Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, December 19th. If you are a Christian, do you know what your eternal home will be like? Join us as we bring our series to a close and learn about the God who cares enough to prepare heaven for us. When you really care about someone, you're going to express that caring in every way possible. And the more you care about them, the more ways you're going to be creative in expressing your caring, love, or concern for them.
You and I serve a loving God who cares for us and who expresses that loving care in more ways than you and I could ever count.
Well, this is the last message in our series entitled The God Who Cares. And the title of this message, The God Who Cares Enough. To prepare heaven for us. And I want you to turn, if you will, to John chapter 14. And these first six verses of the Gospel of John, give us a little idea about what Jesus had in mind.
When he was assuring his disciples of his loving care for them. The 14th chapter of John is one of the most comforting of all chapters in the Bible. And to give you a little idea of what's happening, you'll recall that he's in the upper room. With his disciples, and he's going to be crucified the next day. And so he says to them, Let not your heart be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
and you know the way where I'm going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How do we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but through me.
Jesus made a very specific promise about heaven. He said, because he cares for us. Having revealed himself to us and saved us and working in our life moment by moment, day by day, conforming us to his likeness, building a relationship with us, comforting us in our hurts, empowering us in our labors, he says, one of these days, life's gonna be over. And when it's over, I want to assure you that I have prepared a place for you. And so he makes a very specific promise in this passage that he is preparing heaven for every single believer.
And what I would like to do in this message is not cover all of heaven. Thank God I cannot, because it is going to be so fantastically wonderful, but to give you what I believe are the four. Essential things that God knows that you and I need to know about this place that He's going to prepare for us. And remember, the whole title of this series has been The God Who Cares, The God Who Cares Enough, listen, not to leave us here, but to prepare for us a place where He says we're going to spend eternity. That is a place for every single believer.
And the question is: where are you going? And I hope, my friend, that you can say, My name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and I'm heaven-bound. But if you can't, maybe before this message is over, you'll change your mind. What does he say about what heaven's going to be like?
Well, the first thing he says in this passage is he says he's going to prepare a place. This isn't some celestial dream that you and I will experience forever and ever and ever. He says, I'm going to prepare a place. That is a place where a glorified, literal body is going to communicate with other people and walk around and be somebody. And where are we going to know each other?
So he says there's a place. I want you to turn, if you will, to Revelation chapter 21 and chapter 22. We'll be going back and forth through these chapters. He says, and I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.
And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
So, first of all, he says there is going to be a new earth. In order for that to be a new earth, God is going to cleanse this earth of ours. And when He comes back, He's coming back and to destroy everything on the face of this earth and wipe it absolutely clean and remake it. It is going to be a renewed earth. But there's the second part, verse 2.
I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
So he says, part of heaven is going to also be a new city.
Now, Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. What's he working on?
Well, he's not working on this earth specifically right now, he's working on the holy city called the New Jerusalem, which is a place. That, as the scripture implies, is going to be sort of hovers between here and earth. That is, here's earth and here's the heavenly city. And we'll be able to move from one to the other. It is going to be a two-fold sphere.
That is, two spheres. That is, earth cleansed, and then, secondly, it is going to be this heavenly city which Jesus is working on. And then, one day, when He comes, in just a moment, He says He's going to cleanse this earth.
Well, the second most important thing I believe. That Jesus would want us to know about this heaven He's preparing for us since He's a God who cares is this. And that is, we will see, we will meet our loved ones who passed on before us, who were saved. We'll meet them in heaven. When you and I get to heaven, we're not going to be a stranger.
We're going to be known and we're going to know. We're going to have a relationship, an intimacy with each other, a relationship like that we've never been able to have here because we're going to have perfectly glorified bodies, absolutely no sin. Everything will absolutely be as Jesus Christ can make a perfect relationship. We'll have those kinds of relationships. And so we're going to know each other in heaven.
And one of the wonderful things about heaven is we are going to be able to greet our loved ones who've gone on before. Because you see, who created the family? God. God loves the family relationship. Do you think that one of these days we're going to die and God says, Forget that.
He is not. You say, well, what about marriage?
