Our Father, we thank you for the day that is coming when we will all be changed because we will see Christ as he is. And we know that since we have this hope in ourselves that we are to purify ourselves even as he is pure. So grant, Lord, that our study tonight might be a means of that purification in our lives. Purge out our sin, give us an expectancy, a hopefulness, an assurance that the day is coming when all that is wrong is going to be set to the right. and that all that remains in us that has fallen will be completely and totally rooted out and we will all be changed. We look forward to that day and we ask that you will help us tonight as we explore that concept to give careful attention to the word and to learn from it and to rejoice in it. For this we pray in Christ's name. Well, thank you, first of all, for your faithfulness over this summer, coming out to these six sessions. I have enjoyed it. I hope you have enjoyed it and profited from it. And we're going to bring it to a close tonight. I love this Spurgeon quote at the top. The angels know what the joys of heaven are, and therefore they rejoice over one sinner that repents. We talk about the pearly gates and the golden streets and white robes and harps of gold and crowns of amaranth and all that. But if an angel could speak to us of heaven, he would smile and say, All those fine things are but child's talk, and you are little children. And you cannot understand the greatness of eternal bliss, and therefore God has given you a child's horn book and an alphabet in which you may learn the first rough letters of what heaven is. But what it is, you do not know. And that's right, that's absolutely right. That's why we have to kind of approach this subject with a great deal of humility. There's no sense in speculating too much about what the scripture is silent about. We'll go as far as the scripture goes, and there may be some things that I'll speculate a little bit about it, but I'll tell you if I'm speculating. But otherwise, much of what we are looking forward to is still going to be revealed to us. We are looking through a glass darkly right now. But then we're going to look face to face and all of a sudden we're going to have all of our expectancies greatly enhanced. Whatever you're looking forward to, however much you're looking forward to the internal state, whatever you think that's gonna be like, we don't know the first part of it. We really don't. Years ago, I used this illustration in a sermon, and I've had people come up to me several times since then and tell me that they remember it. It's like a father who has a son that's turning 16. He decides that he's going to give his son his first car. And so the son has this expectation of maybe a 12-year-old beater with 180,000 miles on it and something that doesn't look very good, but it's going to be his. And he can't wait for it. And he's looking forward to it. But his expectations are right here. So the day comes for his 16th birthday. And he comes home from school, and he stands in front of the house and opens up the garage. And there in the garage is his new car. And it's a brand new Porsche 911 with everything tricked out and a big bow on top. And his father completely blew away his expectations. Your father is going to blow away your expectations. Whatever it is that you think is going to be so good about the eternal state, whatever it is that you think is going to be great about heaven and the new heavens and the new earth, is so much lower than what it is. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love him. So that's what we get to look forward to. So let's talk about this. So five essential facts tonight about our future. And just to remind you, we are talking about the four faces of Adam. This is the fourth face. Anybody remember the Latin phrase? That's it. Say it, Faith. non passe paccare, not able to sin. That's the last phase. That last phase is better than the first phase, because the first phase was passe paccare. Adam wasn't a sinner, but with the ability to sin. In the last stage of our redemption, we are not able to sin ever again. You don't have to worry about another fall. It isn't going to happen. So let's talk about what this looks like. There's a good deal of confusion about this. So at death, our souls are separated from our bodies until the day they are reunited in the resurrection. This is known as the intermediate state. Now, there is a great deal of miscommunication and misunderstanding related to the intermediate state. Every person that dies has their body die. Their soul, on the other hand, departs from that body and you go one of two places. You either go to heaven or you go to hell. that's what's known as the intermediate state. And the reason why it's known as the intermediate state is because there is still another state that is to come, the eternal state, or the final state, and that won't be inaugurated until the resurrection of your body. So we'll talk about that in just a moment. So, I say this a lot, heaven and hell, as they exist today in the intermediate state, are not your ultimate destiny. They're not. They're an intermediate destiny waiting for the resurrection of the body when the eternal state will be new heavens and new earth for the righteous and what Revelation calls the lake of fire for the wicked. The intermediate state is a disembodied state. It is an immaterial state. It is a state that is given to your soul. I want to be careful what I say here, because I don't want to give away anything should somebody hear this that knows who I'm talking about. I was at a funeral one time, and I was listening to a pastor doing part of the funeral, talking about the person that had been deceased, and that person had a body that had broken down on her. And she had suffered a good deal with that body until finally the body just gave out and died. And the pastor went on to say, you know, it's really wonderful today to think about sister so-and-so with a new body in heaven. And I just cringed when I heard that. Because her soul is in heaven, and that soul is glorified, that soul has been perfected, but her body was right there in front of us. And unless he thought there was some sort of spiritual body that she was going to inhabit in heaven, he completely misread the difference between the intermediate state, which is a spiritual non-bodily existence, and the eternal state, which is a permanent bodily existence. To be freed from that body that is breaking down, that's a good thing. But it isn't replaced with a different body, it waits for that body to be redeemed. That's the body that's going to be saved. And we're just waiting for that to happen until the end of time and the resurrection. Both believers and unbelievers return to dust, Genesis 3.19. