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Heaven #3 2021 (1).pptxOverview
This material is a transcript of a religious class or sermon focused on Christian beliefs about the
afterlife, specifically the distinction between the "present heaven" (an intermediate state after
death) and the "eternal heaven" (the ultimate, restored creation). The discussion references
biblical passages, theological concepts, and practical implications for believers.
Main Topics
Distinction Between Present and Eternal Heaven
Nature and Experience of the Present Heaven
Biblical Evidence for Consciousness After Death
Physicality and Recognition in the Afterlife
Awareness of Earthly Events by the Departed
Community and Communication in the Present Heaven
Emotional Experience and Intercession
Practical Analogies and Illustrations
Key Concepts
1. Present Heaven vs. Eternal Heaven
Present Heaven: The intermediate state where believers go after death, before the final
resurrection and restoration.
Not the final destination; a temporary, better place than earthly life.
Eternal Heaven: The ultimate, restored creation (New Earth) where God dwells with
humanity.
God’s plan is to recreate Eden on earth, not just take people to a distant spiritual realm.
•
2. Biblical Descriptions and Analogies
Paul’s Teaching: To die is to be with Christ (Philippians 1:23); not a period of unconscious
sleep.
Jesus and the Thief on the Cross: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31): Both are conscious and have distinct identities
after death.
Revelation: Martyrs in heaven are aware, vocal, and emotionally invested in earthly events
(Revelation 6:9-11).
3. Physicality in the Present Heaven
Physical Form: Biblical references suggest some kind of recognizable, physical or semi-
physical form in the present heaven (e.g., white robes, eating, speaking). Continuity of Identity:
Individuals retain their personal identities and can be recognized by others.
4. Awareness and Memory
Awareness of Earth: The departed can see and are aware of events on earth, including both
good and bad happenings.
Memory: Personal memories and relationships from earthly life are retained.
5. Community and Communication
Community: The present heaven is a place of community, not isolation, unlike hell which is
depicted as lonely.
Communication: There is direct communication with God, including asking questions and
expressing concerns.
6. Emotional Experience
Emotions in Present Heaven: The departed experience emotions, including concern and
even sorrow for events on earth.
No Tears in Eternal Heaven: In the eternal heaven, God will wipe away all tears; there will
be no more pain or sorrow (Revelation 21:4).
7. Intercession
Prayer and Intercession: The saints and martyrs in heaven are depicted as interceding or
praying for justice and for those on earth. Jesus’ Intercession: Jesus is described as interceding for believers at the right hand of God. (Romans 8:34).
8. Practical Illustrations
Travel Analogy: Present heaven is like a layover on a trip; not the final destination but a
significant, positive stop.
"Heaven is for Real" Story: While not scripture, the story is used to illustrate the idea of
awareness and recognition in heaven.
Examples and Applications
Lazarus and the Rich Man: Both have bodies, recognize each other, and remember life on
earth.
Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration: Appear in recognizable forms and discuss earthly
events.
Martyrs in Revelation: Cry out for justice, indicating awareness and emotional investment.
Saul and the Witch of Endor: Samuel, after death, remembers and comments on earthly
events.
Key Takeaways
The present heaven is a real, conscious, and communal place, not simply a state of sleep or
disembodied existence.
Individuals retain their identities, memories, and can recognize others.
There is some form of physicality, though not the final resurrected body.
The departed are aware of and care about events on earth, including both joy and sorrow.
The ultimate Christian hope is not escape to a distant heaven, but resurrection and life in a
restored creation with God dwelling among humanity.
Review Questions
What is the difference between the present heaven and the eternal heaven?
What biblical evidence supports consciousness immediately after death?
How does the story of Lazarus and the rich man illustrate the nature of the afterlife?
What kind of body or form do people have in the present heaven?
Are people in the present heaven aware of what happens on earth?
How does the experience of emotions differ between the present and eternal heaven?
What is the significance of community in the present heaven according to the material?
Important Conclusions
The present heaven is a temporary, conscious, and joyful state for believers, distinct from the
final, eternal heaven.
Scripture suggests continuity of personal identity, awareness, and community in the afterlife.
The ultimate Christian hope is the restoration of all things, with God dwelling among His
people on a renewed earth.
TRANSCRIPT
Good morning. I hope you can see that the screen is not flickering. That's really good sign, right. Thank you very much for being patient with us last week. This this class is being recorded and transcribed, so I'm going to repeat a little bit of what we talked about last time to start out, so please bear with me on that.
And we'll try to get started as quickly as possible, Let's ask God to bless our class today, okay, Heavenly Father, Praise be to Your name.
You are our creator, you are the Elohim, you are the God who's still in charge of things, and we know that you do all things well. Sometimes that is difficult for us to believe, and especially in hard times, but we pray that you will increase our faith, that you will help us to use classes like this to learn to love you more and appreciate you more, for what you are like and what you've done for us. We want to just thank you so much for the way that you work to the.
Lives, people in this church. We thank you so much for the great recovery that Mindy is experiencing, thank you for that, thank you for Mona and Johanna's recovery, and how well that's going. Please be with Lavern, with her knee surgery, that that will go well. Please be with Linda, as the dogs work with her to get her her breathing situation better. Please be with Glenn and Susan, issues that they have, and with Jim Talbert and all.
Those struggling with the problem of Parkinson's, please bless our class today, and as always, bless us to your service in Jesus' name, We pray, Amen. All right, so.
Most of our time together will be spent talking about the eternal heaven, the place where we're all going to spend eternity, but in the meantime, we're going to spend one class talking about this present heaven, the place where Jane is, where my mom and dad are, where Bob Raines is, Where are these people that have already passed away, where are they? And the scriptures talk about that there is an eternal heaven and that there's a present.
Heave, and so this is an intermediate place, it is not the place so we're going to end up.
But it is a place way better than where we are, and this is a. This is a little verse that we'll run into a couple of times here. When Paul writes to the church in Philippi, he says, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. So this place is going to have some characteristics, as you'll see in just a minute. That actually flemished my life a little bit when we talked about it, that she said, Well, this doesn't sound like a, doesn't sound like this is.
Not thought heaven was going to be like, and what she was confusing is she was confusing the president of heaven with the eternal heaven. The eternal heaven is way better than what this place is going to be, but this place is still way better than where we are now.
That's what Paul is trying to get across to us, so it's not our final destination, and it's not the place that we're ultimately made for. So we talked about this trip, the example of the trip we're going to get in the plane. Right now, we live in a hovel in a box.
Ridden Miami, and we learn that we've inherited a 30 million dollar mansion on the Pacific Coast in Santa Barbara, and so we're going to get on this plane, but we're going to stop and Dallas Fort Worth, okay, we have the intermediate stop, we're going to stop there, and we're also visit some relatives and things like that, and then we're going to go on to our destination, and this is, I remember, our analogy has to change somewhat, because what's really going to happen is we're going to leave.