Well, there's not going to be any marriage in heaven as you and I know it. I believe there will be wonderful relationships in the families, but there'll not be an intimacy physically, as we know, in the marriage relationship, because every single solitary need will have been met. And therefore, we will have a relationship that we cannot describe here on earth in all of its absolute perfect fullness and oneness and perfect contentment.
Now, the question is, what about our loved ones And our friends who will die. And who will die lost? Unbelievers. Having rejected Christ, What about them when you and I get to heaven and they don't show up? How can heaven be right without them being there.
Well, I want you to go back to Psalm 69. There are several passages, but this is just one of them. Because here's what's going to happen. And David is talking about The wicked, the lost, he says in verse 27. of Psalm 69.
Do there add iniquity to their iniquity? May they not come into thy righteousness. May they be blotted out of the book of life. and may they not be recorded with the righteous. Here's what's going to happen.
To all of us who get to heaven concerning. Our lost friends who don't make it. God is going to blot out the remembrance of them out of our minds. You would turn heaven into hell if you had to spend the rest of eternity in memory of those of your loved ones who didn't make it because they were lost. God says He will block them out of our memory.
That is the only way heaven can be heaven. Then I want you to think about something. The third most important thing I need to know about heaven is: what am I going to do when I get there?
Well, the Bible says that you and I are going to do four things at least when we get to heaven. First of all, well, go back to Revelation 22. He says in verse 3, and there shall no longer be any curse. And the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and his bondservants shall serve him.
So when you and I get to heaven, we're going to work. You say, oh, wait a minute, I thought we were going to rest.
Well, we're going to do what? We're going to rest, all right. We're going to rest from temptation, rest from trials, rest from heartaches, rest from troubles, rest from a weary body, rest from being tired, rest from all of these things. But it doesn't mean we're going to sit down and do nothing. We're going to serve the Lord God.
You say, well, now, how am I going to serve him?
Now, watch this. To some degree, that's up to you. It is how faithful you are, whether you're a homemaker, taking good care of your children, loving your husband. Or whether you're working in a business, running your own business, or working for someone else, or serving the Lord in the church somewhere, it doesn't make a difference what it is. We will be judged according to three things.
The light of truth we know. the opportunity we have and what we do with it. Our faithfulness in that. And so, therefore, as we are faithful here, that determines what God gives you and me the privilege of reigning over in heaven. That is, there will be places of authority in heaven.
And we will each have our responsibility. That is, each one of us will have an assignment. Our assignment is going to be based on the wisdom of God and the faithfulness. Listen, His wisdom and our faithfulness here and now. We will be given the capacity to serve and to reign according to our faithfulness here and now.
So, two things we're going to do is serve the Lord, and secondly, we're going to reign with Him. The third thing we're going to do, He says, We're going to shine forth. and glorify him. Go back to Matthew chapter 13. In Matthew chapter 13.
Listen to what he says. Verse forty-three. Then the righteous Will shine forth as the sun. in the kingdom of their father. He says, because we're going to be so absolutely pure.
Absolutely perfect. He says, we will shine as the sun. What he's saying is that we will glorify the Lord God. Our very presence will bring glory to God. Our very presence will shout for eternity before the angels that God is a God of grace and love and mercy.
We will serve Him. We will reign with Him. We will glorify Him. And He says throughout the book of the Revelation: we will worship Him. And all through the book of the Revelation, we see them falling down and worshiping Him and crying out, the Lord God Almighty.
We are going to serve Him, we are going to reign with Him, we are going to worship Him. He says, we are going to shine forth and we're going to glorify him.
So, life is going on in heaven. Life is going on in heaven in a way that will be totally beyond our comprehension, but one that is totally fulfilling and beyond our fondest dreams. Absolutely perfect, and there'll be no such thing as a need in heaven. One other thing I need to know about heaven that will be very comforting to me, and that is this. That when you and I pass away, we don't have to make our way to heaven by ourselves.
He says, the angels are coming together. Hallelujah. The angels are coming to get us because remember this: when you and I pass away, we leave these old bodies here, and so our spirit leaves this earth and goes to glory.
Well, does your spirit just automatically know the way? You remember in the 16th chapter of Luke when the rich man and Lazarus died? The scripture says In verse 22.
