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Series Code: AFDB
Program Code: AFDB000177S
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00:02 male announcer: This presentation is brought to you
00:04 by the friends of the Amazing Facts ministry. 00:06 ♪♪♪ 00:09 Doug Batchelor: Did you know about 5,000 stars 00:11 can be seen with the naked eye, 00:14 yet with a small telescope, 00:15 you can see hundreds of thousands of stars? 00:19 The largest telescopes on earth 00:20 reveal millions of galaxies packed with stars, 00:24 whereas the Hubble Space Telescope 00:26 might be able to see over a billion galaxies. 00:29 Keep in mind, it's estimated that each of these galaxies 00:33 contain over 200 billion stars, 00:36 and it's now believed over 2 trillion galaxies 00:40 exist in the universe. 00:41 Looking at the sky on a clear night, 00:43 all the stars we see are in the Milky Way galaxy, 00:46 a fiery spiral of stars over 100,000 light years across. 00:52 Such awesome statistics give us 00:55 a small concept of the greatness of God 00:58 and it stirs within us a yearning for space travel. 01:02 But did you know the Bible teaches that the redeemed 01:05 will have this opportunity? 01:07 Join me today as we look at some fascinating Bible facts 01:11 about the incredible future God has planned for his people. 01:19 Doug: We get to talk about heaven tonight. 01:21 And of course, that is a wonderful subject, 01:24 something that you find referenced in the Bible 01:27 over 500 times. 01:28 So, it is a Bible subject. 01:30 Some of the best material is found in the books of prophecy, 01:33 namely the Book of Revelation, 01:35 and also Daniel, Ezekiel talks about 01:38 this kingdom that God has prepared. 01:40 Our presentation tonight is dealing with the subject 01:43 of the glorious kingdom. 01:45 You know, it's interesting that 01:47 it seems like in North America, 01:49 if you can believe the polls, 01:50 that the number of people who believe in God is going down, 01:54 but you still have about 75% of people in North America 01:58 believe in heaven, 01:59 whereas you only have about 23% that believe in hell. 02:02 Isn't that interesting? 02:03 And of the people that believe in heaven, 02:05 90% believe they're going there. 02:09 Well, I believe the Bible teaches it is a real place. 02:11 As I mentioned, it's referenced in the Bible over 500 times. 02:15 Let's find out what the scriptures say about this subject 02:18 and how it relates to Bible prophecy. 02:21 First question, what did Jesus promise his people? 02:25 You can read in John 14:2, he said, 02:29 "In my Father's house are many mansions, 02:32 "and I go to prepare a place for you." 02:35 So, one thing we learn about heaven, 02:37 and the word mansion here is dwelling place. 02:41 Jesus said, "I'm going to prepare a dwelling place for you." 02:43 He wants us to be with him. 02:45 It's a tangible place in time. 02:47 A lot of misconceptions about what heaven is, 02:49 and we're going to find out what the Bible says about that. 02:53 He says he's prepared a mansion. 02:56 You ever enjoy watching some of those programs 02:57 about the the homes of the rich? 03:01 The most expensive home in the world is in Mumbai, India. 03:05 And here, let me read you a couple of facts. 03:07 I printed these off because I thought I might forget. 03:11 One of the wealthiest people in the world owns this house. 03:14 It's called the Antilia 03:17 and it was built by a multi-billionaire. 03:20 He's worth about $45 billion, Mukesh Ambani. 03:24 And it tells us that it's 550 feet high 03:28 with 4 million square feet of interior space. 03:32 How'd you like to clean that? 03:34 But that's not a problem for him. 03:35 First six stories will be dedicated to parking lots, 03:38 186 parking places to pamper all the imported cars. 03:43 600 workers in this house. 03:46 And if the traffic is bad, which it is in Mumbai, 03:49 he can land on the helicopter pad on the roof. 03:53 Of course it's got the pool, it's got the palatial rooms, 03:57 20 floors of palatial rooms and a silver staircase. 04:04 And if the guests get hot, 04:05 which it gets very hot in that part of the country, 04:07 there's a room that produces artificial snow 04:10 to cool everyone off. 04:11 So, you go into the blizzard room 04:12 or whatever they call it there. 