Mi. We're going to go to Dallas Fort Worth, spend some time there. Then we're going to go back to Miami, a much better Miami, Miami that has no crime, no problem. We're going to have mansions there. That's really the proper analogy for where we are going here, so this is a, This is a temporary dwelling place. This is a stop along the way, and it is in the angelic Round, the eternal heavens, we'll discuss, starting next week. Is a place here on earth and.
We, we'll discuss why that's going to be the case as we get closer to that, so.
I've already got to that. So here's listen, we're going to start trying to figure out what this present heaven is like, and sometimes it's present heaven is referred to in that way, sometimes it's referred to as paradise, as you'll see in just a moment. So when, when John goes and sees heaven, he says, I saw a new heaven and new earth, for the first heaven, that's the one we're going to talk about today, had passed away, and there was no longer any sea again. If you kind.
Of, read through the Old Testament. One of the things you're going to discover is that the sea was always a chaotic, bad place, okay. And so we, in our life group, which is the very best life group you can be a member of. By the way. In our life group, we talked about the the boating incidences where Jesus is out on a boat with a with the disciples, and he's asleep in the back, and this big storm comes up, hurricane type storm, the description is a very, very bad.
Storm, and so one of the things he does is he demonstrates his power by speaking into Caesar Come, and so the sea is always associated with demons coming up out of monsters coming up out of it, things like that. And so one of the things about the eternal heaven is there's going to be no city. There's going to be no, there's not this chaos, and none of the threats that you see associated with that.
I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautiful dress for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of the 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.
So this kind of fits in perfectly with this notion that the eternal heaven is going to be back here on the earth is basically God's going to recreate.
Heaven recreate Eden here on earth, and that's what our heaven is going to be like, but in the mean, and of course, that whole point of that is that God is not going to take us up ultimately to be with him, he's going to do what He did in the garden of Eden, he's going to come down, and he's going to walk with us, and he's going to enjoy time with us. He's going to come here, and so the ultimate plan is not to take us up to live with him, the ultimate plan again, but to, but to come down to live with.
Him in the realm that he made for us, and so here's kind of the key point to keep in the back of your head is the reason that he's going to reestablish Eden back here on a new earth, okay, is because that's what was perfect in the beginning, and Satan screwed that up, and God is not going to let Satan win on any level, and one of the ways he's going to show he's a way, he's going to recreate that again, and that's where you and I are going to live now, we talked.
Aa little bit about this last time, but the interest of the of the recording here, we want to address this question of whether or not when we die, we just go into this long period of a deep sleep until Jesus returns. Well, we look at some scriptures about this. We're going to talk about this particular set of scriptures a lot in just a moment, but in, In Luke 16, Jesus depicts Lazarus and the rich man as being conscious in heaven and hell immediately after.
De, They did not go into a period where they went to sleep for a really long time, they were immediately conscious of what was going on. Again in Luke 1643, Jesus sold the thief on the cross. Today you will be with me in paradise, not after eternity, along sleep, but today you will be with me in paradise. Paul said to die was to be with Christ, not to lay there in the coffin, to sleep. For a really long time. And when he wrote the Church of.
Corinth, second letter, the third letter, actually he said, to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, and we'll come back and talk about that a little bit later, in more detail. But you die, you're going to meet with the Lord, you're not going to be going into some long sleep period in revelation again. We'll look at this in more detail in just a minute. The martyrs are depicted in present heaven, crying out to God to bring justice on earth. They're with God now. They are the people like you and me who have died for Christ, and they're looking.
Down. So every reference in revelation to humans talking and worshiping in the present heaven, prior to the resurrection of the dead demonstration will be conscious. We're not going to be seen, so there's going to be some long sleep.
Now is this a physical place? Well, the Jerusalem will be brought down out of heaven to a new earth. If it's going to be a place here, there'll be a place there. Also there is this word that is used, paradise is always a word that's referring to a physical place, not some.
Bunch of some cloud bank or something like that. So the Persian word for paradise is a wall park or enclosed garden. It's a place, and it actually refers to the Persian King Cyrus's royal palace, which is this sucker here. It was a place, but more importantly, when the Setuga was written, the Greek translation.
Into, from the Aramaic into into the Greek language, the word they use for paradise is exactly the same word that's used for eating, which was place, so it is a place it's not generally. These are not generally understood as an allegory, that paradise is an allegory, but as an actual physical place that God, his people, will live together, surrounded by physical beauty, enjoying great pleasure and happiness, and also the other.
Thing.
That enabled Adam and Eve to keep on living and living and living, right, right, as long as they didn't eat in one tree, right. Okay, all right, but it is, and so if the tree of life had physical properties, and Eden would make sense that it's going to have physical properties in the present heaven. This is, This is actually a place now. This is the really interesting thing to try to sort out, and that is, what kind of bodies will we have in heaven, and there's a great deal of debate about.
This as you can possibly imagine, we will not be in our resurrected bodies, yet the thing that we're going to be in when we are in the eternal heaven back here on earth, but we're going to be what. What are we going to be again? What is it going to be like?
Apparently, as you'll see some of these scriptures, that God grants us some kind of physical form, while in this intermediate stage, some kind of fiscal form. So in the Book of Revelation says this. When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the.
Inha. Each one of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brothers were to be killed, as they had been cleaned. So first of all, you see, they were wearing white robes, well, you're wearing white robes, you must have some sort of physical form for that.
So that's the first hint we have here, and then this word sows, which you see up there in the corner, in LSU colors, Where's Donnie? None of this is ever in the Scriptures, in the in. Flori University College ever noticed that?
Anyway anyway, all right, so this word here in the Greek, before God gets his answer, talk is a word, Soush, in the Greek, is normally not normally a disembodied spirit, but a whole person, a whole person, both in the body and in the spirit. So in the book again, in Revelation, Twelve, they triumphed over Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, they did not love their lives.
This soush again?
He had a body revelation. Ten, so I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me. Take it, eat, it will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey. I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweetest honey in my mouth. But when I eat it, my stomach turned sour. So John was there, but he did things that a body does, he.
Grasps, he ate things, he tasted things, he held things, he did things that one would do with, with, with a body. When the Apostle Paul, this isn't see, Paul, even grappled with this issue.
When he wrote to the trip again, we we, we read this a minute ago. I know a man in Christ, 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven, whether it was in the body or out of the body, I don't know, God knows. Now know this, that this man, whether in the body or apart from body, I don't know, but God knows, was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that a man is not permitted to tell, and so Paul, kind of even.
Though.
He sensed that he had some kind of physical form, it was not some amorphous glob or something like that. Moses and Elijah okay, at the Mount of Transfiguration, they were in their bodies, they had bodies, and he recognize them in Luke Nine. About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John, and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray, as he was praying, the appearance of his face.
Change. Next to him, apparently they were able, whatever Moses and Elijah were, like they had some sort of body at some, some form of body that they, that they could pick out, it was not some glob or something like that, so did.
