Rev. David Holwick ZP Big Questions sermon series
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 29, 1996
2 Corinthians 5:1-7
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I. What happens when we die?
A. Death of Cardinal Bernadin resulted in major magazine articles.
B. Death is coming to everyone.
1) George F. Will quotes the writer Montaigne, who said,
"You do not die of being sick, you die of being alive."
#594
II. Misconceptions about heaven.
A. Heaven is boring.
1) Some of the popular images of Heaven don't do it a favor.
Former British prime minister Lloyd George once said:
"When I was a boy the thought of heaven used to frighten me
more than the thought of hell.
I pictured heaven as a place where time would be perpetual
Sundays, with perpetual services from which there would
be no break.
It was a horrible nightmare and made me an atheist for ten
years."
#3024
2) None of our language about Heaven can possibly do it justice.
B. Heaven is escapism.
1) Pie in the sky?
2) What difference does heaven make? #1194
a) Knowing there's a heaven can keep us from making a
terrible mistake with our lives.
1> Should be a motivation to holy living.
2> Parables by Jesus on being left out due to wickedness.
b) It can encourage us that our daily lives have meaning.
c) It can comfort us when times are hard.
1> Our hope is not only for this life.
2> If it is, Christianity is false. 1 Cor 15:19
III. What heaven will be like. Serm88zk.pco
A. It is more than puffy clouds. Rev 21 & 22
1) Reinforces "boring" idea.
2) But the largest part of our eternity will be on the earth.
Our future life will not be in a boring heaven, but in a
dynamic, rejuvenated heaven and earth.
Heaven itself as our dwelling place is only temporary.
Heaven and earth will actually be merged.
B. Dramatic changes in nature.
1) Heaven and earth changed, become one.
2) Wild animals reconciled. Isaiah 11:6
3) No weeds, sickness, death. Rev 21:4, 22:3
4) A place of beauty.
C. Expansion of human activity.
1) Cultural and political activities are hinted at.
a) Kings of world enter New Jerusalem. Rev 21:24
1> Not bad guys - nothing impure enters city. Rev 21:27
2> We are those kings! Rev 1:6, 22:5
b) It will be a place of activity.
1> No boredom; things to do.
2> Not like hanging around the Ledgewood Mall.
2) Heaven is other people.
a) Community; multitudes of people. Rev 7:9
1> No austere individualism.
2> Ultimate image is a vast city, not a park bench for
retirees at St. Petersburg, Florida.
b) We will see loved ones. 1 Thess 4:16
D. Christians will be changed to be like Jesus.
1) New bodies. Phil 3:20-21
2) Complete faith, knowledge, love, moral perfection. 1 Cor 13:12
Calvin and Hobbes are sitting under a tree having a
discussion.
Calvin: If heaven is good, and if I like to be bad, how
am I supposed to be happy there?
Hobbes: How will you get to heaven if you like to be bad?
Calvin: Let's say I didn't DO what I WANTED to do.
Suppose I led a blameless life! Suppose I denied
my true dark nature!
Hobbes: I'm not sure I have that much imagination.
Calvin: Maybe heaven is a place where you're ALLOWED to
be bad!
#2941
E. The presence of God will be focus of heaven.
1) He will rule on throne. Rev 22:3
2) He will be light of city. Rev 22:5
3) He will be temple. Rev 21:22
a) City is Holy of holies, contained in temple.
4) He will be source of our eternal life. Rev 22:1
a) River is a fountain in 21:6, a river here.
b) River flows from the throne.
c) River nourishes the tree of life, which heals nations.
5) We will see God face-to-face.
IV. When do we go to heaven?
A. Nighty-night view.
Booklets thrown on my lawn.
"Are You Breaking the Law?" with a picture of a cop.
I looked around nervously.
Upon examination, they turned out to be religious tracts.
Episcopalians are at it again.
Actually, I figured it to be work of Seventh Day Adventists.
They do not believe in immortality of soul, but only in
resurrection at end of time.
They quote second century church leader Justin Martyr as
saying:
"If you have fallen in with some who are called Christians,
who say that there is no resurrection of the dead,
and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven;
do not imagine that they are Christians."
#1265
1) Gist of argument: Christians don't go to heaven at death.
a) We rise together at the future resurrection, not earlier.
b) We are never disembodied spirits.
