Welcome to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm Phil Johnson. Perhaps you've heard John MacArthur, a fifth generation pastor, tell this story about his grandfather, Pastor Harry MacArthur. Harry, on his deathbed, was talking with his son, Pastor Jack MacArthur, John's father. Jack had a simple question for his dad.
Was there anything he wanted?
Well, Harry said there was. He wanted to preach one more time. In fact, Harry had prepared a sermon. It was ready to go, but he never had the opportunity to deliver it.
Well, Jack had that sermon, which was on the theme of heaven, typed up and given to everyone who attended Harry's funeral. And as John MacArthur would say over the years about that sermon, it was a message on heaven preached from heaven.
Well, that's essentially what you'll hear today, a message about heaven taught by John MacArthur, who himself recently went to heaven.
So follow along now with John as we continue. continue his classic series simply titled Heaven. I think it's high time in the Church of Jesus Christ that we begin to focus our attention on heaven. There was a time when the hope of life after death was a major theme in literature and a major theme in sermons. There were many poems written on immortality.
There were many sermons preached on it. There were many sermons and poems and literary works written on the very subject of heaven itself, and not a few were written even on the theme of eternal hell. But we don't talk much about heaven anymore. Our modern, self-indulgent lifestyle has effected a great change. As society has made this life more comfortable, it has less and less concerned itself with the life to come.
As this life begins to deliver to us more and more of the things we lust after and desire, we have less and less cravings for the life to come. The subject of heaven and frankly the subject of hell have for all intents and purposes vanished from the pulpit and the page. And you need only ask yourself the question when the last time was that you heard a definitive sermon on either of those subjects. That's just something that's not common. And what I'm trying to do in this series is to excite our hearts about the reality of heaven.
If you find your joy and contentment in this life, That is irrational, that is unspiritual, and that is unwise. If you're not more excited about heaven than you are about this life, then you are idolizing the passing cursed world. You are contradicting the promised goal of God in your salvation. You are seeking what can never be found and settling for less than God wants to give you and you are aggravating your misery because you will never find what you pursue here. I want us to set our affections on things above.
I want us to set our treasures in heaven, not on earth. And so we're looking closely at the subject of heaven.
Now our approach has been to ask and answer a number of questions. Question number one: What is heaven? Do you remember what we said? We said it is a place where God dwells with all the redeemed of all the ages forever. And it is also a condition of being to which all believers on earth belong through salvation.
We are going to heaven. We live in the heavenlies. The second question was where is heaven? And we said heaven is what? Up.
In the third heaven, beyond the atmosphere, beyond the stratosphere, we said that heaven is the infinite abode of God that surrounds the expanding universe. The third question we asked, what is heaven like? And we said it is a glorious, perfectly righteous, pure, holy, indescribable place of infinite joy, infinite love, infinite peace, and infinite satisfaction where God dwells in radiating beauty and His presence permeates everything and everyone. The fourth question we asked was, what will we be like in heaven? You remember the answer?
We said that we will experience the perfection of body and soul through which the full expression of absolute righteousness and holiness will be made manifest. And in that perfected life, believers will be able to enjoy all of the longings and desires of the redeemed nature perfectly expressed through a perfectly redeemed body. We come to question number five. And it is this: what will our relationships with others be in heaven. What will our relationships with others be in heaven?
Now, I want to give you three categories of relationships. The first Group of beings we want to find out about are the angels, okay?
So, we want to find out what is our relationship to angels in heaven. First thing. The first thing we're going to do with angels is fellowship with them. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, and this is a passage that we will refer to on numerous occasions in studying heaven.
Verse 22 says, You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, here it comes, and to myriads of angels. The thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousands of holy angels will be in heaven with God and we will have fellowship with them. We will interact with them. In fellowship, all of the elect angels and all of the elect saints joining together to form the elect company of inhabitants in the eternal new heaven and new earth.
So, first of all, we'll fellowship with them as the assembly of the elect-they, the elect angels, and we, the elect saints. Secondly, We're going to enjoy rejoicing with them. Look at Luke. Chapter 15. I want you to notice in Luke 15.
These three great parables of the lost sheep the lost coin and the lost sun. These are primarily not parables about lost coins, lost sheep, and lost sons. They're primarily parables to illustrate the heart of God. And I want to show you why. When the sheep was lost, first of all, verses 4 to 7, and the sheep was found, it says in verse 6 that the man called his friends and said, Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep which was lost.