God, give them a temporary body for this meeting with Christ, and went back to some disembodied form, very unlikely, or they came and the temporary bodies they already had in present heaven, that's the more likely, it seems to me, from this case.
So I'm going to talk about Lazarus and the rich man, a lot of interesting things that will tell us here about this great story. This is recorded in Luke 16, verses 19 to 31, There was a rich man who was dressed in purple.
And fine linen, and lived in luxury every day. At his gait was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with swords and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his swords. The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham's side.
The rich man also died, and was buried in hell, where he was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side, as he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me, and said Lazarus to dip the tip of.
His. And besides, all this, between us and you, and great chasm, has been fixed so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. They will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead, so.
This is a parable. Around the parable, we don't. We want to be careful about, about making any conclusions about these parables that aren't focused on this one thing, after life, consequences of life made on earth, and that's, that's what this story does. That's the primary story here, but the question are Lazarus and the rich man, not real people.
Disembodied gods. If everything is figured, it's just because we ain't believe actual life, that, or why didn't Jesus, why, why did? Why did Jesus describe it in this way? Why did He use this kind of language to describe this? If people, if you and I, will not have some sort of absolute physical body.
By the way, this is the only parable that Jesus told where specific name is given somewhere, isn't that kind of interesting? Was Lazarus a real person?
Well, look, if it's just made up, why would he use the name of a guy that was a close friend of his, who was also rich? Why would he do that among hundreds of names, why would he choose this particular name? Well, maybe because he was a real person, and where he is now, he was in a real, a real body. This is this too much of a stretch?
Maybe this is because this is what actually happened to these two individuals, now if Lazarus was real, note that when he died, angels came and carried him to heaven. Yes, ma'am.
I'm asking for clarification, are you saying that, Lazarus? The question about real. Why did he use Name My Thing when I? When I read that over and over, I thought he used the name because if he wouldn't, if he would have said Rise, a lot of them would have arisen. Not, but he was specific on last, on that particular one. I could be, they could be very. That could be very true. It would fit in with what we're saying here.
The resume, and he did not go to heaven, he went to a place of torment, as you will see, Lazarus is with Abraham, he's with somebody, the rich man is not with anybody. One of the characteristics of hell, among the many characteristics of hell, There's God for us. Is it a place where you're going to be alone, and there's a lot of people in this room who have learned what that's like, but it's not good, okay, we.
Have. Widowers and widowers in our church, and one of the toughest things you have to get used to is being alone. It's a hard, and it's an ugly thing to have to deal with. One of the characteristics of hell is, you're going to be alone, if you're in hell, you're going to be in heaven and be all kinds of people, right, especially people that you love and want to be around.
The present heaven and hell are separated by this fixed chasm. But both sides can see and communicate with each other.
Both men are reasoned and communicate with each other and maintain their distinct identities, and so we're going to be using this little phrase here, direct continuity, and the reason we're using that phrase is to to make sure we understand that when Sean dies and Sean goes to heaven, Sean is going to go to heaven as Sean Richardson, he's going to be the same Sean Richardson that existed down here on this planet, and you and I are going to recognize him, because I'm going to be there in.
This in my body, hopefully not this particular one, but in this body, we'll talk about that later on. But anyway, but but we're going to recognize each other, We're, we're going to know about experiences that we had on the real earth. There's going to be some direct continuity between where we are here and what's going to happen when we get to that, to the to paradise, and ultimately to to the eternal heaven. Both of these people are depicted as having physical forms, the rich man had a tongue, he has thirst physical.
Form Lazarus had a finger and water available to him, okay, the rich man. The rich man remembers, and possibly sees his lost brothers, concern for their welfare, and asks that they be warned, which indicates that after, after there is a consciousness after death, we're going to see some other illustrations of this, a little bit later, and a clear memory of earth and the people there.
People. We're going to remember what earth was like, okay, and we're acting. This is the thing disturbed my wife, she said, Let me get this straight, This happened you're talking about is a place where I'm going.
To. And I'm going to be able to see what's going on down there, that doesn't sound like heaven to me. But we were confusing the president with eternal heaven, two different things. In the present heaven, we're going to be able to look down, you'll see, in just a minute, and we're going to see what's going on down on earth.
Again we take this parable too far. Well, we, yes, if these things we've been talking about so far are not taught somewhere else in scripture, then I'm taking the parable too far, but if they are taught directly or indirectly, we're not taken twofold. It's okay to, to take the to get beyond just this main point of the parable, that is, there is afterlife consequences of the way we live here on the earth, so people in the afterlife are.
Real, with thoughts and capacities and forms, and heaven and hell are real places, where there are real people from earth, so the scriptures teach us that those who die, we, we die, we go to a real place. Jane is in a real place, my mom and dad are in a real place, Bob's in a real place. They're either in heaven or hell.
As conscious human beings, with a memory of their lives and their relationships on earth. Those in hell will live in misery, isolation, keyword, and hopelessness, and those of the present, who have, live in comfort and joy, and a rich relationship with God.
So. Let's read this verse here again, Verse six, chapter six, Revelation nine through eleven. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, the testimony they had maintained.
They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holding true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and offend your blood. But each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow.
Servant and brothers, who were killed, as they had been, was completed.
So several points here, first of all, the people in the president have been called out, will have voices, will have voices. We, we experience emotions, okay, we experience some. We're seeing what's going on, we have some feelings about what's going on down there. We cry in a loud voice, which again suggests we have emotions. Still okay, we're looking.
At what's going on down there, We want God to intervene and to do something about that. How long, Sovereign Lord. One of the things that's going to happen, that happens in this eternal is present heaven, not the eternal heaven, is. We're going to have communication, we're going to get to talk to God, and I'm sure you've all got some questions for him, right? We've all got questions for him. Why did you pick up nicest, most pleasant, most godly person in the church to visit this horrible disease? Why did you do that? We're all going to have questions for.
God, but we're also going to have questions for God about what's going on down there, and so one of the things that's cool, really great about this present heaven, we're going to get, we can communicate with the creator of the universe, and he's going to be talking to us. He says. We're going to look down, and we're going to say, There are things, God that are going on down there, Please do something about this, please do something about it. We have, we're going to have feelings, okay, what you expect when something body.
That. We think we have a brain, we're looking at what's going on, we're thinking about things. You are going to be an individual person, Steve's going to be an individual person. Don's going to be an individual person there.
We're not some big glob of stuff, okay. Or you're going to have. He's going to be Sean, he's going to be Steve, we're gonna, Donnie's gonna be Donnie, Okay, we're gonna. We're gonna be. We're gonna have our own individual thing. We're gonna be giving a white robe. White robe suggests we're. We got something to put it on, okay, it's a.
Physical body of some sort. They were told again. Here's this idea, there's going to be communication between us and God. God responds to the questions. They were told, stuff we were told to wait. There is in this place, this present heaven, a sense of time. There is a sense of time there, just like we have a sense of time here. There's a sense of time there too. How much longer, God, until you do something about this?
