Living In The Light

Here's Ann Graham Lutz. We can look forward to a heavenly home. This is not our home. We're just pilgrims passing through. We find hope when we look homeward.

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to Living in the Light with Bible teacher Ann Graham Lutz. What you just heard is the outline Ann will be speaking on today: the heavenly home that awaits all true believers in Jesus Christ. Anne will be teaching on four insightful characteristics of our heavenly home, found in the Book of Revelation, chapter 21.

So let's join Anne now with her message titled "As We Look Homeward." There's a wonderful old story about a missionary named Samuel Morrison. He had been a missionary to Africa for 25 years, and he was traveling home on an ocean liner. And on that same ocean liner was President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been in Africa for three weeks on a safari.

So when they pulled into the New York Harbor, and the ship pulled up, you know, beside where they would get off, there was a huge crowd waiting to welcome President Roosevelt home, and. Bands were playing, and balloons were flying, and cameras were rolling. And President Roosevelt stepped off onto the gangway, and he walked down, and there was just this thunderous ovation, as it seemed like the whole world was just, you know, welcoming President Roosevelt home, welcome home. And old Samuel Morse and walked down that same gangway, and nobody noticed, and he slipped through the crowd. Nobody called his name.

And he got to where he was trying to catch a cab. There were so many people there trying to catch the cab. He he couldn't catch a cab, and in his heart, he said he was complaining, and he was just saying, "God, I've been in present Roosevelt. I've been in Africa for three weeks killing animals, and the whole world turns out to welcome him home. And I've been in Africa for twenty-five years, and there's nobody here to welcome me." And he said to his heart, "There was that little whisper, but my son, you're not home yet." Home, heaven, the place that we're all going.

If you've put your faith in Jesus, this life is not all there is. We're going home, so it doesn't matter where you are today or what your struggles are or where you live. We're going home. Jesus is preparing a place for us, and I was telling my mother this. It was about.

Four months before she actually went to heaven, but she had pneumonia. We thought she was going to go, and so I was sitting beside her bed and staying up with her at night and stroking her hand. And I had recently been to London, and I've been to Westminster Abbey several times. But on that trip, before I was talking to my mother, I just been, and when I had been at that point, entered Westminster Abbey through a small, rather ordinary-looking door. In Westminster Abbey, by the way, is that royal church?

It's a cathedral. Londond London is where Prince William and Princess Kate got married, so it's a grand, glorious cathedral, right by Parliament. But anyway, I walked into the door, and there's a small, rather ordinary-looking room. It's the narthex, and in the narthex, the foyer was where I bought my ticket that would take me through the next door, and the next door would take me into the sanctuary. But it's also where I bought my guidebook that would tell me what I would see on the other side of that next door.

And I told mother I never saw anybody grabbing their ticket. Guidebook, running out on the street and saying, "I've been to Westminster Abbey and I've been to Westminster Abbey." The whole purpose of the Narthex was to provide a transition to go from getting your ticket and your guidebook to go through the next door that would take you into the sanctuary. And I told my mother, "This life is like the Narthex, and it's in this life that we get our tickets to heaven." And when you come to the cross, you confess your sin, claim Jesus as your savior, open up your heart to Him, and invite Him to come in as your Lord. You receive the eternal life He gives you. Eternal life is not only a personal love relationship with Him right here and now, but you have as your birthright.

Heaven will be your home, so you have your ticket. And this is your guidebook, and you read your guidebook, and it tells you something of what you're going to see on that other side.

So when it comes time to step into eternity, either through your death or at the return of Jesus, we just turn in our ticket, so to speak, and knowing something of what we're going to see on the other side, and we enter into the glorious sanctuary of our Father's house. Who wants to stay on the Northex when we're going home? And we're going to live in that glorious sanctuary.

So the apostle John was given a eyewitness vision, just a glimpse of what's on the other side of that door, what's in the sanctuary, what's in the home that's being prepared for us. Open up your Bibles to Revelation chapter twenty-one. And there are four characteristics of our heavenly home that I see in this passage. One, it's a prepared home, and one, it's a physical or an actual perfect home. It's a physical home or a permanent home, and it's a populated home.

It's not just a museum, but it's actually where people live.

So let's look first of all at the fact that heaven is a prepared home. And I'm going to start in verse two. I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared. As a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And just parking on that a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband, and brides are prepared with love.

Of course, they're prepared in detail just for that special person. And I was thinking about this years ago. I've been to India several times, but on one occasion I made the effort to go down to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I'm not really a touristy person, but that's something I wanted to see. And the Taj Mahal is just this gorgeous.

