Heaven (52 page)

Christ said to his disciples, who would suffer much, "Rejoice that your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). Our optimism
is not that of the "health and wealth" gospel, which claims that God will spare us of suffering here and now. Peter said,
"Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter
4:13). Christ's future glory, in which we will participate, is the reason for our present rejoicing while suffering.

Anticipating Heaven doesn't eliminate pain, but it lessens it and puts it in perspective. Meditating on Heaven is a great
pain reliever. It reminds us that suffering and death are temporary conditions. Our existence will not end in suffering and
death—they are but a gateway to our eternal life of unending joy. The biblical doctrine of Heaven is about the future, but
it has tremendous benefits here and now. If we grasp it, it will shift our center of gravity and radi­cally change our perspective
on life. This is what the Bible calls "hope," a word used six times in Romans
8:20-25,
the passage in which Paul says that all creation longs for our resurrection and the world's coming redemption.

Don't place your hope in favorable circumstances, which cannot and will not last. Place your hope in Christ and his promises.
He will return, and we will be resurrected to life on the New Earth, where we will behold God's face and joy­fully serve him
forever.

REEPICHEEP'S QUEST

In C. S. Lewis's
Voyage of the "Dawn Treader,"
'a ship sails east in search of lost countrymen and new adventures. But the heart of one passenger, Reepicheep the valiant
mouse, is steadfastly set on a greater adventure. He has one destina­tion in mind: Asian's country.

From his youth, Reepicheep was taught in a poem that one day he would journey to the far east and find what he'd always longed
for:

After reciting the poem to his shipmates, Reepicheep says, "I do not know what it means. But the spell of it has been on me
all my life."
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Late in the journey, when they have sailed farther than anyone on record, Reepicheep is thrown into the sea. To his surprise,
the water tastes sweet. His excitement is unrestrainable. He's so close to Asian's country, he can literally taste it.

Earlier in the voyage, Reepicheep had expressed his utter abandonment to the cause of seeking Asian's country: "While I can,
I sail east in the
Dawn Treader.
When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no
longer, if I have not reached Asian's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with
my nose to the sunrise . . ."
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We can identify with Reepicheep's glorious quest, because the spell of Heaven has been on us all our lives, as well, even
if we have sometimes confused it with lesser desires. At the end of
The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader,"
Reepicheep's traveling companions watch him disappear over the horizon. Does he make it to Asian's country? In the final book
of the Narnia series, we discover the answer, which confirms what we already knew in our hearts.

THROUGH THE DOORWAY

When five-year-old Emily Kimball was hospitalized and heard she was going to die, she started to cry. Even though she loved
Jesus and wanted to be with him, she didn't want to leave her family behind. Then her mother had an inspired idea. She asked
Emily to step through a doorway into another room, and she closed the door behind her. One at a time, the entire family started
coming through the door to join her. Her mother explained that this was how it would be. Emily would go ahead to Heaven and
then the rest of the family would follow. Emily understood. She would be the first to go through death's door. Eventually,
the rest of the family would fol­low, probably one by one, joining her on the other side.

The analogy would have been even more complete if the room that Emily entered had had someone representing Jesus to greet
her—along with departed loved ones and Bible characters and angels. Also, itwould've helped if the room she walked into was
breathtakingly beautiful, and contained pictures of a New Earth, vast and unexplored, where Emily and her family and friends
would one day go to live with Jesus forever.

Every person reading this book is dying. Perhaps you have reason to believe that death will come very soon. You may be troubled,
feeling uncertain, or un­ready to leave. Make sure of your relationship with Jesus Christ. Be certain that you're trusting
him alone to save you—not anyone or anything else, and cer­tainly not any good works you've done. And then allow yourself
to get excited about what's on the other side of death's door.

I've often read at memorial services this depiction of a believer's death:

I'm standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She's an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just
where the sea and the sky come down to mingle with each other. And then I hear someone at my side saying, "There, she's gone."

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in
me,
not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she's gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and there
are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.
³³⁹

The place of our arrival will be a beautiful, though temporary, place where we'll await the culmination of history: the return
of the risen Jesus, who will resurrect us. When his millennial reign is accomplished (whether that's a nonliteral pres­ent
reign or a literal thousand-year future reign), we'll join him in ruling the New Earth, free of sin and the Curse.

Five months before he died, C. S. Lewis wrote to a woman who feared that her own death was imminent. Lewis said, "Can you
not see death as a friend and deliverer? . . . What is there to be afraid of?. . .Your sins are confessed. . . . Has this
world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind... . Our
Lord says to you, 'Peace, child, peace. Relax. Let go. I will catch you. Do you trust me so little?'. . . Of course, this
may not be the end. Then make it a good rehearsal."