There's. It's not going to be that we're up there with a bunch of Pokes that are just individual folks, they're going to be brothers and sisters. There's going to be a sense of community about it, just like I have a sense of community about the people in this room. There's going to be that wonderful sense of community there, as we among people.
Do the people, do, the people, the president, haven't seen what's happening on the earth, well, in in verse, we already looked at the martyrs in heaven, they knew what was happening down on the earth.
Revelation 19. After this, I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven, shouting Hallelujah. Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for truly, just condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries, he has avenged her blood, blood of her servants, apparently looking down there, and they're saying stuff, y'all, don can you go back that previous slide.
No, that actually so I think one of the things that struck me here was that word kill brothers, who were to be killed, as they had been, was completed. You know. That tells me that there's still there's a lot of brothers and sisters to be killed. Not both natural causes, no, for the cause, right, their martyrs, yeah, they're going to be caught for the cause, yeah, no, that's good, yeah, good point.
All right!
You move, the story of Saul and the Witch of Endor. So Saul goes to the Witch of Endor, says, You know, I want you to call, I want you to bring Samuel about it, and I want Samuel to talk to me about what the heck is going on. Samuel already died, and so the wizard Endor does it, and the witch is so scared about this, because he does come back, that's right, And and look what he says, Look what he says here. So Samuel said.
Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done what He predicted through me, the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors, to David, Because you did not obey the Lord to carry out His fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this to you today, the Lord will hand over to Israel, and you to the Philistines. Excuse me.
And tomorrow, you and your sons will be with me, the Lord will also hand over the army of the Israel of Israel to the Philistines. So a this place, where Samuel is, he remembered, still got his faculty, he remembered what happened on the earth, and he knew what Saul had done, he had seen what Saul had done since his death.
Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking to Jesus, they spoke about his departure.
Which it was about to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem, Moses, and Elijah knew what was going on down there and knew what was about to come. They were aware of this. Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run the perseverance the race marked out for us. Notice, we're surrounded by the great crowd, not, not.
Pre, we're surrounded by, they're up there watching what's going on that ought to have some impact on the way we live our lives. Mama. You watch it, what I just did. I can't believe you saw what I did. It ought to impact us somewhat, right?
I tell you the same way, there'll be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous who do not need to repent. They're rejoicing that they see what's going on, they see the, they see radical implications of what happened when somebody was converted, and they're rejoicing over that.
In the same way, I tell you, there's rejoicing, not by the angels, there's rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God, over one sinner who repents who's doing that, rejoicing, well, it's going to be the people up there who's doing this, also the saints, who deeply appreciate the consequences of conversion. Now.
You know, as I kind of hinted to you a while ago, are people in the present heaven aware of the bad things on earth? You want to say no, because unhappiness over pain is suffering. No, no, that's not. That's what my wife said.
Yeah, why would I be happy up here if I'm looking down and I'm seeing what is going on, and I see this bad stuff. Oh, Smarters are looking down and seeing other people haven't killed to go get killed, and they haven't been avenged yet. What is going on here?
Well, we've got to do is want to be sure and separate these two. Places, the present heaven is not the eternal heaven, okay? In Revelation 21, God said, He will wipe away every tear from your eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old ordered things has passed away. Everything has passed away down here.
In eternal heaven, there's nothing to cry about, there's nothing to cry about anymore, we're the eternal heaven, okay, There's nothing, there's no pain, there's no suffering, none of that kind of good stuff. Remember the martyrs in Revelation Six.
Okay, as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground, and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuted. So Jesus in this present heaven looked at, and he saw stuff. He saw what was going on there, and he didn't lie, what Saul was doing, and he brought it to Saul's attention, right. Jesus identified with those who were being.
Persecu, see, there's one thing to cry because there's nothing to cry about, and that's going to be the case in eternally. There's nothing to cry about, but okay, and it's something else not to cry when there's still suffering down on the earth. Still, this is the most important thing, Paul keeps up. Despite the fact that we can look down and we can see this stuff, and it disturbs us that we're unhappy about it. We're going to God, to God. What do you think about it? What are you thinking about here? Despite that fact.
Okay, it's way better than where you and I are right now. It is called paradise for a reason. It is a really much better than where we are right now. Do these people pray for us, put it up there, Mom and Dad, the Jamie intervene here. Well, we know at least one person intervenes for us, who's up there right? Remember when we studied the Book of Romans, who is he that condemned, I mean, Paul started like, Are you.
Crazy? You think Jesus Christ is going to stand up, condemn you on judgment, Are you crazy? And one of the things He says, Look what Jesus doing. He said, Who is he? Condemn Jesus Christ, who died more than that, who was raised alive in the right hand of God, is also interceding for us. He's up there doing that for us. The martyrs in heaven, What are the martyrs in heaven do? They cried out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabits of the earth, and divines are Abod. These people, right here, about to get killed, intervene on their.
Behalthat's an indication that that's going to happen, if they're allowed to see what's happening on earth, and we know we get to talk to God, doesn't make sense that when we see some stuff happen, In other words, they come on, God, Okay. These people are praying you do, do do something.
Do something. So by the way, there's no scriptures that suggest that they don't be received for us. Now let me finish by mentioning a couple of other things for you to think about about this place.
I mentioned to you, and I suggest that you read. Heaven Is for Real. Heaven is for real, is not scripture, okay, it is not the Word of God or anything like that, but Heaven is for real. The story of this minister who had this boy that I think is like four years old, who they were out on this trip, and the kid gets real sick, He's in the hospital, He's the father is in the the.
Room, or the chapel room, they're praying to God. What are you thinking? I've been doing all this work for you. It'll take my four year old son for me. What are you? What are you doing here? The kid dies on the table, they resuscitate, or even, And for the next year, he starts telling just every once in a while, I came and said, Dad, Why didn't you tell me I had a sister? He said, What are you talking about? He said, When I was up there, this little girl.
Came, what is my name. Well, guess what, They had had a miscarriage, and they had lost a little girl, but they never given the little girl a day. Now again. This is not scripture, this is what this boy says that he saw, okay, he saw, he saw a little girl. Now when, when Kelly called me on the phone. Guess what, You know, Dad, I read this. Stuff.
Get to see this little person?
He has this vision, not this vision, he, He said, By the way, I saw your granddad ask how you're doing. The granddadd ask how you're doing, and he said he's. He said. So he said, Wait a minute. He said. Goes back to this album. He shows him a picture of his grandfather. Somebody looks like me, okay. Is that your grandfather? No, that's not him. That's not who I saw. So we left it from it. Then he started face come back here, just, and he went.
Back.
Right here, it's going to be something wrong when we're at the height, and we'll talk about this when we talk about what kind of bodies we're going to have. It's not going to be this, okay, what you're in right now, okay, it's going to be a great body. It's going to be a great body. And also, when he was there, by the way, said God, and I saw you in that room down there, where you were mad at him, we just, you know, let's see what's going on again. This is not.