It wasn't as big as I thought, but it's made out of White marble. It's engraved with black onyx. Just. Letters from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, on the inside. It's embedded with symbols of the Islamic paradise, birds and flowers and such.

It sits on a red sandstone platform. At the corner of each one, there's a minaret that points like white fingers to the sky. It's on the brink of a river and has reflecting pools all around it.

So the you know I know it's deteriorated through weather and all that, but it is just a spectacular building. And it was built by a Maharaja. For his bride or his wife, to whom he had only been married for 14 years, but he built it as a tomb for her. It took him over 20 years to build. It took over 22,000 skilled craftsmen to build it.

And I visited it and went inside it, and then I was sitting in a coffee shop looking at the Taj Mahal, and I thought, Oh my goodness, if a Pagan Indian prince could build something that exquisitely beautiful as a tomb in which to bury his wife, to whom he had only been married for fourteen years. What is Jesus preparing for his bride? That you know, it's taken him at least two thousand years, and a bride with whom he will live for ever and ever.

So heaven is prepared with a heart of love, and it's prepared in detail. Brides are prepared in detail. Have you been a bride? Have you been a mother of a bride? I have two daughters and.

When they got married, you know, one of the first things they did was choose the groom, and then they choose, you know, the time and the place, and who are going to be the witnesses or attendants in the wedding. And the huge day when they go and pick out their wedding gown, and it can be short or, you know, long. It can have a train to it. The wedding veil can be shoulder length or mid length or chapel length. And then the flowers—they can be wrap stems or balls or these long flowing flowers.

And then the reception or You're going to have a sit-down reception. Are you going to have finger foods? You're going to have a dessert. Are you going to you know, and the guest list is the big bear. You know who gets invited and who doesn't, and just detail after detail after detail.

Right, brides are prepared in detail. Heaven is prepared in detail. To the nth, the smallest detail, and it's prepared in detail out of love for you. Jesus said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you." That's personal. All of God's children who put their faith in Jesus, but you can just narrow it right down.

He's preparing it for you, as though you're the only one coming to live with Him. When my daddy was here. Across the valley in that log cabin, and I would go home to visit him. And when I would walk in the front door and go into the kitchen, on the kitchen counter was a silver tray, and on the silver tray was my very favorite coffee cup. It actually was the one that mother used to drink out of.

But that would be sitting on the tray, and my favorite coffee. And I would look in the refrigerator, and there was the the yogurt that I like the best for breakfast in the morning. And I'd go upstairs to my bedroom. There a vase of flowers beside Bed and a handwritten note, "Ain' welcome home, darling. I love you." Signed, Daddy.

And as he got older, he couldn't do that himself, so but he had his staff do that for me. And he wanted me to know that I was expected, I was welcomed, I was loved. He'd prepared for me. I'd come home. I'm the father's child.

And Jesus, with a heart of love. Is preparing a place for you in detail. He knows the colors that you like best. He knows the landscape you want to see. He knows the music you enjoy.

He knows the people you want to be with. And yes, those people had to put their faith in Jesus. But he knows who they are in your circle of friends and family, and he's preparing a place just for you.

So when you walk through those pearly gates. You will know that you've been expected, that you're welcome, that you've come to your home. You're the father's child.

So praise God. We can look forward, looking homeward with hope, because we're going to a prepared place, and we're also going to a perfect place. Going back up to verse one. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

And when I first read that and I thought about it, I thought, you know, I want to talk to the Lord about that because I love the ocean, I love the sea, and we try to take a family. Beach week every summer, just to be by the sea. And I don't go in the water so much anymore, with all the shark attacks, and I'm not a strong swimmer anyway. But I can wade in. But I like to get up early in the morning before dawn.

I love to walk the beach and watch the sun come up. And I love to see the seabirds and some dance around the water, and some will get their feet wet, some will go up to their knees, some will dive in. You know, just love to feel the sea breeze. And and so, if there's not any seas in heaven. I wonder if I'll miss that.

And then I thought, maybe that's not what it means. When it says there's no longer any sea, seas separate, don't they? Seas separate continents from each other, and countries from each other, and people from each other, and families from each other, and loved ones from each other. And maybe it just means when we get to heaven, there'll be no more separation from those that we love who've put their faith in Jesus.

