R912 Heaven and Earth

Welcome to the midweek edition, the Wednesday edition of The Encouraging Word with Dr. Don Wilton, and his message is on Heaven on Earth. Today we'll head straight to the book of Matthew where God is speaking so wonderfully this week so far, and I pray that you'll join us, not only to open our hearts to God's word, but open our hearts to what God's teaching us about Heaven on Earth and our part in making this Heaven on Earth.

Now we know Heaven is still to come, but you know, when we think about what we can do to live out the hands and feet of God, it's a powerful opportunity. As we study the word, know we're here for you. We're connecting online at www.tewonline.org, and this phone number, jot it down, store it in your cell, 866-899-9673. We're available, as Dr. Don would say, to be your 2 a.m. friend, or any time of day.

Give us a call. Now let's open God's word together with Dr. Don Wilton. Truths out of God's word today that just literally amaze me, and I know that the Lord is going to bless your heart as a result of that. In this study on the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, we find ourselves pitching our tent, as it were, here at the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6. And so you'll want to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. We're going to be in the 10th verse of Matthew's Gospel in chapter 6. Now folks, Jesus gathered the disciples together, and I want to remind you of a couple of things that are so important. For example, Jesus had not yet gone to the cross.

It's a very important point. He had not yet gone to the cross. So please don't make an assumption that these disciples just simply looked at him and were able to connect everything. Well, for one, they were a group of Jewish men. They came out of a rich tradition.

They came out of a religious practice that had taught them that you cannot really get to God, accepting if you're to go through the high priest. Remember that they had traveled around the wilderness as a people for 40 years. And they carried God around in a box.

And I mean, don't mean to be disrespectful. That's what the Ark of the Covenant was. And the tabernacle, the place where God was, changed almost every day because they were a nomadic people. And so they would carry God around and they would create tabernacles, places of worship everywhere they went. And if you wanted to go to God, if you were one of those men or ladies in that group and you wanted to get to him, you wanted to have a conversation with God, you couldn't.

Any questions? And again, I say this very respectfully, it was none of your business. That was not something that you could do. And so if you wanted to have access to God, number one, you went to the high priest.

He was the only one. Second of all, you had to confess your sin and then sacrifice offerings for your sin. And just by the way, we know this from the book of Hebrews and from the law of the Old Testament. You had to sacrifice one offering per sin. All right, now just think about that. Can you imagine, can you just imagine having to sacrifice and confess every sin?

Is that impossible? But with God, all things are possible. And so here's the Lord Jesus. He's come down to this earth and he's teaching his disciples.

And he's teaching them that he is the one that is going to make it possible for all people to have access to who? To God. And Jesus was saying, look at me.

I'm the one. I'm the Son of God. And when Jesus came down to this earth, he did not relinquish himself as God. He never stopped being God. He told his disciples, if you've seen me, you see the Father because I am the Father or what? One, he didn't relinquish who he was. What he did do was he laid aside the privilege that he had as God in heaven with God. And he took upon himself, man, he became sin for us, even though he himself knew no sin.

Now watch this. So here's the disciples. This is a very beautiful place where he was standing here overlooking the Sea of Galilee. And this is called the Sermon on the Mount. And he said to the disciples, this is what you need to be mindful of when you come into the presence of God. That word they pray literally means an ability to come into the presence of God, to hear God, to hear from God, to talk to God, to listen to God. This means that you now have access to the Holy One who is God. And as you are accessing God, you've got to remember some things. And so he said, and we've already studied this, our Father, look who he's addressing. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. I pledge allegiance to God as King and to the kingdom over which he rules.

Why? What's important about that? Why did Jesus put this in? Well, because he said seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness and then everything else will be added to you as a priority. He was saying God is number one and I'm going to give you access to number one.

Because without God, it's impossible. You can't do anything because he created the heavens and the earth. You remember when Nicodemus came along, a learned man said to him, what must I do to enter to become part of what?

