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Christian Myths and Truths: What Heaven Really Is
56 Plays7 months ago
In this episode, Pastor Ridley Barron and Dan Sanchez ventured into common misconceptions about heaven, such as the notion of humans becoming angels, and discussed the role of heaven in expressing the character of God. They unpacked the different levels of heaven, the implications of physical versus spiritual realms, and the timeless debate on near-death experiences. Furthermore, they explored the intriguing possibility of superhuman capabilities in heaven as evidenced by Jesus' post-resurrection activities.
Timestamps:
00:00 Studying heaven is important, but not top priority.
06:33 Angels take various forms, bodies renewed in heaven.
09:20 Misconception about living in heaven with Jesus.
12:22 Humans find purpose and satisfaction through work.
15:23 Sea of Galilee: Scary and mysterious place.
19:46 Disbelief in near-death experiences and conversations with God.
20:32 Recognizing Jesus in heaven, imagining, not conversing.
24:00 True prophets speak justice, not future predictions.
29:01 Ideal vision of heaven, fulfilling relationships, trust.
30:56 Easter's importance and call to action.
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Transcript
Heaven's Popularity and Misconceptions
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Podcast. I'm here with Pastor Ridley Barron to talk about his sermon that he preached on Sunday about heaven. Heaven is real, is the title. Everybody's favorite topic. So popular that even
00:00:17
Speaker
Unbelievers believe it or want to believe it. But because of that, because heaven is such a popular concept and because there are so many different versions of heaven floating around out there, I thought I opened it up readily with this question, since you did a really good job of covering what heaven is, what it isn't, you even went to some misconceptions around it, which I think we'll dive into again in
Theological Importance of Heaven
00:00:41
Speaker
this podcast. When I want to start off with a kind of a basic question I've asked on the show a few times is,
00:00:46
Speaker
Why is this important? Why should Christians study heaven? Since it's so far off, what does it even matter? This may come as a shocking answer to you, but I'm not going to fight for the idea that studying heaven is really important, comparatively speaking, to so many other things in theology. I do think it's a good thing to study because
00:01:13
Speaker
what heaven is and what we know about heaven reveals a lot about the character of the God who loves us, tells us a lot about what he desires for us, and even helps us, I think, to go backwards then and understand some of what's happened in our history because my belief is that heaven is going to be the completion of the full circle. We will go from paradise to paradise restored.
00:01:33
Speaker
So I do think there is some importance to it. But obviously, to me, it doesn't rank up there with studying things like the necessity of salvation and the redemptive work of Christ from the cross. And I would even put it behind the second coming of Christ just because the second coming of Christ is something we have to look for. Heaven, we can't really do much about. It's just going to be there when we get there.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's a great answer. It's essentially like not the biggest priority, but still good because there's still a lot we can get out of studying heaven about learning about God. And the more we understand God, the more we generally understand his ways and how to follow him and be closer to him. Yeah.
Human Longing for the Divine
00:02:13
Speaker
But let's dive into some of the juicy stuff, misconceptions, misconceptions, lots of misconceptions, popular topic. Again, like I said, like so many people love this idea where even even atheists like still kind of cling to this idea of heaven, like they cling to. It's funny to me how spiritual atheists are, you know,
00:02:32
Speaker
They don't believe in God. They actually outright deny God, but then they kind of like this idea of heaven and they cling to thing like ghosts and all kinds of little like weird little voodoo things that they cling to a spiritual realm. Isn't it interesting how the human heart like longs for the spiritual and there's nothing you can do about it. Even when you're so sciency, you start going there. And if not to that, then aliens or we're all computer programs at a big machine somewhere.
00:03:01
Speaker
I think heaven is right up there with just the idea that there is a higher being, that there is a God. Romans 1, Paul talks about that, that we're without excuse because of the nature, the heavens reveal that there is a God. I think inside of every single one of us, there is this desire for something better that waits for us, a paradise, heaven, you know, some religions call it something like a nirvana. It's obvious it's in the mind of man because everything from
00:03:29
Speaker
the three stooges to Tom and Jerry to, you know, movies like heaven can wait. I mean, the idea of heaven is in all kinds of art forms out there. We look for it, we express it, we portray our images of it, and it's just all over the place.
