Mm. You may never get your dream job in this life. But in heaven, you'll have a rewarding occupation for all eternity. That's just one of the surprises you'll encounter today on Turning Point as Dr. David Jeremiah continues his look at what heaven will be like.
One thing is for sure, it definitely won't be boring. Listen as David concludes his eye-opening message. What will we do in heaven?
Well, I've written about this in another book, and there's a whole chapter in this book on Will Heaven Be Boring? And the outline goes something like this: it won't be boring because God is not boring. Because Jesus is not boring, and by the time you get there, you won't be boring either. Because you will go through an incredible makeover on your way to heaven, and all the things that might have been boring about you on earth will be gone. Heaven will be a place of great excitement and joy and busyness in the right sense of the word.
Someone has suggested you'll be able to finish all those projects you didn't have time for when you were down here. Because time will be gone. We'll be living in the eternal present for eternity. And well, I can't tell you everything that's going to happen there because I don't know.
Some of the secrets still belong to God alone, but I can tell you heaven is going to be a place of great excitement, and that's why I'm excited to tell you what you will do in heaven, part two, coming up in just a moment. Friends, we are coming to the end of this series. Called Escape the Coming Night. And I want to remind you: there is a book by that title, which I wrote several years ago. It's a contemporary commentary on the book of Revelation.
You can get that book. And there are four study guides for this whole series that take you from chapter 1 to chapter 22 of Revelation. We also have all of this teaching captured on CDs, and you can get those too. This is material available from davidjeremiah.org. Go to our internet site and there, find all of this material.
Get what you think you can use and then use it to share this truth with others and to remember it for yourself. Escape the Coming Night, the book of Revelation, in easy-to-understand terms here on Turning Point. Yesterday we talked about what we will do in heaven, and we're going to finish up that discussion today as we open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 21. Good. Because of Adam's sin, there was a curse upon all creation.
Genesis chapter 3, verses 17 through 19. But in heaven, there will be no more curse. How different life will be without sin. In this life, we are shocked every day by the tale of sin.
Some of these sins make the story of Sodom and Gomorrah seem like a Sunday school picnic. But no matter where we turn, we are faced with stealing and lying and deception and adultery and fornication and murderers and crime in its every form. But in heaven, these foul stains will be forever gone. And it will be a life Yeah. any evil or sin.
For the thousands and thousands of millennia that roll on in the eternal state, never will there be a dirty word spoken. Never will there be an angry word spoken. Never will there be a filthy thought or a dishonest act or a broken relationship. For in heaven There is no sin.
Now, you know, I don't even have to tell you what we're going to do. after I've already told you what's not going to be there. I mean, that's good enough right there. I mean, that is an overwhelming thought to be in a place like that. And most of us aren't even plugged into that yet because we can't comprehend it.
I mean, we have never had anything that approximates it, we have nothing to which we can compare it.
So it's very difficult for us to even get into it.
Now in that setting with those things absent Here are three things that we're going to do.
So for those of you who thought it was an eternal HARP lesson. Here's good news. The first thing that I think we will do when we get to heaven is we are going to sing. We're going to sing. Isn't that neat?
All of you who are into music, And all of you who wish you could be. We are going to sing. The book of Revelation contains more songs than any other book of the Bible, except the book of Psalms. There are 14 songs in the book of Revelation. And I thought it would be good just to get a picture of what's going to happen when we get to heaven if we just go back and read one little section that has several verses of songs in it, chapter 19, beginning at the first verse.
The section of the book of Revelation from which the hallelujah chorus has been taken, and many other great hymns of the faith that we sing today. I just want to read these eight verses.
Okay. After these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Hallelujah. Salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments. For he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with their fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.
And again they said, Hallelujah. And her smoke rose up forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah. And a voice came out of the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah!
For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready, and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. Just one little Chorus time. From the advanced pictures of heaven.
No doubt. Many of the well-known passages of the Psalms will be incorporated into heavenly music. And one of the great things is that when we get there, those who perhaps have not been able to sing will be able to sing because God's going to fix that too. He's going to give you perfect instruments to praise him. I wonder if any of you have ever been in a choir.
of 200. How many of you have ever been in a choir of 500? All right? How many of you have ever been in a choir of a thousand? Anyone?
