Alright, if you'd like to join me, we're going to begin our study this morning in the book of Colossians chapter 3. I'll apologize in advance for my voice. I've got post-mountain voice syndrome. Every time I go up to the mountains and come back, for the first couple of days, my voice is a little bit ragged. So it may be a little bit worse as it goes along today, but I hope you can endure and bear with me. What we're doing is we're going to continue and pick up our study that we've been pursuing this for, gosh, a number of months now. We've been looking at together the last things, what theologically is called the study of eschatology, God's plan for all of history, God's purpose in all of history, and how all things are ultimately going to culminate and conclude at the end of history, and then what follows the end of history as we know it. And in our most recent focus, we've spent in the last seven weeks that I've been teaching, we've, and I congratulate those of you who were here for all of those to make it through a study for seven weeks straight on the theme of hell. It's not an easy thing. It's not an easy task. Certainly well worth it. I hope that your heart is better informed. I hope that your heart was impacted and affected by a focus on hell in all of the right ways that it should be. I know mine was in refreshing my own mind and heart in those things and rehearsing those things in my own study. I hope your heart was blessed by that also. As they say in the political arena, it's time to give equal time now to the other side of the coin. What we're going to do is we're going to look at what the Bible teaches about heaven, how heaven fits into God's plan at the end of history, and what follows. But also we're going to take a look at, just like we did with hell, the history of heaven, and that heaven itself has a history. Heaven is one of those realities that's in the back of all Christian understanding and all Christian perspective. But it is like the study of hell and what we saw with that. It's one of the most commonly misunderstood topics that you can focus on in the Bible. And of course, beyond what the church misunderstands about heaven, we have the many, many misunderstandings of the world about heaven. Just let me name off a few of the most common ones, the most basic ones. Going all the way back to ancient history, of course, there were different concepts of heaven. Ancient cultures had... their own understanding of heaven and heavenly realities. Some believed in, and there are too many to actually list or mention, but I'm just going to name a couple of them as examples. One ancient culture believed that heaven was the upper half of a cosmic egg that had been constructed by God, the lower half being earth, and the upper half of this egg being heaven itself. You know, that's kind of a strange concept, but there were other practical ones. One that you're probably more familiar with was the Greeks, who were very influential in the ancient world, and this was picked up later by the Romans. They believed that heaven was located where? What was the reality of heaven to the Greeks? They believed that heaven was on the highest mountain on the Greek peninsula, which was Mount Olympus, and that the gods lived on this high mountain. And of course that established a very physical kind of understanding of heaven. It was something that was high and lifted up and above them, but yet something very approachable and something not that distant from them. In more modern times, and this of course stretches back to ancient times, but extends up to current beliefs, Buddhists believe in a kind of heaven that they call Nirvana. Heaven for the Buddhists is not so much a place, it's not so much even a... an experience of a certain kind of spiritual reality. Nirvana literally means the extinguishing of a flame. So for a Buddhist heaven, the ultimate reality, the ultimate goal of life is just to reach a state of nothingness, where there are no more passions, no more desires, that the flame of your life's passion is finally extinguished and you become part of cosmic nothingness. The New Age teaching, of course, which is so big and so popular today, sees heaven as kind of a spiritual reality in which individual souls are like sparks that are rejoining some gigantic cosmic flame, which is the reality of God himself. And that heaven is no more than just the state of how this cosmic flame exists as these sparks are reunited and rejoined to this giant cosmic reality. Muslim teaching of heaven, of course, is a little bit closer to the Christian understanding of what heaven really is. But it's, you know, it's corrupted and perverted, and it might as well be as far away as the upper half of a cosmic egg. Muslims believe in a real place, a paradise, that they call heaven. But it's, for them, as I've mentioned before, you may have heard me mention, for the Muslim they believe that heaven is going to be a place of sensual delights. that a committed and devout Muslim throughout the course of his life here on earth has withheld himself from certain physical sensual pleasures in his obedience to his God, Allah. But for him, heaven is going to be a time when finally all of those desires that he had in this world and in this life are ultimately going to be fulfilled. And he's going to be given full and free reign to experience all of the earthly and sensual delights that he withheld himself from during his life here on earth. And all of those have one thing in common, the cosmic egg, the concept of heaven being on a high mountain, the idea of nirvana, the idea of a cosmic flame, the idea of a paradise of sensual delights. They have one thing in common, and the one thing they have in common is that they're all horribly, tragically, seriously wrong. And the problem with that, of course, is that people are hanging their entire life on these kind of concepts. Meaning they're living their lives with an orientation toward, this is where my life is ultimately