And here comes the point of the story. I tell you in the same way, there'll be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. In other words, God and His holy angels are going to rejoice over the repentance of a sinner. The second parable in verse 8, a woman lost a coin, she found the coin, she called her friends, verse 9, rejoice with me, verse 10. In the same way I tell you, there's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
And here we find not only God rejoicing, but the angels rejoicing. And the same thing is depicted in the wonderful story of the prodigal son, which ends that we had to be merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live and was lost and has been found. And the picture is of the father rejoicing. and all of his servants have been called to the feast and they rejoice and there are pictures of the angels who rejoice over the salvation of lost men and women. And what those three parables tell us is primarily how God and the holy hosts of heaven rejoice over the conversion of men.
Now listen, think of it this way. If God and the holy angels rejoiced over our conversion, how much more will they rejoice over our coronation? How much more will they rejoice when we, fully expressing the perfection of body and soul forever and ever, are the epitome of what God set out to do in the process of redemption?
So, what will be our relationship to angels? We will fellowship with them, and secondly, we will be a source of their eternal joy. Thirdly, Our relationship to angels is expressed, if you will, go with me to Revelation chapter 4. And we find that we will join the angels in praise and worship. Verse 4 of Revelation 4, around the throne, the throne of God described in the first few verses, were 24 thrones, and on the thrones 24 elders sitting, clothed in white garments and golden crowns on their heads.
These are emblematic of the redeemed saints. What are they doing?
Well, they're going to be praising God. But added to them, you find in verse 6, there is a sea of glass-like crystal, and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. And they're described much like those in Ezekiel chapter 1. And I believe it is clear that they are angels. And so you have those 24 elders representative of redeemed men.
You have those four living creatures representative of holy angels. And together they cry, ceasing never, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, verse 8, the Almighty who was and who is and who is to come. And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders will fall down before him who sits on the throne and will worship him who lives forever and ever and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art thou, O Lord, and so forth. And there we are praising and worshiping God together with his holy angels. Chapter 5, verse 6 again portrays a similar scene.
The elders are there. And the four living creatures in verse 8 are there, along with the 24 elders. They have harps and golden bowls full of incense, and they sing the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song, worthy art thou, and so forth, singing to the glory of Christ. Verse 11, follow it.
I looked, additional voices come in with the saints. I heard the voice of many angels.
Now, angels are not physical beings, but they have a voice, they can express themselves. They gather around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and the number was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. And they're all saying, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. Verse 13: Every created thing says to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. And so we know that one of the things we'll do with the angels is engage in praise and worship forever and ever and ever and ever.
Now let's go to Hebrews and let me show you a fourth. Area. And this, I think, will be helpful to us. We've already alluded to Hebrews 1:14, but let me expand your thinking a bit. Referring to the angels.
In verse 13, the word angels appears. Verse 14 says, Are they not all, follow this, ministering spirits? Ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation. Angels are ministering spirits whose duty it is to serve the heirs of salvation. That I don't believe to be temporary, that I believe to be eternal.
And I believe that when we go to glory, the angels will serve us there. They will serve us there as they have served us here. We will reign with Christ, and they will who serve Christ serve us. Incredible thought.
So we will fellowship with angels, we will rejoice with angels. We will worship and praise God with angels, but we will rule over angels. And they will serve us. in heaven. Secondly, Let's talk about relationships to our family, all right?
Will we have family love? Will we have family affection? Will we have family fellowship? Will it be like it is here?
Well, obviously, from a general viewpoint We'll all be perfect. And so there'll be perfect love, perfect peace, perfect joy, perfect harmony, perfect trust, perfect fellowship, perfect relationships in every single dimension of existence. Perfect relation. Can you imagine a family like that? Can you imagine a place where there are absolutely perfect relationships?
Everybody is perfect. There's never any sadness. There's never any sorrow. There's never any disappointment. There's never any discouragement.
Nobody ever does anything wrong, says anything wrong, thinks anything wrong. Everybody acts perfectly as the way God would act in any given situation, in every given situation. Can you imagine all the people in your house acting exactly like Christ would act at every single point in their existence? And what would even make it more remarkable, you'll act the same way. Perfect love, perfect harmony, perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect contentment, perfect satisfaction, perfect harmony, perfect bliss, perfect blessedness, perfect function.
Perfect relationships. Let me take you to a third category briefly and I'll close. What about our relationship to other believers? What will that be? And I've hinted at it already.