Death and the Comfort of Heaven
00:03:45
Speaker
Modern times, the ancient times, everybody's trying to get to this next phase, and we went through great lengths in different cultures in order to make sure we ended up in a favorable position for the next life. Right.
00:03:58
Speaker
It's funny, something I've said to many people now, when some death happens, significant death, and they're like, I know I shouldn't feel this way because I should be happy, they're in heaven, and I'm like, it's okay to feel grief, one, because you lost somebody, but two, dying's not natural. Right. I mean, you think about it as natural, and it happens all the time, but we weren't made to die. Yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
There's a reason why it feels very uncanny to see like even an open coffin. It shouldn't feel natural at all. It's weird because we're not made for it. I think this past weekend I read this and probably I should have already known this, but somebody was talking about dying. Why does God create man to die?
00:04:44
Speaker
The first answer, obviously, what you just said was, well, initially he didn't create us to die. He created us to live forever and to enjoy relationship with him. But the reason he put death in the heart or in the existence of mankind is because man's heart became sinful. And if he didn't have the threat of death, think how evil we would get. Just try to think how far we would go with our evil if we didn't feel like there was a death awaiting us, an apostle judgment awaiting us.
00:05:11
Speaker
So yeah, death is something we know. It's something we experience. We don't understand it. We can't comprehend it all, but it's almost like having heaven on the other side of death gives some of us a little bit more peace with this very uncomfortable situation.
Angels and Humans in Heaven
00:05:29
Speaker
So some misconceptions that I think you covered in the second service, but not the first service worth covering here. But because the cartoons and many movies and media have made this such a popular thing that I have to ask it again here is do we become angels when we enter heaven?
00:05:47
Speaker
No, not at all. I think to me the Bible teaches very clearly that for us to become angels would be a demotion. We are a different kind of creation that God has given us. I do think that angels like us have free will. That was indicated by the fact that Satan himself rebelled and took a third of the angels with him. So they are kind of like us in certain ways, but
00:06:13
Speaker
we will not be put back into a place of being like an angel. Instead, the Bible says that we will judge cast judgment on the angels at the end of time for their choices. Do we have wings? No, no wings. Do angels even have wings? Well, that's a great point. You know, angels were portrayed a lot with wings, which I think, you know, the seraphim, the cherubim, those kinds of things.
00:06:39
Speaker
But I think there's probably just as many instances of angels appearing just in forms that they need to appear in to perform their work, whether it's as a child or an adult or an aging person, whatever. So for us, when we get to heaven, I think the Bible speaks to the fact that we're going to have these amazingly incredible redone bodies. They are going to be reformed. They're going to be fabulous. For those of us who are old enough to remember the $6 million man who was rebuilt to be,
00:07:07
Speaker
This thing, that's kind of, you know, this idea that whatever our bodies were meant to be in that original creation, whatever Adam and Eve were designed to be, we will be that to the full 10th degree or whatever. And we won't know things like sickness or handicaps or limitations. So.
00:07:27
Speaker
Remember in the book CS Lewis wrote called the last battle, which is kind of like his metaphor for like end times in Narnia. Uh, fun. Most people read the line, the which in the road job, I really ever make it to like the last books book seven, but it's fantastic book in all kinds of ways. But one of the, my favorite things about is when they're in the new Narnia after the fall had already come and they enter a new, new place.
00:07:51
Speaker
The main character is just running and they're like, I just, I'm not getting tired and I'm running faster and harder. And when I fall down, I don't get hurt. It's amazing. He's talking about that, having this new body and how it was so much better than the last one, yet it's similar, but in words, indescribable, better and amazing in new ways.
00:08:14
Speaker
So I think we get a pretty good description of what our bodies will look like if you read the gospels between Jesus's resurrection and his ascension into heaven. The things that his body did can kind of give us an indication what it'll be like. I mean, Jesus ate with his disciples. He was touched and hugged by his disciples. They were physical bodies and yet
00:08:35
Speaker
He had the ability to walk through doors that were locked. And it seems like it indicates in the scripture that he even had the ability to be at one place one moment and then be gone in the next. So I don't know if that's like speed of Superman or some ability to transmit your body somewhere, but it seems like our bodies will be something different. Closely connected to what we are now, but just super,
00:09:02
Speaker
complete and fulfilled. Superhuman. Yeah. Superhuman.
