Six Things That Will Surprise You About Heaven - Part B

The whole of the world is divided into one of two categories. Occupants of heaven, non-occupants.

You say what's the requirement to be an occupant? Verse 7, he who overcomes. What does that mean? To overcome it simply means that you place your faith in Christ alone.

So how do you know that? Because the same guy who wrote this, John, wrote 1 John chapter 5 where he said, everyone who is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. And you might go, aha, well I have faith. I believe in something. We'll read on. It goes on to say, who is he that overcomes the world?

Only he who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. When we finally do get to heaven, there will be a lot of surprises in store for us. We'll be surprised when we don't get our harp and wings. We'll be surprised when Peter doesn't meet us at the pearly gates with his clipboard.

And we'll probably be quite surprised by who's there and who isn't there. Well today here in Connect with Skip weekend edition, Skip Heitzig continues to explore some of the surprises in store for us when we finally get to heaven. But before we start today, here's something to celebrate in the Connect with Skip Resource Center this month. Holidays and special days of celebration wake us up from the daily grind and provide a backdrop for creating memories. But beyond traditions, time off, and intentional family time, holidays can illuminate spiritual truths as we hear from Skip Heitzig. You may not know that Valentine's Day has Christian roots, but time and secular culture have transformed what was a great celebration of those who had stayed true to the Christian faith. It has turned into simply a celebration of romantic love. You can find spiritual significance with Happiness, Holiness, and Holidays, a four DVD collection of celebration messages from Pastor Skip. And it's our thanks when you give $25 or more to help keep this ministry on the air.

Here's Skip with a strong thought on another holiday on our calendar. Because God is our Father, we never have to fear. Because God is our Father, I don't have to live selfish, myopic life.

Because He is our Father in heaven, there is no limit to His power from heaven toward those of us who are on the earth. It's an incredible phrase, our Father in heaven. Call now to request your copy of Happiness, Holiness, and Holidays. Our thanks for your generous gift, 800-922-1888.

Or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Our series From the Edge of Eternity continues today with Pastor Skip Heitzig as he shares a few more surprises about heaven. A fourth thing that may surprise you is that it has a capital city. In verse two, we're introduced to the New Jerusalem. Verse three, And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Now look down to verse 10. And He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. So in the new earth, though, there's really no information as to what landmarks are there, what size it will be, what are the colors of the new earth, except when it comes to this city. Beginning in verse nine to the rest of the chapter and part of the next chapter, is a description of what this new city will be like, because this new city is the capital city is the capital city of heaven. This is the headquarters. This is where God dwells with His people in His glory. And you got to admit, this city is different from any other city you've ever seen or heard of. First of all, it descends from heaven toward the earth.

And we don't know if it lands on the earth, or it sort of seems like it's hovering, maybe even rotating around the earth. We've heard of New York and New Jersey and New Brunswick and New Mexico. This is New Jerusalem. And it's the capital city. And it's an odd shape.

I'm going to sort of give myself away. We'll see more next week. But get this, the shape of the city is 1500 miles cubed. See, you've never seen a city like that. It's 1500 miles by 1500 miles by 1500 miles tall, just slightly smaller than our moon, coming down from the heaven and hovering around the earth. We'll have access to it.

We'll look more at it next time. You notice that it's called a holy city. A couple times it's mentioned, this is the holy city. Can you imagine a whole city that's holy? Albuquerque isn't a holy city. Santa Fe, though the name implies that it is, it's not.

I'm not talking about a few homes or a few churches. Every occupant of the New Jerusalem will be holy. See, it's hard to get our minds around that. It's funny, people will say, I can't wait to go with you to Israel and visit the holy land and see Jerusalem, you know, the holy city. And I always think you're going to have to wait a long time because it ain't holy right now. It will be.

And during this time, it certainly will be. A fifth thing that may surprise you about heaven is that it's going to feel so totally unfamiliar. In fact, so different is the new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem from any earthly experience that verse four to six is described in the negative.

It's so unlike anything, it has to be described by what's not there. Verse four, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away. And he who sat on the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, right, for these words are true and faithful. And he said to me, it is done. So this is it. When this is done, it's done.

There's no more stages. This now is the eternal state. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. That's, you know, we can't know what we can't know.

So the only way we can know or get some kind of understanding about what we don't know is to compare what we don't know with what we do know and say, it's not like this, right? So let's just go through that little list quickly. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and keep going down in that verse, there will be no crying, no tears in heaven, no Kleenex boxes in heaven. Our life presently is stained with tears.

There's days of our lives, I have some, that stand out as days of tears. The first one was traumatic. I was in kindergarten, my first day. I'll never forget it because I was the world's biggest crybaby, honestly. My mom brought me off at school, I wailed.