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Acts 13.36, for David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and saw corruption. He's making the point, by the way, in that message, that Jesus is greater than David because his body never saw corruption, right? David did. These souls, the souls of the righteous, go immediately to be with Christ in heaven. Luke 23, 43, where Jesus speaks to the thief on the cross. I should say the criminal on the cross. He wasn't a thief. He didn't get crucified because he was stealing things. He was probably a murderer, probably a treasonous murderer. Jesus said to him, assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Which, by the way, indicates that Jesus did not go to hell for another three days. Whatever Peter means by preaching to the spirits, that's not what he means. Jesus said to the guy on the cross, you're going to be with me today in paradise. It also means, by the way, that in the resurrected body, when Mary Magdalene is holding on to him, And he says, don't hold on to me for I haven't yet ascended to my father. He doesn't mean that he didn't go to his father's side in that three day period of time. What he means is you can't hold on to me because I have to go and take my eternal position with the father at his right hand. That awaits my ascension 40 days from now. So don't hold on to me like you're going to keep me. I'm not going to be yours. Philippians 123, for I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, he goes on to say, of course, or to stay here, because I know that would be profitable for you. These souls are immediately and permanently changed. Amen. They cannot sin, being remade into the image of Christ. Hebrews 12, 23. And to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, made perfect. Made perfect. On the other hand, the souls of the wicked go immediately into punishment and torment. Luke 16, 22 through 24 is, of course, Jesus's very famous parable of the rich man and Lazarus. And you may remember when we were doing a series on the parables, and I came to that, I made the point, and I want to make it again right now, that in that parable, Jesus is not giving us a theology of hell. He's not trying to teach us what hell really is like. He's trying to teach us how horrible the idea of hell is and why people who go there should, or people that are going down a path where they have no concern for the poor, like Lazarus, they only have concern for themselves, they're just very self-centered, selfish, why those people are in danger of eternal torment. But Jesus is not giving us a theology of the intermediate state. Now, how do we know this? Well, we've already said that in the intermediate state, we have a spiritual existence, not a material one. So when the rich man, Dives, says to Abraham, send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, Lazarus doesn't have a finger, and Dives doesn't have a tongue. Whatever the torment in hell is in the intermediate state is a spiritual torment, not really a material or physical one. Now, go forward, and after the resurrection of the dead, and the wicked receive their bodies back and they're cast into the lake of fire, now their torment is both spiritual and physical, bodily. So what Jesus is doing is taking modern conceptions in the first century of Hades, and he's using those conceptions to teach a very, very important point, but the point is not about hell. The point is about the people that go and are separated from the eternal God. The intermediate state as we wait for our resurrected bodies is not these three things. To begin with, it's not soul sleep. We are conscious. This gets into really, really kind of metaphysical speculation here about how people who are time-bound move into a different realm and whether or not that realm is defined by space and time. I think the eternal state is. But the intermediate state is that, in other words, I hate to even speculate this way because you're gonna think I think this. I'm just suggesting it. When you awaken from that moment of death and you are immediately in the presence of God, you are stepping out of this world. And heaven, as a spiritual existence, is different than the existence that we have here. And how linear time is measured and how space in a spiritual existence is understood is just so far beyond my mind that I just don't comprehend it. I don't understand it. My guess is, though, that the righteous who are with the Lord right now aren't looking at their watches. and going, well, okay, I've been here how many weeks and years at this point? How many decades have been going by? You know, I wonder how much longer this is gonna happen until the Lord returns. I don't think they think and experience linear time the way we do, right? So, Faith, how long has it been since your dad died? 10 years. So think about all the things that have happened in your life and in faith's life in that 10 year period of time, right? How long has it been since Karn was gone? Seven. So think about the massive amount of changes that have taken place. Do they understand time in that way? Probably not. Probably not. But here's the point. Neither is their soul just sleeping. Like one of those science fiction movies where, you know, they send a rocket ship to Mars and in order to help them get through that long journey, they put them in some sort of, you know, cryogenic stupor where they don't realize that years and years and years are past. They just go to sleep and one day they wake up and they're at Mars, right? That's not probably what's happening. but we don't really understand it either. It's not a probationary period like purgatory where you've got to go somewhere and you've got to hang out there and you've got to suffer some and purge the rest of your sin out. Neither is