Living In The New Jerusalem – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Hollywood filmmakers help us imagine some pretty awesome places, but no movie could prepare you for the new Jerusalem. A 1,500-mile cube will house the redeemed for eternity, a place Jesus called my Father's house. If you trust Christ, it can be your house too.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, the world is collapsing all around us. How does talking about a gigantic city someday help us get through the pains of the cities we now live in?

Well, you know, Dave, that's an interesting question, and my mind immediately goes back to two days ago. I was speaking in a different city, and a woman who was in a wheelchair came to me and said, Pastor Lutzer, why would God allow this, and how do you square this with the book of Corinthians where it so clearly talks about the suffering of this world? And I said, well, you know, that verse actually answers your question. The suffering of this present world is not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. So we keep our eyes on the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, even as we navigate earthly cities with all of their problems, all of their disappointments, and all of their pain. It's that hope that keeps us going. Well, this is the last week we're making available to all of our listeners a book I've written entitled One Minute After You Die.

Immediately following this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info as to how this book can be yours. Let's listen carefully now. Think this through. Just like you have an intimate family on earth, expand that intimacy to include those folks that you love so very, very much, those relatives that you could hardly wait to see at family picnics. Expand that group to also include all the other saints with the same kind of intimacy and joy in fellowship. You say, well, wait a moment now.

How do you get that out of a text? Listen, one day some people came to Jesus when they were here and they were trying to press through the crowd to get to him. And they said, you know, your mother and your brothers, and Christ had brothers in the flesh, by the way, the New Testament actually names them, your mother and your brothers are trying to get to you. And Jesus said the startling words, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And looking about on those who were sitting around him, he said, behold, my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and a sister and mother.

Oh, wow. What Jesus is saying is you serve me on earth and you'll be swept right into the inner sanctum of intimate fellowship and relationship in heaven. So what God is going to do is he's going to take that whole idea of family that some of us have the privilege enjoying, though not all, not all.

I speak to hurting people today. I know that. But he's going to take that, that relationship and it is going to be so unique that we will be Christ's brothers and sisters and even mothers.

I read the text accurately. It's in the third chapter, the book of Mark wasn't making it up. You say, well, what language are we going to speak in heaven?

Lots of jokes have been made about that. And last night I had a phone call that told me and it wasn't from heaven. It wasn't from heaven. It was a member of the pastoral staff who was at a meeting this past week who said that someone made this suggestion and I like it, can't prove this from the Bible, but I like it, that in heaven we may all speak the languages that we spoke here on earth. It's just that we will all understand each other in heaven. So you can speak to me in any language in which you grew up and coming to the church this morning I said to Rebecca, I like that idea because why should not Christ receive honor and praise and majesty from all the different languages of the earth forever and ever and ever and yet the unity will be there because we'll be able to understand one another perfectly and the communication will be evident. A new home, a new occupation, a new family, the pain will be over. Finally, a new order of reality.

Yes, some things are going to remain the same as we emphasized in a previous message, but believe me some things are going to be different. I know that our children used to have a record that they played over and over again. One thing about children is when they have a record that they like, the adults even learn the words because you hear it so often, so often. There are things that I could recite today from our past and that is, isn't it true? I didn't check on this, but didn't our children always play a little record about all the won't bees in heaven? There won't be this, there won't be that, there won't be that.

Jerry, I don't think you've had that song here recently. Let's look at all the won't bees, all the whole new order of reality. Chapter 21, I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there's no longer any sea. In the Bible the sea usually represents the nations.

You have Daniel, you know those beasts that are coming out of the sea, usually the turbulent nations, usually the strife among nations. Well that's over, that's over, no more fighting in heaven. There shall be no longer any death. Well let's look at Burspor and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, no longer any death. The hearse will have taken its last journey. There may be some vocations that translate to heaven.

Being an undertaker is not one of them. There shall no longer be any mourning or crying. Think of all the buckets of tears that have been shed at any hour on planet earth.

All the children who are weeping over parents who have abandoned them, children who are weeping because they do not have food. Think of the mothers who weep, the teenagers, the fathers and no more of that, no more crying, no more pain, no more migraines, thank God, no more, no more slipped discs for the first things that passed away. Now people have read this and a popular question that is always asked is, what about all these tears that are going to be wiped away? First of all, why tears in heaven in the first place? Some people say it doesn't fit, it's like war and peace, it's like light and darkness. Tears in heaven just don't go together.

Oh yes they do, oh yes they do. Let me answer two questions. First of all, people say why the tears and then does God come along with a Kleenex and wipe everybody's tears away? First of all, why the tears?