heading. And it's a fantasy, it's not a reality. Now the problem is, in the Christian understanding, in the Christian declaration of the reality of heaven, is that the world has been very successful, especially in recent generations, in pooh-poohing the idea of heaven to the extent that it's commonly held in the world to be nothing more than a fantasy just like the idea of the ancients believing in a cosmic egg, that the Christian heaven, the concept of heaven is just a pie-in-the-sky concept that suffering Christians made up in order to have some crutch to lean on and to believe that after this life of difficulty and suffering that we pass through, there's bound to be, there's got to be something better waiting for us at the end. And honestly, if it was just that, I would join the world in saying, you know, why believe in something that's just a fantasy designed to make you feel a little bit better here in this present life. But the reality is that heaven is a real place. Heaven is an awesome spiritual reality. And the Bible, of course, teaches us a lot about heaven. Now, I'm going to not only spend this week but probably two or three other weeks beyond this focused on the subject of heaven. And as we look at this, what I want you to understand right up front, just like I mentioned when we started our study on hell, is that the reality is greater than anything I'm really capable of accurately, properly describing. That doesn't mean that what I'm going to teach you and what I'm going to say to you is wrong. It just means that the reality is greater than whatever I'm able to properly communicate to you this morning and in the weeks to come. We have to lean on the Lord's grace to reveal to us the truths of heaven and of hell, because these are experiences that we haven't had yet. We're describing, it'd be like me describing to you some city that neither of us have ever visited. The advantage that we have, of course, is that we have a really, really trustworthy tour guide booklet that we can both lean on, that we can both refer to. And though we've never been there before, we can study together, we can read together and learn in reality about this place together. Now, why is it so important for us to do this, to do a study on heaven? I mean, heaven is one of those things that I think all of us can say And I'm presuming this but let me stop for a moment and just double check. You all, everyone here I'm assuming is actually wanting to someday go to heaven and experience heaven as opposed to the alternative. Okay, so it's something that's out there in front of all of us and it's something that is a goal for all of our lives, a desire, a hope, The hope of heaven is uppermost in all of our hearts and minds and yet there is kind of an unspoken perspective among some believers that it's just not that important to study now because it's all out there in the future and it's all out there ahead of us. Well, nothing could be further from the truth than that perspective. Yes, heaven is as a physical reality of something that we've never actually been there, we've never actually personally experienced it at that level. Yes, it's out there in front of us, it's ahead of us, we've not been there yet. But there is another aspect, and we'll just touch on this today, there's another aspect in which heaven is a very present and very critically important reality for all of our lives today. But another reason I think it's important for Christians to study a bit about heaven, to take some time, make the effort to dig into what God's word reveals to us about heaven, is that there is, even in the church, a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about heaven, about what heaven actually is. Let me just give you a couple of examples. I'm not going to name any particular names here because I don't think these names would be that familiar to you anyway. But what I'm doing here is referring to a couple of books that have been written. If you go into any Christian bookstore today, you'll find books in a certain section on people that claim to have been to heaven. We talked about a few weeks ago when we were studying about hell, we talked about people who have what are called near-death experiences. In the world, people that think that they have died or possibly even have died, we don't know for sure. And then come back with a tale, an experience to describe about what they experienced at the end of their life. And the common theme in most of those is that they're mostly filled with spiritual error about the reality of what awaits people after their death. But what I'm talking about here are books not about near-death experiences for Christians, but people who claim to have had visions, actual experiences in which they claim that the Lord himself brought them into heaven and in a sense gave them a tour of heaven. And there's more than a handful of books that have been written on this subject or people that make this kind of claim. One of which, This is one individual I've read. I've read both of these books and made note of some of the more fantastic errors that are connected to it. But these are these. This one individual went to heaven in his telling of his vision. He says he went to heaven and he met Jesus there, of course, and Jesus took him on a tour of all of heaven. And what he found there was there were various towns, various cities that existed in heaven. There were different roadways there. There were street signs because, of course, in heaven you could lose your way, right? We have street signs here on earth and there is a real purpose for them. I am grateful for the reality and existence of street signs. I wouldn't be able to find my way from point A to point B most often without the use of street signs. There's not going to be a need for street signs. Yes, there are streets, and we'll be talking about that. There is a city, we'll be talking about that. But there are not towns, as in plural towns. There are not street signs, because the reality