Lewis signed the letter, "Yours (and like you, a tired traveler, near the jour­ney's end)."
³⁴⁰

We see life differently when we realize that death isn't a wall but a turnstile; a small obstacle that marks a great beginning.
Calvin Miller put it beautifully:

CHAPTER 46

ANTICIPATING THE GREAT ADVENTURE

Can you hear the sighing in the wind? Can you feel the heavy silence in the mountains? Can you sense the restless longing
in the sea? Can you see it in the woeful eyes of an animal? Something's coming. . . something better.

Joni Eareckson Tada

W
hen H. S. Laird's father, a Christ-loving man, lay dying, his son sat at his bedside and asked, "Dad, how do you feel?"

His father replied: "Son, I feel like a little boy on Christmas Eve."
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Christmas is coming. We live our lives between the first Christmas and the second. We walk on disputed turf, between Eden
and the New Earth, not that far from either. The dispute will soon be settled. Christ will forever reign over the universe.
And we will reign with him.

In this last chapter, I want to draw us toward Heaven-influenced living, and further prepare us for the adventure that awaits
us on death's other side.

CHAPTER ONE OF THE GREAT STORY

In the final book of the Narnia series,
The Last Battle,
C. S. Lewis paints a beau­tiful picture of the eternal Heaven. Early in the book, Jill and Eustace are travel­ing on a train,
when suddenly they are thrust into Narnia. When their adventure is over, the children—having experienced the joys and wonders
of Narnia and the presence of Asian, the great lion—are afraid they will be sent back to Earth again.

Then, in a section called "Farewell to Shadowlands," Asian gives the chil­dren some good news: " 'There
was
a real railway accident,' said Asian softly. 'Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead.
The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.'"

Then Lewis concludes the story with one of my favorite paragraphs in all of literature:

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and
beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all
lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their
adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great
Story which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.
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At the end of
The Last Battle,
when Lewis refers to the typical fairy-tale end­ing—"they all lived happily ever after"—some readers may be tempted to re­spond,
"But fairy tales aren't true." However, the Bible
isn't
a fairy tale—it is utterly realistic, devastating in its portrayal of sin and suffering, not at all naive. Nowhere in Scripture
do we see sentimental wishful thinking. What we see is mankind's devastating separation from God; the death of countless sacrificial
lambs; the hard, agonizing work of Christ's redemption; the tangible nature of his resurrection; and the promise of coming
judgment. At last we see the resto­ration of God's ideal universe, fulfilling his plan of the ages, culminating in a resurrected
people living with him on a resurrected Earth. Then, and only then, will we live "happily ever after."

But we
will
indeed live happily ever after!

By God's grace, I know that what awaits me in his presence, for all eternity, is something so magnificent it takes my breath
away even now. Job said it most succinctly: "In my flesh I will see G o d ; . . . I, and not another" (Job 19:26-27). The
prospect of seeing God eclipsed all of Job's heartaches. Surely it can eclipse yours and mine. Our ship of happiness may not
come in today—but it will cer­tainly come in. Meanwhile, laying claim to Christ's bought-and-paid-for happiness brings us
joy today.

WHAT CAN DEATH DO TO US?

"To die will be an awfully big adventure," says Peter Pan.
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But it will be a won­derful, big adventure only for those who are covered by the blood of Christ. Those who die without Jesus
will experience a horrifying tragedy.

Of course,
dying
is not the real adventure. Death is merely the doorway to eternal life. The adventure is what comes after death—being in the
presence of Christ. Just before he was hanged by the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer prayed aloud, "Oh, God, this is the end; but
for me it is just the beginning." His trust in God's promises served him well in the face of death.

We shouldn't glorify or romanticize death—Jesus didn't. He wept over it (John 11:35). For every beautiful story of people
peacefully slipping into eter­nity, there are other stories of confused and shrunken people, wasting away mentally and physically,
leaving behind exhausted, confused, and grief-stricken loved ones. I've often seen death close-up. Unless Christ returns in
our lifetime, it's certain that my own death—and that of everyone I love—awaits.

Death is painful, and it's an enemy. But for those who know Jesus, death is
thefinalpain
and the
last
enemy. "For [Christ] must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death"
(1 Corinthians 15:25-26).

Death's destruction was foretold in ancient prophecy: "[God] will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that
covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces" (Isaiah
25:7-8).

The apostle Paul echoes Isaiah, saying, "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperish­able, and the mortal with
immor­tality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.''Where, O death, is
your victory?Where, O death, is your sting?'"(1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

If there be so certain and glorious a rest for the saints, why is there no more industrious seeking after it? One would think,
if a man did but once hear of such unspeakable glory to be obtained, and believed what he heard to be true, he should be transported
with the vehemency of his desire after it, and should almost forget to eat and drink, and should care for nothing else, and
speak of and inquire after nothing else, but how to get this treasure. And yet people who hear of it daily, and profess to
believe it as a fundamental article of their faith, do as little mind it, or labor for it, as if they had never heard of any
such thing, or did not believe one word they heat.

