Belhaven University Chapel Series - Fall 2024

Christianity, if it's false, doesn't matter.

It's of no importance.

But if it's true, it's of infinite importance.

The only thing it can't be is moderately important.

And that's what we're focusing on this semester, the things of why Christianity is so critically important to us.

So today we're going to get into the second of these messages, and this one's called Read the last chapter Heaven.

Last week we talked about the main thing, goodness.

Today, read the last chapter, heaven.

Now, this is a little bit audacious to try to take on in 25 minutes to explain to you Heaven.

So I'm going to really fly over a lot of things here, but I hope it will trigger you to want to know more about heaven and understand and really do read the last chapter, because that's where we've got to be, is to understand that this life is not all of life.

This life is a preparation for eternal life yet to come.

Heaven is our promise, but we know so little about it.

And I think the reasons we know so little about are probably one of four.

Probably.

We don't like to think about death, do we?

You don't like to think about death.

I don't like to think about will happen.

Everybody in this room is going to die unless Jesus comes first, but everybody in this room is going to die.

That will happen.

You can't get out of that one.

That will happen.

So we don't like to think about what happens after that.

Well, another reason is maybe we don't think about heaven because we really like this life.

Yeah, it's got a lot of faults.

It's got a lot of challenges.

It's tough sometimes.

But I love life.

I love all the aspects of what our life is, even though it's tough at times.

And so we don't want to think too much about heaven.

Maybe it's.

We have a skewed view of heaven.

Somehow we think heaven is somewhere going someplace and sitting on a cloud and strumming a harp.

And if that's what you think heaven is, you're not even close.

You're not even at a ballpark of what heaven is understanding is about.

I'm going to show you that today.

Or maybe the fourth reason we don't like to think about heaven is we're fearful that hell is for real.

And that's scary.

But we need to understand the last chapter if we're going to understand the last.

The book of life.

Sometimes when I'm reading a book and I get all the way to the end of the last chapter, I go, oh, that's why this happened.

And that happened and that happened and that happened.

I do that with series.

Sometimes I stream a series and I get to the end and I go, oh, now I see how the pieces fit together.

And I go back and watch the whole thing again.

And the second time around, it all makes a lot more sense to me because I see how it ends.

Well, that's what we need to understand about our lives, that the end is not the end we think it is.

The end is a new beginning of what's ahead.

And so I want to talk to you today about heaven, because heaven is for real and so is hell.

And if we had time, which we don't have time, in 25 minutes, I would give you so many scriptures to prove everything I'm going to talk to you about.

And I don't have time for that today.

So if you're interested in this topic of heaven, I want to recommend a book to you by Randy Alcorn.

It will tell you lots of detail about heaven based on scripture.

Very well researched book, very theologically solid.

And it's a book.

It's easy to find.

If you just go to Amazon, put it in heaven, it'll pop up right away.

But it is a great book to understand heaven.

And in that he will tell you, will your family be in heaven?

Randy will tell you, will you have a profession in heaven?

Randy will tell you in the book.

Here's a good question.

Will your dogs be in heaven that you love?

Well, spoiler alert.

Lion says.

The scripture says the lion will lay down with the lamb in heaven.

So why wouldn't God give us the dogs that we love?

I believe there are dogs in heaven, the ones we love.

So we don't have time to get into all the scriptures today.

But what I'm going to share with you is based on scriptural evidence that we have all the way through the Bible, not just Revelation, but all through the Bible we have descriptions of heaven out of which we can get an understanding to a level of what heaven is about.

Then secondly, Jesus talked more about heaven than about any other topic.

And Jesus was very descriptive when he told us all about heaven.

And then we have in Revelation John, who had on the Isle of Patmos a vision of heaven and wrote it down, of heaven and a new earth.

So I'm going to pull just that one scripture today to get us focused on heaven from Revelation 21.

Excuse me, Revelation 22.

This is the next last chapter of the Bible.

So we're looking at how the story ends, but really it's how the story begins.

So here's what John said.