2) The Bible speaks of "sleep" for those dead now.
a) Lazarus, and little girl. John 11:11
b) Sleep until resurrection. 1 Cor 15:51-52
c) Rapture passage. 1 Thess 4:13-14
3) A variation of "soul sleep" says our next conscious thought
is being with Jesus in heaven.
Quote by Martin Luther:
"We shall sleep until he comes and knocks at the tomb
and says: 'Dr. Martin, get up!'
Then in one moment I will get up and I will rejoice
with him in eternity."
#300
B. Right away view.
1) Old Testament believers are represented as being in
heaven now.
a) Moses.
b) Elijah.
c) Lazarus (and rich man) in Jesus' parable.
2) Jesus promised thief on cross paradise "today." Lk 23:43
3) Martyrs in Revelation 6:9 are portrayed in heaven before
resurrection.
4) Paul's teaching.
a) 2 Corinthians 5 -- "Absent from body, present with Lord."
b) Philippians 1:23 -- "To depart and be with Christ."
V. Most important question: Are you going to heaven?
A. Many people think they are.
The U. S. News & World Report of March 25, 1991, said that more
Americans believed in heaven than ten years previously.
78% say they think it's there.
Of those who call themselves evangelicals, 88% claim they have
an excellent or good chance of going to heaven.
Only 61% of those with no religion say the same thing.
And younger people are more likely to believe than the older.
#1909
B. We cannot get there on our own.
1) Sneaking into heaven.
In January 1985, a large suitcase, unmarked and unclaimed,
was discovered at the customs office at Los Angeles
International Airport.
When U.S. Customs agents opened the suitcase, they found the
curled-up body of an unidentified young woman.
She had been dead for a few days, according to the county
coroner.
As the investigation continued, it was learned that the
woman was the wife of a young Iranian living in the U.S.
She was unable to obtain a visa to enter the U.S. and join
her husband.
So she took matters into her own hands and attempted to
smuggle herself into America via an airplane's cargo bay.
While her plan seemed to her simple though risky, officials
were hard pressed to understand how such an attempt could
ever succeed.
Even if she survived the journey in the cargo bay, she would
remain an illegal alien, having entered though improper
channels.
Some people believe they'll enter the kingdom of God on
their own since they've been reasonably good citizens or
church attenders.
But entry plans of our own design prove not only foolish
but fatal.
#1963
2) Faith in Jesus is determinative.
a) Jesus has prepared a mansion for us. John 14:1-6
b) He is the only way to get in.
3) No second chance, no reincarnation.
a) Now is the time to receive him as Savior.
C. Death is a victory for Christians.
Many of you know Tony Campolo, one of the most thought-
provoking speakers in America today.
His home church is Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West
Philadelphia, which happens to be a predominantly black
church.
Tony Campolo tells about the first funeral he attended at
Mount Carmel when he was twenty years old.
Clarence, a college friend of his, had been killed in a
subway-train accident.
At the beginning of the service, the pastor brilliantly
expounded upon what the Bible says about the promise of
the resurrection and the joys of being with Christ.
Then he came down from the platform and went over to the
right side of the sanctuary, where the family of Tony's
dead friend was seated in the first three rows.
There, he spoke special words of comfort to them.
Then the pastor did a most unusual thing.
He went over to the open casket and spoke as though to
the corpse.
He said, "Clarence! Clarence! There were a lot of things
we should have said to you when you were alive that we
never got around to saying to you.
And I want to say them now."
What followed was a beautiful litany of memories of things
that Clarence had done for many people and for the church.
The list recalled how lovingly Clarence had served others
without thought of reward.
When he had finished, the pastor looked at Clarence's body
and said,
"Well, Clarence, that's it.
I've got nothing else to say except this:
Good night, Clarence. Good Night!"
And with that he SLAMMED down the lid of the casket as a
stunned silence fell over the congregation.
Then a beautiful smile slowly lit up the pastor's face and
he shouted,
"And I know that God is going to give Clarence a good morning!"
With that the choir rose to its feet and started singing,
"On that great gettin' up morning we shall rise, we shall
rise!"
As the choir sang, everyone in the congregation rose to their
feet and started singing it with them.
Tony Campolo remarked, "Celebration had broken out in the
face of death.
Something of a party that is to come had broken into that
church... Death had been swallowed up in victory." #2212
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