Scripture, which was kind of weird, how a four year old would start talking about this stuff, and he would be describing things that come right out, right out the scripture.
Thank you for coming back, I appreciate that. For last week, yes, ma'am. Another thing the little boy said was describe the grandfather. He said, No, the one with the black eyeglasses, yeah, was specific, and about the new earth. The scripture also talks about animals will be together on earth that would not associate with each other on this. This particular. He said. In new heaven or new earth, and these animals will be together. Yeah. That's one of the really neat things, by the way.
Is. Next week, whenever you go to visit Mike, the tiger. O. Just hug him, you know you're scared right now. Legitimately, you're not gonna be scared of heaven. You're going to get to do that all right. Thank you all for coming out today, thank you very much.
How are you, Larna? I'll show you how to change that arrow, okay? Hey, Joe. Good morning. Hey, Susan. Click on the Windows key and get back. No, that's what are you getting? I'm trying to change the mouse. Normally, you go to Windows, I, okay.
What are you trying to change? Well, let me go to settings a bit, then. We're gonna change this mouse, change the mouse, so it's easy to see. There we go, so. Should be right there. Control. Okay, so now it's important, yeah?
Yes. Yes, yeah, you still got that old one? House Corner, yeah? Well. So so Lauren's gonna keep your your plug in, yeah, yeah. What did he have to do to to get it to Mary with? Just go over here. Just once you have that.
Once you have this, all you have to do is go over the input, HCML too. You have to turn, touch it to turn it on. Yeah, all right, just on. Yeah. So so turn the TV on, put it on HDMI too, and it syncs up automatically. Hdmi two, Yeah, so that's just a wireless.
So that you got a receiver that looks like this plugged in there, and then transmitter. And what do you have to do? You just plug it into the side, So once. We.
Can I think it's high? Say, test, test, test, test test test. I like that, that amazing, all right. You're on the air. You need to get that it's called out a W. L. L. Put it on your phone, and when somebody sits, can I get a transcript of your talk, and you could say, sure?
A W. L. L. I thought you already put it, I think we did, and then you had to pay for it, and I said. That's it, what's it? Yeah, but I, anyway, Okay, where's your man? Sick. Lsu. What does this go LSU stuff?
Good morning. I hope you can see that the screen is not flickering. That's really good sign, right. Thank you very much for being patient with us last week. This this class is being recorded and transcribed, so I'm going to repeat a little bit of what we talked about last time to start out, so please bear with me on that.
And we'll try to get started as quickly as possible, Let's ask God to bless our class today, okay, Heavenly Father, Praise be to Your name.
You are our creator, you are the Elohim, you are the God who's still in charge of things, and we know that you do all things well. Sometimes that is difficult for us to believe, and especially in hard times, but we pray that you will increase our faith, that you will help us to use classes like this to learn to love you more and appreciate you more, for what you are like and what you've done for us. We want to just thank you so much for the way that you work to the.
Lives, people in this church. We thank you so much for the great recovery that Mindy is experiencing, thank you for that, thank you for Mona and Johanna's recovery, and how well that's going. Please be with Lavern, with her knee surgery, that that will go well. Please be with Linda, as the dogs work with her to get her her breathing situation better. Please be with Glenn and Susan, issues that they have, and with Jim Talbert and all.
Those struggling with the problem of Parkinson's, please bless our class today, and as always, bless us to your service in Jesus' name, We pray, Amen. All right, so.
Most of our time together will be spent talking about the eternal heaven, the place where we're all going to spend eternity, but in the meantime, we're going to spend one class talking about this present heaven, the place where Jane is, where my mom and dad are, where Bob Raines is, Where are these people that have already passed away, where are they? And the scriptures talk about that there is an eternal heaven and that there's a present.
Heave, and so this is an intermediate place, it is not the place so we're going to end up.
But it is a place way better than where we are, and this is a. This is a little verse that we'll run into a couple of times here. When Paul writes to the church in Philippi, he says, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. So this place is going to have some characteristics, as you'll see in just a minute. That actually flemished my life a little bit when we talked about it, that she said, Well, this doesn't sound like a, doesn't sound like this is.
Not thought heaven was going to be like, and what she was confusing is she was confusing the president of heaven with the eternal heaven. The eternal heaven is way better than what this place is going to be, but this place is still way better than where we are now.
That's what Paul is trying to get across to us, so it's not our final destination, and it's not the place that we're ultimately made for. So we talked about this trip, the example of the trip we're going to get in the plane. Right now, we live in a hovel in a box.
Ridden Miami, and we learn that we've inherited a 30 million dollar mansion on the Pacific Coast in Santa Barbara, and so we're going to get on this plane, but we're going to stop and Dallas Fort Worth, okay, we have the intermediate stop, we're going to stop there, and we're also visit some relatives and things like that, and then we're going to go on to our destination, and this is, I remember, our analogy has to change somewhat, because what's really going to happen is we're going to leave.
Mi. We're going to go to Dallas Fort Worth, spend some time there. Then we're going to go back to Miami, a much better Miami, Miami that has no crime, no problem. We're going to have mansions there. That's really the proper analogy for where we are going here, so this is a, This is a temporary dwelling place. This is a stop along the way, and it is in the angelic Round, the eternal heavens, we'll discuss, starting next week. Is a place here on earth and.
We, we'll discuss why that's going to be the case as we get closer to that, so.
I've already got to that. So here's listen, we're going to start trying to figure out what this present heaven is like, and sometimes it's present heaven is referred to in that way, sometimes it's referred to as paradise, as you'll see in just a moment. So when, when John goes and sees heaven, he says, I saw a new heaven and new earth, for the first heaven, that's the one we're going to talk about today, had passed away, and there was no longer any sea again. If you kind.
Of, read through the Old Testament. One of the things you're going to discover is that the sea was always a chaotic, bad place, okay. And so we, in our life group, which is the very best life group you can be a member of. By the way. In our life group, we talked about the the boating incidences where Jesus is out on a boat with a with the disciples, and he's asleep in the back, and this big storm comes up, hurricane type storm, the description is a very, very bad.
Storm, and so one of the things he does is he demonstrates his power by speaking into Caesar Come, and so the sea is always associated with demons coming up out of monsters coming up out of it, things like that. And so one of the things about the eternal heaven is there's going to be no city. There's going to be no, there's not this chaos, and none of the threats that you see associated with that.
I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautiful dress for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of the 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.
So this kind of fits in perfectly with this notion that the eternal heaven is going to be back here on the earth is basically God's going to recreate.
Heaven recreate Eden here on earth, and that's what our heaven is going to be like, but in the mean, and of course, that whole point of that is that God is not going to take us up ultimately to be with him, he's going to do what He did in the garden of Eden, he's going to come down, and he's going to walk with us, and he's going to enjoy time with us. He's going to come here, and so the ultimate plan is not to take us up to live with him, the ultimate plan again, but to, but to come down to live with.