So, I made a list of things that can separate us. That won't be in heaven. There'll be no more hard feelings, no hurt feelings, no misunderstandings, no slander, no lies, no different languages, no critical spirits, no death or divorce, no business trips or military deployments. No mass, no social distancing, no quarantines, no isolation, no sickness at all, no fires, no floods, no racial prejudice, no political parties, no denominations, no religions. Make your own list.

What's separating you from someone that you love? Separating you from a family member or friend? When we get to heaven, that. Person has put their faith in Jesus. There'll be no more separation.

And yes, that question. I believe, according to the Old Testament, when we die, we're gathered to our fathers. We're gathered to our families. We're going to somehow be in family units. And I was thinking, you know, some members of my family.

I'm not sure I want to spend eternity with. And then Rachel Ruth reminded me when we get to heaven, that old nature is going to drop off, and we're going to be perfect.

So it's going to be okay. We're going to be like Jesus, but no separation from those that we love. And heaven is not only a perfect home in that there's no separation, there are no scars. In verse one and verse five, he says, "Behold, I'm making everything new. I live in a home that's." I'm not sure how old it is.

It's about seventy-five, eighty years of age, and so, you know, there are dents in the woodwork, cracks in the tile. There are things I'm always fixing up and patching, and even though I do it, still bear signs of age. And I think planet Earth is like that. We're showing signs of age, and human life can be like that, where we just have signs of age, and we can carry scars on our. Hearts and our minds on our bodies, and when we get to heaven, there'll be no more scars.

Years ago, I spoke to a large convention, and afterwards, this woman came up to me, and she had tears in her eyes, and she said, "Anne, she just gave me a little bit of her testimony, and said that she was raised in an abusive home. Her father and her brothers sexually abused her while she was growing up. She became very angry." And she ended up getting married, having children, and then she abused her children. And then somebody told her about the love of Jesus.

Somebody told her that she could come to the cross, and she could be forgiven of her sin, and cleansed, and made right with God. And so she had put her faith in Jesus. But now the tears were slipping down her cheeks, and she said, "But Anne, what do I do about the memories?" And to be honest, I didn't know what to tell her. I know we can. Play worship music, you know, all day.

We can memorize scripture. We can pray that God would rebuke those demons that are trying to bring those memories back and put us in bondage, and tell them to send those demons to the abyss from which they came. But in the middle of the night, the memories come back.

So I don't know if there's somebody here. If you have memories like that, either you were abused, or you've abused somebody, or something awful has happened. When we get to heaven, there'll be no more memories like that. Everything is made new.

So just to digress for a moment, my mother told me a wonderful story. It's a true story. There were some fishermen in the Highlands of Scotland. They'd gone fishing, and they came into the little pub at night. They ordered their drinks, and while the barmaid was getting their drinks, they started telling their fish stories.

And this one fisherman was describing the fish that got away, and he flung out his arms to say how big it was. Just as a little barmaid was bringing the tray of drinks, and his hand hit the tray, and the drink smashed up against a whitewashed wall. There's this crashing glass and this ugly brown stain that developed on the wall. And everybody in the pub is just looking, sort of stunned. And a man in the corner got up another guest, and he reached in his pocket, he pulled out a piece of charcoal.

He began to sketch around the ugly brown stain and transform the ugly brown stain into this magnificent stag running across a highland meadow. And then he signed it. His name was Sir Lancelot. He was Great Britain's foremost wildlife artist. They put glass over it.

They say I don't know if it's still there or not. But he took an ugly brown stain and he turned it into a masterpiece. I went to Balmoral Castle. I wasn't invited. I went as a tourist and walked down that long driveway into the castle.

And in the big public room, they let us go in. There are paintings, drawings by Sir Lancelot that hang on the walls. My mother gave me a print of a stag signed by Sir Lancelot that reminds me that whatever the ugly brown stain is in our life. If we surrender to the master artist, he can turn it into a masterpiece of his grace. What's the ugly brown stain in your life?

I can stand up here and guess you know what it is. Just surrender it to Jesus. I was thinking, I'm Johnny Erickson Tata. She's just a very great lady, and when she was what, seventeen, eighteen years of age, she dove into that Lakens. Broke her neck, paralyzed from the neck down, and she's my age now.

And she has lived as a glorious testimony of God's grace and His glory. She's got a worldwide ministry for those who are handicapped. She has wheelchairs for the world. She's written music. She's written books.

In fact, she has a book out. Goodness, I wish I could remember the name of it. But it's it's a book for Christmas that you might want to look to give to somebody for Christmas. And she's taken the Psalms and she's taken the hymns. And it's just singing and suffering, something like that.