God's kingdom. He said, you've got to be born again. You do that through Jesus Christ. Otherwise you cannot see, you cannot be a part of God's kingdom. So Jesus here said, listen, when you pray, you've got to pledge allegiance to God, thy kingdom come.

But then he says something that, folks, quite frankly, is just too remarkable. I've prayed this for years, but I don't know that I've ever really thought about it. Thy will be done. Right? Is that it?

No. Jesus said thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now I've got a real problem here. Because in my mind, heaven and earth are two different places.

Right? I know I'm full of a lot of questions today. From my human point of view, heaven is up there somewhere and I'm on earth. And in fact, I've always been under the impression that if I am going to know God's will in heaven, I've got to basically wait until I die. And then when I come into heaven, Jesus is going to say, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord and then I'm going to become a part of God's will in heaven. Jesus said this. He said, when you come into the presence of God the Father, you need to remember to pray thy will be done on earth just the same way as it is in heaven. Which is to say that Jesus was saying to somebody like me and to you, that I can actually appropriate, take hold of and partner in all that God is and does in heaven while I'm still on this earth. Now let's just, could we jump ahead a little bit? I'm just mentioning this in passing. But if you go to the book of Revelation, the final two chapters, John on the island of Patmos says, and I looked up and I saw the new heaven and the new earth and heaven came down out of heaven, the city of God came down out of heaven, down to earth and a voice said from the throne from now on, I make my dwelling place upon the earth among men.

Well, I've told you this before and we'll get into it again. Your pastor is absolutely convinced that this is heaven. We're living in heaven. We're living in sinful earth, which used to be heaven before Adam fell. What was the Garden of Eden folks?

It was a perfect place on earth. Man sinned, it became imperfect. What is the new heaven and the new earth? It is the restoration of the perfectness of God in all of His creation. See now wanting to get on and preach on that and something's telling me I better get on with my subject. All right, now watch this.

This is very exciting. Jesus here said, you can pray and when you do pray, pray, thy will be done on earth just the same way as it is in heaven. Jesus brought heaven and earth together in one statement and He gave it to us. And He said, it happens because of me. I'm the sacrifice. I'm the bridge.

I closed the gap because I'm perfect. I'm the spotless Lamb of God. I've taken away the sin of the world. Do you know that the most noble and greatest pursuit that we can ever engage in is the pursuit of the will of God on earth, just as it is in heaven. But the greatest pursuit we can be engaged in as a people is the pursuit of the will of God on earth just as it is where?

In heaven. That is the greatest pursuit. Now it's the greatest paradox. Why is it the greatest paradox? It's the greatest paradox because God's God and I'm man. Is Jesus in fact telling me that all that pertains to God can pertain to me?

Well, how can that be? Because God's been there from before the foundation of the world. What is man? But Jesus says it happened. I'm going to talk about this great paradox because it presents a theological paradox as well. Between the sovereignty of God and the choice of man.

God brings these two things together in the infinite mind of a God who loves us despite ourselves because he is God. Well, I want to speak to you this morning about heaven on earth. I was just standing with a friend a couple of days ago and we were in a beautiful spot here in the upstate and I looked out and I said, boy, isn't this heaven on earth? You ever used that phrase before?

We use that phrase with a lot of things. This is just heaven on earth. And here's the Lord Jesus saying, you can have heaven on earth. Now, folks, listen to this carefully. This instruction and it is an instruction. Jesus was instructing those who believed in his name. It carries a twofold request. Number one, the first request is for God to act in heaven.

That's the first instruction request that it carries. That God would act in heaven. Now, that's a paradox. What do you mean I am given permission? I'm invited to ask God to act out his will in heaven so that it can be acted out according to his will upon earth. Because God is God.

I don't have to ask him. Well, that's the paradox. The paradox about God lies in the fact that he knows everything about me. So why do I need to go to him if he already knows everything about me? Well, my sons and my daughter know that I love them. My wife, who's here, she knows that I love her.

But I still need to tell her. It's an apparent paradox, but it's a great theological truth. And this request is a request for God to act in heaven.