04:14 And yeah, they've got a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea, 04:20 and this house costs approximately 04:22 or just under $2 billion, a home. 04:27 The sad thing is, you spend all that money on a home 04:30 and you're going to still get old and die. 04:32 Man, the mansions that we might build here, 04:36 they're not going to last. 04:38 You're just going to leave it to somebody else. 04:40 Jesus is preparing a place for us 04:41 that will last forever, amen. 04:44 What do we know about the place Jesus is preparing? 04:47 Isaiah 65:17 says, 04:50 "Behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth." 04:54 I think most of us understand why we need a new Earth. 04:56 Bible tells us this earth is waxing old like a garment. 04:59 There's some serious problems. 05:01 But a new heaven? 05:03 What's wrong with the old heaven? 05:05 You need to understand that when you find 05:07 the word heaven in the Bible, 05:10 there's three different ways it describes heaven. 05:13 The word is used three different ways. 05:14 Now, some of you have heard of seventh heaven. 05:17 Person says, "I was in seventh heaven." 05:19 There's no seventh heaven. 05:20 The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, 05:25 says that, referring to himself, 05:27 he says, "I knew a man 05:28 "that was caught up to the third heaven, 05:30 "heard words that you're not even allowed to speak." 05:33 And it's a real place, the dwelling place of God. 05:36 The first time you find the word heaven 05:38 or what the Bible calls the first heaven 05:40 is the atmosphere around the earth 05:42 where the clouds float and the birds fly. 05:45 And when the Bible says, 05:46 "The rain comes down from heaven," 05:48 it's talking about the envelope of air around the earth. 05:50 When God separated the waters above the earth 05:52 from the waters below the earth in Genesis, 05:54 it's talking about the atmosphere. 05:56 When Captain Kirk, what, a couple weeks ago, went to space, 06:03 he had to escape the atmosphere around the earth, 06:05 get out of its gravitational pull. 06:06 So, that first envelope is the first heaven. 06:09 The second heaven is when you talk about the stars 06:12 that God made in space in the cosmos, in the universe. 06:15 The third heaven is referring to 06:18 the dwelling place of God, paradise. 06:21 And so, this is when Paul says, 06:23 "I was caught up to the third heaven." 06:24 It's talking about there is an actual place 06:27 where God dwells. 06:28 Says he's prepared for them a city, 06:31 "He's prepared a city for them." 06:33 Now, when I first read this 06:35 and I thought God's going to take us to a city, 06:38 that didn't really float my boat 06:41 because I've always wanted to run to the country. 06:45 I've been in most of the major cities in the world, 06:48 and born in Los Angeles, grew up in New York City, 06:53 lived with my mother for a while in England, 06:55 lived in Boston, in Miami, been to Singapore, 06:59 and you name it, all over the world, 07:03 Mumbai and Moscow. 07:06 Karen and I have traveled all over the world 07:07 and I just don't like cities. 07:10 This week, we had a day off. 07:12 Karen and I went up in the country 07:14 where we were the only people probably in 10 miles. 07:18 It was really nice to get out there in God's nature. 07:23 But the reason that cities have a problem in this world 07:26 is because in this world, you get people, and people sin. 07:30 And where you got a lot of people, you got a lot of sin, 07:33 and there's crime and there's evil 07:35 and there's selfishness and fighting and murder 07:37 and all these problems. 07:38 That's why cities are so bad here. 07:40 But in heaven, you're not going to have those problems. 07:43 So, when people get together there, 07:45 it's going to be beautiful, pure rejoicing. 07:47 No evil, no problems, no sin, no filth, no dirt. 07:51 He's prepared a city. 07:52 The media enjoys talking about heaven. 07:55 Does heaven exist? 07:56 And some people, when you say, "Picture heaven," 08:00 you know what they see? 08:02 They see little chubby naked babies with wings 08:06 sitting on clouds, 08:07 playing harps or shooting Cupid's arrows. 08:10 You know what I'm talking about? 08:12 You got all these medieval pictures of people and say, 08:14 "Yeah, I'm going to die 08:15 "and I'm going to go be a fat naked baby in heaven." 08:19 And the media almost makes it sound 08:21 like hell is more interesting. 08:23 Trust me, it's not. 08:25 I hope to inspire you first with a place 08:26 where we want to think about, 08:29 which is going to heaven. 