Beautiful gift book, and she took her ugly brown stain and she gave it to the Lord. wasn't easy, but she surrendered it. And look what He has done with her life.

So whatever the ugly brown stain is, just surrender it to Jesus and see what He can do. He can turn it into a masterpiece of His grace. Yes, He can. There are no more scars in heaven. No more separation.

There is no more suffering. Verses three and four. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain. For the old order of things is passed away." So, in what way are you suffering—emotionally, physically, mentally, some other way?

So I just made a list. Include some of the suffering in my family.

Some of I thought you might have, and the list has begun in verse four. No more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.

So let's keep going. No more hospitals. No more funerals. No more wheelchairs. No more walkers.

No more ventilators. No more viruses. No more diabetes or dialysis. No more grief, no more broken homes or broken hearts or broken lives or broken hopes. No more betrayal, no more abandonment, no more rapes, no more violent crime, no more famines or failures, no physical handicaps, no blindness or lameness or deafness, no COVID, no heart disease, no heart attacks.

No paralysis, no cancer, no AIDS, no muscular dystrophy, no multiple sclerosis, no more fentanyl or drugs that destroy our children, no more refugee camps or poverty or chemical weapons or biological weapons or nuclear weapons. Actually, no weapons at all. There'll be no suffering in heaven, and God Himself will take your face in His hand. You know, wipe the tears from your face, and he said, "There's no more suffering here, my child. You have come home." So heaven is a perfect place—no separation, no scars, no suffering.

That's what the Bible says. And heaven is not only a prepared home, a perfect home; it's a physical, permanent home. And I point this out because the angel now is going to take John and going to measure it off. And I think the point is that if you could go where heaven is today, you could walk it off. It's an actual place.

It's not a dream. It's not a fantasy. It's not a hope so. This is an actual, literal place.

So he says in verse nine. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came, and so just think about that. We've skipped six to nineteen, but those seven bowls of wrath were the last of the judgments, and that's when God pours out His wrath on the world. It is really ugly, and the same angel that poured out those bowls of wrath, now look what he gets to do. I just think you know he goes from that to this.

He carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. And down in verse fifteen, the angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold and measured the city, its gates and its walls. And when he measures the city, I'll just tell you what the measurements were. You're given in cubits, but it's 1,500 square miles, and it's laid out like from the southern border with Mexico to the northern border with Canada, from the Rockies to the Atlantic Ocean, and it's in a big square. But it's just as high as it is wide and long, so it's a cube.

This enormous cube, and if there were twenty billion residents of heaven, which there won't be because that's more than people who have lived on planet Earth, the entire existence of planet Earth, plus not everybody's going to heaven. But if there were twenty billion residents of heaven, every resident—somebody's figured this out—would have at least seventy-five acres to themselves, and that still leaves room for. Public buildings and parks and streets and and the whole point, I believe, is to tell us not only it's an actual place, but that it's a big place. It's not going to be overpopulated.

So, listen to me. You can invite your every member of your family, every neighbor in your neighborhood, everybody who lives in your city. You know, it's not going to be crowded.

So feel free to invite people to go to heaven. Heaven is a great big place, and then John just you see him beginning to focus, and he sees the enormous city. But then he sees the walls around that enormous city, and in verse twelve it says they were great high walls. They were two hundred feet thick, and they were made of jasper. Jasper, we said last night, it's like a diamond.

So can you imagine walls that go around this 1,500 square mile cube, and the walls are 200 feet thick, and they're made out of material that looks like a diamond? That is spectacular, but I think it means something else. Heaven is a safe place. Nobody's going to break through those walls and steal or rob or rape. No drive-by shootings.

No guns, no bombs, no terrorists, no missiles, no wars at all, no violent crime, no flash mobs. It's a safe place. And as our world gets crazier and crazier, and the violence seems to creep into even our neighborhoods, we're going home to a place where we'll never have to be afraid, never worry about. Who's going to? As we were robbed years ago, they busted down my front door, took everything of value in my house within about an hour's time.

And since then, I've put in a security system in the right west. But but if somebody wants to get in, you know they can get in. But we're going to a place where somebody can't get in if they're not supposed to be inside. Heaven is a safe place. Be sure to take advantage of all that's available for you at angramlots.org.

For Ann's blog, her messages, Bible studies, books, and videos, all will give you a deeper, richer relationship with Jesus through God's Word. And thanks for joining us today for Living in the Light.