Excuse me, let me just go back to preface a couple things of this, because you won't understand it if you don't.

John, when he wrote this, was writing to seven young churches in Asia Minor, okay?

These were young Christians, first generation after Jesus had been ascended and gone into heaven, transformed and had the crucifixion on first young church.

And these people were under horrible, horrible, horrible persecution.

The worst that anybody had ever had.

The emperor at the time of the first century decided this Christian thing was going to ruin the Roman Empire.

And so he was going to put it out before it had a chance to catch fire.

And so he had their homes taken from them.

He had Christians impaled on stakes and.

And left alive until they died.

He brought Christians into the arena.

This is where we have Christians with the lions and other wild beasts attacking them.

They would get these wild beasts.

It was a huge thing in Rome, these entertainments.

They'd have thousands of people come together for the gladiators to fight or then the Christians to come in and let the wild beasts tear them apart.

And there was betting and sport, and they thought it was hilarious that these Christians would die as they watched.

They were crucified along the highway, not by the tens, but by the hundreds and the thousands.

They would put them on crosses and crucifixion and let them be there for three, four days before they would die.

During this time, these Christians that John was writing to with his vision of what heaven is like is not just a theoretical thing.

He's writing to people who are facing the worst turmoil and the worst pain ever.

And he's telling them about a place where there'll be no more death, there'll be no more crying, there'll be no more pain.

This is John, who's the disciple who was closest with Jesus.

This is the disciple, he said, the one I love, who was so close as a friend of Jesus.

He gave perspective to these young Christians on what heaven was like.

And in that perspective, those Christians of the first century didn't fight against the Roman Empire.

They took the horrible things that were coming to them with poise and grace and with peace.

And they even forgave those who were doing this to them.

And when they did, the gospel took root.

And that's what upended the cruel Roman Empire, because the gospel of love overwhelmed them when the people had the hope of heaven, hope of heaven.

We often talk about, but it really is a reality of heaven.

So let's look at the scripture.

It reads like this.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the old heaven.

And the old earth had disappeared, and the sea was also gone.

And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, look, God's home is now among his people.

He will live with them, and they will be his people.

God himself will be with them.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.

All those things are gone forever.

And the one sitting on the throne said, look, I'm making everything new.

And then he said to me, write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.

And he also said, it is finished.

I'm the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

All who are thirsty, I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.

All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings.

And I will be their God, and they will be my children.

The last chapter it was 17 years ago next month.

My dad died.

My dad had a disease that began to slowly take the energy from him.

And so, firstly, in that last week or so of his life, as often happens when the body's shutting down, he didn't say too much.

But a few minutes before he died, my mother was there with him, just the two of them in his bedroom.

And he looked at her and he said, I've got to go now.

She said, what do you mean you have to go?

He said, that man has come for me and I've got to go.

She says, what man?

I don't see any man.

He said, that man right there, he's taking me.

In that moment when a person passes from this life into eternity, we need to understand what happens when we die.

Because how we live now will be completely controlled by how you view the future.

If you don't read the last chapter, you're not going to live this life to the fullest.

If you don't read the last chapter, you won't understand this life.

If you don't understand what happens when you die, you won't understand how to live.

So that's what I want to talk to you about this morning.

Four events that happen when we die.

Four things we know very clearly from Scripture.

And again, I don't have time to show them all to you very clear from Scripture, what happens when we die.

Just like my dad.

The first is we are immediately taken immediately before God.

Immediately taken before God.

The thief on the cross next to Jesus, who asked for forgiveness.

Jesus said to him, today you will be with me in paradise.

Not someday, but today, you will be in paradise.

There are a lot of people who have assumed through the years that when we die, we sleep in a grave for thousands of years until God comes back, and then life comes back anew.

Like going to sleep last night and you woke up this morning, you thought it was a few minutes later, and it really was hours later.

No, that's not it at all.

Scripture's very clear.

Immediately when you die, you are taken into the presence of.

Of God.

You're taken to a place that, for the lack of a better term, is called intermediate heaven.