08:30 "Blessed are the meek, they will inherit the earth." 08:33 "Now, wait a second, Pastor Doug. 08:35 "Here it says, 'The meek will inherit the earth.'" 08:37 It's 'cause he's making a new heaven and a new earth. 08:39 We're going to spend time with the Lord 08:42 in these mansions he's prepared 08:44 and he's going to bring the new Jerusalem down from God, 08:47 you read this in Revelation 21, 08:49 out of heaven to the earth. 08:51 But now we're getting ahead of ourself. 08:53 What more do we know about the holy city 08:57 that God is preparing? 08:59 You read, and there's a lot of details. 09:00 Notice, this is Revelation 21. 09:02 It says, "The city is laid out as a square, 09:05 "and he measured the city with a reed." 09:08 This is like, we have tape measures, 09:10 they would measure with a reed back then. 09:11 "12,000 furlongs." 09:14 The measurements are given in this English equivalent 09:18 or biblical numbers. 09:20 By our standards, 09:22 that would be the city is about 1500 miles around, 09:25 or you can figure 375 miles on each side. 09:29 It's about the size of the state of Oregon. 09:32 And so, if you've got a city that's 375 miles on each side, 09:36 is there room for you? 09:38 Some folks have actually thought, 09:39 "No sense trying to go to heaven. 09:40 "I'm just too late in line. 09:42 "There's just so many people, 09:43 "how God going to fit me in there?" 09:45 I promise you, that will not be the problem. 09:47 The harvest is great. 09:49 The laborers are few. 09:50 The Lord wants people to enter the city. 09:53 "The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal." 09:56 And so, it's almost like it's a cube. 09:58 Now, the height of it equal to the length and the breadth? 10:02 When you look at that, 10:04 and this is something of a puzzle for theologians, 10:06 does that mean that in the middle of the city, 10:08 it sort of goes up like shaped like a pyramid 10:10 where it's 375 miles jutting right out 10:13 of the atmosphere of the earth? 10:15 That's hard to imagine. 10:17 Revelation 21:10 and 12, 10:19 "He carried me away in the spirit 10:21 "to a great and high mountain, 10:23 "and he showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem." 10:27 Now the word Jerusalem, jeru-shalam, it means city of peace. 10:33 The earthly Jerusalem 10:35 has been destroyed and rebuilt 27 times. 10:39 And when you go see Jerusalem today, 10:41 they still have the ancient wall that is full of pockmarks 10:44 from bullet holes and arrows and missiles 10:47 and stones that were thrown against the walls. 10:50 You get the evidence of war everywhere. 10:53 And the people in Jerusalem today, 10:55 you've got the Jewish quarter 10:57 and you've got the Muslim quarter 10:58 and you've got the Armenian quarter 10:59 and you've got the Christian quarter, 11:01 and everybody's got their space 11:03 and there's incredible racial tension in the city. 11:09 But the new Jerusalem is going to be very different from that. 11:11 Everybody's going to be part of one family 11:13 and we'll all love each other. 11:15 Descending out from heaven from God, 11:17 it had a great and a high wall with 12 gates. 11:21 Number that's going to continue to appear 11:23 as you look at the new Jerusalem is the number, who knows? 11:26 12. 11:28 You've got 12 gates, 12 foundations. 11:32 You've got Tree of Life has 12 kinds of fruit, 11:35 12 times a year. 11:37 It's 12,000 furlongs. 11:39 Now, why the number 12? 11:40 12 is a number that God uses for his church. 11:44 He had 12 patriarchs in the Old Testament, 11:47 12 apostles in the New Testament. 11:49 There are 12 minor prophets in the Old Testament. 11:52 12 is also mathematically an excellent number for builders. 11:56 Any of you men or women, if you've done any building, 11:59 12, there's a reason it's 12 inches in a foot. 12:02 By the way, the fun fact, 12:06 for years, the measurement of the foot changed every year. 12:10 It depended on the size of the king's foot. 12:13 It so happens my foot is exactly one foot. 12:16 And so, when I go measure anything out 12:17 and someone says, "I wonder how far that is," 12:18 I say, "Wait, I'll tell you." 12:20 And I just go like this and it's right on every time. 12:23 So, when they got a new king, 12:24 if they had a king with a little foot, 12:26 it messed everybody up. 12:28 But they always tried to keep it 12:29 where there are 12 inches in the foot 12:31 because 12 is divisible by one, 12:34 by two, by three, by four, by six, and by 12. 