How about 5,000? Can you imagine being in a heavenly choir of thousands of ten thousands. I think one of the most glorious moments in my life was when I was a first-year student at Dallas Seminary. Back in those days, there were about 700 students in that seminary, and they were all men. And I went to chapel for the first day, and I heard 700 men stand up and sing.
I could not believe it. I found my eyes began to. water and I could hardly sing. It was such a glorious sound. I have heard our choir and the combined choir sing, and sometimes it's more than I can handle standing up here.
Because it's such a glorious sound. Can you think of what a majestic thing it will be? to be a part. of that choir. When you get to heaven, you'll be a part of it.
You'll be singing and praising God. You say, well, we're going to do that forever? Yeah. Every day there'll be a time. When the grand chorus gets together to sing praises to our God in heaven.
Do you think you'll ever get tired of it? I don't think you'll ever get tired of it. You won't be able to wait till the next day. You're gonna sing in heaven. Number two.
When you get to heaven, you're going to serve. You're going to serve. Notice in chapter 22 and verse 3, This tells us what we're going to do in heaven. We're going to serve the Lord, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God, and the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants. shall serve him.
One of the most often repeated phrases in the book of Revelation is the phrase. or the concept of servants. For instance, way back in Revelation 1.1, We read, and he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John.
So John was a servant. In Revelation chapter 7 and verse 3, We have in the seventh chapter the sealing of the 144,000, and in the third verse it says, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. In Revelation chapter 10 and verse 7, we read: The mystery of God should be finished as he hath declared. to his servants the prophets. In Revelation 11:18, and that thou shouldest give reward to thy servants, the prophets.
Revelation 15:3, and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God. And a voice came out of the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. Revelation 19:5. And then in Revelation 22, 6, and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the thing which must shortly be done. And that along with what we have read here in the second verse, his servants shall serve him.
Throughout the whole book, one of the great concepts is a serving people. The prophets and Moses and Jesus. John and all of the redeemed. When we get to heaven, we're going to function in the true sense of a servant of God. You know, that's one of the highest and most lofty and most wonderful terms anybody can use.
of a person who's involved in ministry. He's a servant of the Lord. And we all do it so imperfectly. We want to be servants. That's our heart, to be a servant.
We're imperfect servants. Because if we're not careful, we become self-serving. But in heaven, we're going to be perfect servants of God, and we're going to serve Him forever. One man by the name of David Gregg, who's written about heaven, tries to help us understand how different our service will be then from the way it is now. And this is what he writes: He said, It is work as free from care and toil and fatigue as the wing stroke of the jubilant lark when it soars into the sunlight of a fresh, clear day, and spontaneously and for self-relief.
pours out its thrilling carol. Work up there is a matter of self-relief as well as a matter of obedience to the ruling will of God. It is work according to one's taste and delight and ability. If tastes vary there, if abilities vary there, then occupations will vary there as well. Let me ask you a question.
If you could do anything in the world. to serve God. If there were no limitations by way of ability, or place or money or background or education. If you could do anything in the world to serve God, what would you do? In heaven You can do it.
I just like to do what I'm doing. I just like to be teaching. You know, the Bible says we're going to learn in heaven. Maybe there's somebody that needs to learn something about the Bible, and I can get smarter between, well, I'm going to be better when I get there, I know. And I'll be able to teach in heaven.
Won't there be something?
Some of you want to spend your life serving and And maybe there'll be places where you can be involved in the thing that you want to do. And God says, in heaven, we're going to get to serve Him. You know, there are two things in life against which we really revolt. in our lives. One is to be involved in a job that's meaningless or is filled with difficulty.
My heart goes out to some of you who have told me about the situation in which you work. You get up every day and you don't like what you do, you're stuck, you can't get out of it, it's the kind of thing you've got to finish it through. The circumstances in your job have changed, now you've got a tyrant who's over you who doesn't care anything about you and a person, and just that's awful. But you know, the other thing that's even worse than that is what we mentioned a few moments ago, and that is not to be able to work or not to have anything to do. In heaven We are going to be able to have a perfect balance as we serve the Lord.