it our ultimate state. And again, this is where I think people just have this false conception that eternity is going to be a disembodied experience sitting in clouds somewhere for a long, long, long eternity. And that's not what's going to happen. We're going to see in just a moment the eternal state is meant to happen right here, right where you're sitting right now. This is your earth. This is your home. This is where you're going to be. It's going to be changed, but this is where you're going to be. All right, that's the first fact. At death, our souls are separated from our bodies until the day they are reunited in the resurrection, the intermediate state. All right, number two. Christ will return to the earth bodily on the last day. According to Matthew 24, 36 and 42, this is a day that no man knows and will come unexpectedly. But in that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. Now just a point here. If we had time, I would ask you to turn to the Olivet Discourse there in Matthew chapter 24, and I would point out that at the beginning of the chapter, Jesus has just shown them the glory of the temple, and he's made the point that not one stone of that temple is gonna be left on top of another stone. And this is kind of shocking to the disciples, because it took 40 years to build this thing, and they can't imagine somebody wanting to tear it down, much less tearing it down. And so they ask two questions, thinking that they're really asking one. The first question is, Lord, what will be the sign? No, Lord, when will this happen? And secondly, what will be the sign of your coming? Now I think the reason they ask those two questions is that they think the answer is bound up together. That the temple's going to be destroyed when Jesus returns. Keep in mind, he's just pronounced woes over the city. He's talked about the Pharisees and the scribes in scathing terms. And then he says, everything's going to be torn down. And they're thinking, well, it must be going to be torn down when he returns. So they ask those two questions thinking that they're going to get one answer. In fact, he tells them two answers. He answers the first question in the first 30 or 31 verses. When he says, well, let me tell you when this is going to happen. When you see Jerusalem surrounded. when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, when there are all kinds of apocalyptic evidences in nature, and here he's not meaning literal earthquakes and literal moon turning to blood and those things, he's using language out of the prophets, apocalyptic language out of the prophets that they would use to describe God's judgment against the nations, not to be taken literally, to be understood in that sense. When you see all of these things, he says, Let the person who is on the rooftop, don't even take time to come down into your house. Just go from rooftop to rooftop to rooftop until you hit the city wall and then get out of there. And pray that this doesn't happen in winter, because that would be the worst time in the world for you guys to have to escape of Jerusalem, if it's in the wintertime. And hopefully, none of you, your wives are gonna be pregnant, because that day would be terrible to try to get out of Jerusalem when they're pregnant. And then he ends that first section by saying, I'm telling you, this generation is not going to pass away until all these things are fulfilled. Now, if you're a disciple on the Mount of Olives listening to Jesus say that, and he says this generation is not going to pass away until you see all these things happen, who do you think he's going to be talking about? And a biblical generation's 40 years, and you think, next 40 years, this is gonna happen. And by the way, it did. In 70 AD, Titus, the Roman general, came against Jerusalem and destroyed that city and destroyed that temple. Did exactly what Jesus said he was gonna do. By the way, Josephus, the Jewish historian, says there were no Christians left in Jerusalem when all of this happened. They knew what the Lord had said, and they paid attention to his warnings, and they got out. But of that day and hour, now he answers the second question. When will these things be? Question number one. And what will be the signs of your coming? Question number two. But of that day and hour, nobody knows. There are no signs. A thief doesn't call you up and say, just wanted to let you know, Everett, you'll be in the neighborhood tomorrow night? Probably sometime between 10 and 12, like a cable repair guy. Sometime between midnight and 6 o'clock, I'm going to show up at your house. Just wanted to let you know. Kind of a courtesy call. A thief comes in the night when nobody's expecting. It's when everybody is saying, everything's OK. It's peace. Everything's going on just like it always has. This is what Peter says, right? Like in the days of Noah. Noah, what are you doing? I'm building an ark. Why are you building an ark? It's going to rain. What's rain? Well, it's a lot of water that's going to come down from heaven. And it's going to destroy this earth. And I'm telling you right now, come and get in the ark with me. You crazy old man. Are you kidding me? That's the way it's going to be. People aren't going to be expecting the Lord's return. They're not going to be waiting for the Lord's return. That's when he comes, when nobody knows. So when some radio preacher tells you that he's got it all figured out and there's this complex mathematical formula that has told you that it's somehow related to the Feast of the Trumpets, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can just pretty much mark that day on your calendar and say he's not coming that day. 1 Thessalonians 5.2. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. The purpose of his coming is to judge the wicked, including Satan and his host, and bring everlasting salvation to his redeemed creation. Matthew 26, 31 through 34. Okay? All right. So the first fact is when we die, our souls immediately go to be with the Lord. Those souls are changed completely, but our body is still remaining in the ground. Fact number two, at some point in the future, unknown by any of us, Jesus says that he is going to return, and his return is not going to be spiritual. He's already returned spiritually. He is dwelling with us by his Holy Spirit even as we sit here and speak tonight. He is present. This was the promise that he gave the disciples. He said, I'm not going to leave you like orphans. I'm going to come to you by sending to you one who is just like me, the paraclete, the helper. He's going to come with you and he's going to be in you. Spiritually, Jesus is with us by the means of his Holy Spirit, but he's coming physically. Now, that leads us to number three. Christ's return will be accompanied by a physical resurrection of the dead. John 5, 28 and 29. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, just like Lazarus heard his voice and came forth. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. So this is where I differ from my dispensational friends. I believe in a general resurrection of the dead, not a two-stage resurrection, one that happens at this point for the righteous and one that happens a thousand years later for the wicked. I think Jesus teaches, and the Bible teaches, and the New Testament teaches, that there is a general resurrection of the dead that takes place when the Lord returns. and that that resurrection of the dead is both to the righteous as well as to the unrighteous. One will be resurrected to life eternal, the other will be resurrected to eternal condemnation. And their existence is going to be material, physical. Those who are still living at Christ appearing will be changed instantly without the normal course of decay and death. 1 Corinthians 15, 51 and 52. Behold, I tell you a mystery. What does the word mystery mean in the Bible? Especially if it's being used by Paul in the New Testament. Something that was previously unknown, but now he's going to revealed to us, right? Something that you couldn't have gone to the Old Testament scriptures and put together. He talked about mysteries in a number of different places in a number of different contexts. So he said, I'm going to tell you something that you probably didn't know from your reading of the Old Testament. By the way, how many passages in the Old Testament unambiguously speak of the resurrection? One. There are some that hint at it, like Job, saying that I know that in my flesh I will see my Redeemer. But there are ways to explain Job's comments that don't necessarily preclude a resurrection or don't teach it explicitly. The only place that is taught explicitly is in Daniel chapter 12. Daniel chapter 12. So he's gonna reveal something that otherwise they might not know. We will not all sleep. Don't you love that word for death? He doesn't mean soul sleep. He means body sleep. Now why would Paul describe death as sleeping? Because it presumes somebody's going to be awakened. He says, not all of us are all going to sleep, but we all shall be changed. in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." So he's speaking believers here. He could also speak of unbelievers. But he is speaking of believers here, and he's saying, Lorraine, not every Christian is actually going to have to die. Because there are going to be many Christians who are going to be alive at this last day, this day that we don't know about. I mean, it could happen right now. Before we go home tonight, the Lord could return. And if he did, that means there would be no funeral for anybody in this room. Nobody having to go to a graveside, nobody having to endure the sorrow and the pain of watching us die. If the Lord returned right now, we would be changed. And how quickly would the change take place? How long? You mean not 150 years of purgatory? You mean right then, at that moment, we would all be changed? That's what he says, right? Absolutely, he says that. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, how long does it take your eye to twinkle? Somebody twinkle your eye and I'll count it. Pass, and immediately. The dead are going to be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed. So Paul uses an analogy, a metaphor in chapter 15. He says, think of the body dying like a farmer taking a seed and putting that seed into the ground. When it goes into the ground, it looks like one thing. And about four months later, it comes up out of that ground, and it looks very different. It is the same seed. but it has changed. God isn't in the process of replacing your body. That's not what salvation is. He's not replacing your soul. That's not what salvation is. When I was a kid, I used to have this concept that when you become a Christian, you basically have two natures inside of you. An old nature that was completely sinful and a new nature that was completely righteous. And it was kind of a variation of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, you know. And so there was just the constant fight. You were kind of a split personality, multiple personality. And some days you gave into the old nature and some days you gave into the new nature. And one day the old nature would just be gone. But that's not what the Bible teaches. God isn't replacing your nature and he isn't replacing your body. He's renewing it, he's changing it. It's the same soul, it's the same body, just glorified, just changed. What's it gonna look like? Well, here we can only speculate, but we do know that when Jesus appears after his resurrection, He's not entirely recognized by everybody, right? Maybe because it was dark, but Mary at the tomb thinks he's the gardener. Maybe it was just so dark and shadows and everything, she didn't see him well. But the Emmaus disciples didn't recognize him either. Now, it was said that their mind was clouded so that they didn't understand who it was that he was with. His body, could move from outside the room inside the room without going through a door. I don't know how that happened. I can't do that now. Neither can you. But he could sit down on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and eat fish with the disciples. That gives me hope. We're gonna have barbecue in the eternal state. Is it just fish? Oh, man. Brad is our elder of killjoy. All right. That leads us to number two. It will be a resurrection of the same body that died. That is, it will be identical in essence and substance, but different in quality. And here's that passage from Job. And afterwards, my skin is destroyed. This I know, that in my flesh I shall see