12:40 And so, when you're building and you use the number 12, 12:42 it's the perfect construction number. 12:45 John's a fisherman, he wasn't an architect. 12:47 He got this information from God, 12:49 just like God gave no other plans for the ark 12:52 and they found that the dimensions, the ratio of the ark, 12:55 it's the same ratio they use for oil tankers. 12:57 It's a very stable ratio. 12:59 How'd Noah know that? 13:01 They had no oceans back then. 13:03 God is the master architect. Can you say amen? 13:06 ♪♪♪ 13:07 Doug: Don't go anywhere, friends. 13:08 In just a moment, we will return to today's presentation. 13:12 If you're anything like me, 13:14 you're reluctant to turn on the evening news 13:16 and to hear about the neverending evil, suffering, 13:18 and misery in our world. 13:20 We all long for a world of peace, security, and joy 13:23 where you don't have to constantly worry 13:25 about death and dying. 13:26 But is such a life even possible? 13:29 You better believe it. 13:30 And it's not just some fantasy, it's real. 13:33 And what's more, you can be assured a place in that kingdom. 13:37 That's why "Amazing Facts" 13:38 wants to send you a special free resource called 13:41 "Heaven: Is It For Real?" 13:43 Not only does it show from the Bible 13:45 what heaven will be like, 13:47 you'll learn how to be sure you're there. 13:48 It even answers some of the biggest questions about heaven, 13:51 such as, will we recognize each other in heaven? 13:55 And what kind of bodies will we have, flesh or spirit? 13:58 Friends, with all the bad news in the world today, 14:01 you're going to really enjoy discovering 14:02 all the wonderful things God has in store 14:05 for those that love him. 14:06 To get your free copy, 14:08 call the phone number on the screen 14:09 and ask for offer number 189, 14:12 or visit the web address. 14:13 And after you read this incredible resource, 14:16 make sure and share the encouragement with a friend. 14:19 Well, let's get back now to today's presentation 14:21 and learn some more amazing facts from the Word of God. 14:25 Something else you'll notice 14:27 as we look at the different minerals, 14:28 and let's read Revelation 21:12, 14:30 "And the street of the city was pure gold." 14:34 You're still with me? 14:37 You've heard of the golden streets? 14:38 It's real. 14:40 Now, that's why some people say, 14:41 "Ah, now, this has just gotta be a metaphor." 14:43 Well, the Bible says it's better than you can imagine. 14:46 I mean, we pave our streets with asphalt or stone. 14:51 God has no shortage of gold. 14:52 You realize he made it. 14:54 He can make as much as he wants. 14:55 He's got the factory. 14:56 And so, it's not a problem for him. 14:58 Don't underestimate what God can do. 15:00 The other thing is that you want streets that are durable. 15:03 One of the most durable minerals they have is gold. 15:06 When they found King Tut's tomb in, was it 1922, 15:10 Howard Carter, he looked inside 15:12 and he shone a light in there and they said, 15:14 "Do you see anything?" 15:15 And he looked at the undisturbed tomb. 15:18 The seal had not been broken to the king's burial, 15:20 and the glint of gold was everywhere 15:22 because even after 3000 years, 15:25 the gold was still shining. 15:27 It's an incredible material. 15:29 You don't notice there's any wood. 15:32 Nothing has to die in this city to build. 15:35 God is making it out of minerals. 15:38 What does the Bible say 15:39 about the city's water and food supply? 15:42 Answer, "He showed me a pure river, a water of life." 15:48 Now, Jesus, he offers us that water of life. 15:51 He told the woman at the well: 15:52 You're coming for this water, 15:54 but you're going to get thirsty again. 15:55 But the water that I'm offering you, 15:56 you drink it and it will be inside you 15:58 as an artesian well that will continue 16:00 to spring up and satisfy your thirst. 16:03 She said, "Oh, Lord, give me that water now." 16:05 He revealed to her he was the Messiah. 16:07 By the way, the Lord is offering you that living water. 16:11 You can also read, even in the book of Ezekiel, 16:13 it talks about a river. 16:14 And now, how big is the river? 