It's not the final heaven, it's the intermediate heaven.

And the interesting thing that we saw from John in the intermediate heaven is that it is so fulfilling because the thirst of our life is finally quenched.

Verse 6.

He said, all who are thirsty, I will give freely of the springs of life.

And.

And that happens immediately when we die.

What's that mean?

Well, again, if you don't know the last chapter, you don't understand the other parts of the chapter.

Do you remember when the woman at the well came and she wanted Jesus to help her get her some water?

And he said, I'll not just get you water.

I will give you springs of life.

I'll give you the water of life, which is the transformation of spiritual life.

That's what Jesus came to the world to do.

Do you remember when Jesus was on the cross, he said seven different things.

One of the things he said was, I thirst.

Why did he thirst?

Of course, there was a physical thing, but that wasn't it.

He thirsts because he took on the sins of the world.

And when he took on the sins of the world, all the glory of God was gone from him.

And God shut him out.

Because God can't be in the presence of sin.

And he said, I thirst.

He wasn't thirsty for water.

He was thirsty for the water, the springs of life.

And then we get to heaven, and that's the first thing he offers us where nothing is lacking.

This intermediate heaven where we go will be more than we could hope.

We don't have a lot in scripture that explains all the details of that as much as we do about the permanent heaven, but it'll be greater than anything we can imagine.

The second thing we find when we die is that there is an eternal Judgment and a pure justice when we die.

Scripture is very clear.

You will come into heaven if your name is written in the book of life.

And if your name is not in the book, you're not coming in.

Could you imagine going to the most fabulous concert there ever is?

And you think you're going to the backstage and you go up and you say, my name's on the list.

Let me in.

And if your name's on the list, it doesn't matter who you are, you're not getting in.

Well, that's just a weak example of the book of life.

Because Jesus says, if your name is not written in the book of Life, then you are not saved and you're not coming into that heaven.

We are saved by grace.

There is no amount of works, there's no amount of effort.

There's no amount of being good.

There's no amount of I intended to do good.

That doesn't matter at all.

Either you have asked Christ into your life to forgive your sins and to cleanse you and to forgive you.

And your name is in the book of life because those sins are forgotten.

And now you can have fellowship with the holy God, or you haven't.

It's one or the other.

But it's not just an eternal judgment.

It's a pure justice.

You know life is not fair.

You know that.

I'm a lot older.

I really know that life is not fair.

But when we die, our judge is Christ, who is completely fair and completely just.

And here's the deal.

Nobody is going to get away with anything.

They think they've manipulated you.

They think they've gotten the best of you, or you think you have.

No, you're not going to get away with one thing because the justice of God is pure.

He says, I'm going to divide the people into the sheep and the goats.

Well, you can't be both.

There's no in between.

I'm sort of a sheep, but I'm sort of a goat.

I'm sort of a good person, but I'm not always a good person.

I'm sort of a believer, but I'm really not a believer.

You're either going to be a sheep or a goat when you die.

At that moment, and at that moment, the thing we long for the most in this life is justice.

Because there's so little of it, we want justice, and that is what will happen.

Because justice is the character of God.

He is good and just.

And so when we die, that eternal judgment will come.

Third thing will happen is we will eventually return to this earth.

Heaven is not out there someplace.

God designed this world in a perfect state.

And Adam and Eve broke the relationship with God and sin corrupted the world.

And so we live in a world that's corrupted by sin.

But Jesus and God doesn't say, well, we're just going to discard that because they messed it up, and we'll create another.

No, he's going to restore this earth in the way he originally intended it to be.

And he's going to do that.

So we live here on earth forever.

So we go to the immediate heaven till we die.

And after Jesus returns to earth and restores the earth, then we come.

That's why he says, coming down from heaven, Jerusalem, coming down from heaven.

He's coming down to earth.

So God lives on the earth with his people, just like he did in the garden where God was with Adam and Eve in the garden.

That's what God intended.

So he's putting that back in place.

And heaven is a renewed earth, a new earth.

As we talk about it, how does that work?