God. 1 Corinthians 15, 35, 42 through 44. Someone will say, how are the dead raised up and with what body do they come? Well, those are the kind of questions all of us have, right? So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown, there's the seed, in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It's raised in power. It's sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. By spiritual body, he doesn't mean that it is immaterial. That's not what he's saying. He's rather saying that the body is of a different quality, a quality that is higher and greater and more wonderful than the body that you have now. Think about it this way. If the purpose of God's redemptive plan is to establish us in a world that has been perfected that Adam himself could have inherited had he but obeyed, then it stands to reason that the world that we are going to be in and the bodies that we are going to have will be, to a great measure, like the body and the world that existed before the fall. Now, what kind of existence could Adam have enjoyed? beyond what he knew in that probationary period before the fall, I can't say that. We can only speculate. But that's what the Lord's doing. He's taking us back to that paradise and then improving upon it. It's not subject to corruption. It's glorious and possessing great power. It is completely and perfectly subject to the rule of the Holy Spirit. but it will have continuity with our present bodies. So somebody says, well, OK, Tony, let's just think about this. Are there any exceptions to that rule? Somebody asked me one time about, let's say, somebody whose body was burned up, just completely disintegrated. Somebody that had been lost at sea and, you know, arm was taken. This is morbid. Arm was taken by one shark this way and another shark that way and it's kind of spread all over the, you know, seven seas. Well, I mean, the answer to that question is you're talking about God here, right? And the God that can speak the universe into existence out of nothing isn't going to have any problem taking all of the molecular residue of your body and bringing it all back together in the resurrection. That's not going to be a big issue for him. It's going to be your body. It's going to be the one that you have right now, but changed, incorruptible. Now, let's talk a little bit about eternality and immortality. Adam was not eternal. If he had come to pass the probationary period so that he was confirmed in righteousness, he would have lived eternally. It was in the day that he ate of the forbidden fruit that he began to die, right? Death enters as an intruder, as an alien intruder into this world. It was not part of the original creation. Having said that, let's be careful to understand that there was a time when Adam was not. And there was the capacity for Adam to die. so that he was not an immortal, eternal soul in and of himself. That's an incommunicable attribute that only belongs to God. So our eternality, or better put, our everlasting life, everlasting I think is better than eternal because eternal seems to send it in both directions, past and present. And really, in that sense, only God is eternal. We're going to have everlasting life. Our geometry, what is it when two lines go in opposite directions? That's a line, and then a ray has a point and goes off into the future. So we were never a line. We will be a ray. But the only reason we are a ray is because we are given that immortality. We are given that everlasting life. It is resident within the hand of God. That's true, by the way, for the wicked. That's true by the wicked. There are people who believe in what's known as conditional immortality and believe that after a period of time, the wicked in hell will have their everlasting life taken away from them and that they will just cease to exist and that they will not suffer eternally. I wish I could believe that. I mean that sincerely, I do. There's a big part of me that finds that idea very, very attractive. The thought of somebody suffering eternally is such a hard concept. But I don't think that's what the scripture teaches. I wish it did, but I don't think that it does. All right, that brings us to the fourth fact. All men, without exception, will be judged on the last day by their deeds. Ecclesiastes 12.14, For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. 2 Corinthians 5.10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done. whether good or bad. Now, this is part of a very large conversation. That we are saved by grace apart from works, but that we are judged by works. And this becomes one of those questions is like, well, how's that true? If we are saved by grace apart from works, how is it that we will one day stand before the Lord and, according to these verses, be judged according to the works that are done in our bodies by us? How's that possible? Well, unbelievers are judged severely because they've broken the law of God. Believers, on the other hand, are already judged at the cross. Christ is punished for our sins and we in turn are given all of his perfect works. So we might say on one hand that the works that are judged in us on the last day are the works of Christ imputed to us. And that's not wrong. That is true. That's the basis of our justification. That's the grounds of our standing before God. And yet it is also true that it is the intention of God for us to stand before him having truly done good works. And that's why the writer of Hebrews says, pursue holiness. Because apart from holiness, no one will see the Lord. That it is God, not justifying us by our works, but justifying himself through the existence of good works in believers. It is as though he's saying, look at these people, once fallen, once detestable, once sinners, once without any hope in this world, and now they stand before me with the existence of good works, not as the grounds of their acceptance, but as the evidence of their acceptance. They have true good works because I have been at work in them. Fifth, believers will enter the new heaven and the new earth to eternal reward. with glorified bodies, while the unbelievers will enter the lake of fire to eternal damnation. And this is the eternal state. So just turn with me real quick to Revelation 20. And verse Let's go down to verse 11. Then I saw a great white throne, and it was seated on it, from whose presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. So the first books that were opened are a catalog of works. The second book is open is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. So the first death is when your soul is detached from your body. The second death is when death and Hades and those who are unrighteous are cast into the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Okay. Then, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." What he means here is the earth as it is now. Peter would say we are looking, according to his promises, for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. He speaks about this this fire that purges the earth. I think it's highly symbolic language. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally. But a metamorphosis that comes over the earth and over the heavens where the final curse that has its claw grips in this world finally is released. And Paul in Romans chapter eight says that the world right now, if you just listen to it, it's groaning. It's groaning. Like a woman who's just waiting for that baby to be born, and it just won't come. And just keeps thinking, how much longer am I gonna be laboring here? When's that baby gonna come out? It's groaning, waiting for what? Our adoption. The adoption of sons, and then comma, to tell us what the adoption of sons is? Our glorified bodies. when we're going to be changed. When we're going to be changed, the earth is going to be changed, nature, creation is going to be changed. And it's just waiting for that to happen. And that's what's pictured here, is that this old earth, the way it is now, is going to be renewed and changed, not replaced, renewed. The sea was no more. I don't think that means, by the way. I think this is picturesque language, and it's apocalyptic language. And I don't think it's supposed to be taken literally, any more than you think that the streets of the new heaven and new earth are going to be made of gold, right? Why, by the way, would that image be given? Streets paved with gold. All right. I think you are on the right track, Lorraine. We, what's that? That's right. The thing that is, we value so highly, we walk under our feet on. You know, we pave the roads with it. That's how upside down our value systems will be. in the new heavens and the new earth. Things that we value so highly today, we pave the streets with. It also teaches about how beautiful it's going to be, how wonderful it's going to be, but it's making a point. I fully expect us to have the oceans in the new earth, but anyway. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride for her husband. What is this New Jerusalem? Is it a literal city that's going to kind of hover above the earth? You're not quite right, but you're getting there. Who is this bride that is adorned for her husband? Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God. That's where the temple was, right, in the Old Testament. If you wanted to go see where God is, you go to Jerusalem. You go to the temple, that's where God was. If you want to go see where God is today, where do you go? Cross Point Community Church. Well, not really. But you look around at genuine believers, you are the temple of God. You are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. And so what you see coming down from heaven adorned as a bride is the new Jerusalem. It's not the place that you can go to a globe today and look on and go, okay, Middle East, there is the Mediterranean Sea. Oh, Israel, Jerusalem. That's the old Jerusalem. The new Jerusalem is here. It's all of these believers. And so you get this beautiful image of all of these believers caught up in the air to be with the Lord. And now with the Lord, they come down as a bride adorned for her husband. Beautiful. Why? Why are we so beautiful? Because we've been changed. We've been changed into His image. Perfected. We don't look all that beautiful now. We will then, we will then. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. That is one of the most important verses in all of the Bible. This was the promise given throughout the Old Testament. When Adam is banished from the sanctuary, the temple sanctuary that was the presence of God in Eden, his throne room on earth, the sanctuary, the temple where Adam came to dwell and to worship, when man is cast out of that presence, there is this recurring theme throughout the Old Testament that the day is coming. when God will come and be with His people and dwell with them yet again, just like He dwelt with them at the beginning of creation, without any barriers to intimacy and worship and fellowship. And now, as the people of God descend to this new Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God, the angels shout, or somebody shouts, and says, finally, what we've been waiting for throughout the Old Testament, that God would one day dwell with His people again. It's happened. Look, there are His people, and He is in their midst. Paradise has been regained. Eden has been rebuilt. And once again, we are dwelling and walking with God in the cool of the day. No guilt, no condemnation, no sin, no death, no fear. Can you just for a moment try to imagine how light, how light your soul will be in a day when you have no guilt, no fear, no worries, no sorrows, no conflict, It's just gone. That's why he goes on to say, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. This is the eternal state. The curse will be removed from the earth and again be the paradise that God had originally created. The new creation will be a recapitulation of the old original creation, but with the added benefit of being fixed in perfection. So on that day, no more probation for humanity. No more, no more, testing. And we know this is true because if you continue to read on through the chapter, guess what's in the middle of the Garden of Eden? The tree of life. The tree of life that was forbidden to Adam. No. No, you forfeited your right to have it. It was yours, it was there for the taking. But you fixated on this other tree. You wanted what I refused you to have, forbade you to have. And so you lose the right to partake of the eternal life that is there. But there's no more prohibitions for us. The