Why is it a request? Because Jesus told us later on, he said this, whatever is loosed in heaven will be loosed on earth. When I grew up in Africa, there seemed to be just a lot of people who had racing pigeons. I've seen that in the United States over the years, but perhaps just not as often.

But it seemed in Africa that there were just a lot of people, maybe because it was a smaller place that I lived. I don't know, but I do remember one time in the city of East London going with a friend of mine out to a hillside out in the country in the boondocks. And he carried, he got all his pigeons and he put them into a little cage, probably the size of this pulpit a little bit bigger, put it on a truck.

We went out onto a hillside. Do you know what he did with those pigeons? He opened the door and he loosed them, set them free. Those pigeons came out of there.

They said, oh man, I've got the whole of Africa out here. I said, him dummy, you're letting your pigeons go. Those pigeons went around in a squadron. There must have been about 30 or 40 of them, just a mass of pigeons. And they went out and they disappeared out of sight.

I thought that was it. Ten minutes later, 15 minutes later, they all came back to the exact same point. They landed, they jumped back in that box.

I don't know how they did it, but they did it. Do you know, folks, that Jesus said, whatever is loosed in heaven will be loosed on earth. And this instruction that Jesus was giving about the will of God is about the action of God in heaven.

When I ask God to do his will in heaven, I'm saying, oh God, would you act in heaven? If I give the interruption, we'll be back with more of Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. If this is new to you, you're not familiar with that South African brogue, well, you may not know that he was the pastor to Dr. Billy Graham for the final 25 years of Dr. Graham's life, has been influentially lifting up the name of Jesus in many ways for many years, and now you're listening to him. Whether it's podcast or radio, we're grateful to have you tuned in. If you want to discover more, you'll find it at our website, tewonline.org.

That's T-E-W online dot O-R-G. Now back to today's teaching. Which brings me to the second request, and that is for man to comply on earth. That's how it comes back home to the box in which we live. What God looses in heaven is not just simply an abandonment of all that God is. God looses in heaven His divine will in order that it might come home into the box in which I live. It carries that twofold request. Well, if it carries a twofold request, this instruction carries a twofold assumption. I love these two assumptions that Jesus makes here in the statement in verse 10 of chapter 6. These two assumptions, number one, that God allows man to hear what God is willing in heaven. Now, my dear friends, what an assumption. Jesus is making a theological assumption here that all people who have believed in the name of God in Christ Jesus are allowed by virtue of His sacrifice to hear God's will from heaven. If I could put it into modern day terminology, God actually allows us to, as it were, to tap into what's going on in heaven.

But if that's the first assumption that Jesus makes, the second assumption is that God commands man to obey what He taps into. These two are juxtaposed together, folks. They ride side-saddle with one another. This is a tandem bicycle, if you please. You've got two people pedalling at the same time, but actually God's the one who's doing all the pedalling.

We're just there for the ride. Jesus said, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Well, He was talking about God's will in heaven. I've got four qualities I want to share with you that help us to understand what God's will is.

What does it look like? How do you describe God's will in heaven? Well, number one, it is sovereign. If you're going to get to grips with what God's will in heaven is, you've got to begin with the sovereignty of God, because He's God. If it is sovereign, it means that it carries absolute authority. It means that it demands total obedience.

It means that it expects unquestioned compliance. That's God's sovereignty. Sovereignty means that when God speaks, that's it.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, folks, we battle with that because we're Americans. Because we've got a constitution.

We've got a Bill of Rights. Now, listen to this, Christian American. We battle with it, naturally we do.

I battle with that. I battle with this matter of the sovereign will of God, because I want to question it. It's one thing to hear it, but it's another thing to question it. Now, folks, listen.

We go to God and we say to Him, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, is this okay? And He says, yes. And then we go and change. Lord, do you want me to go right or left? I want you to go right. And then we turn left. Can you feel the challenge there?

It's tough, isn't it? When one talks about God's will, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Number one, it's sovereign. Number two, it's perfect. I can't describe perfectness to you, can you? I can't do that, but I do know that He is perfect, which means that He is absolutely perfect.