First point I want you to get: we will be who we are now. I will be forever John MacArthur. I don't want to think about that now, but that'll be okay in heaven. I'll feel differently about it. But we will be forever who we are.
Let me give you a little insight into this. This is just powerful. When you begin to grasp the thought. Genesis chapter 25, verse 8, and Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man, satisfied with life, and he was gathered to his people. It says the same thing in Genesis 35, 29, Genesis 49, 29.
It says the same thing in Numbers 20, 24, the same thing in Judges 2:10. When people died, they were gathered to their people. In other words, they maintained their identity. They went to their people. 2 Samuel 12:23, David's little baby died.
He said, He can't come to me. I will go to him. He will maintain his identity. I will maintain my identity. He is still him, and I will be me.
All people maintain their identity. We will be a diverse company of individual people. Let me take you into the New Testament and show you that further. Luke 22:8 is a wonderful statement and a glorious insight. We'll start down a little further.
Verse 14: He reclined at the table with the apostles. He said, I have earnestly desired to eat the Passover with you before I suffer. And he talks to them about the Passover and so forth. And then he says, take this and share it among yourselves, the bread and the cup. Then verse 18, for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.
I'll drink it with you in my kingdom. In other words, we'll be together again. You'll be you and I'll be me, and we'll do this again. maintaining our fellowship. Matthew chapter 8 gives us another insight into this, not quite so veiled as the last few.
Matthew 8 says, I say to you, verse 11, many shall come from east and west, speaking of the kingdom, and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Look at Revelation chapter 19. And I'm hurrying a bit. I want to wrap this up. Revelation chapter 19, verse 7.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready, and it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the righteous acts of the saints. And he said to me, Write, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. When we go to heaven, listen, we're going to be in a marriage supper. He is the Lamb, we are the bride. Who are the invited guests?
They must be Old Testament and Tribulation saints. We'll all be there. The Lord will be there, the church will be there, the tribulation and Old Testament saints will be there as well. It'll be the party of all parties, folks. And it'll go on and on and on from that unique marriage supper of the Lamb to the glorious communion and fellowship of forever, where all of us maintaining our identity will go to be with all the other redeemed who maintain their identity only in a perfectly glorified form forever and ever.
Take your choice. You can have a fellowship with Enoch or Noah or Abraham or Jacob or Samuel or Moses or Joshua or Esther or Elijah or Elisha or Isaiah or Daniel or Ezekiel or David or Peter or Barnabas or Paul or anybody that you want and they'll be them and you'll be you. Do you remember on the Mount of Transfiguration? When Peter, James, and John went unto the mount with our Lord, and it says, There appeared unto them Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah appeared on that mount.
That tells us that those two men who had died centuries before still maintained their identity. Secondly, Peter, James, and John apparently recognized them. Which tells us that we will be able to recognize those we've never seen.
So the transfiguration is a reaffirmation of maintained personal identity in heaven, as well as the recognition of that identity by those who've never seen those people. We will instantly know them all, fellowship with them all, and we'll continue to be exactly who we are and nobody differently. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, this day. Shalt thou be With me in what? Paradox, you and me are going to be together.
We don't get neutered and washed into some big glob. We stay who we are. We stay who we are. That's a great thought. Abraham will be there, and Isaac will be there, and Jacob will be there, and you'll be there, and I'll be there, and everybody who loves the Lord will be there.
And we'll not only be there and be who we are, only in a perfected state, but we'll be able to fellowship with one another. throughout all eternity because we'll recognize each other perfectly. And in that Matthew 22 passage where the Sadducees try to stump Jesus. He says in the final verse of verse 32, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
What did he mean? Abraham is living. And Isaac is living. And Jacob is living, and I am their God, not was their God. I am their God, and they are my people.
One other thing that I ought to mention, it just comes to mind, is in Revelation. This is so important. I can't let this go. Let me just pass this by you briefly. Revelation 2:17.
To the one who overcomes. It says, I will give him a new name written on the stone. Boy, you're going to have a new name forever.
So you're going to be who you are, only your name is going to be purged and purified. Then in verse 5 of chapter 3, he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garment. I will not erase his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my God. His now perfected name will always be his name, and I'll confess it before God.
Verse 12. To the one who overcomes, make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will not go out from it anymore. He'll always be in heaven. I'll write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes out of heaven from my God, and my new name. You're going to have all kinds of names.
You're going to be a perfect holy John in my case. One with all the redeemed, and bearing the name of God, and bearing the name of Christ, and not in a cultic way, in a genuine way. Great thought. Great thought. Well, we are going to be who we are, and we're going to fellowship.