Him in the realm that he made for us, and so here's kind of the key point to keep in the back of your head is the reason that he's going to reestablish Eden back here on a new earth, okay, is because that's what was perfect in the beginning, and Satan screwed that up, and God is not going to let Satan win on any level, and one of the ways he's going to show he's a way, he's going to recreate that again, and that's where you and I are going to live now, we talked.
Aa little bit about this last time, but the interest of the of the recording here, we want to address this question of whether or not when we die, we just go into this long period of a deep sleep until Jesus returns. Well, we look at some scriptures about this. We're going to talk about this particular set of scriptures a lot in just a moment, but in, In Luke 16, Jesus depicts Lazarus and the rich man as being conscious in heaven and hell immediately after.
De, They did not go into a period where they went to sleep for a really long time, they were immediately conscious of what was going on. Again in Luke 1643, Jesus sold the thief on the cross. Today you will be with me in paradise, not after eternity, along sleep, but today you will be with me in paradise. Paul said to die was to be with Christ, not to lay there in the coffin, to sleep. For a really long time. And when he wrote the Church of.
Corinth, second letter, the third letter, actually he said, to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, and we'll come back and talk about that a little bit later, in more detail. But you die, you're going to meet with the Lord, you're not going to be going into some long sleep period in revelation again. We'll look at this in more detail in just a minute. The martyrs are depicted in present heaven, crying out to God to bring justice on earth. They're with God now. They are the people like you and me who have died for Christ, and they're looking.
Down. So every reference in revelation to humans talking and worshiping in the present heaven, prior to the resurrection of the dead demonstration will be conscious. We're not going to be seen, so there's going to be some long sleep.
Now is this a physical place? Well, the Jerusalem will be brought down out of heaven to a new earth. If it's going to be a place here, there'll be a place there. Also there is this word that is used, paradise is always a word that's referring to a physical place, not some.
Bunch of some cloud bank or something like that. So the Persian word for paradise is a wall park or enclosed garden. It's a place, and it actually refers to the Persian King Cyrus's royal palace, which is this sucker here. It was a place, but more importantly, when the Setuga was written, the Greek translation.
Into, from the Aramaic into into the Greek language, the word they use for paradise is exactly the same word that's used for eating, which was place, so it is a place it's not generally. These are not generally understood as an allegory, that paradise is an allegory, but as an actual physical place that God, his people, will live together, surrounded by physical beauty, enjoying great pleasure and happiness, and also the other.
Thing.
That enabled Adam and Eve to keep on living and living and living, right, right, as long as they didn't eat in one tree, right. Okay, all right, but it is, and so if the tree of life had physical properties, and Eden would make sense that it's going to have physical properties in the present heaven. This is, This is actually a place now. This is the really interesting thing to try to sort out, and that is, what kind of bodies will we have in heaven, and there's a great deal of debate about.
This as you can possibly imagine, we will not be in our resurrected bodies, yet the thing that we're going to be in when we are in the eternal heaven back here on earth, but we're going to be what. What are we going to be again? What is it going to be like?
Apparently, as you'll see some of these scriptures, that God grants us some kind of physical form, while in this intermediate stage, some kind of fiscal form. So in the Book of Revelation says this. When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the.
Inha. Each one of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brothers were to be killed, as they had been cleaned. So first of all, you see, they were wearing white robes, well, you're wearing white robes, you must have some sort of physical form for that.
So that's the first hint we have here, and then this word sows, which you see up there in the corner, in LSU colors, Where's Donnie? None of this is ever in the Scriptures, in the in. Flori University College ever noticed that?
Anyway anyway, all right, so this word here in the Greek, before God gets his answer, talk is a word, Soush, in the Greek, is normally not normally a disembodied spirit, but a whole person, a whole person, both in the body and in the spirit. So in the book again, in Revelation, Twelve, they triumphed over Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, they did not love their lives.
This soush again?
He had a body revelation. Ten, so I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me. Take it, eat, it will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey. I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweetest honey in my mouth. But when I eat it, my stomach turned sour. So John was there, but he did things that a body does, he.
Grasps, he ate things, he tasted things, he held things, he did things that one would do with, with, with a body. When the Apostle Paul, this isn't see, Paul, even grappled with this issue.
When he wrote to the trip again, we we, we read this a minute ago. I know a man in Christ, 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven, whether it was in the body or out of the body, I don't know, God knows. Now know this, that this man, whether in the body or apart from body, I don't know, but God knows, was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that a man is not permitted to tell, and so Paul, kind of even.
Though.
He sensed that he had some kind of physical form, it was not some amorphous glob or something like that. Moses and Elijah okay, at the Mount of Transfiguration, they were in their bodies, they had bodies, and he recognize them in Luke Nine. About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John, and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray, as he was praying, the appearance of his face.
Change. Next to him, apparently they were able, whatever Moses and Elijah were, like they had some sort of body at some, some form of body that they, that they could pick out, it was not some glob or something like that, so did.
God, give them a temporary body for this meeting with Christ, and went back to some disembodied form, very unlikely, or they came and the temporary bodies they already had in present heaven, that's the more likely, it seems to me, from this case.
So I'm going to talk about Lazarus and the rich man, a lot of interesting things that will tell us here about this great story. This is recorded in Luke 16, verses 19 to 31, There was a rich man who was dressed in purple.
And fine linen, and lived in luxury every day. At his gait was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with swords and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his swords. The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham's side.
The rich man also died, and was buried in hell, where he was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side, as he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me, and said Lazarus to dip the tip of.
His. And besides, all this, between us and you, and great chasm, has been fixed so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. They will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead, so.
This is a parable. Around the parable, we don't. We want to be careful about, about making any conclusions about these parables that aren't focused on this one thing, after life, consequences of life made on earth, and that's, that's what this story does. That's the primary story here, but the question are Lazarus and the rich man, not real people.
Disembodied gods. If everything is figured, it's just because we ain't believe actual life, that, or why didn't Jesus, why, why did? Why did Jesus describe it in this way? Why did He use this kind of language to describe this? If people, if you and I, will not have some sort of absolute physical body.
By the way, this is the only parable that Jesus told where specific name is given somewhere, isn't that kind of interesting? Was Lazarus a real person?
Well, look, if it's just made up, why would he use the name of a guy that was a close friend of his, who was also rich? Why would he do that among hundreds of names, why would he choose this particular name? Well, maybe because he was a real person, and where he is now, he was in a real, a real body. This is this too much of a stretch?
Maybe this is because this is what actually happened to these two individuals, now if Lazarus was real, note that when he died, angels came and carried him to heaven. Yes, ma'am.
I'm asking for clarification, are you saying that, Lazarus? The question about real. Why did he use Name My Thing when I? When I read that over and over, I thought he used the name because if he wouldn't, if he would have said Rise, a lot of them would have arisen. Not, but he was specific on last, on that particular one. I could be, they could be very. That could be very true. It would fit in with what we're saying here.
