What Most People Don’t Know about Heaven - Part B

Death has scarred human existence from the beginning when God said to Adam and Eve, the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die.

Ever since that disobedience, we have experienced that. But not in heaven. You'll never have to go to a cemetery in heaven.

Everything we can imagine about heaven is more than likely to be way off the mark. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares more incredible insight with you about heaven and how longing for eternity helps you live more intentionally now. But before we begin, we want to tell you about a resource that will encourage you as you explore the faith and failings of prominent women in the Bible.

What stands between you and a more fruitful walk with Jesus? Find out how four prominent women in the Bible faced their struggles in a new teaching series from Lenya Heitzig called Queens of the Bible. Here's Lenya on the Queen of Sheba. Hearing is the first step toward spiritual blessing.

Right now, hearing is a step toward blessing because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Hear more from Lenya as she explores the faith and the failings of four different queens in scripture. The Queens of the Bible collection of teachings is our way of saying thank you when you give $35 or more today to support this Bible teaching ministry. Look, the cost of following Christ is to go wherever he leads. Get your copy of these unique teachings when you call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in Revelation Chapter 21 today as we get into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. The second thing most people don't know about heaven is it will feel unfamiliar. There are certain things that are not there that are here in our earthly experience that because of that will feel unfamiliar and one of them is found in verse one. I just sort of passed over this because I don't like this verse and it says, I saw a new heaven a new earth the first heaven and earth passed away also there was no more sea. I have wrestled with this verse for years.

This to me is so harsh. Almost to the extent where I go, do I have to go there? I mean this is heaven? A brand new world with no ocean? I mean if I'm writing the script on heaven, it's not going to read this way. If I'm writing the script on heaven it's going to say this, there were no more cities but there was lots of beach and a whole bunch of ocean and palm trees galore. But it says there's no more sea.

I got to tell you, I have wrestled with this so much wrestled with this so much that over the years I even early on rationalized the interpretive process of this. I thought perhaps sea is a metaphor for nations that are not in covenant with God that are described in the Bible like a troubled sea. So for example Isaiah 17 the uproar of many peoples they roar like the roaring of the seas. Isaiah 57 the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. Revelation 13 the antichrist comes out of the sea.

See I really researched this. Revelation 17 even says the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. So I thought there's hope. Maybe it's just a metaphor for lots of angry people won't be there.

But now I've resigned myself to a more literal approach. I just think what John is saying in a few words it's so short it's profound is that the earth is going to be a different earth. It's not going to be anything like this earth. It's not going to be a water-based environment.

It's going to have a different climate altogether. The world that we live in now is three-fourths water. Three-quarters of the earth's surface is ocean. Besides that there's other water sources in the earth itself. We have our own hydrological cycle on this planet.

We depend on that. You're mostly water. 90% of your blood is water. 65% of your flesh is water.

If you don't drink enough water you dehydrate you die. To offer this short little pithy statement and there was no sea indicates the new earth will be a completely different environment. Not like carbon-based life on this earth is required to have the water that it has. It operates on a different principle on the new earth. We're in glorified bodies. We won't require the same things. Now if that still bums you out and you're wondering, you mean there's no water at all?

I didn't say that. By the time you get to Revelation chapter 22 John said, and I saw a pure river of the water of life. There's something else about oceans. Oceans are barriers. They separate people.