Rudyard Kipling wrote a little bit of verse about this, and this is what he said: When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, when the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died, we shall rest, and faith we shall need it, lay down for an eon or two, till the master of all good workmen shall put us to work anew. God's going to come and say, Listen, I want you to do this. And we're going to say, Lord, anything you want. Just show me where I can help, where I can serve. And you know, when we have that spirit down here now, in our church, in the ministries to which God has called us, a little bit of heaven comes into that ministry, doesn't it?
What a thrill to have people come up and say, Pastor Jeremiah, is there any place where I can help? I just want to serve, or just let me have a part. And God loves that. In fact, he loves it so much. He's going to make it an eternal Occupation.
Well The last thing I want to tell you about heaven that we're going to do: we're not only going to sing and worship God and we're going to serve God and we'll be employed. And of course, during the millennial period, we have reason to believe we're going to be in charge of different things as we rule the earth with our Lord, and perhaps that economy will be carried over into eternity in some way, and we'll have responsibility and administration and service. The last thing I want you to know is that, and this is what really gets to me and gets me excited. We're going to share in heaven. We're going to fellowship in heaven.
Revelation 19, 9 says this. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. Turn over in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12. As we come to a conclusion, let me just give you a little picture of who's going to be there.
who's going to be there with us and who we'll be able to share with. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 18.
Now, listen, I'm going to read verse 18, and I'm going to jump down to verse 22 and read through verse 24 and watch for the different groups of people who are going to be in heaven. For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest. Verse 22. But you are come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, and to the general assembly, and the church. of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
Now, just go back and listen to that verse for a moment. The angels and God. And the church And the spirits of just men made perfect, which refers, I believe, to the Old Testament saints and the martyrs of the tribulation period who were there. To God the judge, to Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, all of those people will be in heaven, and we will have the opportunity to fellowship and to share with them throughout eternity. One of the exciting things about heaven will be the unlimited opportunity to fellowship with people of the various ages of God's dealings with men.
One writer has expressed his hope that such will be true. He writes this. I am convinced that the extension and perfection of friendship will constitute a great part of the future happiness in heaven. Many have lived in various and distant ages and countries who have been in their characters, in the agreement of their tastes, and suitableness of dispositions, perfectly adapted for friendship with each other. but who of course could never meet in this world.
Why should not such a desire be realized in a future state A wish to see and personally know, for example, the Apostle Paul or John is the most likely to arise in the noblest and purest mind. I should be sorry to think that such a wish would be absurd and presumptuous, or unlikely ever to be gratified. The highest enjoyment, doubtless, to the blessed will be the personal knowledge of their great and beloved Master, yet I cannot but think that some part of their happiness will consist in an intimate knowledge of the greatest of his followers also. In this world, our friendships are limited not only to those who live in the same age and in the same country, but to a small portion, even of those. But in that day We will have unlimited opportunity to fellowship with people who have lived.
And you know, I think about this as I sit here, no choruses will be outdated. No generation gap. And I think of all of the men who made the Christian faith a possibility in our land, the church fathers. And then take it back into the Bible days, into the New Testament. I think it will be great to know the Apostle John and let him tell us firsthand about the vision God gave him on the Isle of Patmos.
And I know all of us want to meet Peter. Peter's one of the most colorful people in the New Testament, and we all identify with him because of, well, we're all like him to some degree. I want to meet David. I really want to know Joseph. I'm excited to get in contact with Daniel.
Find out what it was like for him in Babylon. You know, in eternity we'll be able to fellowship And nobody's ever going to knock on your door and say, Time's up. Your next appointment's here. You'll be able to just go on and on and on. I can't comprehend it.
I can't understand it. But you know, life really is fellowship and relationships, isn't it? Life isn't buildings and places and programs. Life is people. and in eternity.
people. will be in their primary place of importance.
Well, I need to stop, but I want to ask you how you apply all of this to your heart. D. O. Moody. says that He knew a man who testified in his youth that he thought of heaven as a great shining city.
Filled with vast walls, domes, and towers, populated by millions of angels, all of whom were strangers to him. But then his little brother died. And then he thought of heaven as a shining city filled with vast walls and towers and unknown angels, but also with the little fellow he knew. When a second brother died there were two that he knew. Acquaintances died.