is, you'll know exactly where to go in heaven. You won't have a question about where to travel, what's located where. You won't need things like street signs. This individual in his continuing tour, the Lord took him to a set of warehouses. And believe me, this is going to sound fantastic, like I'm maybe making this stuff up. I couldn't make this stuff up. I don't have an imagination this active to make up this kind of stuff. But the Lord took this guy into a warehouse, and when he was in the warehouse, what he showed him was hanging around on the walls of the warehouse were a collection of body parts. various body parts. There were eyes, and there were noses, and there were ears, and there were legs, and there were arms, and hands, and fingers, and toes, and all kinds of different body parts. And when the man asked the Lord, you know, what is this all about? What the Lord answered was, well, these are the body parts of people, you know, these are the parts that are available for people on earth. And if they will simply, you know, pray and ask, then I provide these body parts for them. You know, people that have a missing limb or a, you know, a damaged eye or something of that nature. In other words, this was the spare parts in heaven for people's physical bodies. Now, as I'm telling this, I'm speaking a little bit facetiously, but I'm really sad to describe this kind of thing to you, because the reality is that's nothing like what heaven is actually like. And this individual, I don't know what his heart's motivation was in telling this story. Maybe he did have a dream. Maybe he actually dreamed what he described in the book. Maybe he made the whole thing up in order to sell some books. I don't know. But the reality was he didn't go to heaven. The reality was he didn't have a tour. Jesus didn't show him a body part warehouse. There weren't street signs. He didn't have that experience in the way that he claimed to have it. How can I know that to be true though? Because he says it's true, and I'm saying it's not. The only way we can know the reality of heaven, like I said, is because none of us have been there, is are we willing to dig in and study what the book actually teaches us about heaven. And are we willing to speak where the book speaks and be silent where the book is silent? Because that's what God wants us to know about heaven. We can't know beyond what God has revealed because we've never been there. But what he has revealed, we can know and we can be confident about and we can proclaim and declare and study together. And that's what I intend for us to do. I'll mention one other example. I've mentioned this a couple of times over the years, but I had a very good Christian friend early on in my early days in the Lord. who had a fond hope of heaven and a very specific reality that he was expecting to experience and his belief in heaven is a very common Christian belief actually and that was that he believed that heaven is a place in which the Lord rewards us in a very specific kind of way with a certain kind of experience for all of eternity and what that reward will entail is that whatever is your fondest and most enjoyable experience here on earth is going to be given to you and magnified for all of eternity. And my friend, his favorite hobby, the thing that he enjoyed to do for his recreation more than anything else on earth was surfing. He was a surfer. He loved to surf. And he believed, he really believed, that heaven for him was after he met the Lord, the Lord was going to take him to the perfect beach. He was going to be riding forever and ever and ever the perfect way. Now that's a, you know, that's not a bad picture of what you might want to experience forever and ever and ever, especially if you're a surfer who enjoys surfing. What's the problem with his view, his understanding, his perspective? It's just not true. That's the only problem with it. And the reality is heaven is not a fantasy. Heaven, I'll say it this way, heaven is every bit as real as what we're experiencing right now in this room. Every bit is real because it's a real place with real dimensions. It has spatial reality. It has spiritual reality. And we're going to look at what the Bible actually does teach us about heaven. But let's start with Colossians chapter 3 and we'll read just the first four verses together. This is a word of exhortation in relationship to heaven. that was written or given by Paul the Apostle. He doesn't specifically mention heaven in this passage, but I think it'll be clear to you that this is what he is referring to, what he's talking about. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above. where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and he's speaking here, of course, spiritually. You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Now, a few weeks ago when we were doing our study on hell, I was introducing the ultimate realities at the end of all of history. I mentioned a common saying that has, I don't even know when this was first spoken, who came up with it to begin with, but it's become a fairly common saying in Christian circles. And the saying goes like this, you're all familiar with it, a person can be so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. And it's one of those things, I remember when I first mentioned it here, you know, kind of laying a... a teaching trap for your feet. I asked you if you agreed with it, and not all of you, but many of you agreed with, yeah, that makes sense. A person can be so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. And then what I mentioned in response to that is that that is absolutely contrary to what the Lord wants us to see and to understand. It's not possible to be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. The only thing that's possible in terms of spiritual reality for a Christian, in terms of perspective of heaven and perspective of earth, is that a Christian can be so earthly minded that they're no heavenly good. But