Primarily I think because of the way in which we lived. You see, if it is true that this world is a test for where we shall be slotted in eternity and whether we will get to rule with Christ in the extent of that rule. When we look back over the lives that we live with, all of the opportunities that were squandered and the sins that we so easily imbibed and embraced and having come through at this point of course the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, there will be tears, there will be tears in heaven. Tears in heaven.

Why, oh why did I not live for eternity when I lived on earth only for this very, very small sliver of time? Then the question arises, what about is it possible for people to be happy in heaven with loved ones that are in hell, which is a topic we shall take up in another message. Is it possible for a child knowing that his mother will never be at the celebration?

How can we be happy? In fact, I spoke to someone recently, and this is a popular view, they say, you know, the only answer is that God actually removes that part of our memory and we don't remember that we had a son or a daughter or a child or a mother or a father who is not part of the celebration. I want you to know that I think that that is a wrong explanation. I can't even imagine that God would solve a problem like this by increasing the sphere of human ignorance. He will not solve the problem by decreasing or shrinking the amount that we know, but rather by increasing the amount that we know.

You know why? We'll finally see things from his perspective and agree that all things were done right. Did you catch it a moment ago in chapter 19 verse 3? I know that this offends our sensibilities. In an age of tolerance, in an age in which we simply think that everybody's going to slide into heaven somehow, some way, and where most Americans actually think they're going to make it. But notice it says, and a second time they said hallelujah because her smoke arises forever and ever. We will rejoice not only in the mercy of God, we will rejoice in the judgment of God and we will see it from his standpoint and say just and true are thy ways thou king of saints and we'll sing that forever. Of course we don't understand it now, we can't grasp it now, but in that day we will, we will.

I can do no better than to quote Jonathan Edwards, again a man who is certainly not a part of our 20th century, but Jonathan Edwards says the saints in heaven will rejoice in the judgment of hell not because the saints are unloving but because they are perfectly loving. We will see things as God sees them and so that's why the tears will be wiped away. We will say Father on earth we could not understand it now that we see it from the standpoint of eternity we praise and we bless your holy name and the Kleenex box is put away forever.

No more tears, no more crying. Get on with eternity now, get on with eternity, all that, all that is past. Well notice what else there won't be. In chapter 21 we're skipping now to verse 22 it says I saw no temple in it. Some people have read that and they've said now wait a moment earlier in the book of Revelation there is a temple, that's true, but as long as the earth was in existence there was a temple. Now that the the human beings on earth no longer exist there is no temple.

Why? Because temples were set up to worship God. That's why and and notice that oh I can't grasp this but I can only read the text. In heaven we will worship God directly. I saw no temple in it for the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are its temple. You are there in the glory of God in the very presence of God. You are talking face to face with God as a man speaks with his friend and we say as Philip did in the New Testament show us the Father, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied and we shall see the Father and we shall be perfectly, perfectly satisfied. No more abominations we've already mentioned that and no more hunger thirst or heat it says no need for sunscreen in heaven.

That's actually found in the seventh chapter and the footnote refers to the sunscreen. That's the way it's going to be. A new home, a new Jerusalem, a new occupation worshiping God serving perfectly in a perfect environment. A new family all the emotional needs that we were created to have filled and some of you have never had those filled. All of those needs finally and perfectly met and if you didn't have a brother on earth Jesus becomes your brother and takes the place and now you have a father and now you have a mother and now you have cousins because we're all related. We're all related you see and Jesus could not even give us his inheritance were it not for the fact that we were his relatives.

That's another study but that's true. You see we had to become his brother and he had to become our brother I should say so that he could give us the inheritance. So there's going to be a new family and then a whole new order of reality, a whole new way of seeing. Have I explained it well enough? No, no I've not explained it well enough.

I've not done it justice. You remember John Bunyan in the pilgrims progress says that when hopeful and Christian were walking along they could see the holy city in the distance but it was it was too much for human eyes and so they needed a special instrument by which they could see it because they could not see it directly. We have this marvelous marvelous account in God's word and we know the meaning of the words and we try to grasp the concept but it always eludes us it is never what we really think it is it is so much better so much better. Remember the story of the little boy who is brought up in an alcoholic home and very very poor and in London he'd go from store to store pressing his nose against the glass and looking at the toys but he had none and when he was in the hospital they brought him some toys and he said now I can play with the toys and there's no glass between.