And in the old and in the old days before jet aircraft that was a big deal. You were thousands of miles and you were trepidus journeys apart by boat from other peoples. There'll be no separation like that in the new earth. Something else is unfamiliar because all of that to us sounds sort of weird but this gets really good. And I want you to know as we go on that John had to write about heaven in the negative. Not the positive, the negative. He wants you to know what else isn't there. So verse two, I John saw the holy city new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as the bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice from heaven saying behold or check it out the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself will be with him and be their God and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes there shall be no more death imagine that no death nor sorrow we can't even imagine that nor crying there shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away John is saying is let me tell you what heaven is going to be like it's not going to be like here it's going to be unlike the experiences we have on the earth so work your way through that little list God will wipe away every tear no tears in heaven no Kleenex in heaven I think back in my life there's a lot of days that I cried in my life some that are very memorable days for me it might surprise you that the first day of school public school kindergarten I cried like a baby and I was the boy who when the teacher said what's wrong cried and I said I miss my mommy yeah I had to live with that forever the boy who began school by saying I miss my mommy that was me days filled with tears yeah yeah I know very sad there were other days filled with tears the day my brother died and days afterwards the day my father died the day my mother died the day my other brother died we all have stories like that we all have tears life is filled with tears tears of misfortune tears of loneliness tears of poverty tears of sympathy tears of regret no tears in heaven that that'll be absent notice it says no more death you know that 57 million people every year die covid or no covid that's the going rate 57 million people die a year that's about 150,000 people every single day death has scarred human existence from the beginning when god said to adam and eve in the day that you eat thereof you will surely die ever since that disobedience we have experienced that but not in heaven you'll never have to go to a cemetery in heaven there are no cemeteries in heaven there there are no tombstones there are no caskets there are no ferns and there are no caskets there are no funeral homes there there's no funerals in heaven and you will never age in the new heaven and new earth you'll never age because if there's no death and there's no conditions that bring death so there's no disease right there's no surgery there's no there's no hospitals then it says nor sorrow are you you ever sorrowful are you ever moody you ever just getting in a mood it's like somebody asked you what what's wrong nothing you just got a mood you just got it going on all day you got an attitude going on and i've noticed a lot of people have a lot of those this last year everybody does everybody does at some point this is why we love the book of psalms so much we read it and go i relate to that psalm six is one the psalmist said i'm weary with my groaning my eye wastes away because of grief we relate to that but there's coming a day when you won't be able to relate to that it'll be so foreign there's no sadness there's no depression here's another stupid thing to say in heaven hope you never say it you can never say in heaven have a good day that's like the dumbest thing you could ever say in heaven have a good day every day is a good day it's always good there's no sorrow and it says nor pain that's a big one there's a lot of aspirin sold i read the other day that just a little over 20 of all americans suffer chronic pain that's a fourth of all people that live in our country a fourth over one fourth suffer from chronic pain so much so that by the year 2023 the painkiller market will reach a 5.9 billion dollar industry no pain in heaven you'll have a perfect body as some of you who work out and are young you might say i already have a perfect body just wait just wait a few years just keep looking in that mirror honestly and things will catch up with you it's called entropy it's called gravity those things are real but in heaven they'll be absent so so heaven comes in phases and it will feel unfamiliar in terms of what we are used to here a third thing that most people don't know about heaven is that it will have a capital city and it's called new jerusalem in verse two he sees it i saw the holy city new jerusalem get this coming down out of heaven from god prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and i heard a loud voice from heaven saying behold the tabernacle of god is with man and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and god himself will be with them and be their god go down to verse 10 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 of heaven from god so john sees it coming down toward the new earth having the glory of god her light was like a most precious stone like a jasper stone clear as crystal john gets this crazy vision of this luminescent city coming down out of heaven toward the earth and we discovered from this chapter in the next chapter that this is hq in heaven this is headquarters this is the capital city of heaven new jerusalem there are really no landmarks given about the new earth except for one that there's no sea but no other characteristics are given but a lot of detail is given about this new capital city new jerusalem and i want you to see how big it is verse 15 and he who talked with me had a gold reed it's a measuring stick to measure the city its gates and its wall the city is laid out as a square its length is as great as its breadth and he measured the city with the reed 12 000 furlongs uh so 12 000 furlongs is between depending on how you reckon ancient measuring between 1380 miles to 1500 miles so let's just call it 1500 miles its length its breadth and its height are equal so we're dealing with a cuticle that's a cube that is 1500 miles in all directions 1500 miles that's that's like the distance from maine to florida that's like the distance from philadelphia pennsylvania to dallas texas that's like the distance from albuquerque new mexico to spokane washington and it's shaped like a cube now this is kind of weird why a cube because i i think you know i think of planets i think around right a sphere i think of a new earth i'm thinking of a sphere but you got this square city coming down this cube city coming out why a cube i can't be definitive but i just have an idea and my idea is do you remember it says that it's right here it says behold the tabernacle of god is with men the tabernacle of god in the old testament there's a thing called the tabernacle tabernacle is where god met with people and there was an outer court that's where sacrifices were made there was an inner court that's where priests only hung out and in the inner inner court it was called the holy of holies nobody went in there except the high priest once a year because that's where god dwelt with his people in the holy of holies what's interesting about the holy of holies it is a perfect cube 15 feet wide 15 feet deep and 15 feet high that was the tabernacle so it