Heaven Will Be the Best Party You Ever Attended!

This is the Reverend Dr. Glenn Wilson of the Burt and Woden Iowa Presbyterian Churches.  This week we are talking about that miracle awaiting every believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior – the place we call heaven. Everyone who has genuinely trusted in Christ as Lord and Savior will be there.  And children who died before the “age of accountability go to heaven and I would also include those born with such mental limitations that they cannot understand the spoken or written gospel. The Bible teaches that the moment we die we go directly into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul spoke of this in 2 Corinthians 5:7-8 and Philippians 1:21-23.

But not everyone who has died is in heaven now. Some people won’t make it. The Bible speaks of the saved and the lost. The saved are those who trust Jesus Christ as their eternal Savior. The lost are those who do not trust Christ as Savior. This is the great dividing line of humanity-you are either saved or you are lost. And there is no middle category. You will either spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell.

I simply want you to know what God has said about heaven and who will go there. The saved of all the ages will be there-and that vast throng will no doubt include many people who would surprise us if we knew it now. Certainly heaven will be more wonderful than our imagination and it’s population more diverse than we expect.

But I am sure of this one truth. No one will go to heaven except by the grace of God and through the merits of the blood of Jesus Christ. If a man or woman says “No” to Jesus, the Bible makes it clear he or she has no hope of heaven.

Now according to the Bible “We may be sure that we shall not know less in heaven than we know here.” In 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” How does God know us? Answer: He knows us completely, intimately, thoroughly, inside and out, with nothing hidden but everything seen as it really is  When we get to heaven we’ll know each other as God knows us because all the imperfections of this life will be removed. In this life sin causes us to cover ourselves-not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. But when sin is finally lifted from us, then we can be ourselves with no shame, no pain, no embarrassment, and no covering up.  In heaven we will know every person in heaven and all of them will be friends and loved ones to us.

The Bible shows that our individual personality survives into eternity. I’ll be the same person then that I am now-only with all the imperfections and limitations of sin finally removed. This is a wonderful thought-that the essence of who we are will remain throughout eternity-yet vastly improved by God’s grace.

That helps me think about a question that people sometimes ask: How old will we be in heaven? I once heard a preacher say that we will all be 33 years old because that’s approximately how old Jesus was when he died. Of course there is no scriptural support for that statement. The truth is, there won’t be any age in heaven in the sense we speak of age on the earth. Growing old is a function of the decaying effects of sin. I do not believe that babies who die in infancy will be babies for eternity nor do I believe that people who waste away of cancer will appear emaciated in heaven. It will be something else entirely-which I can barely explain and certainly do not understand.

In heaven we will know each other intimately. That’s why Peter, James and John recognized Moses and Elijah, even though they had been dead for hundreds of years, on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9). I don’t think they had nametags on. I think there was something about those two men that made Peter, James and John recognize them even though they had never seen them before.

That’s why a wife whose husband died when she was young will be able to pick her husband out of a crowd of billions of people, even though she hasn’t seen him for 50 years since he died on the earth. In heaven she will say, “Sweetheart! I knew it was you.” And he will know her.

In heaven there will be no strangers. When we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be!  This has been Pastor Glenn Wilson of the Burt and Woden Presbyterian Churches. Have a Jesus filled Day!