Reimagining Heaven: Beyond Clouds and Cherubs
00:09:05
Speaker
Like Captain America, Superhuman. There you go. Who knows? What's the picture you get in your head when it comes to heaven? Because a lot of people, you know, they, heaven, the first thing they got is clouds. Right. The little, the little naked babies with wings, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, again, I, misconception that the, you know, a lot of us like to say that we will live, you know, spend eternity in heaven with Jesus when we die.
00:09:29
Speaker
But again, if you go back and read scripture carefully, I think that the stories tell us that the goal is that we will spend eternity with God on the new
00:09:40
Speaker
established earth, the Reformed earth. The New Jerusalem is what it is called. Jerusalem itself will be this incredibly perfect city where God will reside with his son, the Lamb. God is not a physical being, so it will be his presence that's manifest there. But we will see physically Jesus being in that place and things that are described in Revelation, you know, the river of
00:10:05
Speaker
life that flows through there and the tree of life that stands next to it, just all these beautiful images of Jerusalem. And then I think, I imagine this is a part I can't really, you know, I can't say definitely, but I think probably what our eternity will be is that we will live outside the city of Jerusalem carrying on normal activities. Well, I don't know, raise crops, raise children. I don't know. Probably don't raise children because there will be no new babies or whatever.
00:10:31
Speaker
You know, we'll have relationships. We'll carry on fellowship with other people. And of course we'll worship God through all of it. Yeah. And probably I often think of like what work might look like, right? Yes. Work is an invention of the fall. Work was just made difficult and kind of a pain by the fall, but as originally something that God did and God saw was good. So we'll have probably some jobs, maybe made many jobs over eternity. It's a long time. So what will work look like when you don't have to worry about
00:11:00
Speaker
You know, thistles and thorns and machinery that breaks down or bodies that are too tired. That'd be amazing. Kind of like, you know, you probably get tastes of it here on earth, you know, when you're in a state of flow and you really feel like you're making progress and things are clicking, you're kind of like, yeah, I'd pay for
Heavenly Activities and Purpose
00:11:15
Speaker
this. This is the most fun thing ever. I'm like, maybe that's just like the normal state of what work should be, or at least it's something close to that.
00:11:22
Speaker
I do think God's kind like that, that he gives us a little taste of heaven from time to time and lets us glimpse a perfect spring day when the temperature's just right or, you know, a day that you get to spend with your best friend that's uninterrupted. It gives us a little flavor of what heaven could possibly be like. And so, you know, like you said, a good work day when you're in your groove and everything's going just right and every phone call ends on time and you make every appointment. That's a pretty sweet kind of feeling.
00:11:51
Speaker
funny is a lot of people, I know a popular misconception of heaven is it's just going to be paradise. And when we think of paradise, I think the mindset we have of paradise is vacation. Right. Amex, just never ending good food, sleeping, I don't know, just partying, like you said in the sermon, right? Right. I picture it as a party, but even in a less kegger kind of party and just more of a vacation, I'm like,
00:12:16
Speaker
I think we'll be working. I don't know about you, but if I take vacation for too long, I'm kind of ready to get back to it and do something. Well, and we have to remember that in the course of human history, vacations are a very current thing. They're very contemporary. When Jesus went on the earth, there was no such thing as a vacation. I mean, you had to work every day to survive. And so I do think that probably
00:12:39
Speaker
work will be a continual thing. We won't be sitting around swinging on hammocks all the time or playing in eternal rounds of golf as some guys joke about. I think there will be well work involved because man at his core was created to accomplish things, to achieve things, to have a purpose. And so I think that's part of the satisfaction is living your full purpose all the time, all the way around. So.
