Turn Your Forward Into Forever - Part 2

Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah wraps up his series Forward with a closer look at what you can expect when you arrive. Celebrate, turn your forward into forever. Dr. Jeremiah, thank you so much for being with us today.

It's a pleasure to be with you. That's not really true if we understand what real happiness is, but as we go forward in the days ahead, I think heaven is going to become more and more important to us, and one of the joys of writing this book is to realize that while this book starts in time, it ends in eternity. And when you celebrate at the end of your journey, after you have dreamed and prayed and chosen and focused and risked and pursued and believed and invested and finished, when you finally get to heaven, you will celebrate, and it will be a great celebration of all that God has done for you and in you, most of all because of his sacrificial death on the cross for your life. So, today we're going to go back to where we left off in this message on celebrating. I'm going to jump right into it, right at the front. I have some things to say to you at the end, but right now, let's finish up our discussion of celebrate. Turn your forward into forever. When you look forward to celebration, look forward to a rousing welcome and a rich reward, and look forward to a resurrected body.

Oh my goodness, listen to this. It's important to remember that we aren't going to be ghosts or angels or disembodied spirits in heaven. At the moment of our rapture or our resurrection, we're going to celebrate our new glorified bodies. We're not going to be like Lazarus who was raised from the dead in John chapter 11. He hobbled out in his grave clothes. Others cut him out of the shroud. No, we'll be like Jesus who was resurrected and passed right through his grave clothes, and nobody could figure out how all that happened. Lazarus rose to die again. Jesus rose never again to age, experience illness, face weakness, or encounter death. Philippians chapter 3 says that the Lord Jesus will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be just like his glorious body. So I don't know about you, but for me, that's really good news. Some of you who are listening to this message are battling illnesses and disabilities and ravages of aging.

Medical science is grappling with all these issues, and some of our advances are amazing. Sergeant John Peck is an American Marine who lost all four limbs to an explosion in Afghanistan in 2010. At first, he thought he'd spend the rest of his life wearing prosthetic arms and legs, but I can hardly believe this. In 2016, he received a double arm transplant. The limbs came from a young man who was declared brain dead and whose arms were rushed in ice packs to an operating room in Boston for the 14-hour transplant surgery performed by a team of 60 surgeons, nurses, and technicians. When Peck woke up the next day, he had someone else's arms.

Today, John Peck is able to perform many daily tasks with his new arms, including signing copies of his book, Rebuilding Sergeant Peck. If human medical technology can do so much to help our bodies recover from horrific tragedies, imagine what God can do instantaneously at the moment of the resurrection. 1 Corinthians says it this way, we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. Consider what we know about the resurrection body of Christ. It was his own natural body, recognizable with his unique DNA.

His personal essence and his personal qualities were intact. It was the same body he acquired in embryonic form at conception, but in a flash of Easter glory, it was transformed into an imperishable body with new capabilities. His resurrection body is the way our bodies are going to be when we go to heaven. We're going to have bodies just like the Lord. Now, you can contemplate that all you want.

The next time you're considering cosmetic surgery, just remember, if you wait long enough, you won't have to do that, because Jesus Christ is going to change everybody to be just like him. So, when you go to your celebration, you will look forward to a rousing welcome. You will look forward to a rich reward. You will look forward to a resurrected body.

But here's one that surprises a lot of people. You will look forward to a renewed assignment. You'll need your resurrection body because you're going to have a lot of work to do when you get to heaven. One of the greatest aspects of heaven involves the prospect of more service. Twice in the book of Revelation, we're told, will be involved in meaningful tasks and acts of service in heaven. Revelation 7.15 says, therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night. And Revelation 22.3 says, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. You know, we're not going to go to heaven and sit in a cloud and strum a ukulele or whatever it is that you think we're going to do when we get there.

No, we're going to go to heaven and we're going to work. And if you don't understand how powerful that is, then you don't have a job you love. You don't have a career you're excited about. You say, well, what kind of work is it going to be?

Listen to the words of Randy Alcorn as he describes it. Work in heaven won't be frustrating or fruitless. Instead, it will involve lasting accomplishment, unhindered by decay, unhindered by fatigue, enhanced by unlimited resources.

We'll approach our work with the enthusiasm we bring to our favorite sport or our favorite hobby. In other words, work won't be difficult. It'll be the greatest joy of heaven to be able to work without anybody pushing back on you, anybody trying to tell you to do what you don't want to do because God puts within you the desire to do the right thing.

You will be able to get up and work every day and it will be the joy of your life. Perhaps our occupations in heaven will be an extension of the work that we do here on this earth. Some occupations won't exist in heaven. There won't be any doctors in heaven because there won't be any illness.

There won't be any police officers or prison guards. There won't even be any evangelists for everyone will already know Christ. But there will be musicians and they may also be teachers for we won't be omniscient. We'll be capable of learning and teaching what we learn.

We know there will be layers of authority and responsibility in the administration of the new heavens. I expect some of us will be scientists because God's new heavens and new earth will be full of surprises to investigate. You'll have plenty of time to undertake new vocations, new hobbies, new pursuits. With eternity to practice, you'll be able to master great symphonies, create wonderful works of art, play extreme sports, write books, deliver lectures, explore exotic locations, and enjoy thrills without risk.