The resume, and he did not go to heaven, he went to a place of torment, as you will see, Lazarus is with Abraham, he's with somebody, the rich man is not with anybody. One of the characteristics of hell, among the many characteristics of hell, There's God for us. Is it a place where you're going to be alone, and there's a lot of people in this room who have learned what that's like, but it's not good, okay, we.
Have. Widowers and widowers in our church, and one of the toughest things you have to get used to is being alone. It's a hard, and it's an ugly thing to have to deal with. One of the characteristics of hell is, you're going to be alone, if you're in hell, you're going to be in heaven and be all kinds of people, right, especially people that you love and want to be around.
The present heaven and hell are separated by this fixed chasm. But both sides can see and communicate with each other.
Both men are reasoned and communicate with each other and maintain their distinct identities, and so we're going to be using this little phrase here, direct continuity, and the reason we're using that phrase is to to make sure we understand that when Sean dies and Sean goes to heaven, Sean is going to go to heaven as Sean Richardson, he's going to be the same Sean Richardson that existed down here on this planet, and you and I are going to recognize him, because I'm going to be there in.
This in my body, hopefully not this particular one, but in this body, we'll talk about that later on. But anyway, but but we're going to recognize each other, We're, we're going to know about experiences that we had on the real earth. There's going to be some direct continuity between where we are here and what's going to happen when we get to that, to the to paradise, and ultimately to to the eternal heaven. Both of these people are depicted as having physical forms, the rich man had a tongue, he has thirst physical.
Form Lazarus had a finger and water available to him, okay, the rich man. The rich man remembers, and possibly sees his lost brothers, concern for their welfare, and asks that they be warned, which indicates that after, after there is a consciousness after death, we're going to see some other illustrations of this, a little bit later, and a clear memory of earth and the people there.
People. We're going to remember what earth was like, okay, and we're acting. This is the thing disturbed my wife, she said, Let me get this straight, This happened you're talking about is a place where I'm going.
To. And I'm going to be able to see what's going on down there, that doesn't sound like heaven to me. But we were confusing the president with eternal heaven, two different things. In the present heaven, we're going to be able to look down, you'll see, in just a minute, and we're going to see what's going on down on earth.
Again we take this parable too far. Well, we, yes, if these things we've been talking about so far are not taught somewhere else in scripture, then I'm taking the parable too far, but if they are taught directly or indirectly, we're not taken twofold. It's okay to, to take the to get beyond just this main point of the parable, that is, there is afterlife consequences of the way we live here on the earth, so people in the afterlife are.
Real, with thoughts and capacities and forms, and heaven and hell are real places, where there are real people from earth, so the scriptures teach us that those who die, we, we die, we go to a real place. Jane is in a real place, my mom and dad are in a real place, Bob's in a real place. They're either in heaven or hell.
As conscious human beings, with a memory of their lives and their relationships on earth. Those in hell will live in misery, isolation, keyword, and hopelessness, and those of the present, who have, live in comfort and joy, and a rich relationship with God.
So. Let's read this verse here again, Verse six, chapter six, Revelation nine through eleven. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, the testimony they had maintained.
They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holding true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and offend your blood. But each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow.
Servant and brothers, who were killed, as they had been, was completed.
So several points here, first of all, the people in the president have been called out, will have voices, will have voices. We, we experience emotions, okay, we experience some. We're seeing what's going on, we have some feelings about what's going on down there. We cry in a loud voice, which again suggests we have emotions. Still okay, we're looking.
At what's going on down there, We want God to intervene and to do something about that. How long, Sovereign Lord. One of the things that's going to happen, that happens in this eternal is present heaven, not the eternal heaven, is. We're going to have communication, we're going to get to talk to God, and I'm sure you've all got some questions for him, right? We've all got questions for him. Why did you pick up nicest, most pleasant, most godly person in the church to visit this horrible disease? Why did you do that? We're all going to have questions for.
God, but we're also going to have questions for God about what's going on down there, and so one of the things that's cool, really great about this present heaven, we're going to get, we can communicate with the creator of the universe, and he's going to be talking to us. He says. We're going to look down, and we're going to say, There are things, God that are going on down there, Please do something about this, please do something about it. We have, we're going to have feelings, okay, what you expect when something body.
That. We think we have a brain, we're looking at what's going on, we're thinking about things. You are going to be an individual person, Steve's going to be an individual person. Don's going to be an individual person there.
We're not some big glob of stuff, okay. Or you're going to have. He's going to be Sean, he's going to be Steve, we're gonna, Donnie's gonna be Donnie, Okay, we're gonna. We're gonna be. We're gonna have our own individual thing. We're gonna be giving a white robe. White robe suggests we're. We got something to put it on, okay, it's a.
Physical body of some sort. They were told again. Here's this idea, there's going to be communication between us and God. God responds to the questions. They were told, stuff we were told to wait. There is in this place, this present heaven, a sense of time. There is a sense of time there, just like we have a sense of time here. There's a sense of time there too. How much longer, God, until you do something about this?
There's. It's not going to be that we're up there with a bunch of Pokes that are just individual folks, they're going to be brothers and sisters. There's going to be a sense of community about it, just like I have a sense of community about the people in this room. There's going to be that wonderful sense of community there, as we among people.
Do the people, do, the people, the president, haven't seen what's happening on the earth, well, in in verse, we already looked at the martyrs in heaven, they knew what was happening down on the earth.
Revelation 19. After this, I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven, shouting Hallelujah. Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for truly, just condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries, he has avenged her blood, blood of her servants, apparently looking down there, and they're saying stuff, y'all, don can you go back that previous slide.
No, that actually so I think one of the things that struck me here was that word kill brothers, who were to be killed, as they had been, was completed. You know. That tells me that there's still there's a lot of brothers and sisters to be killed. Not both natural causes, no, for the cause, right, their martyrs, yeah, they're going to be caught for the cause, yeah, no, that's good, yeah, good point.
All right!
You move, the story of Saul and the Witch of Endor. So Saul goes to the Witch of Endor, says, You know, I want you to call, I want you to bring Samuel about it, and I want Samuel to talk to me about what the heck is going on. Samuel already died, and so the wizard Endor does it, and the witch is so scared about this, because he does come back, that's right, And and look what he says, Look what he says here. So Samuel said.
Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done what He predicted through me, the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors, to David, Because you did not obey the Lord to carry out His fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this to you today, the Lord will hand over to Israel, and you to the Philistines. Excuse me.
And tomorrow, you and your sons will be with me, the Lord will also hand over the army of the Israel of Israel to the Philistines. So a this place, where Samuel is, he remembered, still got his faculty, he remembered what happened on the earth, and he knew what Saul had done, he had seen what Saul had done since his death.
Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking to Jesus, they spoke about his departure.