00:13:06
Speaker
So this misconception of heaven being in the clouds, I think probably has to do with the different levels of heaven that we get from scripture. Can you talk a little bit about that? I can talk very little about it. I know what Paul referred to about going into the seventh level of heaven, I think is what he said, or third level of heaven. Third level of heaven. Third level of heaven, excuse me. I don't know much about that. I've never really looked deeply into it. You might be able to speak to it more than me, just this idea that there are levels of heaven and what those possibly represent.
00:13:36
Speaker
Now I'm recalling different teachings I've heard on it, but generally it goes something like there's three different levels of heaven. It'd be funny to have, it'd be fun to have Josh on here. Cause this comes back to like a Hebrew thought kind of thing is where it comes from. But the first level of heaven is just the sky and they referred to, you know, the skies, the heavens, like, Oh, he's up into the heavens. You're gazing into the sky. Right. So it's like, yeah. Third level is where God's at. Okay. That makes sense to me. So yeah. I mean,
00:14:05
Speaker
Because, you know, the passage in 2 Peter that we read on Sunday, where it talks about the heavens will be, you know, wiped away with a roar. I mean, you know, so that's not talking about the heaven, it's talking about the sky, the clouds. What we typically refer to as the heavens. We don't know where heaven is, don't know where it exists right now currently, what state it's in.
00:14:28
Speaker
We do know there is a heaven because the Bible is clear that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And so we know that those who have died and gone on before us are with him somewhere. But I don't think it's their final ultimate destination. Revelation does tell us that there will be a final white throne judgment. And after that, people will be put into their final place, whether that's hell or the new heaven and New Jerusalem.
00:14:55
Speaker
in the Hebrew mind that's heaven, heaven is up, hell's down. I mean, we still think about it that way, hell's down in a cave somewhere. I don't know, like in the Jewish mindset, they used to think about it's like hell is down in the deep water sometimes. They often built their cities on hills, not just strategically, because militarily, it's better, easier to defend up on a hill than down in a valley, but also because it's closer to God and it's farther away from the deep waters where
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, we don't know what's down there. And that's part of the reason why, like the sea of Galilee was a scary place for most people in Jesus' day and time. Guys like Peter and James and John who went out and fished on the sea of Galilee were considered very courageous or foolish, one of the two, because they believed that the deep held these mysteries. So yeah. And you know, in a sense, we haven't lost a lot of that in our thinking, because when we think of hell, we do, we think of it being down in something, somewhere.
00:15:52
Speaker
And the idea that heaven is up is probably just something we've construed, misconstrued from passages where Jesus ascended and was called up to heaven or people looked up and saw heaven. Ezekiel was taken up into the heavens. We don't know what that up looks like, but that's probably where we get that idea.
Where is Heaven Located?
00:16:10
Speaker
Well, you know,
00:16:12
Speaker
I was going to jump into this a little early, but it's such a nice segue. But I remember I heard this once and it was one of those things where I was like, oh, that doesn't sound right. But maybe it's plausible. Maybe it's plausible. You mentioned it on Sunday and I'm like, yep, I've heard that one.
00:16:27
Speaker
But at a ministry I worked for they they pretty adamantly believed that heaven Was not divorced from this reality Okay Because they're like the idea that there is a plot do I think it called dualism That this there's the spiritual realm and then there's the physical realm like they're two separate things So when you die you go to heaven you you leave this reality and go into a heavenly reality. It's a totally different
00:16:50
Speaker
thing, like a multiverse. It's a different universe. You're like, that's not how Hebrews look at it. So if heaven's not in a separate reality, that means it's here in this reality. And then you have to ask yourself, is heaven a physical place or a spiritual place? It's probably, it seems like it has some physicality to it based on what I see in scripture. If we can exist in heaven with our bodies
00:17:13
Speaker
How would we experience anything if there wasn't some kind of physical nature to it? We're not God, we can't just float outside of time and space. Based on those kind of conclusions and thinking, they're like, heaven is in space somewhere. And they were, like you said on Sunday, of the opinion that heaven was on the corner of the universe somewhere, like on the edge
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah. And something about like the firmament, which was like almost as if like picture like the universe is inside a bubble and everything's water on the outside. That was the way they explained it. They're like, how, why? I don't know, mystery, but heaven's out there somewhere, which is why Jesus had to go up, which I'm like, Oh my gosh, stop it. You're mixing my science fiction and my Jesus and I don't like it. It's making my head hurt. It really is. You know, you kind of, you start crossing images between your favorite Star Trek episodes.