16:16 You read in Ezekiel 16:17 when he's describing the river in heaven, 16:19 he says he walked out into it 16:21 and he goes out 100 yards and it's up to his ankles, 16:23 and he keeps going out and it's up to his knees, 16:25 and he keeps going out and it's up to his thighs, 16:27 and it just keeps going and going. 16:28 It gets deeper and deeper. 16:29 And then finally he said, 16:31 "It's a river that one cannot cross without swimming." 16:33 What about the food? 16:35 On either side of the river, 16:36 now, notice carefully, 16:38 either side of the river was the tree, 16:40 singular, not trees, the tree of life. 16:44 Always in the Bible when it talks about the tree of life, 16:46 and it's mentioned several places, it's singular. 16:49 A tree on both sides of the river. 16:52 How do you reconcile that? 16:54 Well, they actually have some trees 16:56 that will grow together in their branches. 16:59 I've seen it before. 17:01 Trees that grow up, the branches touch, 17:02 they actually graft themselves together. 17:05 They grow together. 17:06 And I picture this massive tree. 17:08 If the river's 50 miles wide, you better figure a big tree. 17:11 Of course, everybody in the world's 17:12 gotta eat from this tree, 17:13 so it's gotta be big. 17:15 And roots probably go together under the river 17:20 and it has the fruit that helps perpetuate life. 17:24 Man has not eaten from that tree 17:26 since God evicted Adam and Eve from the garden, 17:28 but it will be restored. 17:30 One of the wonderful things about the Bible 17:32 is in the first three chapters of the Bible, 17:35 you learn how man lost eternity 17:37 because he got mixed up with a snake in a garden. 17:40 First three chapters, 17:41 man is evicted from the garden. 17:42 You get to Revelation, 17:44 the snake is destroyed 17:46 and man is restored to the garden and the tree of life 17:48 in the last three chapters. 17:50 The whole book is telling us 17:51 how to get back to the garden, amen, 17:53 and it's through Jesus. 17:55 It says, "The seed of the woman 17:56 "is the one who will destroy the serpent." 17:58 That actually happens in Revelation. 18:01 Tells us that this is some kind of tree. 18:03 Each tree yields its fruit every month 18:06 and the leaves of the tree 18:07 are for the healing of the nations. 18:10 Well, first of all, it's fruit every month. 18:14 And if there's 12 different kinds of fruit 18:15 and there's 12 months in a year, 18:16 how many kinds of fruit is that? 18:18 12 times twelve, 144. 18:22 Another number you're going to find is the 144,000. 18:25 I used to work at Baskin-Robbins. 18:28 Baskin-Robbins is famous for what? 18:30 31 flavors. 18:32 And they've got way more than 31 flavors. 18:34 They promise to have 31 flavors at all time, 18:36 at least they did when I worked there. 18:38 They got hundreds of flavors. 18:40 Whatever your favorite food is, 18:43 there will be some fruit that you're really going to like 18:45 there at the tree. 18:47 The menu will never get boring. 18:49 And we're going to gather and you're going to say, 18:51 "Oh, try this, it's like salsa! 18:52 "You're going to like this fruit!" 18:54 Everyone's going to be, 'cause I like salsa. 18:56 You're going to be tasting all kinds of different fruit. 18:59 But then it says the leaves of the tree 19:01 are for the healing of the nations. 19:03 Healing? 19:04 I thought there's no more sickness. 19:06 Who needs healing? 19:08 Does it say healing of sickness or healing of nations? 19:12 Nations. 19:14 Do you realize that people all around the world 19:16 are divided now by nations? 19:19 People are divided by culture, race, language. 19:23 But as we all come together as the children of God 19:26 redeemed by Christ around that tree and eat the fruit, 19:29 all of the divisions that have separated us 19:32 are healed at that point. 19:33 Can you say amen? 19:35 And so, it's a beautiful, poetic way of saying 19:38 everyone is going to be healed 19:40 of all the divisions from this earth. 19:43 How will living in heaven be different 19:44 than living here on Earth? 19:46 Has a lot of beautiful examples, here. 19:49 Here's some specifics. 19:51 Tells us in Isaiah 35:5, 19:53 "Then the eyes of the blind will be opened." 19:58 Blind people are going to be able to see beautifully. 20:00 And in heaven, whatever your vision is now, 20:03 it's going to be infinitely better. 20:05 Eagles can see three miles away. 20:07 they can see a mouse. 20:08 They got telescopic vision. 20:10 You will have much better vision in heaven. 20:13 "The ears of the deaf will be unstopped." 