All along the way, there will be meaningful work and there will be fulfilling responsibilities and activities. When you get to heaven, when you attend the celebration at the end of what happens here on this earth, you will have a rousing welcome. You will get a rich reward. Your body will be resurrected and changed completely.

You will get a new assignment and you will look forward to a royal throne. By far the greatest energy and enthusiasm in heaven will be around the throne of God when we cast our crowns at his feet and worship him with full understanding and joy. We have a preview in Revelation 4 and 5 when the saints and angels of heaven sing in a loud voice, blessing and honor and glory and power to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb forever and ever. Dr. Vernon Whaley has been training worship leaders for decades. His passion for worship stems from the small Alaska church he attended as a child.

His parents were missionaries there and they had a deep concern for people with disabilities. When they met for the services, it was a remarkable crowd. An alcoholic turned deacon, a prostitute transformed into a Sunday school teacher, a blind man who played the piano, a former fugitive who kept the church grounds, a young woman lame from birth, a young man with Down syndrome who helped take the offering. But they all sang praises to God. Vernon Whaley says, my father was a great one for having extended times of singing during the Sunday night services.

I know about that. My father was a pastor and we used to have Sunday night sings. Sometimes they lasted for the whole service. Mr. Whaley said, my father entered the ministry during the 1940s when Youth for Christ rallies were held all over the country.

He never lost the excitement of those rallies and their impact on his life. So he said, almost every Sunday night our congregation sang him after him after him. And if you know those days you know, you sang all the verses, all four verses or five sometimes. Dr. Whaley recalls one Sunday night when there was a puzzling stir from the middle of the congregation. He turned around to see a significantly disabled girl slowly steering her wheelchair to the front of the church. The converted alcoholic got up and helped her roll to the front of the pulpit.

Reverend Whaley came down near her. Using her alphabet slate, she told him she wanted to sing a solo. She wanted to sing Amazing Grace. The blind pianist struck up the tune for Amazing Grace and the girl began making groans and moanings in time with the music.

I was not able to clearly understand a word she sang, Dr. Whaley said. But somehow the musicianship and the articulation of words did not matter. All of us understood intuitively what she was doing and more important why she was doing it. There was no doubt. We all knew she was singing from her heart to the living God.

There was not a dry eye in the audience. Even the children were captured and stilled by that moment. Can you imagine the moment tens of millions of us join tens of millions of angels, all of our disabilities gone, all of our problems solved, all of our burdens lifted, and we lift our voices in a choir of billions and we sing of God's Amazing Grace. Yes, we look forward to a rousing welcome and a rich reward and a resurrected body, a renewed assignment, a royal throne, and a rapturous reunion.

Here's something else. As you gather around the throne, you'll look over and you'll see your dearest loved ones in Christ. You'll instantly know each other and you'll begin to fellowship in heaven where you left off on earth. All the saints of all the ages will be there, plus all the angels. No more separation, no more sorrow. I'll see my dad and my mom again and the dearest ones who have preceded me to glory. Our lives are ordered by the Lord and he brings us together on earth in friendships and marriages and family units and relationships and fellowship. And the same God who brought us together the first time will reunite us again and we'll pick up where we left off minus all the disagreements and all the personality conflicts. Shortly before he passed away from complications from pulmonary fibrosis in 2003, evangelist Bill Bright contemplated the nature of our heavenly experience.

Here's what he wrote. No reunion in history can even foreshadow what joy we will experience when we see loved ones and friends who went on before us. Brought together in the all-surrounding presence of the Lord, our faces will beam. What full-throated, glad-hearted welcomes these blood-washed sinners will give each other. How we will adore the Lord Jesus together. How we will love each other.

Oh, my friends, the celebration that awaits us if we continue to go forward is beyond description. It includes a rousing welcome, a rich reward, a resurrected body. It includes a royal throne, a rapturous reunion, and a risen Savior.

Oh, yes, all of the things that happen to us in heaven are peripheral because the main thing in heaven is we get to see Jesus. That's the greatest anticipation about heaven, our risen Savior. The Bible says you will see Jesus face to face. There is no more glorious verse in the Bible than Revelation 22 for they shall see his face.

One day in the future, if your heart is right with God and you are a Christian and you die and you go to heaven, the Bible says you will meet Jesus personally face to face. This is your ultimate goal. This will be your single most phenomenal moment of your entire life. This is what you're living for, what you're waiting for, and what you're anticipating with all your heart. This is celebration with a capital C for Christ. You shall behold him as the blind poet Fanny Crosby proclaimed, and I shall see him face to face and tell the story saved by grace.

The closer we get to heaven, the greater our longing for Jesus face will be. During the coronavirus pandemic, many families faced difficult separations. One South African, Matthew Khalil, was working in Iowa and found himself quarantined away from his wife, Clea. He was away from her by 9,000 miles. He eventually made it back to South Africa by taking a series of overnight flights, but when he arrived in Johannesburg, he was again quarantined. Finally, he received permission to travel from Johannesburg to Cape Town, and he was amazed at the emotions that he felt. Interestingly, he wrote, it was more difficult being away from my wife the closer I got to her.