00:18:02
Speaker
wormholes and black stars. I mean, who knows? It could be that on the backside of Jupiter, there's, there's an interest to have and who knows where it is. And that's not one of those things where I definitely shouldn't be divisive, but it's definitely not one where I'm going to state my flag and say, let me fight a battle over it. Nope. It's just one of the interesting things to think about. And you're like, maybe, maybe, maybe the next life does look a little bit more Star Trek than I thought.
00:18:30
Speaker
One of my classes one time we were just having this friendly little conversation about this before the professor came in and he just jokingly he said have you ever thought about that the interest of heaven might have been under your bed and that's why God creates this unnatural fear of things under your bed when you're a kid so that you won't go exploring. I thought well no I didn't but that's pretty pretty interesting thought. It's impossible to know where heaven is or what it could be.
00:18:56
Speaker
But there are certainly so there's there's only certain things that we can know About heaven based on what we see in Scripture and then there's all the ideas floating around on it a lot of those ideas though Come from people having visions or dreams of heaven
00:19:13
Speaker
Even with the the popular book heaven is for real and then the movie they made off of it but of course that's That's one really popular story of hundreds and hundreds of near-death experience type stories some having some plausibility of like maybe Mm-hmm some being so far out there that you're like, whoa, there's no way Not to invalidate your experience but yeah, I don't think that was heaven how do you how do you handle those stories? how do you sort through them and then
00:19:43
Speaker
What do you do with all that information floating out there?
Skepticism on Near-Death Experiences
00:19:46
Speaker
This is going to be a really unpopular opinion, I'm afraid, but I just have to stick to what I think. I pull out a scripture, what the scripture shows me, and that is it's appointed unto man wants to die and face the judgment. And I take that very literally. Do people have near death experiences? Yes. Do they have dreams and visions about heaven? Absolutely. But do people actually go to heaven and have conversations with God or Jesus? No.
00:20:12
Speaker
And to me, the best proof is that if you line out a hundred of those stories side by side, the best of those stories that seem most convincing and ask them what was your perspective of Jesus or what was your perspective of God, they don't match up. So Jesus is not a thousand different people. He's Jesus.
00:20:34
Speaker
The Bible says very clearly when we get to heaven, we'll recognize him so much so that we'll fall on our faces before him. I don't think that people are having conversations with Jesus. I think people, because of their brains being in this traumatic place, the stress that's on them, that they
00:20:50
Speaker
They go back and draw from images that have been put in them by Sunday school lessons, by stories from their parents, maybe by movies they watched. And somehow they're pulling that forward and having these experiences where they imagine, dream or vision. And some of them I believe could be God inspired visions. I don't have any problem with that thought. I just don't think anybody's been allowed to walk into heaven, have a conversation with Jesus and come back.
00:21:16
Speaker
It's interesting. Do you think we can hear God's voice? Do you believe in like modern day? Yes. I don't want to call it like Old Testament prophecy, but prophecy. I got to go into it now. I know I'm fine. I don't want to, I am not going to be adamant and say nobody has a voice from God today.
00:21:41
Speaker
I just don't think it's nearly as prevalent as people try to make it seem today because I believe that God's word was meant to be enough for us. I do believe that the Bible says very clearly as we approach the end of the age that we will have more dreams and more visions from people. Your old man will dream dreams, your young man will have visions. I think that's gonna be indicative of a greater spiritual activity going on in our world that we are aware of. So yeah, there's probably some of that going on,
00:22:11
Speaker
As far as some man being selected by God to stand and say, thus says the Lord, I don't think that we have that these days.
Modern Prophecy and Spiritual Experiences
00:22:20
Speaker
Be nice if we did, but... Yeah. I came from a background that was pretty heavy into that stuff, like the pretty, pretty chrismatic, not the craziest stuff you've ever seen, but some pretty crazy stuff where people were going up and have heavily presentations, lots of messages from God, say the Lord kind of stuff.