And it didn't stop. Time the milk wagon came around, I still cried. Not over spilled milk, just I cried. Nap time, I cried. Lunch time, I cried. I didn't stop crying till my mommy picked me back up. It was traumatic, okay?

I still have scars. Big crybaby. That was just the beginning though, there would be many more days of crying. When my father called me and said my brother had been killed, I cried. I cried. I cried. I cried. I cried. The day my mother called me and said my father had died.

The day I was with my mother when she died, hearing that friends have died. And there will be many more. But here, it's gone. No crying, no tears. No tears of loneliness, no tears of misfortune, no tears of poverty, no tears of sympathy, no tears of persecution, no tears of regret. It's all gone. It also says there'll be no more death.

Hard to imagine. No more death. You'll never have to go to another funeral, never visit a cemetery, never see another tombstone. 52 million people every year die on earth.

That's 147,276 every day die. Our world constantly sees the flow of death. There'll be no death. There will be death in the millennial earth. There'll be no death in the new earth, new heaven, new Jerusalem. I mean, you'll never age.

Come on, you'll never age. That's pretty cool. Listen, there's five, five companies.

There may be more by now. Last time I checked, five companies that specialize in cryonic technology. They will freeze you in liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. For a mere $100,000, you can get your body frozen. If you can't afford that, $35,000, they'll freeze your head. Hoping that when they find out the cure for whatever disease killed you, they will then thaw you out and you can live and live and live.

Save the money. This is free. There is no death. And if there's no death, then there's no conditions that bring on death, right? You'll never need a doctor.

There'll be no diseases, no surgery, no hospitals, no dentists, because there's no decay, no corruption, no cavities. And we read in the same verse, there will be no sorrow. That's so hard to relate to. Do any of you ever get moody?

You're just a little sort of sideways to be around. You just have one of those days. You ever feel like there's just a cloud that hangs over your day? You go, day? How about week?

How about month? Some of you experience legitimate depression. Even Christians do. And so that's why we love, we gravitate toward the book of Psalms. We go, man, I relate to this. Like Psalm 6, where the psalmist said, I am weary with my groaning. My eye wastes away because of grief.

We read that and we go, man, I can relate to that. There's coming a day when you can't relate to that at all, because there will be no more sorrow. I think that the little statement, have a good day, will be the stupidest thing you could ever say in heaven.

You never need to say it because you'll never have a bad one. In fact, there won't be anything but day. There will be no night, the Bible says. Notice it says there will be no pain. Can you imagine life without aspirin, without Advil, without Tylenol?

You know that over-the-counter analgesic sales in America top $3 billion a year. There's a lot of pain here. There will be no more pain, no more death. You will have a perfect body. You might say, I already have a perfect body.

Check it out. Yeah, just wait a few years. Let entropy run its course. You can chisel out a fine physique, but it will not last.

It was never meant to last. Now, one final thing that might surprise you about heaven, and here we'll close. Not everyone will be there. Not everyone is going to be in. It's a city of believers, and not everybody who has ever lived will be there.

That's a myth. So let's read what it says, verse seven. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

What could be clearer than that? Then go down to verse 24. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. The gates shall not be shut at all by day. Notice there shall be no night there.

They shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. There shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes them to be saved. That defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Not everyone will be there. And notice here that there's two classes of people described. Occupants of heaven, non-occupants of heaven. The whole of the world is divided into one of two categories. Occupants of heaven, non-occupants.

You say, what's the requirement to be an occupant? Verse seven, he who overcomes. What does that mean? To overcome, it simply means that you place your faith in Christ alone.

So how do you know that? Because the same guy who wrote this, John, wrote first John chapter five where he said, everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. And you might go, aha, well, I have faith. I believe in something.

We'll read on. It goes on to say, who is he that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

That narrows it down. Then who is he who overcomes? He who overcomes is one who believes in Jesus Christ alone. So those people, I think today, think that you will automatically go to heaven, either A, if you die. That's one myth. How do you get to heaven? All you gotta do is die.

You can forget God, live any way you want to, but believe me, when you die, we'll suddenly talk about God, suddenly talk about heaven, find a preacher who'll push you into heaven. That's a myth. Or the other myth is all you gotta do is be very sincere because all sincere people who believe in anything they want to go to heaven.

That's what some people think. So there will be a surprise. The jihadist Muslim believes that if they go on a suicide mission, they kill innocent people in the name of Allah, and they get killed in the process, they immediately go to heaven. Talk about a shock. Talk about a surprise to find that is exactly wrong and the opposite.

Very sincere, sincerely wrong. Part of that whole belief system is not only do you get instant heaven, but you get 72 wives. Now talk about punishment.