Now, the question comes: will we be reunited with other loved ones? Of course, we will. That goes without saying, because we'll maintain our identity. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians, you remember the promise of the rapture of the church? In chapter 4.
And he says at the end of this passage, he says, the angel is going to come and blow a trumpet, and the voice of the archangel and the dead in Christ will rise, and they'll come first, and then we who are alive will be gathered with them, and we'll go up to heaven in a cloud, and all of that. And then it says in verse 18, comfort one another with these words. Why was that comfort? Because of the prospect of reunion. There was a fear that some who had died might miss that eternal glory.
And they are encouraged to be comforted over the fact that those who died had not missed the coming of Christ. He would come, and he would gather them first out of the grave, then those that are alive would be gathered, and we'd all be together again, comfort one another with that great, great hope. The very prospect of comfort speaks then of the prospect of reunion. Reunion. And we believe that we will have that glorious reunion with the redeemed when we go to be with the Lord.
Since we know everybody, we're going to know. the ones we specially want to know. What kind of relationships will we have? Maybe we could just wrap it up by looking at one final passage: Revelation 21:5. Revelation 21.
Well, actually, we ought to do one to five. A new heaven and a new earth I saw, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And John looks at the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them. And here are some things that help us understand our fellowship: he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
It'll be a fellowship without tears. There shall no longer be any death. It'll be a fellowship without separation. There shall no longer be any mourning, crying, or pain. There will be a fellowship without pain, a fellowship without death, a fellowship without sorrow, a fellowship without anxiety.
What makes fellowship hard here? Tears, crying, pain, death, it'll all be removed. We'll have a relationship like we've never, ever, ever experienced. There'll be beauty in heaven. I believe there'll be a perfect humor in heaven.
Because God even gave us that. A. A. Hodge wrote: Heaven as the eternal home of the divine man. and of all the redeemed members of the human race must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities.
Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary and active. There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals. The reason, the intellectual curiosity, the imagination, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human soul must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction. End quote. What a great statement.
Is it any wonder then that the psalmist said, Precious in the sight of the Lord. is the death of his saints. Oh, what a hope we have. Glorious relationships. Await us.
Let's bow in prayer. We remember, Father, the words of the old hymn, I will sing you a song of that beautiful land, The far away home of the soul, Where no storms ever beat on the glittering strand, While the years of eternity roll. Oh, how sweet it will be in that beautiful land, so free from all sorrow and pain, with songs on our lips and with harps in our hands, to greet one another. Again. We long for that, Father.
and we long for the reunion there. We remember the words of Longfellow, who said, There is no flock, however watched and tended, but one dead lamb is there. There is no fireside howsoever defended. but has one vacant chair. A mother, a father, a brother, a sister.
a family member, a dear one. We all have someone there. We all have a vacant chair. We all have a dead lamb and the flock. of our own life.
and we long for the glorious reunion that heaven provides for us. We say with John, even so come. Come Lord Jesus. Father, bless us as we sing a hymn in parting. Set our affections on things above for the Savior's sake.
Amen. That's John MacArthur here on Grace to You. Today's message is from a classic study titled Simply Heaven.
Now, as we've been mentioning, we're airing this series on heaven because John MacArthur went to his heavenly reward just exactly a week ago. We're saddened, of course, but we don't grieve as those who have no hope. We rejoice that John is now enjoying the eternal home he preached about in today's lesson. And as a way of encouraging you about the eternal hope of every Christian, we'd like to send you a free copy of a booklet John wrote called The Truth About Heaven. Just ask for it when you contact us today.
You can request your booklet when you call us weekdays from 7:30 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time at 80055 Grace or go to our website anytime gty.org. The name of the booklet, again, The Truth About Heaven. Request your free copy by calling 800-55-GRACE or use our website gty.org. And friend, the news of John's passing is still very fresh to us.
So thank you for praying for the staff of Grace to you and for the MacArthur family especially. And if you'd like to let us know how God has used John's teaching to help you grow in your relationship to Christ, write to us at GraceToU Box 4000 Panorama City, California 91412. Or you can email your note to letters at gty.org. We've also set up a special phone line for you to record messages for John's family and for the Grace to U staff. If you'd like to offer your condolences or let us know what John's ministry has meant to you, call us at 661-295-6288.
Again, that's 661-295-6288.
Now, on behalf of the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, inviting you back for another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