00:22:40
Speaker
Over time, I certainly became kind of weary of it, mainly because it started adding on a little bit too much. You're like, even though I like this person, I respect this person, this person reads the Bible and prays a lot, but I'm like, it just seems like it creates issues. Especially if you have a whole congregation of people doing that, it creates lots of issues. And I'm not saying we should run away from that. And I think the Lord can speak to us.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah. But I've become, I think because of those experiences, I've become much more cautious. And I, of course, everything has to match scripture. If it's out of alignment with scripture, even a little bit, I'm like, nope. I agree. So there's that. But even if it does line up with scripture, I'm like, I take it with a heavy grain of salt these days, just because I think it's so easy to warp.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah. You have to be really careful to make distinctions about what you mean by certain words here too, because I agree with you. I think the Holy Spirit prompts people still to this day. The Holy Spirit speaks to us and nudges us to pick up the phone and call somebody or to stop what you're doing and to pray for somebody or to speak up when you see injustice going on. So definitely that's going on. Um, I also think you have to be very careful about how you use the word profit today because many faith traditions misuse that word. Yep.
00:24:01
Speaker
Because to me, a true prophet is someone who stands and says, this is what the Lord has said, and draws a line of black and white, justice and injustice for people, and basically says to them, not, I can predict the future because only God can see the future, but instead, if we don't change our patterns, this is the consequences of what will happen in the future. They're able to connect point A to point B for people.
00:24:28
Speaker
So I absolutely believe there are people out there like that, but these guys who tried to stand and proclaim, hey, God has told me that on April the 22nd, there's going to be this event. I just don't think that kind of stuff's going on.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah. I think the thing that makes it hard sometimes is every once in a while you'll have profits that predict weird things and they happen. Yeah. And those are the ones that throw you off where you're like, you have someone has, I guess a consistent track record, the heart, it's hard to discern like how consistent it is. Cause you don't hear about all the ones that weren't right. Right. Right. Even if they have evidence of the ones they predicted and then that actually happened, like it's going to snow and this day in July and you're like, whatever. And then it does, you're like, here's a bizarre example, but I could stand here right now and today and make
00:25:10
Speaker
a prediction for 365 days out of the next year. And there's a good chance that probably five or six of them are going to get right. And people would be quick to declare me a profit. And I would have to be, no, the odds were in my favorite out of 365 predictions. I was going to get something. Yeah. I mean, that's what they do with a lot of research these days, which is why science and research I'm skeptical of now, because I'm like, if you can fund 10 research reports to research, whatever the heck you're trying to prove, but you get to pick and choose which ones you publish, you can prove head, you could prove
00:25:41
Speaker
A quarter flips the tails 100% of the time. Well, absolutely. You can, you can make statistics say whatever you want them to. I mean, not to get political in this point, but that's, that's literally what happened during the whole COVID thing. You know, they, they said what they wanted us to hear. Um, they had silenced the opposing opinions. There were, as it's coming out now, there were. Researchers that showed completely the opposite, which wound up being true.
00:26:08
Speaker
So again, you know just pulling it back to where we are today I could sit here make a hundred bold predictions about what heaven's gonna be like and then I can meet you at the gates of heaven when you get there and go Hey, look seven of them were right. I must be a prophet All in all It's good to be cautious when people are giving grandiose pictures of heaven even if they even if they're
00:26:32
Speaker
100% not that they they genuinely believe it. That's genuinely what they saw Everything with a grain of salt always hold it next to Scripture and it's nothing It's not even close to being to truth as far as Scripture is concerned. It's like a nice. It's a nice story It's good if like a relative or a friend of yours or someone, you know Someone on YouTube like had a good experience that draws them closer to Jesus. Great
00:26:56
Speaker
but ultimately sometimes it can shade our understanding of God if we cling to it a little bit too strongly because it'll emphasize something in a weird way that's just not scripture. So here is a prediction about heaven that I can make with 1000% confidence absolutely no doubt that it's going to be true and I believe it's biblical and that is it's going to blow you away. It's absolutely going to exceed every expectation, take all the grandest predictions. I believe that part of the reason why
00:27:25
Speaker
Isaiah, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Revelation, while all those things still leave such mystery to them is because as God inspired those men to write those stories, he's like, I can only give you so much because human words cannot describe what you're going to experience when you get there.