I mean, think of the punishment to be those wives for those women, and probably for both, right? Somebody said there's going to be three surprises in heaven. Number one, those that you don't expect to be there who are there. Number two, those that you expect to be there who aren't there. And number three, wonder of wonders that you're there, and only by God's grace. So I can think that the worst possible place to be right now is growing old and be an unbeliever.

I want you to think about this. Here's the worst possible scenario. You're growing older and older and older, and you're not a Christian. There's only one way for you to look, friend, and that's back. You have nothing forward to look forward to.

All you do is look back. You might say, well, I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Christian.

I'm not a Christian. But you know, that was a great vacation a few years ago, wasn't it? That's all you got. Or wasn't it great raising those kids? Or wasn't that a great pet we had?

But that's it. But if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, good or bad in your past, the best is yet to come. In fact, the new heaven and the new earth will be so totally cool and so totally different that it says in Isaiah 65, behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. Not everyone's gonna go there. Are you? Are you gonna go? Are you sure you're gonna go? You know, this whole theme keeps coming up again. Throughout the Bible, lines are drawn.

You're an occupant or you're not. You're saved or you're not. And if you're saved, you go to heaven, and if you're not saved, you don't go to heaven. Or the time Jesus said, unless a man is born again, he will not see what? The kingdom of heaven.

Or the time Jesus said, broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter therein, and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few enter therein. So according to Jesus, not do all people get saved, not do most people get saved, according to Jesus, very few enter therein. Are you among the few that will enter therein? That's your choice.

That's your choice. I don't know if you've ever come to a place where you said, Lord, I'm a sinner. I cannot earn my way to heaven, but I know that Jesus paid the price for me, and I totally rest on him.

If you haven't done that, then do it today, because you would not want the worst of all surprises, and that is an eternity you find out you're never going there. Well, you know, where you spend eternity doesn't have to be a surprise. In fact, your ultimate destination for eternity can be one of the surest facts you know in this life. Would you like to have one less surprise about the afterlife? Would you like to be sure that your destiny in the afterlife is in heaven? All you need is Jesus Christ, and we can tell you all about how to make that choice and how to enjoy that certainty about life after death.

Please call us at 1-800-922-1888. And we're just about out of time for today, but before we go, here's Skip and his wife, Lenya, with a few more thoughts for you. Today, we were talking about six things that will surprise you about heaven, and I know one in particular, as you are a surfer, is deeply disappointing. Yes. And what would that be? There will be no sea. But that is not the millennial kingdom.

That's phase two, I believe. That's called the eternal state. And then that eternal state revelation is explicit, that there will be no sea. And I'm going, what? But not to despair? Not to despair at all.

Surf could be up? A different kind. How's that? A different kind. I'll leave it at that. I'll dangle it.

Okay. Well, explain an accurate view and eternal perspective of heaven. And that could help us overcome the trials of life.

I think it can help us overcome the trials of life. You know what it's like? I remember going camping around the United States and Canada. I went camping for three months. It was fun. But after three months, I was done for a while. I just like, I want to like a shower. I mean, in a real place, not in a campground shower. And I want to sit down at a different kind of a meal.

A mattress. It would help. It would help greatly. So the Bible does say, sort of along those lines, that we groan, we sigh. We sigh with longing is the idea for our heavenly home. So we who are in these bodies, the longer we're in them, we know what that's like. These tents wear out, man.

Boy, they do. And quickly. And so to have the promise of heaven, the promise of a new body, or a resurrected body, and eternality instead of a temporal nature, temporary approach is not just winsome and fun and warm, but it is compelling. And it's compelling enough to help us.

Again, what C.S. Lewis said is that if you aim at heaven, you'll get both earth and heaven thrown in if you aim just at earth, you'll get neither. So Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

If we can raise our sights higher as we walk, our goals on this earth will A, become not as important and B, become eternally important, but we'll focus on the right ones. And I love it when you've said that heaven is our real home. I think so many of our listeners may not really feel at home here on the earth. Either your family has not been what you expected, perhaps you're homeless.

Maybe there are some situations where you just feel so different from this place. And the encouragement to you is that this isn't your home. There is an eternal home with a family and a father that is so much better than anything you've known here. And so keep your eyes on the prize that you are headed to that place where you will have comfort. Your tears will be dried and you will belong. He's put eternity in our hearts. Well, thank you so much, Skip and Lenya. And remember, if you'd like a CD copy of today's teaching for just $6 plus shipping, or our current series From the Edge of Eternity for only $39 plus shipping, so give us a call, 1-800-922-1888, or visit connectwithskip.com. If you've ever wondered where you'll live or what your home will be like in heaven, make sure you don't miss our next broadcast here in Connect with Skip weekend edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. .... Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.