20:16 You'll be able to hear a rustle in the grass, 20:19 like an elephant, from a mile away. 20:22 And it tells us that the lame man will leap like a deer. 20:26 They're going to have incredible strength 20:27 and they're going to be able to leap and jump. 20:30 You read also, it says, 20:31 "And they will not hurt or destroy." 20:34 Talks about the animals are going to all be kind to each other. 20:37 A child will play on the hole of a venomous serpent 20:39 and it will not hurt. 20:41 The wolf will lay down with the lamb. 20:43 You've heard these verses before, right, in the Bible? 20:45 And nothing is going to hurt or destroy 20:48 in all of his holy mountain. 20:50 Got a little amazing fact for you. 20:52 Several years ago, some drug agents, 20:56 they went into the the apartment 20:59 or the mansion of this drug lord, 21:03 and he was busted. 21:04 And in his basement he had a lion, a bear, and a tiger cub. 21:10 He had a lot of money. 21:11 I don't know if you know that Escobar, 21:16 who is the drug kingpin there in Columbia, 21:19 he had his own zoo. 21:20 I don't know what it is with these drug guys. 21:21 They liked animals. 21:23 So, this guy, he had a cub, a bear cub, 21:26 a lion, and a tiger, 21:29 and they were in terrible squalor in the basement. 21:33 But they seemed to get along with each other. 21:35 And so, when they finally, 21:36 they said, the police said, "What do we do with these?" 21:38 There was a group that had an animal shelter 21:40 called Noah's Ark or something 21:42 and they took these animals in, 21:43 and they remained friends. 21:45 They called them BLT, for Bear, Lion, Tiger. 21:50 Kinda like the Wizard of Oz, 21:51 "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" 21:53 But it's real! 21:54 And they play together, 21:56 and they fight every now and then. 21:57 They eat together. 21:59 When they go to sleep at night, they all curl up together. 22:01 And you think, well, 22:02 normally in their normal habitat, they'd be enemies. 22:04 In heaven, the animals will not kill each other 22:08 and everybody's going to be a vegetarian there in heaven. 22:12 We're not going to be chasing down chickens 22:14 and cutting off their heads 22:15 and making McNuggets out of them. 22:16 It says we're going to be eating from the tree of life. 22:20 "The wolf also will dwell with the lamb 22:23 "and a little child will lead them." 22:25 So, nothing dies in this kingdom. 22:28 There is no more death. 22:31 "The desert shall blossom as the rose." 22:33 There's going to be places that will be of intense beauty 22:36 and there'll be places that will be of wonderful beauty. 22:39 There'll be no deserts where there's no life. 22:41 Even the deserts here will blossom as the rose. 22:46 "The inhabitant will not say, 'I am sick.'" 22:50 Say amen to that. 22:52 We're just surrounded by news all the time 22:54 of people being sick and being overcome 22:57 by a disease or viruses or bacteria. 23:01 Nobody's going to get sick, nobody will die. 23:03 You'll be in perfect health and vitality all the time. 23:07 Won't that be wonderful? 23:08 And the best news, it says there'll be no more death. 23:11 No one needs to worry or live in fear about death. 23:14 No more death, no more sorrow, no more crying. 23:18 The former things are passed away. 23:20 All things are made new. 23:23 Who's going to be there? 23:24 It says, "These are the ones 23:26 "who follow the Lamb wherever he goes." 23:30 Do you want to be in that kingdom? 23:31 Who's going to be there? 23:33 144,000, it says they follow the Lamb wherever he goes. 23:36 Now, here's a simple principle. 23:37 If you want to follow the Lamb there then, 23:41 you must first follow him here now. 23:44 - [Congregation] Amen. 23:45 - You will not be able to follow him there then, 23:48 if you don't learn to follow him here now. 23:51 Jesus says to each one of us 23:53 what he said to the apostles, "Follow me." 23:56 Follow his teachings. 23:57 He wants us to spend time with him. 24:01 Will any sad or painful memories from this life 24:04 trouble people in heaven? 24:06 No. 24:07 The Bible says, "The former will not be remembered, 24:10 "nor come into mind." 24:12 Now, that doesn't mean that God brainwashes us 24:14 so we forget that Jesus has redeemed us. 24:17 Even in the resurrection 24:18 when Jesus showed himself to his disciples, 24:20 did he still have the scars in his hands? 