We will look at one of them in this message and finish looking at the rest in a future lesson.

The first new gift from God we will receive when we get to heaven has to do with the way we're put together. We will receive

Gift Number One: A Brand New Body

Man is made up of two parts. When we die, the physical body remains here in the grave and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Our spirits will remain with God, separated from our physical bodies until the resurrection on the day the Lord returns. Yet, even in that spiritual realm, waiting for Christ to return to the earth, we apparently will have some recognizable substance.

When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians to comfort them about their dead loved ones, he told them that when Jesus returned, He would bring with Him the spirits of those who had died in Him. Apparently those spirits would be recognizable or he could not have told them to find comfort in His words.

When Moses and Elijah were revealed to the disciples on the mountain of transfiguration, they were recognizable to Peter, James, and John. Just what that recognizable substance was like in that separated state I cannot say. Elijah, of course, did not die as we do. He was translated and though the young men of the school of the prophets searched for his body for days, apparently it was not left behind. He may very well have been in some version of his physical body. But Moses's body was left behind according to Deuteronomy 34. The implication is that there is some recognizable form for our spirits, even when we are separated from our physical bodies.

Some Christians assume that, in preparation for eternity, God will create new bodies for us out of nothing. But that is probably not so. If it were so there would be no need for the Bible's teaching of the resurrection of our physical bodies. We will ultimately inhabit the same bodies we have now, except that they will be altered for existence in the new heavenly realm. Paul says in I Corinthians 15:42-44,

"It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

Now, I'm not completely sure what that "spiritual body" is like, but there is a strong hint in I John 3:2 that it will be like Christ's resurrected body:

"We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is."

There was a continuity between Jesus' earthly body and His resurrected body - for example, the nail prints were still there in His hands. The disciples recognized Him when He spoke to them. He ate some fish with them, indicating some sort of physical aspect. Yet, there were also some radical changes. He was capable of travel from one place to another without apparent physical effort (Luke 24:31, 36). He walked through doors without opening them (John 20:19, 26).

It is likely that we will be able to think more clearly in heaven. Limitations such as failing memory and muddle-headedness will be gone in that perfect place. James Dobson once quipped that, here on earth, just about the time our faces clear up, our mind's gets muddled! In heaven, though, it seems our mental ability will operate at a higher level.

It seems reasonable that we will continue learning in heaven. Our appreciation of God is bound to increase as we grow to know Him better. Imagine the level of knowledge possible with unlimited time!

Perhaps the mention of a couple of errors about the present state of the saints in heaven would be in order at this point. The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory began in the seventh century, largely because of their view of justification. They believed men are saved by works and since since no man is perfect, he must be purged by fire before entering the perfection of heaven. The Reformation corrected this false view somewhat, however it's legacy today has yielded a workless (worthless!) faith in many. James tells us that "faith without works is dead, being by itself." We are indeed saved by faith, but it is a faith that moves and acts and does.

Another error we might mention is that of the Seventh Day Adventist and certain other groups. They teach that the soul sleeps after death until the resurrection. Those who die in the Lord are, at this moment, according to their teaching, unconscious, waiting to be awakened by the Lord's trumpet blast at His coming. The doctrine is founded on those passages that contain the word "sleep" in the context of death. (See John 11:11; Acts 7:60; I Cor. 15:51 as examples). But a careful examination of these passages will show that they refer to the sleep of the body, not the spirit. Many verses teach that the saints are conscious after death and very much aware of what is going on. The rich man and Lazarus described by Jesus in Luke 16 were certainly not asleep!

Paul stated clearly that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." That is where the spirit of a dead saint goes to await the resurrection. It has been that way since Christ cleared the saints out of Hades prior to His resurrection. (We have dealt with that issue in other classes from time to time.)

That leads to another puzzling question: Since the resurrection of the physical body is yet in the future, are the spirits of the saints who are presently in heaven without bodies? Or do they have some kind of temporary "intermediate" body that will be set aside on the day the resurrection when their physical bodies are altered for heaven?