Well, there's a lot of questions about that.

Here's what I do know.

God is bigger than you think and bigger than you can think.

So we can't put it all together.

But I will tell you real quickly eight characteristics of the new earth.

The first is it's a real place.

This is it.

This is the new earth.

It is a very real place in which we will have a restored body.

Now, there's a question.

In the intermediate heaven, is your body restored or is that just your spirit?

And we don't really have clear evidence one way or the other on that.

You know, when Jesus rose from the grave, they could recognize him.

They could see him.

Although his body was somewhat different, he wasn't quickly recognized.

And he could appear in rooms and then be gone.

But he also said, I'm hungry.

Give me a fish.

So he wanted to eat.

So do we have a body like that or do we have.

You know, Elijah and Moses came down on the Mount Transfiguration with the disciples.

They saw them.

So we don't know that.

But we do know for sure that in the new earth our bodies are restored.

They are healthy.

They are the body God intended us to have.

He didn't make a flawed creation sin flawed the creation.

And he's going to put it back how it should have been so we know it's a real place.

Second thing we know is a holy place.

There will be no sin in heaven.

It'll be completely safe.

No locksmiths no police, no medical, because there's no sin that corrupts the body.

There'll be no armies.

There's no need for them.

A lot of the things that are central to our culture now are because of sin.

And all those things go away in the new earth because it's a holy place.

It's also a relationship place.

We will be renewed with Jesus in fellowship with him.

That's why we sang today about his glory, because that's the renewed fellowship with him.

But we'll also be renewed with those we knew in this earth.

And tons and tons and tons of new people we're yet to know, because it is about our relationships.

And those relationships will be very real and very significant something to be a whole different depth than what we're ever able to do on earth when sin so often creeps into relationships.

It'll be a joyful place.

The scripture says.

There'll be no sorrow, no crying, no pain.

There'll be no gossip.

There will be no abuse.

There will be no manipulation.

There will be no lust.

All the things that destroy life will be gone.

Because it will be a joyful place.

It will be an undivided place.

We know this in scripture.

It said, the waters come together.

The divisions among the nations go away.

The divisions among economic classes go away.

The divisions among races go away.

It's a place where people are brought together.

There's no more division because everyone is there as an accepted child of God.

It's a fulfilling place.

In heaven, we will have work to do.

It's not sitting around on a harp playing all day long and just singing praise songs.

I'd get pretty bored in a hurry if that's what it is.

That's not it at all.

We'll have work to do.

We.

We'll have responsibilities.

We'll have arts, we'll have sports.

We'll have all kinds of wonderful things.

It's an active place, A place where there'll be cities and there'll be culture and there'll be purpose for what we do.

It's a permanent place.

It's forever and ever.

Forever is really hard to get your mind around.

But it is forever.

Forever.

Think of the longest forever you could think of and you haven't even started.

It's that far ahead.

That's the new earth.

That's where heaven will be permanently is on the new earth.

We go to the intermediate heaven now.

The judgment comes there, and the believers stay there.

The non believers are sent to hell.

And then when Jesus restores the earth, we all come back to the earth for permanent heaven as our home.

And then we see the fourth thing that happens is that believers are rewarded for their life on earth.

There is a second judgment that comes to all people, believers and nonbelievers.

A second judgment will come.

Now, we don't know if that happens in the intermediate heaven or at the time that the heaven is restored on earth.

But at some point, there is a second judgment that will come to each one of us, where every action, every thought, every motive, everything you have ever done will be laid bare.

And that is terrifying.

Think of it right now.

Everything that is in your hidden life was laid bare before all of us, before your family.

That is terrifying.

But Christians are forgiven.

Christians are forgiven.

And we're told God no longer holds those sins against us and he forgets them.

So we don't really know.

For Christians, when that second judgment comes, do we hear all those sins we committed?

We might.

We don't know.

But if we did, God's not doing that to shame us, because there is no sorrow in heaven.

Maybe he would do that in order to help us understand the depth of his grace.

Or maybe they're just forgotten.