the reverse is not even possible. Let me ask you this, is it possible for you as a believer to be so focused on heaven that you become completely useless in terms of what God wants to accomplish with your life here on earth? And that's essentially saying the same thing as so heavenly minded as to be no earthly good. And the answer to that question is no, you can't become so heavenly minded. Now what you can become is you can become so fantasy minded that you're no earthly good. What I mean by that is any one of these fantasies of heaven. There's one other I didn't even mention, I should probably bring this in at this point, and that is the most common Christian perspective of heaven down through the ages, talking about the last 2,000 years. Heaven is kind of a place of Clouds, and this is the common cartoon depiction of heaven, right? Clouds, and Christians in glory, seated, kind of floating on those clouds, and there's a halo around their heads, and they're equipped with a harp, and the experience of heaven is what? That the Christians are going to be just kind of floating around in an ethereal spiritual reality forever and ever, strumming a harp, and just kind of hanging out forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Now, you know, if you've lived a very hard, tiring, troublesome life, the idea of that kind of eternal reality might hold some promise for you for a while, you know, because it is a restful picture, it's a peaceful picture, But the bottom line is, that is no hope in my heart, and it shouldn't be any hope in your heart, that God would design such an eternal reality. We're talking about forever and ever and ever and ever, that what you're going to do is just kind of hang out, floating around, strumming on a harp. That is not what's waiting for us. That's not even close to the reality of what's waiting for us. Something far greater, far more significant, far more important is waiting for all of us. But, if we have our minds set on that fantasy or any one of the other fantasies about heaven, then yes, absolutely, it can negatively impact and affect the way you live out your life here on this earth. But if you have a right understanding of what heaven is, if you have a right understanding of what is waiting for us, what God has planned for our lives for all of eternity, if you really understand the perspective of what is coming at the culmination of God's plan for all of the ages, then that's going to affect and influence and impact the way you live out your life here on this earth. And it's only going to have a good, godly, healthy, energizing kind of influence on you. It's not going to make you no earthly good, it's going to make you the best earthly good, because it's going to equip you to serve God in the way that He wants you to serve Him. Excuse me while I get some water. Okay, so what is the reality of heaven? Let's just start today. We're not going to get anywhere close to through this. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 1. is that heaven is a place. Why is this important for Christians to be really clear on? Because most people in the world today believe that heaven is a state of mind. If they believe in heaven or anything heavenly at all, they'll tell you heaven is a state of mind, it's a spiritual kind of thing out there somewhere, floating around around us all the time. But it's not a real place where you can come and go from. The Bible teaches us otherwise. Heaven is a real place. And you come from heaven and you go to heaven. It's a location with reality, just like this is a location with reality. How do we know? Well, the first thing to understand about heaven being a place is that, like we saw with the teaching of hell, here in Genesis 1-1, we realize that heaven is created. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Heaven didn't always exist. You know, a lot of Christians believe that heaven always existed. Why would any Christian believe that? Because we believe that God always existed, of course. That God always existed in our finite minds of how we understand reality. If God existed, he had to have some place to exist. Because for us, we can't exist without a place to exist. But God is not limited in the same way that we are limited to spatial realities. And God existed before heaven existed. But at a certain moment, God chose to create the heavens and the earth. Now, one of the things that you might notice about the wording in Genesis 1.1, let's read it again. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Earth is very clearly singular, meaning how many earths are there in God's creation? One earth. Only one earth. This is just one, this is a little bonus point. That's, more than anything else, that's why there's no such thing as UFOs, okay? That's why there's no such thing as, and I'm a big science fiction fan, I think some of you know that, you know. I love Star Wars, Star Trek, all that kind of stuff. But it's not real, okay? There's no aliens out there. Why? God created one earth. Now eventually, and we'll talk about this in the weeks to come, eventually there are going to be other places in God's universe that are going to be populated. But right now, no. Just one earth. Period. But heaven is in Hebrew here, And they've carried this forward in the translation into English. Heaven is plural. What does that tell you? More than one heaven. Are we all clear with the implication at least? We haven't looked at the details. The implication that there is more than one heaven in God's creation. Alright, let's look at John chapter 6. Turn over with me to the Gospel of John chapter 6. We're going to look in a moment at what the Bible teaches about there being more than one heaven. But first I just want to get established this most basic point, which is our foundation, and that is that heaven is a place with actual reality of location. John chapter 6. We're going to read a couple of different portions. I'm going to read first verses 50 and 51, and then 60 