probationary period is over. We are fixed in righteousness, so angel with the flaming sword, move out of the way. There's the tree of life. Help yourself. Go eat. Enjoy. It's for your health and your eternity forevermore. This is beautiful, because the Bible ends the way the Bible began. Just better. Just a whole lot better. And that's where our destiny's at. And your salvation, if you are a Christian, is headed on this trajectory. So, persevere. Don't throw away your hope. Don't throw away your confidence. Don't abandon this faith as hard as it is now, as difficult as it is now. No matter how much pain you may suffer now, it will be worth it. And in that day, we'll look back and we'll be able to say with Paul, I reckon that the light, temporary afflictions that I suffer now are not worthy to be compared with the eternal weightiness of glory. Doesn't seem that way now. Seems like those afflictions are pretty heavy. But in that day, the weightiness of glory will make these light afflictions, temporal afflictions, seem not too bad. Okay. All right, we got a little bit of time left. You have any questions for me? All right, Lorraine. Blood. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, all right, so I'm going to speculate here. When he destroyed the earth by water, and the water receded, was the earth still there? Had it been changed? probably changed a lot. I mean, when water runs through my yard, it changes, you know, it changes things, much less if you have a kind of deluge that happened in Noah's day, right? Earth itself, though, was still there, but it had been changed, you know. Depending on your view of these things, I mean, the Grand Canyon's formed and other things are formed because of that water. So let's say that the fire is meant to be taken literally, right? And it's possible. I think it's metaphorical, but it's possible. I know. I know. I get it. But let's say it's literal, okay? Will the same earth still be there? And I think the answer is yes. But it will be changed in the same way that it was changed by the flood. It will be changed yet again, except this time, and this is where I think, this is why I think it's metaphorical. What it's gonna be released from is a spiritual curse that has physical manifestations. Death, decay, entropy, those kinds of things. So if I find out in the eternal state it's actually going to start by a fiery change, I'll look you up and say, hey, you were right. But I'm pretty sure that it's still going to be the same earth, just different, liberated, liberated. Good question. I always count on Lorraine asking good questions. Anything else? What are we going to be doing? I haven't addressed that. Good question. Yeah, I'm going to be in the backyard smoking pig and brisket, not cigarettes. All right, so here I can only speculate, right? I know for a certainty that part of the glory of the eternal state is going to be unhindered worship. So let's start there. That we're going to worship like we've never worshipped before. immediate. Right now we see with the eyes of faith and we come together as a congregation and we believe that the Lord is present with us. We have that promise and that assurance that he's present with us, but with our own eyes we don't see him. That day we will. The Lamb will be the center of the universe. And the rest of us, like Israel of old, that radiated out from the tabernacle in the wilderness, the rest of the universe is going to radiate out from that throne room. And so part of what we're going to be doing is just worship. I believe that we're also going to be building a civilization. We're going to be subduing the earth again. We're going to be domesticating the animals. I don't think they're going to be opposed to us, but we are going to do what Adam should have done at the very beginning, with one exception. I don't think there's procreation. We're not going to be. We're not going to be multiplying and filling the earth. God has multiplied us and he will continue to multiply us through the new birth, through regeneration, and we will fill the earth already because of the new birth as opposed to the old. But I suspect we're going to spread out. We're going to go around the globe. And we are going to build civilizations. And they're going to be really marvelous, incredible places. Adam was created to work. Adam was created to be a social being. Adam was created to be intelligent, to be musical, artistic. Think about the talents that you'd like to have and God didn't give them to you now. You know, some of you like to sing beautifully and the Lord didn't bless you with a voice or some of you like to play an instrument or paint or whatever it happens to be. Well, what if God in the new heavens and the new earth infuses you with those talents and those abilities so that your heart's desire is fulfilled in ways that you could never imagine? I put it another way. We just finished watching the Olympics. I watched Usain Bolt run. And he's like from another world. Just unbelievable sprinter, right? Incredible. I watched Michael Phelps swim. In completely different areas, I listened to Luciano Pavarotti open his voice and sing. Michelangelo paint. And I ask myself, if those abilities are in part genetic, what was the fountainhead of that gene pool? Before it all got diluted down the line, where did it start? Well, that tells you something about what Adam and Eve were like. I mean, if those genes were resident in them, whoo, they must have been some people, man. Take the curse away. Take it off your mind. And right now, you just struggle sometimes to think, and just take sin off your mind, and off your will, and off all the limitations that come your way. And imagine what humanity could do without the curse. Well, I think that's probably where we're headed. I think that's where we're headed. I mean, we think we're technologically advanced today. But you go back further, closer and closer to the gene pool, and you look at some amazing things those people did. Machu Picchu, is that what it's called? How'd they build the pyramids? I mean, it's incredible some of the things that they did. You know, they keep discovering. And once we started flying, we started looking down at the Earth, and we see things that were done 1,000 years ago, 1,500 years ago by ancient