24:23 He did. 24:24 So, there'll always be that reminder 24:26 of what Jesus did to die for us 24:28 and that he sacrificed his life for us. 24:32 But we're not going to have any of the painful memories. 24:34 I don't know about you, but I frequently, 24:37 my mind wanders and I go back, 24:39 and sometimes I think about things that I've done 24:41 and I just sigh and I have my regrets. 24:43 And even though I know the Lord's forgiven me, I think, 24:45 "Oh, Doug, what were you thinking? 24:47 "Why'd you do that?" 24:48 You still got it in your mind. 24:50 As you enter eternity, 24:52 how many of you know that it's true that time heals? 24:55 As you enter eternity 24:57 and you get away from the pain of this world, 24:59 after the first million years, 25:01 you're not going to worry about it anymore. 25:02 You'll never forget that Jesus redeemed you. 25:05 Can we adequately describe God's new kingdom with words? 25:10 No. 25:12 "The eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, 25:14 "neither has entered into the heart of man 25:16 "the things that God has prepared for those that love him." 25:21 I just, last year, I read a book. 25:23 I'd done it before, but I read a book on Marco Polo. 25:26 And as a young man, 25:28 he went with his father at 17 years old to China, 25:31 which was this massive empire, 25:33 incredible technology and millions and millions of people. 25:36 And it was so much more sophisticated and bigger 25:39 than what he had left in Europe. 25:41 He came back after 20, 25 years living in the Orient 25:44 and traveling the world, 25:46 and he started to tell the stories 25:48 of what was happening in China, 25:50 talked about this wall that was a thousand miles long. 25:53 They said, "A thousand miles! 25:55 "You're exaggerating." 25:56 Talked about gunpowder, talked about paper money, 25:59 talked about all the incredible things 26:00 and the inventions that they had. 26:03 When he lay dying, it's true. 26:06 He lay dying. 26:07 The priest came to him 26:08 and asked him to confess before it was too late. 26:11 They said, "You're soon going to meet God. 26:13 "You told all these lies about the land of China. 26:16 "Don't you think it's time that you confess and repent?" 26:19 And he sat up and looked at him and said, "Repent?" 26:22 Says, "I've not told you the half of what I've seen!" 26:26 That's always how I feel like during this sermon, 26:28 is I'm not able to tell you a fraction of what it's like. 26:32 But we need to be excited about heaven, friends, 26:35 because if you believe that's where you're going, 26:38 for one thing, 26:39 it makes the sins of this world less attractive. 26:43 Everybody lives in a particular way 26:45 when you're getting ready to take a trip. 26:47 If you're getting ready to go to heaven, 26:50 you know, they talk different there. 26:53 You want God to sanctify your lips now, don't you? 26:56 They dress different there. 26:57 We should dress like Christians. 26:59 They think different there. 27:01 We should be pure in heart. 27:03 And so, we ought to be preparing for that new kingdom, amen? 27:06 ♪♪♪ 27:10 announcer: Don't forget to request today's life-changing 27:12 free resource. 27:14 Not only can you receive this free gift in the mail, 27:16 you can download a digital copy 27:17 straight to your computer or mobile device. 27:20 To get your digital copy of today's free gift, 27:23 simply text the keyword on your screen to 40544 27:27 or visit the web address shown on your screen, 27:29 and be sure to select the digital download option 27:32 on the request page. 27:33 It's now easier than ever for you to study God's Word 27:36 with "Amazing Facts", wherever and whenever you want, 27:39 and most important to share it with others. 27:44 female announcer: Did you know "Amazing Facts" 27:45 has a free Bible school that you can do 27:47 from the comfort of your own home? 27:49 It includes 27 study lessons 27:51 to aid in your study of God's Word. 27:54 Sign up today by calling 1-844-215-7000. 27:58 That's 1-844-215-7000. 28:03 ♪♪♪ 28:08 male announcer: Don't forget to request today's free offer. 28:10 It's sure to be a blessing. 28:12 And thank you for your continued support 28:14 as we take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. 28:17 We hope you'll join us next week 28:19 as we delve deep into the Word of God. 28:24 This presentation was brought to you 28:26 by the friends of the Amazing Facts ministry. |
Revised 2023-02-16