Now, watch this. It means that whatever it is that is loosed in heaven is perfect for me on this earth. Number three, it is celebrated. God's will is celebrated.

It's an amazing thing. Do you know if you take your Bibles, which we don't need to do right now, you go, for example, to Revelation chapter four, the beginning of the end, the eschatos, John's on the island of Patmos. You go to Revelation 4, verse 11, for example, in your own private time, you see one of the songs that the angels and the elders sing around the throne of God.

What were they singing about? Praise be to God, glory and honor forever and forever, because of your perfect will that has been made known through the creation of the world and of mankind. They celebrated God's perfect will around the throne. By the way, what is God's perfect will? God's perfect will is that none would perish. Jesus, the Word of God makes this abundantly clear.

Jesus died for all people. His will is that not one person would go to a devil's hell, would be separated from the glory of God in Christ Jesus. Now, I've met people, folks, who go to this angle and that angle and get all their theology and resort to their comfort zones and tell me that God, before He even did this, decided that these people here were damned to eternal hell.

These people are going to be saved and there's nothing you can do about it. Well, show me that in Scripture. Why would Jesus have bothered to die if everybody was or some people were already damned, if God's already made the decision? Why did He give us the Great Commission to go into all the world and tell people about Jesus if God's already damned half the world? Does God play games? Why did Jesus say, come and follow me?

I'm going to make you fishers of men if you and I have no part to play. Why did He say, God so loved the world that whosoever believes in Him should not perish? Why did He say, for by grace are you saved through faith, not of works?

There's nothing you can do out of works, it is faith. Why did Paul say that just shall live by the very expression of faith and trust in Jesus Christ? Why did he tell the church in the Acts of the Apostles, you need to repent of your sin? If even of my repenting of my sin is not going to result in my conversion because God's already decided that I'm damned to hell.

Thy will be done on earth just the same as it is in heaven. Oh, our time is gone today. What a powerful passage. We've quoted this, we understand it, but today we're gaining fresh new understanding on how much God loves us and how He is literally for us, not against us.

He is for you and not against you. Have you given your heart to Jesus Christ? Before we get away, closing thoughts from our pastor and chief encourager, Dr. Don Wilton. God has spoken to you, hasn't He? And you're ready to give your heart to Jesus.

I'd love to help you right now. Would you pray this prayer with me and accept Jesus into your heart and life? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I know that Jesus loves me and died for me on the cross. Right now, I repent of my sin and I confess my sin to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come into my heart and save me today and forgive me for my sin. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. If you've prayed that prayer, we'd love to get alongside of you and celebrate with you and send you some literature and help you as you begin to grow. And I want you to know that I love you very, very much.

The Lord has stirred your heart and you've given your life to Christ, maybe for the first time or rededicated your life. Let us spend some time praying with you, putting some free resources in your hands. Just give us a call at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Or meet us online at www.tewonline.org. That's also the place you'll discover wonderful resources like the Confident Assurance of Salvation.

Here's Liz with all the details. Many people around the world are looking for some kind of assurance to quiet their fears. They want to be totally secure. Total assurance only comes from God.

I have a serious question to ask you. If you were to die today, would you go to heaven? This month, with your gift of $25 in support to the Encouraging Word, you will receive Dr. Wilton's powerful message, The Confident Assurance of Salvation, along with his book, Totally Secure.

Both of these ministry resources will help answer five important questions people churched and unchurched struggle with, such as, what is salvation? Am I saved? Can I lose my salvation? Will I go to heaven?

What happens when I sin? Call us at 866-899-WORD to request The Confident Assurance of Salvation along with his book, Totally Secure. You can find peace, protection, and assurance in the arms of God. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. What a great day it's been studying God's Word together. We finish up tomorrow with part two of Heaven on Earth, studying in the book of Matthew with Dr. Don Wilton. I hope you'll join us then. And between now and then, let's stay connected online at www.tewonline.org. That's www.tewonline.org. Take care and God bless.