What The Bible Says About Heaven – Part 1

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Preached at Straightway Bible Church on October 27, 2013.  There are lots of myths and silliness believed about Heaven which causes many Christians not to think about or long for heaven very much.

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What The Bible Says About Heaven – Part 1

Brent Riggs – www.seriousfaith.com

    • Rev. 21:1: “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”
    • What is Heaven going to be like? What will YOU be like? Do you have any clue where Heaven is, what Heaven is like, or what we will be doing there?
    • There is a long history known as “Christoplatonic ideas” based on Plato’s theories about “spirit” and “body.” We get most of our myths about heaven from this.

    MYTHS ABOUT HEAVEN

    • Myth #1:  Heaven is “non-earth” – that it is not something we are going to be familiar with.
      Truth:  The Bible says Heaven is a “new Earth.
    • Myth #2: Heaven is “other worldly”.
      Truth:  The Bible tells us that Heaven is familiar.
    • Myth #3:  In Heaven we will be disembodied spirits, just a kind of ghostly apparition floating around.
      Truth:  In Heaven we are going to be resurrected physically, with new glorified bodies.
    • Myth #4:  Heaven will be a foreign place to us.
      Truth:  Heaven is everything we know and long for.
    • Myth #5:  Heaven means leaving everything behind that you know and love.
      Truth:  Heaven will include all of the good that we love and know.  We will also find even better things.
    • Myth #6:  Heaven is boring, and static, and tedious.
      Truth:  Heaven is going to be dynamic, adventurous, exciting – there is always going to be something new.
    • Myth #7:  There will not be any sun or moon in Heaven; it will just be perpetual brightness with no variation.
      Truth:   The Bible says there will be no need of a sun or moon because God is the original source of light.
    • Myth #8:  There will not be any bodies of water.
    • Truth:   There will be no more seas  but we know already from Scripture that there are rivers and water.
    • Myth #9:  Heaven will be strange and unknown to us, unfamiliar to our experience.
      Truth:   Heaven will be familiar like the old earth that we knew, but new without the curse of sin, and with new delights that God is planning for our enjoyment.
    • Myth #10:  Heaven will be a 24-hour-a-day boring church service.
      Truth:   Heaven will be full of constant worship.  We will also have purposeful fulfilling work, and we will have friends to enjoy.
    • Myth #11:  In Heaven, we will not have any desires – instantly, all the desires will be fulfilled.
      Truth:  This is not what God created us to be – we have desires, we are made in His image, and in Heaven there will be an eternity of continuous and fulfilled desires.
    • Myth #12:  Heaven will be this static boring existence in which nothing is bad but nothing is good either — it’s all just kind of “vanilla.”
      Truth:  In Heaven, we will have everything wonderful and good that can be imagined, and nothing bad that can be imagined.  Heaven will be far from boring.  Heaven will be full of excitement.
    • Myth #13:  If Heaven comes too soon, there will be things I will miss out on and will never get to enjoy.
      Truth:  Heaven will represent the satisfaction, fulfillment, and enjoyment of every pure and Godly desire and longing that we have ever had.
    • WHAT HEAVEN  IS NOT
    • There will not be any fighting. There will not be any self-serving agendas.  There will not be any violence, hatred, dishonesty, crime, or war.  You will not have to wonder if someone is trying to hurt you, or has a hidden agenda to bring about your downfall.
    • There will not be any locks, security, police, or armies.
    • There will not be any need for guns, for killing; for lawyers, courts, judges, lawsuits, or any of the things that we have to have today to keep sinful men constrained from cheating each other.
    • There will not be any death or decay.  There will not be any enduring injury. There will not be any suffering, or poverty, or welfare, or cheating, or fraud, or any of those things that discourage us in this life.
    • In our relationships, there will not be any backstabbing, gossip, jealousy, slander, or complaining or griping about each other.  There will not be any lying or deceiving each other in any way.