00:27:41
Speaker
I'm gonna wrap this up. I have one last question regarding the garden, because God is in the business of restoration.
Heaven as a Restored Eden
00:27:50
Speaker
So I've had someone pose me the question. I never really walked away with a really satisfying answer, but it's made me think that, hey, maybe eternal life looks a little bit more like the garden I thought. Because if God made creation and it was perfect,
00:28:04
Speaker
Which is the picture we have in the garden, which means, you know, Adam and not weave or walking around without clothes. And we, we, I don't know about you, but I have a picture in my head. They're just kind of like walking through a forest and, you know, maybe doing some work, but counting stuff, naming things and doing something. But there's, it's just like, they're sleeping in the grass. They're climbing trees. I don't know, but it's very.
00:28:28
Speaker
I don't know how to describe it. It's kind of like almost this like hippie, hippie version of what paradise looks like. Maybe it doesn't look like the city I have in my head of Jerusalem, though there's that city. Why wouldn't God restore us back to that? If that was originally what he made and he saw that this was good, this was perfect. This was the ideal state. Maybe heaven looks a little bit more like that.
00:28:53
Speaker
What do you think? I'm kind of like you. It's a shame to me that the hippies have stolen that image. That image, yeah. Because that's actually a pretty sweet image. I personally would love to find that the new Jerusalem, the new earth has no skyscrapers, no airplanes, none of that stuff that we kind of go all the way back to the very beginning.
00:29:18
Speaker
that we are able to walk around with no clothes on and be unashamed, unafraid, uninhibited, that
00:29:26
Speaker
that we really truly are fulfilled by relationships with people. That genuine conversation means as much to us as anything. Nobody's selfish. We're all looking out for one another. I mean, those kinds of pictures, they kind of give me a piece thinking about what heaven might possibly be like. Now, if I get there and there are skyscrapers, I'm not going to be disappointed. I'm going to trust that God knows what he's doing. But
00:29:52
Speaker
But I just, I love that image, you know, laying down in the grass without it itching you all the time or whatever. Yeah.
00:30:00
Speaker
I imagine if they're skyscrapers, they'll look nothing like ours and they will, our skyscraper, our best of the skyscrapers. I'm talking like what the big ones they have in Dubai with like, yeah. Yeah. As nice as they can get. They're going to look like mud huts. Right. They're going to look like these, like, what the heck? Yeah. You guys lived in these things. Like imagine, I mean, it talks about Jerusalem, like light will penetrate the whole thing. They're going to be like, you guys use walls. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:27
Speaker
Because these are all windows and it's not even windows, you know? Yeah. I mean, gosh, you could sit here. We could spend hours talking about the possibilities. You know, the Bible talks about the lamb and the wolf laying down together and the lion eating grass. I mean, if those kinds of things can happen, then heaven could be anything.
00:30:49
Speaker
It'll be fun. And I think that's when science will really start catching up with what it can actually do. Right now, we're probably only scratching the surface as far as what's
Easter Service Invitation and Gospel Message
00:30:57
Speaker
possible. Yeah. If you're listening to this today and you're interested in heaven and I got to encourage you, this coming Sunday, Easter is going to be big because we're talking about the linchpin for every bit of our faith. I mean, it's the subject every Easter, it's resurrection. And not only is it real, but why does it matter so much?
00:31:15
Speaker
And, you know, we've talked the last couple of weeks about some important things like the second coming, the resurrection, the rapture, and now heaven. But none of that, none of that happens without what we're talking about this Sunday. So be praying about that, thinking about that, reading about that. We're going to dig into it a little bit this week.
00:31:34
Speaker
And with that, we'll wrap up. Thanks for listening. Join us on Easter Sunday coming up. And remember, our goal is to make the gospel available to everyone by any means possible, including this podcast. So listen to it, listen to the sermon again from this Sunday, and join us on Easter. Bring your friends.