Like when I was in America with the different time zones, it was easier. The closer I got, the more I missed her. The last hour of his journey home was tantalizing. I was sharing my location via WhatsApp with Clea, and she knew I was just around the block.

She met me in the road, and we were just both in tears. It's really important to have that perspective, and it really puts what is important into perspective for your life. Khalil's journey sounds like a prototype for our own experience going to heaven. The closer we get to heaven, the more we long to see our Lord and the more we miss our loved ones who've gone before us.

We should always be picking up forward momentum in life, constantly and eagerly accelerating onward from glory to glory. What do you think you'll be doing an hour after you die? Well, let me give you the answer to that from the Scripture. You'll be doing the same thing you were doing an hour before you died, seeking to please Jesus in all that you are and all that you do. The Bible says, so whether we are in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. Your location may change, men and women, but your core purpose in life will not. The things that pleased Christ on earth will please him in heaven, and that means Christ's followers have an exhilarating celebration ahead that will make the heavens ring and the angels sing. When you get down to the last minute of your last hour of your last day on this earth, you're ready for something more, something far better.

You're ready to go forward. Several years ago, Don and I went to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was to speak at a prayer breakfast, the Alabama prayer breakfast.

I have been blessed with many opportunities to teach and preach the Bible, and when possible, I accept the invitations. On this occasion, we drove to the hotel reserved for us from the airport, and I noticed it was near a huge stadium. I looked around, and I realized we were on the campus of the University of Alabama on Paul W. Bryant Drive.

I looked in my notes and saw that my speaking engagement was at the Bryant Conference Center. When we arrived for the prayer breakfast, someone told me there was a man wanting to see me with a story to tell. His name was Red, and I could see why. He had long red hair pulled back in a ponytail that went down the back of his neck.

He looked like someone whose life had been very hard. He told me, I tried everything to find some kind of peace here, couldn't find it. My life was spiraling downhill, just kept getting worse and worse. One day he said, I decided that's it.

I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to take my life and get this over with. I had driven to work so often that I recalled a curve in the road. I began to think that if I went straight ahead into that curve at 80 miles an hour, I would hit a huge tree, and it would be over for me. So that's how I decided to end my life.

I decided I would go to the end of the road as far away from that curve as I could, get in my car, drive it at full speed, not negotiate the curve, hit the tree, and I would be over my misery. I got into my car, turned on my radio, found my rock and roll station, and turned it up wide open so I would have as much noise in the car as possible. As he talked with me, I could visualize this man sitting behind the wheel, intent on killing himself and wanting some rock and roll music to distract him from the process. But for some reason, he told me the radio acted up, which frustrated him so badly that he took his fist and slammed it into the radio in the car.

This is a true story. Our radio program Turning Point came on. Suddenly, Red heard my voice, and I was talking about heaven and about sometimes people taking their own lives.

I actually said on the radio, you may be thinking of taking your own life, but don't do it. Red said it caused me to stop. I was so shocked. I didn't know what came over me, pastor. I shut my car off, and then and there, I just prayed and asked Jesus Christ to be my Savior. When I heard you were going to be here in Tuscaloosa, I wanted to come and hug your neck and tell you I'm going to heaven, and I'm so excited about it. Like Red, you too can be excited about heaven.

You can turn your forward into forever. Don't miss the celebration and eternal joys of heaven. Jesus died and rose again to take you to heaven, and he's gone ahead of you to get everything ready.

And the only way you can go forward is with him. The whole human race is poisoned by sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ is the cure. He died on the cross, and the Bible says, if you declare with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. So hear me carefully. In this last message, in this 10-message series, there's no going forward without Jesus, and when you have Jesus, there's no turning back. Amen. Amen. So let me ask you this. Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?

Are you trying to go forward in your own energy and your own strength and finding how difficult it is with no leadership and no inspiration, no power of the Holy Spirit, no direction from the Bible, no friend that sticks closer than a brother helping you do what you do? The Lord God wants to save you from your sin. He wants to give you a home in heaven.

He wants to make sure you're there for the celebration, but you have to make the decision. If you've never put your trust in Christ, will you do it now? Will you just simply say, Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know I need to be saved from my sin. I believe that you died on the cross to pay for all of my sin when you came to this earth and that your death is sufficient for everything that I've ever done or ever will do that's wrong. So please come into my heart and forgive me and give me the gift of eternal life so that I can spend forever in heaven as a part of the celebration.

And when you make that decision, please let us know. We have some things we'd like to send you to help you get started. Heaven will be wonderful, but we want to make sure you're there so you make certain that you invite Christ into your life today. And then tomorrow, don't forget, we're going to replay the interview that we did with Sheila Walsh way back at the beginning of this series. I think it will mean a lot more to you now that you've heard the teaching, and it will be a tremendous review of what we have been learning during this month. On Friday, we have a special message on the joy of victory. I hope you'll stay with us throughout all of these teachings. Have a great day. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au. .