through 62. This is part of a larger teaching that the Lord Jesus was doing to his disciples, and here actually it's part of a An event shortly following the Lord having multiplied the loaves and the fishes in front of a whole crowd of people. And he took that occasion to teach the people. And here in verse 50 we'll pick up where he's talking about the bread from heaven. He said, This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread also, which I will give for the life of the world, is my flesh." Let's skip down to verse 60. Therefore, many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, this is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, conscious that his disciples grumbled at this, said to them, does this cause you to stumble? What then, if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? Alright, now Jesus here is just talking about himself, his own personal experience. He's not talking about something that any of the rest of us have experienced at this point. But in describing his own experience, in verses 50 and 51, he's referring to himself symbolically as the bread of heaven, God's provision for mankind. And in talking about himself as the bread from heaven, he says specifically, this is the bread which comes down out of heaven. And then in verse 51, I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. Okay, this phrase, came down out of heaven, It's a phrase, it's a passage that you wouldn't normally just, okay, we're going to start a teaching on heaven, let's go and read what Jesus is teaching on this day about eating bread from heaven. But what we need to understand is the clear implication of His words is that heaven is a location, He was in that location, He came out of that location and he came down. That tells us that heaven is a place just like earth is a place and in relationship to earth, of course, heaven is up. Now the world will look at this and say, that is just so ancient and that is so quaint that you believe that heaven is an actual place that's up in relationship to the earth. Because in terms of astronomy and stuff, which way is up? If you start from planet Earth, astronomically, and you're going to go up, which way are you going to go? See, the point is, the world looks at things like that and says, it's ridiculous. But what we need to understand is, the Lord Jesus is not stupid. He knows what He's talking about. He understands these things, and believe it or not, He even understands astronomy. And when he is talking, he's talking from human perspective. We're here, and whichever way you go in the universe, it's up from where you start. And so the whole idea is that heaven is a greater reality, it's higher than the earth, and it's a location in which, in order to get there, we have to leave here and go up. Alright? That's all we're establishing so far. In verses 60 through 62, He says this, verse 62, What then if ye see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? Because Jesus uses the term where here, and it's the same concept in the Greek language as it is in English. He is very clearly thinking about a spatial location reality. A place that you can leave and a place you can return. And that's what the Lord was doing. And He's speaking here about the end of His life here on the earth. And at the end of His life here on this earth, He is going to return to the same place where He was before. Now let's turn to one other passage in John. This one we're all familiar with, John chapter 14. We're going to read the first few verses. And again, sorry about my voice, but I'll get through this, if you will. John chapter 14, verse 1. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also, and you know the way where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, how do we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me. Okay, there's some very important, obviously, some very important salvation information in verses 5 and 6. But what I want to focus on is a couple of the details in verses 1 through 4. And that is, that in the Lord's mind, this is the mind of the Lord Jesus, heaven is a place. And he is going, he says, to prepare something for his followers. He's going to heaven to prepare a place for his followers. Jesus doesn't say, I am going to prepare a state of mind for you. I am going to prepare an ethereal reality that has no spatial circumstance connected to it. I am going to prepare a place. Okay, I don't want to beat a dead horse here. I just want us to all be clear in all of our future conversations with each other and with the world out there. If anyone calls into question whether heaven is a real place or not, do not, do not, do not be ashamed to say, yes, heaven is an actual real place. Just because you've never been there doesn't mean it's not real. That's the reality of it. It would be, for a person in the world, to deny the reality that heaven is a place, would be as foolish as someone that's never been to New Zealand, saying, you know, New Zealand, I've heard about that my whole life, but I don't think it's really real, because I've never been there. And I personally don't know anybody else that's been there. It's just a rumor. It's a fantasy. That New Zealand thing is just a concept. New Zealand is a state of mind. But if you knew someone that really had been there and was able to describe the reality of it to you, you would have a different perspective about New Zealand. And in the same way we have a different perspective about the reality of heaven as a place because we know the one who came from there and we know the one who has returned to there and we know the one who is coming again from there to receive us unto himself and to take us there. Alright. What else about heaven? I said that heaven is plural. Let's just spend a few minutes talking about that, and then we'll end for today. Turn with me, if you would, back to Genesis chapter 1. How many of you have seen the show on TV? I think it's still on. Seventh Heaven. How many of