That's true there's no glass between. Finally the scripture says that we see through a glass darkly but then face to face now we see thank God but we see darkly we don't get it all we don't get it all but we try to because it is so much better than we could imagine it to be. A little girl was reading stories of Jesus and looking at a picture book of Jesus and the miracles that Jesus performed and that night she dreamt about Jesus and in her dream she saw him and she said to her mother the next morning oh mommy mommy I dreamt about Jesus and he's a hundred times better than the pictures. He's a hundred times better than the pictures. We who use human speech we do our best but we fail we fail we can't grasp it. All that in our future all that in our future but listen to me very carefully and don't miss this did you notice how often it says in revelation 21 and 22 I saw the holy city the holy city someone said to me the other day can you actually prove in the bible that you have to be perfect to get to heaven well there are several passages that teach that but look at this look at this nothing unclean no one who practices abomination lies shall come into it verse 15 of chapter 22 outside of the dogs the sorcerers the immoral persons the murderers the idolaters isn't that all of us to some degree everyone who loves and practices lying we've all lied at some point in our life and and god says these kinds of people are the very kind who don't make it they don't make it of course you have to be perfect to get to heaven imagine being in a holy city and being unholy it is unthinkable unthinkable so that your problem is how in the world are you going to get holy enough from now till then to make it well there's only one way there's only one way that is to recognize that when Jesus died on the cross his death was a sacrifice so that God says to you if you cease believing in yourself and and trust Christ alone I will credit you with his righteousness we are made the righteousness of God in him I can take your sin away all the abominations that have been listed of people outside the gate and a whole lot more that John didn't bother listing but that we could list all of those have found in Christ cleansing and forgiveness and being washed away for those who believe in him alone any person who thinks that he's going to make it on his own he's going to be I can assure you he's going to be outside the gate outside the gate and he'll be outside the gate forever and ever have you trusted him I mean right now have you cleaved to Christ have you said yes I give up all attempts to save myself and all the rituals that I depend upon and I see that I need his righteousness and I receive it as mine that's the only way to get to heaven and when you trust him when you trust him you become his brother his sister his mother you are an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ you are all the things that you need to be to enter the holy city and I can assure you though I've never been there I've never been to heaven I can assure you though it's going to be so much better so much better than the pictures let us pray father would you now inspire your people to live in a way that would be a credit to the place where we're going help us to put away stupid childish things and to say father if this is my hope and this is my focus all that I am all that I have and ever hope to be is yours for an ever and ever father help us to give up the foolishness the foolishness of sin and for those who have never trusted Christ I urge Oh father by your spirit that you would prevail upon them and grant them the ability to look to him even now and be saved and if that is your prayer you tell the Lord Jesus that at this moment make whatever adjustments you need to make in light of eternity trust him trust him father do in us all that you would desire in Jesus name you know my friend today even when I think about eternity I'm reminded of how fleeting time really is could I have a personal word with you I don't know what it is that you're going through today it may be an illness it may be a disappointment or for that matter you may be filled with joy maybe something very exciting has happened in your life but between you and me we always need to be reminded that the real issue that is most important is where we will spend eternity time is short eternity is long I've written a book entitled one minute after you die and as I mentioned at the beginning of this program this is the last week that we are making it available to all of our listeners this book discusses not only heaven and the glories of the new Jerusalem that we've been hearing about but it also deals very realistically with the doctrine of hell it is the forgotten doctrine in our contemporary age serious matters are at stake here and I want to thank the many of you who help us get this message around the world now for a gift of any amount this book can be yours here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 in a previous broadcast I reminded you of a woman a widow who said that she kept this book next to her nightstand because it was such an encouragement after her dear husband died we believe you'll be blessed as well go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 the title of the book one minute after you die it's time again for you to ask pastor lutzer a question about the bible or the christian life since the bible does not give many details what happens in the life to come is always a matter of curiosity for the christian linette is a running to win listener who has this question when a loved one dies especially an infant and goes to heaven will they be that age when we die or when christ returns so that we will know them or in the case of an infant will they have aged linette i want you to know that the bible nowhere specifically says this but i have a very deep conviction that indeed babies who die and go to heaven will not be babies throughout all of eternity they may indeed grow up in heaven maybe they will even grow up in their mother's arms but eventually they will be adults because when you look at the bible you see all of this singing that goes on in heaven you see people serving the lord these are the kinds of things that infants can't do so i think that they will be the same people that they were here on earth but they will have grown up so that in heaven there will not be any kinds of limitations put on anyone but we will be able to worship with freedom and joy and everyone be a part of the celebrations thank you pastor lutzer thank you linette for that interesting question if you'd like to hear your question answered go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on ask pastor lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us at running to win 1635 north la salle boulevard chicago illinois 60614 running to win comes to you from the moody church in chicago next time a provocative question can modern man believe in hell don't miss a depiction of what's ahead for those who reject christ thanks for listening for pastor irwin lutzer this is dave mccallister running to win is sponsored by the moody church