says the tabernacle of god is with men if you have an old testament reckoning you kind of go i can see that so it seems like you have a city that is shaped like a cube and i would infer from that that the streets are not just horizontal but also vertical and that you'll have the ability to travel quickly in all directions like jesus who in his resurrected body could be here one moment and there the next moment and when he wanted to visit the disciples in the upper room didn't have to knock on the door he just went through the wall just showed up just went here he is right that's quite a capability wouldn't you love to do that i think you'll be able to do that now in going through this inevitably somebody is going to at least think it if not say it and it goes like this are you sure this is literal i don't think this is intended to be literal this really doesn't mean an actual city coming out of heaven to the earth well i guess i'll respond to that by saying if it's not literal then i have no idea what he's talking about and neither do any of you because at the point where you say it's not literal you have to say i'm going to just start making things up of what i think they could mean and then i would wonder why would god spend the whole book of revelation just to tell us what's not going to happen right i know revelation is given in symbols but the symbols point to realities literal events in john or revelation chapter one god says here's the revelation of jesus christ which god gave to him to show to his servant john which he signified by an angel the word signified means given in signs so we have symbols we have signs but they point to a reality and if you start saying well this isn't literal or the millennium isn't literal it's not really a thousand years then pray tell what is it because if a thousand doesn't mean a thousand then what does a thousand mean because you have a lot of numbers in the book of revelation that are very very detailed you have for example seven churches maybe it doesn't mean seven churches you have 12 tribes maybe it doesn't mean 12 tribes you have 12 apostles well maybe it doesn't mean 12 apostles right you see the problem you have with that you have one-third of mankind being destroyed you have two witnesses you have the discussion of 42 months then it even says 1260 days why the detail and now you have 12,000 furlongs so if you start saying well i interpret the bible literally except for prophecy i'm going to say to you on what basis and what authority do you have to dissect the scripture and say well i believe this literally but i don't believe that's literal don't believe that's literal because then you're going to start getting into other areas like salvation maybe you don't really have to believe in jesus i know it says that but maybe didn't really mean that so you open a you go down a bad interpretive street however if you look at it at face value then you have a real kingdom in israel in jerusalem with a real messiah on the throne of david for a thousand years followed by a destruction followed by a creation of a new heaven new earth new jerusalem and a 1400 1500 mile cube city i can't wait to check it out so that's what most people don't know about heaven let me give you a fourth and this is the saddest one not everyone will be there not everyone goes to heaven the prevailing ideology among most people on earth is that all you have to do to go to heaven if there is one is get born on earth you're born you die you go to heaven that's what people do and according to jokes that's what cat and mice do as well but not everybody goes there it's only a city of believers verse 7 he who overcomes shall inherit all things and i will be his god and he will be my son but the cowardly unbelieving 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 that's pretty clear right go down to verse 24 and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory and honor into it its gates shall not be shut at all by day there will be no night there and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it but there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie but only those who are written in the lamb's book of life not everybody goes to heaven not everybody will be in heaven it says in verse 7 he who overcomes what does that mean it's simply a statement of a believing in jesus that's all it is it's another way of saying somebody who believes in jesus and believes all the way through endures all the way through in that faith first john chapter five everyone who is born of god overcomes the world this is the victory that has overcome the world even our faith so you believe you overcome the world listen if you are not a christian you need to know the worst is yet to come if you are a christian you need to know the best is yet to come it can only be said to the believer the best is yet to come if you're an unbeliever i can't imagine anything worse than growing old as an unbelieving person because you get old you go through all the typical stuff we all go through as we age the aches the pains the heartaches the hardships and the only thing you have are memories of your past because your future is not bright but as a believer as bad as it has ever been has ever been it's only going to get awesome no pain no sorrow no tears something else you notice that jerusalem is called the holy city people all the time say i want to go on one of your holy land tours i want to see the holy city of jerusalem technically you have to wait till the new jerusalem because i i would tell you even in the holy city of jerusalem today there are places you don't want to walk at night because they're not they feel very unholy people will say well uh yeah i don't know about a whole new earth i'm gonna miss my old earth i'm gonna miss my old home i'm gonna miss the ocean i'm gonna miss the west side really isaiah 65 answers that behold i created new heavens and new earth here it is and the former shall not be remembered nor even come to mind you will not miss it you won't even think about it you won't say oh yeah i miss my cat i miss my little garden now but you won't miss it i make all things new c.s lewis said if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world this is the world you were made for that is the world you are going to that wraps up Skip heitzig's message from the series 2020 now here's Skip to share how you can keep these teachings coming to you while connecting others to the lord the bible tells us that god has put eternity in your heart that is a longing that points you back to him but you don't have to wait for heaven to draw near to him today we want to equip listeners like you and help you connect to his truth that's why we share these bible teachings and through your generosity today you can help others come to know and experience god's truth as well here's how you can give a gift and help connect others to the lord visit connectwithskip.com donate to give your gift today that's connectwithskip.com donate or call 800-922-1888 again that's 800-922-1888 coming up tomorrow Skip heitzig reveals to you what the bible has to say about hell what you need to know is the bible does not describe hell that way but if something far worse than hell on earth you also need to know that your savior the lord jesus christ absolutely believed in hell and he spoke on it a lot make a connection connect with Skip heiter is a presentation of connection communications connecting you to god's never changing truth in ever-changing times