RICHARD BAXTER

Do you crave God's perspec­tive on the death that awaits you? Reread the previous three para­graphs. Read them aloud. Memo­rize
them. Ask yourself, "What's the worst that death can do to me?" Consider Romans 8:35, 38 39: "Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? . . . Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nei­ther the present nor the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord."

Not only will death not separate us from Christ—it will actually usher us into his presence. Then, at the final resurrection,
Christ will demonstrate his omnipotence by turning death on its head, making forever alive what appeared forever buried.

If you believe this, you won't cling desperately to this life. You'll stretch out your arms in anticipation of the greater
life to come.

If my descendants, perhaps my grandchildren or great-grandchildren, should read these words after I've died, know this: I'm
looking forward to greet­ing you when you arrive in the intermediate Heaven (unless Christ returns in the meantime and we
meet at the resurrection). I'll have some favorite places picked out for you, and we'll go there together. But we won't stay
there long. Ul­timately we'll travel together to our true home, the New Earth. We'll settle and explore it side by side, as
pioneers.

What a world it will be. I'm overwhelmed just thinking of it. What a great God we'll enjoy and serve forever. What a great
time we'll have together there. I look forward to seeing every reader who knows Jesus, meeting most of you for the first time,
and being reunited with those I've known here on the present Earth. I can't wait for the great adventures we'll have with
Christ and each other.

Don't let a day go by without anticipating the new world that Christ is pre­paring for us. God loves the Heaven bound, but
he is proud of the Heaven minded: "They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.
Therefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them" (Hebrews 11:16, emphasis added).

A WORD TO THE DEPRESSED

The fact that Heaven will be wonderful shouldn't tempt us to take shortcuts to get there. If you're depressed, you may imagine
your life has no purpose—but you couldn't be more wrong.

As long as God keeps you here on Earth, it's
exactly
where he wants you. He's preparing you for another world. He knows precisely what he's doing. Through your suffering, difficulty,
and depression, he's expanding your capacity for eternal joy. Our lives on Earth are a training camp to ready us for Heaven.

I know depression can be debilitating. Many godly people have experienced it. But if you are considering taking your own life,
recognize this as the devil's temptation. Jesus said that Satan is a liar and a murderer (John 8:44). He tells lies because
he wants to destroy you (1 Peter 5:8). Don't listen to the liar. Listen to Jesus, the truth teller (John 8:32; 14:6). Don't
make a terrible ending to your life's story—finish your God-given course on Earth. When he's done—not be­fore—he'll take you
home in his own time and way. Meanwhile, God has a pur­pose for you here on Earth. Don't desert your post. (And by all means,
go to a Christ-centered, Bible-believing church, and get help to find a wise Christian counselor.)

If you don't know Jesus, confess your sins and embrace his death and resur­rection on your behalf. If you do know him, make
your daily decisions in light of your destiny. Ask yourself what you can do today, next week, next year, or de­cades from
now to write the best ending to this volume of your life's story—a story that will continue gloriously in the new universe.

By God's grace, use the time you have left on the present Earth to store up for yourself treasures on the New Earth, to be
laid at Christ's feet for his glory (Revelation 4:10). Then look forward to meeting in Heaven Jesus himself, as well as those
touched by your Christ-exalting choices.

QUESTIONS IN LIGHT OF HEAVEN

We'll have eternity to celebrate great victories on the old Earth, but we have only this brief window of opportunity now to
win those victories. As missionary C. T. Studd said, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will
last."

What will last for eternity? Not your car, house, degrees, trophies, or busi­ness. What wzY/last for eternity is every service
to the needy, every dollar given to feed the hungry, every cup of cold water given to the thirsty, every investment in missions,
every prayer for the needy, every effort invested in evangelism, and every moment spent caring for precious children—including
rocking them to sleep and changing their diapers. The Bible says we'll reap in eternity what we've planted in this life (Galatians
6:7-8).

Setting our minds on Heaven is a discipline that we need to learn. Pastors and church leaders should train themselves and
their people to be Heaven-minded. This means teaching and preaching about Heaven. It means present­ing a biblical theology
of Heaven that can shape and transform people's lives, liberating them from the shallow hopelessness of life centered on a
fallen and failing world. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I daily reflect on my own mortality?

• Do I daily realize there are only two destinations—Heaven or Hell—and that I and every person I know will go to one or the
other?

• Do I daily remind myself that this world is not my home and that everything in it will burn, leaving behind only what's
eternal?

• Do I daily recognize that my choices and actions have a direct influence on the world to come?

• Do I daily realize that my life is being examined by God, the Audience of One, and that the only appraisal of my life that
will ultimately matter is his?

• Do I daily reflect on the fact that my ultimate home will be the New Earth, where I will see God and serve him as a resurrected
being in a resurrected human society, where I will overflow with joy and delight in drawing nearer to God by studying him
and his creation, and where I will exercise, to God's glory, dominion over his creation?

INCENTIVES FOR RIGHTEOUS LIVING