The passage that usually raises the question is II Corinthians 5:1 where Paul said,

"For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

The question is, when do we receive this "building from God?" Do we get it directly after death or do we receive it at the resurrection? Some teach that we will receive temporary bodies until the resurrection. This helps explain how departed believers could sing praises to God and communicate with one another. It seems that they must have a body to do these things.

Yet, the idea of temporary bodies isn't mentioned in the Bible. Perhaps the best guess at an answer to the question is that in some way the spirit has at least some of the same functions of the body in the heavenly realm. I don't know if this is a correct view. It could be that the truth is different from either of these ideas.

The thing we can be certain of is this: Christians go directly into the presence of Christ at death. They are conscious and in command of their faculties. As one person put it once: "Soon you likely will read in the newspapers that I am dead...don't believe it...for in that moment I will be more alive than I have ever been!"

What about the apparent age of the body in heaven? If an infant dies, will he still be an infant in heaven? Preachers have sometimes made the interesting suggestion once that the mother's arms that have ached for her departed child will have the opportunity of holding her infant and that the child will then grow up with his parents in heaven. It is a tender thought. is it true? I don't know. I do know that God will in some way take away the pain that such a mother and father feel for their child here on earth.

I suppose that one also must answer the question: "Do infants go to heaven?" To that we can say a resounding "Yes, indeed!" Children do not inherit the guilt of the sin of their parents. That is made clear in Ezekiel 18:20 where the prophet writes,

"The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."

Children are innocent when born and not accountable until they are old enough to understand right from wrong.

Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven belonged to those who were like little children. Surely little children would have to be reckoned as innocent for Him to have said that.

David, an Old Testament king, lost two sons for whom he grieved deeply. For Absalom, his rebellious son, he wept uncontrollably and refused comfort. He knew Absalom's destiny. But when the child born to Bathsheba died, he washed, anointed himself, and came into the house of the Lord to worship. He spoke these words to those who asked about his behavior:

"Now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." (II Samuel 12:23)

David certainly wasn't planning to meet that child in Hell!

We all struggle with the will and purpose of God when an infant dies. It doesn't seem fair to us that God could allow innocence to be snuffed out before it is allowed to grow to usefulness. But be assured that God has a purpose and knows what He is doing, though we do not.

A little girl died in a hotel where she was staying with her father. Since her mother was already dead, just two people followed the casket to the cemetery - the father and the minister. The man's grief was uncontrollable as he took the key and unlocked the casket for the last look at the face of the child he loved. Then he closed the casket and handed the key to the keeper of the cemetery. On the way back home, the minister wisely quoted Revelation 1:17-18 to the broken hearted man:

"Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."

"You think the key to your little daughter's casket is in the hands of the keeper of the cemetery. But the key is really in the hands of the Son of God, and He will come some morning and use it to call her back to you."

That is the meaning of the resurrection. In heaven we will experience our new resurrected bodies. They will be perfect in beauty and power - all God intended us to be. We will be able to use them and our minds without limitation to serve and adore the Savior who cared so much for us.

John's words again:

"...it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is."

Conclusion

In our next lesson we will consider the other new gifts God will give us in heaven including Our New Home, Our New Occupation, Our New Family, and Our New Order of Reality.

When American hostages were freed by their terrorist captors in the Middle East in early 1981, a great wave of elation swept across America. Some of you remember that. For a painfully long time the country agonized with those who had been held captive. The symbols of their concern were yellow ribbons, which began to appear tied to trees and poles across the nation. The whole country shared feelings of anger, helplessness, and frustration as one of the most powerful nations in the world was held at bay by a small band of terrorists. The lives our citizens hung in the balance, and no one knew how to rescue them. Then the break came and with it a surge of happiness. Relief and joy were felt throughout the land as newspaper headlines declared, "They're Coming Home!" "The Hostages Are Free!" "They're Coming Home at Last!"

Imagine the great day of resurrection when believers of all ages come streaming into their heavenly home to take up residence forever. I can hardly wait!

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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