Which it was about to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem, Moses, and Elijah knew what was going on down there and knew what was about to come. They were aware of this. Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run the perseverance the race marked out for us. Notice, we're surrounded by the great crowd, not, not.
Pre, we're surrounded by, they're up there watching what's going on that ought to have some impact on the way we live our lives. Mama. You watch it, what I just did. I can't believe you saw what I did. It ought to impact us somewhat, right?
I tell you the same way, there'll be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous who do not need to repent. They're rejoicing that they see what's going on, they see the, they see radical implications of what happened when somebody was converted, and they're rejoicing over that.
In the same way, I tell you, there's rejoicing, not by the angels, there's rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God, over one sinner who repents who's doing that, rejoicing, well, it's going to be the people up there who's doing this, also the saints, who deeply appreciate the consequences of conversion. Now.
You know, as I kind of hinted to you a while ago, are people in the present heaven aware of the bad things on earth? You want to say no, because unhappiness over pain is suffering. No, no, that's not. That's what my wife said.
Yeah, why would I be happy up here if I'm looking down and I'm seeing what is going on, and I see this bad stuff. Oh, Smarters are looking down and seeing other people haven't killed to go get killed, and they haven't been avenged yet. What is going on here?
Well, we've got to do is want to be sure and separate these two. Places, the present heaven is not the eternal heaven, okay? In Revelation 21, God said, He will wipe away every tear from your eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old ordered things has passed away. Everything has passed away down here.
In eternal heaven, there's nothing to cry about, there's nothing to cry about anymore, we're the eternal heaven, okay, There's nothing, there's no pain, there's no suffering, none of that kind of good stuff. Remember the martyrs in Revelation Six.
Okay, as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground, and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuted. So Jesus in this present heaven looked at, and he saw stuff. He saw what was going on there, and he didn't lie, what Saul was doing, and he brought it to Saul's attention, right. Jesus identified with those who were being.
Persecu, see, there's one thing to cry because there's nothing to cry about, and that's going to be the case in eternally. There's nothing to cry about, but okay, and it's something else not to cry when there's still suffering down on the earth. Still, this is the most important thing, Paul keeps up. Despite the fact that we can look down and we can see this stuff, and it disturbs us that we're unhappy about it. We're going to God, to God. What do you think about it? What are you thinking about here? Despite that fact.
Okay, it's way better than where you and I are right now. It is called paradise for a reason. It is a really much better than where we are right now. Do these people pray for us, put it up there, Mom and Dad, the Jamie intervene here. Well, we know at least one person intervenes for us, who's up there right? Remember when we studied the Book of Romans, who is he that condemned, I mean, Paul started like, Are you.
Crazy? You think Jesus Christ is going to stand up, condemn you on judgment, Are you crazy? And one of the things He says, Look what Jesus doing. He said, Who is he? Condemn Jesus Christ, who died more than that, who was raised alive in the right hand of God, is also interceding for us. He's up there doing that for us. The martyrs in heaven, What are the martyrs in heaven do? They cried out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabits of the earth, and divines are Abod. These people, right here, about to get killed, intervene on their.
Behalthat's an indication that that's going to happen, if they're allowed to see what's happening on earth, and we know we get to talk to God, doesn't make sense that when we see some stuff happen, In other words, they come on, God, Okay. These people are praying you do, do do something.
Do something. So by the way, there's no scriptures that suggest that they don't be received for us. Now let me finish by mentioning a couple of other things for you to think about about this place.
I mentioned to you, and I suggest that you read. Heaven Is for Real. Heaven is for real, is not scripture, okay, it is not the Word of God or anything like that, but Heaven is for real. The story of this minister who had this boy that I think is like four years old, who they were out on this trip, and the kid gets real sick, He's in the hospital, He's the father is in the the.
Room, or the chapel room, they're praying to God. What are you thinking? I've been doing all this work for you. It'll take my four year old son for me. What are you? What are you doing here? The kid dies on the table, they resuscitate, or even, And for the next year, he starts telling just every once in a while, I came and said, Dad, Why didn't you tell me I had a sister? He said, What are you talking about? He said, When I was up there, this little girl.
Came, what is my name. Well, guess what, They had had a miscarriage, and they had lost a little girl, but they never given the little girl a day. Now again. This is not scripture, this is what this boy says that he saw, okay, he saw, he saw a little girl. Now when, when Kelly called me on the phone. Guess what, You know, Dad, I read this. Stuff.
Get to see this little person?
He has this vision, not this vision, he, He said, By the way, I saw your granddad ask how you're doing. The granddadd ask how you're doing, and he said he's. He said. So he said, Wait a minute. He said. Goes back to this album. He shows him a picture of his grandfather. Somebody looks like me, okay. Is that your grandfather? No, that's not him. That's not who I saw. So we left it from it. Then he started face come back here, just, and he went.
Back.
Right here, it's going to be something wrong when we're at the height, and we'll talk about this when we talk about what kind of bodies we're going to have. It's not going to be this, okay, what you're in right now, okay, it's going to be a great body. It's going to be a great body. And also, when he was there, by the way, said God, and I saw you in that room down there, where you were mad at him, we just, you know, let's see what's going on again. This is not.
Scripture, which was kind of weird, how a four year old would start talking about this stuff, and he would be describing things that come right out, right out the scripture.
Thank you for coming back, I appreciate that. For last week, yes, ma'am. Another thing the little boy said was describe the grandfather. He said, No, the one with the black eyeglasses, yeah, was specific, and about the new earth. The scripture also talks about animals will be together on earth that would not associate with each other on this. This particular. He said. In new heaven or new earth, and these animals will be together. Yeah. That's one of the really neat things, by the way.
Is. Next week, whenever you go to visit Mike, the tiger. O. Just hug him, you know you're scared right now. Legitimately, you're not gonna be scared of heaven. You're going to get to do that all right. Thank you all for coming out today, thank you very much.
How are you, Larna? I'll show you how to change that arrow, okay? Hey, Joe. Good morning. Hey, Susan. Click on the Windows key and get back. No, that's what are you getting? I'm trying to change the mouse. Normally, you go to Windows, I, okay.
What are you trying to change? Well, let me go to settings a bit, then. We're gonna change this mouse, change the mouse, so it's easy to see. There we go, so. Should be right there. Control. Okay, so now it's important, yeah?
Yes. Yes, yeah, you still got that old one? House Corner, yeah? Well. So so Lauren's gonna keep your your plug in, yeah, yeah. What did he have to do to to get it to Mary with? Just go over here. Just once you have that.
Once you have this, all you have to do is go over the input, HCML too. You have to turn, touch it to turn it on. Yeah, all right, just on. Yeah. So so turn the TV on, put it on HDMI too, and it syncs up automatically. Hdmi two, Yeah, so that's just a wireless.
So that you got a receiver that looks like this plugged in there, and then transmitter. And what do you have to do? You just plug it into the side, So once. We.
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