SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/24/2015 11:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Intro. To Rev. 21:1-8
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Rev. 21:1-3
Message of the verses: “1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer
any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud
voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among
men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God
Himself will be among them.”
In our last
SD I wrote about the church and how many of the people in the church today do
not think about heaven as much as they should.
This morning I listened to John MacArthur’s sermon from Revelation
21:1-3 and was once again struck by what he had to say about this important
topic and so I thought that I would quote from the first part, the introduction
to his sermon for this Spiritual Diary.
I have done this in the past a few times on subjects that I felt were
very important and this is one to me, that is very important and that is why I
chose to do it.
“I think throughout the history of the church, heaven has
been a preoccupation of God's people. Many songs have focused on heaven.
Because people through the years in the life of the church have been loosely
tied to earth and so they have longed for heaven. I suppose even this time in
the history of the world around the globe where Christians don't have it as
comfortably as we do, there is still a great anticipation for heaven.
“Most
Christians, I suppose, through the centuries could say with the psalmist in
Psalm 73, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee and besides Thee I desire
nothing on earth." That is the expression of the heart that longs for God.
Much like Psalm 42 where the psalmist says, "As the deer pants after the water
brook, so pants my soul after Thee, O God." The psalmist in the same Psalm
73 said, "Nearness to God is my good." He said, "God is my
portion forever." Being preoccupied with the person of God, longing to be
in the presence of God was on the heart of Christians.
“In
fact, the pure in heart, according to the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes, are
promised that they will someday see God. Through the centuries that desire to
see God, to be in God's presence, to enjoy God forever, that desire that there
is nothing in the world that can satisfy has been on the hearts of believers.
But it's not so in this culture.
“Not in
this society in which we live in the western world. We are living in a society
of instant gratification, material comfort and endless indulgences. And the
church has become worldly. Nothing
demonstrates that, I don't think, anymore graphically than the lack of interest
in heaven. Most Christians are, to some degree or another, more interested in
laying up treasure on earth than in
heaven. They're more
concerned with their investments and their retirement package
and their own future on
earth than they are with heaven. I suppose most Christians sacrifice the
eternal blessing of glory on the altar of temporal gratification. We don't talk
about heaven much. We don't sing about heaven much because we're really not
that interested.
“The old song said
"heaven on my mind," but that's not really true anymore. Because
believers do not have heaven on their minds, they waste their lives, they
hinder the power of the church and they are consumed with fading things.
“We could address this issue of having lost the heavenly
perspective from a number of passages. We could talk about Paul's words to the
Philippians in which he reminds them and us that our citizenship is in heaven,
chapter 3 verse 20 and that we are waiting for the One who will transform the
body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, or we might
even look at Colossians 3 where it says, "Set your affections on things
above and not on things on the earth." Or we might even study 1 John 2:15
to 17 where it says, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes and the pride of life, is not of God but is of the world and the world
passes away." We could even study the passage in James where James says,
"Friendship with the world is enmity with God."
“You see, everything connected to our spiritual life and
destiny is in heaven. Our Father is there. Our Savior is there. Our Comforter
is there. Our fellow believers are there. Our name is there, our life is there,
our inheritance is there, our home is there, our citizenship is there, our reward
is there, our treasure is there. Everything that belongs to us is there.
Consequently, Paul told the Romans that they should be
rejoicing in hope. That they closer they are to heaven the more joy they should
experience. I don't know that we see that. I see even Christians close to
heaven trying desperately to hold on to this life. But the preacher in
Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 1 was right. He didn't intend it this way but
he was right when he said, "The day of one's death is better than the day
of one's birth," and that is true for a Christian. And though he may have approached
it cynically, what he said was indeed truth. It is better to die than to be
born because to
die for a believer is to
enter into a better place than birth ushers us into. The Apostle Paul
understood that when he said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is
gain." Therein he voiced his perspective “
“The reason we should have a longing for heaven is
because God is there. And whom have we in heaven but Him? And whom do we desire
on earth but Him? He should be our supreme affection, our supreme love, our
supreme desire. And if He's in heaven then heaven should be the place we long
to be.
“In 1 Kings chapter 8, eight times it says that God is in
heaven. And if indeed He is the supreme object of our affection, if He is our
great love, if we love the Lord our God in any proximity to loving Him with all
our heart, soul, mind and strength, then we would long to be in heaven with
Him. And we would say with the psalmist, "I desire nothing on earth but
You and whom have I in heaven but You." I want to be there because You're
there, not because my friends are there, not because my family is there, not
because my relatives are there but because You're there.
“This has a powerful effect on our lives, to desire
heaven. And frankly, we could wish that we lived in a less comfortable culture,
we could even wish that we lived in a poor culture, we could wish that we lived
in a persecuted culture so the world would not seem so good to us and heaven
would seem so much better.
“In 1 John chapter 3 the first two verses, John says,
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be
called children of God and such we are. For this reason the world doesn't know
us because it didn't know Him. Beloved, now are we the children of God and it
has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when He appears we shall
be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is." That's the attraction
of heaven, we'll see Him just as He is...no more veil, no more distance, no
more mystery, the complete revelation of God. And then John says in verse 3,
"He that has this hope in Him purifies himself." It purges your life
to hope for heaven.