you watch that show? You guys like that show? I mean, I don't want to burst anybody's bubble here. I don't really like that show. I tried watching it a couple of times, but I couldn't hang with it. But what I want to focus on here, I'm not doing a criticism of the show. The name of the show is called Seventh Heaven. Where in the world does that come from? And that's a pretty, actually a pretty popular concept. It's a pretty well-known concept. And that is the concept that heaven is a reality with different levels, a reality with different different stages or categories. Remember how in our study of hell we talked about how hell is not just a singular reality. There are different segments or categories or sections of hell. And there is a concept throughout history that there are seven levels of heaven. You know, the seventh heaven. It's actually a phrase, and this is where they got the show from, It's a phrase which, when a person says, I'm in the seventh heaven, what they're referring to is, heaven is staged in terms of the higher you go, number seven being the very highest level of heaven, the most wonderful experience you can ever have. Now, there's only one problem with this, of course, which is, it's just not true. There are not seven levels of heaven, but where did this come from? Because you can go back and read Christian history and find a lot of Christian references to seven heavens or seven levels of heaven. Where did this come from? Well, the concept was first introduced in a teaching, a heretical teaching back in the early days of Christianity known as Gnosticism. And the Gnostics were the people that that call themselves, it's from a Greek word which means knowledge. Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge and it means the knowers. Those who have the understanding of the deep hidden spiritual realities of life. And what they did was they joined with the early Christian churches. and blended their, what are essentially to us today, new age teachings, new age beliefs with true Christian beliefs and ended up with kind of an amalgamation of truth and error. And one of their teachings was that heaven was not a place but a spiritual reality that was to be progressively experienced through various levels or stages of spiritual development. And there were seven levels or stages in the Gnostic progression through heavenly realities. Now later on in history, this concept actually trickled down into Islam. and became a Muslim teaching. In the Muslim teaching there are seven levels or seven realities of heaven. The seventh being the highest level, the level that is available for the martyrs and those who are the greatest servants of Allah. And some Christians have even taken this concept and some Jewish rabbis all through history have taken this concept. And so you'll see this blended in all over in various spiritual teachings. But as I said, it's not a true teaching. You won't find any reference anywhere in the Bible to seven levels of heaven. It just is not true. It's not real. So what is the reality of heaven? Heaven is plural. I've already mentioned that from Genesis chapter 1. Let's read again verse 1 in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. If there are heavens and it's literally plural heavens, that means there is more than one heaven. More than one, and I'm going to say but, not seven. So how many heavens are there, biblically speaking? Some of you have heard this before, you have studied this before and you understand this. The biblical teaching is that there are three heavens, not seven. And this is real. This is not fantasy, this is not made up. How many of you have heard before today that there are three heavens? Okay, most of you. Some of you have never heard this before, though. So I need to explain this a little bit. I'm going to do this briefly and then we'll end here today. The first heaven is what? Genesis chapter 1, verse 6. Then God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. God made the expanse and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. Chapter 1 verse 8, God called the expanse heaven. Heaven number one equals what is called in my translation, the expanse. In the old King James, the language was firmament. In modern lingo, the term is atmosphere. Heaven number one is the atmosphere surrounding this planet. You look up and you see what? Sky. You see blue sky. That extends a certain number of miles beyond the earth and then it ends and something else starts where the atmosphere ends. What starts where the atmosphere ends? Physically, astronomically, scientifically. what we call space, which is kind of another thing we're catching the scientists in their own terminology. That's kind of ridiculous because aren't we in space right here? I mean, we're part of the universe, right? Of course, we're part of space. But we do this in order to just shape our own perspectives in terms of putting things in proper categories. So here's the Earth. And around the earth, in a thin layer around the earth, is the expanse, the firmament, the atmosphere. Beyond that is a much, much bigger circle, so big I can't possibly draw it, which we call space. So here's the earth, here is the expanse, and here is space. First heaven is the atmosphere around the earth. Second heaven is what we call space. and that is what we know as the physical universe, the universe that you can see with a telescope, that you can get out the cheapest set of binoculars or you can get out the most expensive, well actually you can't get it out, you can, you know, you can go and visit the biggest and best telescope made by human hands and look out there as far as you can look and what you see is a physical reality that we know as the universe or space. Okay? Including all of the stars, and all of the planets, and all of those things. Look in verse 14 of Genesis 1. Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so. God made the two great lights. The greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night, he made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness, and God saw that it was good. This is all description of what we call space. Now the one thing that we need to be clear on is it describes it as though space, the stars, the sun, and the moon, it says are set in the expanse. Does that mean that the people that wrote this, and this is actually Moses that wrote this under inspiration of the Spirit of God, does this mean that Moses was trying to describe that the sun and the moon and the stars are actually in our atmosphere? No. But from our perspective, what do we see? We look through our atmosphere to see space, to see the sun, to see the moon, and to see the stars. So in the sense of human perspective here on earth, it looks as though they're in the expanse. But the point is, it is a second level of heaven. So heaven number two is space. Heaven number one is the atmosphere around this earth. That leaves us only with the third heaven. Third heaven is what? I'll read one last passage. We'll end with this today. This is in 2 Corinthians. And we'll pick up with this next time. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And this is an experience of someone who actually was caught up into heaven and had a real experience of heaven, not a dream, not a pizza dream, not a made-up story in order to sell books. This was a real experience of being caught up into heaven. And Paul is writing about this experience as though another man has had this experience that he knows. What we need to understand is that Paul is actually describing in a humble way his own personal experience. Reading 2 Corinthians 12, verse 1. Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable. What he's talking about here is that his ministry has been called into question by the very people that he established as a church. It's happening because there are evil workers that are undermining Paul's reputation in the church. And so he's saying to them, in order to defend myself, it's necessary that I boast about myself. And he says, it's necessary that I boast, because otherwise you won't listen to what I have to teach you. But it's not profitable. In other words, he's reluctantly going to tell this experience. Paul had this experience sometime before this. He didn't immediately run out and publish it in order to sell the experience. He had the experience and was very reluctant to speak about it and only spoke about it because he had to in order to preserve the integrity of the ministry God had given him. Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, he had held this experience for 14 years without speaking to anyone about it. Whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, he wasn't, to this day, 14 years later, he wasn't clear whether the Lord bodily lifted him into heaven, or whether he took him spiritually to heaven and left his body on earth. And that's a detail that's not even important. Whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows, such a man was caught up to the third heaven. Which clearly implies what? There's a heaven number one and a heaven number two. Without mentioning them specifically, that's clearly implied in Paul's teaching. However, there's nowhere anywhere in the Bible that refers to a fourth heaven, a fifth, a sixth, or a seventh. The third heaven is the ultimate heaven. And I know how such a man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, God knows, was caught up into paradise. and heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak. So all he does is tells them that he had this experience, but he doesn't go into details about what he heard while he was there. In fact, he even goes on to say, I'm not allowed. to tell you what I heard when I was in heaven. Alright? So, I'm just emphasizing that as a comment about some of the books that you can find on the Christian bookshelves today claiming such an experience when that experience didn't actually happen. But for Paul, he was caught up into the third heaven and for Paul, the third heaven equaled Paradise. Now we've already studied recently when we went through our study on hell. We studied about paradise. What I'm going to do is I'll leave off right here. We'll pick up our teaching next week, Lord willing, and we'll see if we can come to grips with how it is that paradise is in the third heaven and what that means for what I'm calling the history of heaven itself. Let's pray as we come to an end of our study today though. Father God, as we just stop and think about and study together and consider the realities of heaven, Father, we are completely dependent and lean on you that you would take these words that you've preserved for us and revealed to us, you would apply them to our hearts, and we're exhorted in your word, Lord, to set our minds on the things above and not so much on the things here on this earth. to become more heavenly minded. In order to do that, Lord, we need to understand the reality of what heaven is, what you reveal to us, what the nature of that reality actually is. Father, I desire to be a person, and I believe everyone here has this same desire, Lord, that we want to be people that live according to truth and according to reality and not basing our lives in any measure upon fantasy. So I pray, Father, that you would Take our hearts and you would instruct us and you would reveal the truth to us and you would open our perspective and our eyes to see what heaven really is all about and what you have planned for us. And I pray that in doing that, Lord, you would make us more earthly good in the days that we have left than we've ever been up until now. And I ask you for that grace in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. The copyrighted product of Tree of Life Christian Church of Canoga Park, California. You are welcome to pass this message along to others as long as it is not sold and it is passed along unaltered in its entirety with source credit given to Tree of Life Christian Church.