Now it came about that the poor man died, and he was carried away by the angels. To Abraham's bosom or paradise, and the rich man died and was buried, and in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. Which is his way of saying this. When any one of his children passes away, he says the angels. Take our spirit into the presence of God.
Now I want to clarify one thing at this point. What happens when a child of God dies today? They do not go to the final heaven which he's preparing for us. First of all, He's preparing for us the holy city, the heavenly city. You say, well, how do you know it's not finished?
Well, even if it is finished, heaven's not complete because you and I are still living on this globe that must be destroyed and then renewed. That doesn't mean he's going to annihilate it, but he's going to cleanse it and renew it.
So therefore I know it's not complete yet.
So, first of all, he says, Today thou shalt be with me in paradise, absent from the body, present with the Lord, not absent from the body in the final heaven. A second reason I know that's not true is because there has to be a judgment. That is, the judgment of rewards is the place and the time in our life and eternity future when God determines at that point by the life that we've lived and our faithfulness to unfaithfulness. What our position is going to be in heaven. That is what our work will be and what our authority will be.
So that There has to be death. There has to be Absence from the body present with the Lord, and then at that time when there is the judgment, that's when we receive our rewards, and that's when we go into the final heaven. And then, at the judgment of the wicked, the great white throne judgment, they come out of torment, they're judged, and then they go to the final place of torment. Hell, as the Bible calls it, based also on the judgment of their life, their works. Not whether they were saved or not, but because they were not saved and what they did as an unsaved person.
So, if you and I pass away today, we go to paradise in the presence of Almighty God. One of these days, he, when he died, went to the presence of the Father, offered himself as the final lamb of sacrifice, sat down at the right hand of God as the intercessor and is also the builder of his heavenly kingdom. And so the Bible says that's exactly what he's doing, interceding for us now, preparing a heaven for us. And one of these days, when he brings us all to a big climax, the tribulation sets in, and all the saints are gone, he says he's coming back following that tribulation period, going to destroy everything we see around us, set up his millennial kingdom here on earth, and then one of these days when it's all over. That will be the final judgment.
And then we will go into our eternal abode, the place that He's providing for us. A lot of things about heaven I'd like to know. I don't know a lot more about heaven the Bible tells us than I've shared. But let me say something about how to get there. Jesus concluded this portion of this passage by saying, When Thomas said, Well, how do we know the way?
And Jesus said, I am the way. The truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me. My friend, there are many religions. There's only one way to heaven. There have been many prophets and many preachers and many teachers, and many false ones.
There's only one way to heaven. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. He said that in a very picturesque way when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the bread of life.
I am the water of life. I am the light of life. I am the good shepherd. I am the door. Jesus was saying, if you want to get to heaven, this is it.
If you want to go to heaven, You must be willing to confess your sins. The God. And say to him, I do believe that Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son. Your beloved son, died on the cross to pay for my sin debt in full. And I receive him.
Personal is my Savior. You can say it in the way you want to, but these things are essential. You must be willing to confess your need of Him and your sinfulness. You must be willing to accept Him as the Son of God and your personal Savior. And you must be willing to believe that the moment you confess Him, your sins are forgiven.
Your name, written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world, becomes a reality in you, your sins are forgiven, you become a child of God, and you become a citizen of the kingdom of God.
Now think about this. You only have two choices in life. You have to die. It is the point of the man who wants to die and after this the judgment. I either die And go into the presence of God.
Or you die and you go to eternal torment. And if you'll think about it, when you come to your deathbed, And you have ignored this book all of your life.
Now I ask you a question. And I ask you this with soberness in my spirit. What will you have? On your deathbed. If you don't have the Bible, You don't have the Christ of the Bible.
What will you have? You will have life's eternal zero. Nothing. I plead with you in Jesus' name. To accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.
By saying to him right now, Oh God. I've sinned against you. I haven't believed you. I've denied you. I've rebelled against you.
But today, by faith, I am accepting the testimony of your word. Uh I'm receiving Christ as my personal Savior. I am accepting your forgiveness of my sin. Mm. And I'm thanking you.
And from this moment on, I'm a child of the living God. Thank you for listening to The God Who Cares Enough to Prepare Heaven for Us. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Dutch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