Maybe he goes, let's get all the bad stuff up on Roger Perrott.

And he hits a button and it's deleted.

There's nothing there because he forgot it all, because he forgave it all.

So that's one option.

It could be that way when it comes to Christians and their sin.

But what we do know for sure is that we are rewarded in heaven for our works on earth.

Now listen to this very carefully.

We are not saved by works.

It is impossible.

It is impossible.

The Scripture is very clear.

You are never saved by works.

You're only saved by the grace of God who forgives us.

But our works on earth will determine the value of our Christian life lived out on this earth, and that will determine our rewards in heaven.

So your responsibility in heaven, your position, your place of.

Of service in heaven will be dependent on what you have done on this earth.

Now we've got the stakes really raised.

This is why you got to read the last chapter.

And in the Parable of the Talents, Jesus is very specific about this.

You know the parable of talents.

He gave one talent, 13 and 1 5, and they were supposed to go do something, and he came back, and one had made money and the other had done well, and the other just buried it in the ground.

And the one buried in the ground, he sent him to hell.

And the other two, he gave different responsibilities depending on how they did.

This is a clear teaching of Jesus.

Jesus is saying, do I see the fruit of our relationship in your life?

And he measures that by what we do.

And he measures that by our spirit of who we are.

And we see that in the fruits of the spirit in our Christian life.

And then he gets very specific.

These are the words of Jesus he talks about.

What you do to the least of these will determine where you stand after that second judgment, how you treated those that he loves.

Scripture reads like this.

Then the king will say to those on his right, come, who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.

For I was hungry and you fed me.

I was thirsty and you gave me to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in your home.

I was naked and you gave me clothing.

I was sick and you cared for me.

I was in prison and you visited me.

Then the righteous ones will reply, lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink?

Or stranger and show you hospitality again?

Remember, these are the words of Jesus.

Or naked and give you clothing.

When did we ever see you sick or in prison?

And the king will say, I tell you the truth, when you did it for the least of these brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.

And then he goes on, but away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.

For I was hungry and you didn't feed me.

I was thirsty and you didn't give me a drink.

I was a stranger and you didn't invite me into your home.

I was naked and you didn't give me clothing.

I was sick in prison and you didn't visit me.

And they will reply, lord, when do we ever see you hungry or thirsty or stranger or naked or sick in prison and not help you?

And he will answer, I tell you the truth.

You refuse to help the least of these brothers and sisters.

You were refusing to help me.

And they will go away into the eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.

You want to know why Connor's going to spend 25 years to go reach a group of unpeached people who don't know the gospel?

Because of that.

Because of that.

What you do for the least of these.

Now, the least of these can be any part of your life in any way.

But when we do the right things for the least of these, we are doing it for Jesus.

And that determines our place in heaven, our responsibility, and our place in heaven is dependent on how our Christian life is lived out on earth.

What we do now matters for eternity.

Don't play around with it.

Yes, you are saved by grace.

You'll get in if you're saved by grace.

But your responsibility in heaven, your eternal life, is dependent on what you do in living out that faith in Christ now on earth.

The least of these how the fruits of the Spirit get lived out.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control, faithfulness, gentleness.

How do those get lived out in your life?

The evidence of faith is the centerpiece of the second judgment, not the first judgment.

Revelation 22.

Again, John wrote, then I saw a new heaven and earth, for the old heaven and the earth had disappeared.

But that vision from John continues to the next verses.

And here's the next verses real quick before we're done.

But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers and all liars.

Their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

This is the second death.

And that leads into what we're going to talk about next week.

Because next week, as this series continues, we're going to talk about the high paying, the high cost of sin.

Sin in eternity.

But yes, there's a high cost to pay for sin in this life as well.

These are the essentials.

Read the last chapter, because if you understand how it is, then it begins a new life in Christ.

For how we live today, let's pray.

Lord, we thank youk.

Heaven is not just a hope, but you are very, very clear.

Heaven is for real.

Help us to live like it is.

In your name we ask it.

Amen.

God bless.