civilizations here in the United States. And you find out that these civilizations were creating these places that were matching perfectly with, you know, the orbit of planets and stuff. And you go, how in the world did they do that? Well, I'm kind of getting far afield here, but lift the curse from off of us and imagine what we're going to be able to do. So I think we're going to be industrious. I think we're going to be cultured. I think we're going to be full of activity. I think play sports. Yeah, it's not. It's not with sweat. It's a delight, because whatever our hand sets to do, it does really, really well without the frustrations of making small projects big projects, which is what happens with me around the house. A little project becomes a huge project. And that's frustrating. I like to think I'm going to be chasing Melanie around, I don't probably think that's the way it's gonna work. I say, I don't think so. Jesus said in heaven, you know, there's neither marriage nor giving in marriage. Now, is he talking about the eternal state or the intermediate state? I don't know. You know, that was the question that came to him is, so, you know, woman, Marries a man, he dies. She marries another man, he dies. Marries another man, he dies. Marries another man, he dies. Whose wife is she gonna be? And Jesus said, you got it all wrong. That's not the way it works. But, we will have the perfect family, and it will be significantly larger than we have now. fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters in this age and the age to come. Massive numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it is a metaphor that also points to a reality. On one hand, in the new creation that we are already enjoying, natural enemies have become reconciled by the cross. So Lorraine and Tony might be natural adversaries, the lion and the lamb. But in the new creation that already has begun, we have been reconciled toward one another. Right, yeah. But in the new creation, that becomes a literal thing where you're not going to have to worry about alligators killing two-year-olds at Disney World. you're not gonna have to worry about walking through the bush in the outback and being bitten by the most poisonous snake on earth. Those concerns are gonna be gone. And God is going to remove those kinds of animosities that exist. And I think that that leads me to say there were animals before the fall, and I think there will be animals in the new creation. I can't tell you that your pet will be there. But I think you'll have pets. But instead of a little chihuahua, if you want, you can have a pet as a rhinoceros or something. Yes. They will be immortal as well. And if I can speculate again, how many species have become extinct? that could repopulate in the new heavens of Newark. Wouldn't you like to see, wouldn't you like to see what, you know, sometimes gets spoken of, Leviathan, and things like that in the scriptures, and you don't know what it's about? I mean, wouldn't it be marvelous to be able to go to a real Jurassic Park, except you don't have, you know, the raptors after you? that you can tell Tyrannosaurus Rex to get on his knees, you want to pet him, and everything's okay. I mean, I'm being silly, but I'm not being silly. What if God repopulates this thing with every species that have ever existed? A woolly mammoth, you know? And you can go swim with the whales. and enjoy this creation that God's given to us in all of its varied beauty and complexity and wonder. I think that's what we're looking forward to. That's right. You would do this because you look at this creation and go, what an unbelievable God this is. And by glorifying him, I get to enjoy him forever. Yeah, that's right. Okay, anything else? Yes. Yes. He does. And that's why I'm hesitant to say that there is no space or time. I just don't understand how it works. Spirits are confined to a body. What happens when they lose the body? Do they lose their confines? Yeah, I don't know. I just don't know. But yes, he is bodily in heaven. Yeah, unless the angels have some sort of body up there. But we know they're spirit beings as well. And how do you see without eyes? How do you speak without mouth? I don't know. Yes. Yeah, yeah. The souls of the martyrs under the throne. Yeah. Well, first of all, Jesus says the angels rejoice over a sinner that comes to repentance, right? And Paul says that the angels look intently at these things because they are learning about God's ways in a way that they wouldn't personally know. They didn't fall. They don't sin. They don't know what reconciliation is, forgiveness, any of those things. They're watching. So yes, the angels definitely have a view to what's going on, and I happen to think that we have angels that are in this room even as we speak, just as we probably have demons in this room. and listening to what we're saying and watching and so forth. I think they occupy this space in some way that I just don't understand. But then the question becomes, and it's something I've thought about a lot, do the souls of believers turn their gaze away from the throne to look and gaze back down on earth and watch? Do they have that capacity? And my inclination is to say no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. I don't know. It is speculation. I would love to think that I have loved ones in heaven that know when wonderful things happen to our family and rejoice in that. But I can't say for sure. I'm pretty sure they're not gazing at us, watching us. Yes. Yes, they would. They would be more inclined to. Yeah. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they don't care. I will go so far as to say there is no sorrow. If they do know, they're not sad. They're not disappointed. Yeah, it's hard to fathom. Right, right, yeah. God's taken away all of their sorrow, all of their disappointments. He's taken that away. I don't understand how I could stand on the last day and see family and friends lost forever and that not affect and impact me negatively. But if he wipes away all tears from our eyes, if he takes away all of our sorrow, all of our crying, then it is because we are at a different plane of existence and we know perfectly his justice and his righteousness and we glory in that enough that we are not sorrowful by that reality.