“John Bunyan writing in that marvelous Pilgrim's Progress
which demonstrates such genius in making the Christian life into a graphic
illustration or allegory has a conversation between two pilgrims who are on
their way to the celestial city, which, of course, is heaven. One of the two
pilgrims says to the other, "When do you find yourself in the most
wholesome and most vigorous spiritual state?" To which the other pilgrim
says, "When I think of the place to which I am going." Bunyan
understood that. When he wrote that he understood that heaven on your mind
changes your life. The living in a
joyous anticipation of
the presence of God changes everything.
“Sadly, I suppose most Christians are more like the
cynical Mark Twain who when told about heaven remarked flippantly, "You
take heaven, I'd rather go to Bermuda."
“A true and vivid longing for heaven, for example, is an
evidence of genuine salvation because when a person longs for heaven, you know
they're longing for God. They're demonstrating love for the Lord. They're
showing you where their heart is.
“And not only that, where you see a strong longing for
heaven there is incentive to the highest excellence of Christian character.
Why? Because anyone who loves heaven and anyone who longs for heaven and anyone
who seeks that which is above and anyone whose heart is in heaven is one who
loves to commune with the living God, one who travels there in meditation, who
travels there in devotion, who travels there in prayer, who travels there in
study, and that's a purging fellowship.
“Furthermore, a true and vivid longing for heaven is the truest
path to a life of joy because if you're really living in heaven and if all your
anticipation is there and you recognize that that is the great desire of your
heart, then you can endure absolutely anything in this life and never have your
joy affected. What does it matter what happens here in view of heaven's
glories?
“Furthermore, a true and vivid anticipation of heaven is
the best preservative against sin because the more heavenly minded you are the
less likely you are to stoop to the degrading level of the world. The more you
set your affections on things above, the less likely you are to follow fleshly
impulses. Furthermore, a true and vivid longing for heaven will maintain the vigor
of your spiritual service. Those Christians who run slow, those Christians who
work little, those Christians who make a minimal effort at serving God
demonstrate little regard for eternal things. Many of them work very
hard at earthly things
and very little at eternal things. Why? Because they in their minds have designed
that the prize to be gained here is more worthy of their effort than the prize
to be gained there. What a deception. You see, fervency in service, diligence
in service, faithfulness in service is related to anticipation of heavenly
benefit. I ask myself that constantly...what is the heavenly benefit of my
life? What will be the heavenly benefit of that endeavor? What does it matter
for eternity?
“Furthermore, a true and vivid longing for heaven honors
God above everything else because when your heart is in heaven it is because He
is there and He is the supreme One. And a true devotion and longing for heaven
also repays God's goodness. You say, "In what sense?" Well, when we
set our affections on things above, in a sense we have given back to God what
He has given us because His heart is always set on us, and certainly ours
should be set on Him.
“So when you want to find an evidence of genuine
salvation in someone's life and when you want to find a motive or incentive to
the highest excellence of Christian virtue, and when you're looking for someone
who has true joy, someone who can stand against temptation, someone who
maintains the vigor and diligence of spiritual service, someone who honors God
above everything else and someone who wants to repay God for His goodness,
you're going to find somebody whose heart is in heaven. The noblest of all
Christians, the godliest of all saints, the most virtuest of all believers are
going to be heavenly
minded and they're going to life in the life of eternity.
“So when we talk about heaven in our study of the book of
Revelation, having come to chapters 21 and 22, we're not just talking about pie
in the sky, we're talking about something that has immense implications for how
we live our lives. And, frankly, we're talking about something that should
bring great conviction. It does disturb me, I confess, that every single seat in
this church isn't filled and people pressing against the doors on the outside.
It should be enough to announce we're going to talk about heaven that every
believer would be here, if he had to paddle his own boat. In some places in our
world even today that would be the case where people have suffered much and
where they love God much.
“And so, as we come to the closing two chapters of the
book of Revelation after all these months and of heaven. And my prayer is it
will rekindle the fires in every heart, the fires of preoccupation with the
land of glory which awaits us.
“Let's get some foundational data first, okay? Heaven is
referred to 550 times or so in Scripture. Heaven is referred to 54 times in the
book of Revelation. The Old Testament Hebrew word is shamayim, it means the
heights. The New Testament word is ouranosfrom which we get the planet Uranus.
It means that which is elevated, that which is lifted up, that which is raised
up. Heaven is the raised up place, the heights.
“Scripture simply delineates three heavens. In 2
Corinthians 12:2 it says Paul was taken up into the third heaven, that's the
heaven where God dwells, that's the third heaven. The first heaven is the atmospheric
heaven, that's the atmosphere around the earth, that's the air we breathe. The
second heaven is the stratospheric heaven, that's the heaven of the heavenly
bodies, the planets, the stars, the moons and everything else. And when you've
gone through the atmospheric heavens and you've gone through the stratospheric
heavens and come to the last heaven, it's the heaven of God, it's the
divine heaven, the abode
of God and angels and saints.”
With that we will stop with the quote from John MacArthur’s
sermon even though there is a bit more to his introduction where he talks about
the fact that heaven is up and then he goes into talking about the universe and
how far the moon is from earth and things like that, however I believe I quoted
the things that I thought were important for us to help us remember that our
real home is in heaven and heaven is what we will be looking at as we go
through chapter 21 all the way to chapter 22 verses 1-5.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I want to
remember to live like this earth is not my permanent home so I am not to get my
roots into the soil of the world’s system.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Think
more and more about heaven and do things that will help others desire to go
there someday.
Answer to yesterday’s
Bible question: “Tribulations” (2
Corinthians 7:4).
Today’s Bible
question: Who was the girl whom Jesus
said, ‘The damsel is not dead, but is a sleep.”
10/24/2015 12:16 PM
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