In time, one of his own children went to be with Jesus. This one was followed by even another, and yet another. By this time Moody said the man seldom thought of the walls and the towers he thought of those residents of the celestial city whom he knew. Toward the end of his life so many of his acquaintances had gone to heaven That it sometimes seemed to him like there were more people up there that he knew than there were down here. and heaven became a very important place to him.
I don't think it's wrong for us to be realistic about heaven. about the Lord's return.
Sometimes I know when I preach about this, young people respond to it even as I did. Most of us, when we're young, It's nice to know about heaven. It's nice to know it's there if anything ever happens to us. And yes, when we're old and we've lived our lives. We want to go there.
But it's not something that we're really revved up about right now. No matter how good it might seem.
Well, I want to encourage you, do you know, young people, when Don and I were engaged. to be married. We had a conference on the campus at Cedarville College and The preacher spoke on the second coming of Christ and on heaven. We were to be married that June. This was in the spring.
On the way back to the dorm that night after the conference, she said, David, could I tell you something? I hope you won't think I'm unspiritual. I said, what's that? She said, I really want the Lord to come. but not until after june twenty ninth.
I said, oh, that's all right. I can understand that. It's all right to have that kind of an approach to it and understand it. But you know, it's good to fix your eyes on it as a target because I want to tell you, young people. You don't understand some of this now.
Maybe some of you have a little bit of understanding as you get older and you move through life. Life has a way of making you more realistic about the future and what God has prepared for those that love Him. If We have heaven straightened out in our minds. Then it seems to me if we're personally all right, the only other thing that's left for us is to try to take as many people with us when we go as we possibly can. In his book On Heaven, D.L.
Moody tells about a father that he met in New York. That father had a son. who had periodic spells of illness. No one really thought that the illness was serious until the child took a turn for the worse. And when he was visited by the doctor, the doctor informed the mother that the child had a very serious terminal illness and would not live for more than a few days.
When the father came home from his business trip and was confronted with that news, He saw his wife weeping and he asked her, What was wrong? And she said, There's been a great change in our boy, honey, since you left. The doctor tells me that he is very ill and that he may not live, perhaps not even live through the night. The father went in to see his boy, and it was apparent that the boy knew what was going on. He looked up to his dad and he said, Dad, I'm going to be with Jesus tonight.
Is that right? And as his grieving father answered him, he said, Yes, son, it is very likely that you will be with Jesus tonight. And as he said it, The tears began to stream down his face and he turned his head away so his son wouldn't see him crying. But the boy saw the tears before his dad turned his face away and he said, Father, don't you cry for me. When I get to heaven, I'm going to go straight to Jesus and tell him.
That ever since I can remember, you've been telling me all about him and trying to lead me to him. And I thought to myself, praise God, that's what I want to be as a father. Ever since my kids can remember, I've been telling them about Jesus and trying to lead them to him. as a family, as parents, as teachers, as leaders. From the first they can remember.
telling them about Jesus. and how they can get to him.
Well, that's been the purpose of this whole series. And I hope that maybe you've heard something during these days that has. Triggered your thoughts about your own relationship with Christ. Because it's not enough just to know about eternity, you have to get ready for it. It's not enough just to know about heaven, you need to make your reservation for heaven.
I hear people talk about going to heaven and standing before God, and God's going to. Grade them on the curve, and I promise you that will not happen. Whatever you do about going to heaven, you have to do it now in this world. You have to accept Christ. Jesus says there's no other way to heaven except through Him.
So, if you haven't made your reservation, I encourage you to do it now. Just ask the Lord Jesus to forgive you of your sin. Invite him into your heart and tell him you want to live for him going forward. He will hear you. and your life will be changed.
And we'll see you next time here on Turning Point. Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. If this ministry is an encouragement to you, let us know by writing to Turning Point PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio.
or calling 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's exciting new novel Set in the End Times. Vanished. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also view over 1,200 of Dr.
Jeremiah's sermons on any screen, anytime you like. On our Turning Point Plus streaming service for a monthly gift of any amount, visit turningpointplus.org for details. That's turningpointplus.org. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
