If you turn with me this evening to Revelation 21. Revelation 21. I want to read just verses 1 and 2 and then 22 through 27. 1 and 2, 22 through 27 of Revelation 1. Hear the word of God. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. And there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it. For the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. And the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it, and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination. or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." May God bless His sacred word. Well, dear friends, I suppose that heaven is as popular today as it is misunderstood. TV programs that deal with heaven and angels Nearly any other aspect of the life to come are immensely popular. Even non evangelical authors are writing on utopian heavenly themes. Books on heaven or angels often make New York Times bestseller lists. The vast majority of Americans believe in heaven. And think they're going there. Obituaries and tombstones of their loved ones contain the conviction that nearly everyone is departed into a better place. Most Americans also believe in hell. Recently a survey was taken of Americans and 88% believe in hell, but only 4% say there is a remote possibility that they will go there. If you evaluate this interest in our culture, it is at best superficial. Most treatments of heaven are nothing but wishful thinking. People long to be there with their pets. Or they long to be there playing their favorite sport. They have no factual evidence to back up their hopes. Their belief in heaven does not impact the way they live today. They have a man-centered view of the world to come. How wrong, how dreadfully wrong, how blasphemously wrong are so many views about heaven today. You cannot view heaven without God. to leave God out of heaven is to have no heaven at all. But what about the church? We who have received the word of God, we who read and meditate on what it shall be to be in the life to come, how much do we focus on heaven? We often say, well, there's so much about heaven we don't know. And I suppose that's true. But there is a lot in the Bible about heaven. L. Martin once said, if you took a scissors and you cut off, cut out all the text in the Bible about heaven and you pasted them all together, you'd have a decent sized book. Why are we so silent about heaven, about our future home? Even in our reformed confessional history, It's remarkable how quiet we are about heaven. The Westminster Confessions have only a few sentences about eternal life and our own continental trees aren't much better. Lord's Day 19 of the Heidelberg Catechism speaks of heavenly joys and glory, but doesn't tell us much about what they are. Lord's Day 22 gives us a very beautiful, succinct, helpful description of life everlasting. But it only takes three lines. The Belgian confession does a bit better in Article 37, speaking of receiving such glory has never entered into the heart of man to conceive, but it too doesn't tell us a great deal concrete. About heaven. Then if you turn to reform systematic theologies, you're stunned. John Kelvin, in his 1200 page institutes, has only two pages on heaven. Lewis Burkoff, in his 800 page systematic theology, has one page on heaven. Now, there are a few great classics that have been written on heaven. We're grateful for those. Richard Baxter wrote a 600 page Saints Everlasting Rest that is a welcome exception. But until recently, there's been very little written on heaven. We've had the privilege a few months ago of publishing one of Maurice Roberts little books on heaven, the happiness of heaven, just a small 100 page paperback, a wonderful book that helps lift us up in a popular way. to the glories to come in a way that is true to Scripture. How much more we should be preaching on this subject. How much more we should be writing about this subject. This is our future destiny, dear believer. This is your home to be with God forever. This is assurance par excellence to be with the Lord in the land where doubt never comes. Surely, this is the capstone of assurance of faith. Now, why is it that we don't focus sufficiently on heaven? Well, let me give you three reasons. For one, we are too much in love with this world, too preoccupied with things of time and sense. We're so caught up with temporal things and the pressures of our hectic schedule that thinking about the world to come becomes an optional item, perhaps even something on our want list. But we never get to that want list. And so it takes a low priority. We've fallen too much in love with this world and too much out of love with the world to come. And so John Calvin's statement that they who do not ardently long for heaven to be with Christ forever have made little progress in their spiritual pilgrimage on earth rings hollow in our ears. How can it be? How can something so short, so temporary, so introductory as this temporary life take up all our time and passion? And something so big and so long, so eternal as heaven, be pushed to the background? Well, I suppose it happens because what we do is we take something small. You boys and girls, maybe you've done this. Maybe you've stood outside and you've Maybe you've taken a quarter like this and you put it up to your eye and you close one eye. Don't ever look at the sun with your eyes open. But you put a quarter in front of your eye and you can't see the sun. And that's what we're doing, you see. We make this temporary life so close to us, we can't see the big sun because of the little quarter in our eye. That's how we live. Everything is about this life rather than the life to come. The second reason we think little about heaven is because we're too comfortable here on earth. Even the poorest of us live like kings compared to many other parts of the world. Many places I've had the privilege to go in the world, my friend, I assure you that every single one of us lives in the high class aristocracy of the world. We are all wealthy and rich beyond the means of 99% of the people of this world. We live with so many comforts. We hardly give a thought to the unspeakable love and the solid joys and the lasting pleasures of heaven. We've become drugged with our own pleasure seeking on earth instead of hankering for the pleasures in heaven above. We've lost the language, We've lost the content. We've lost the substance of becoming pilgrims on the earth. We put our roots down too deeply in this earth's soil. And we are too comfortable to spend much time hoping for a better world because we build our mansions here. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the love in heaven It's too intimate a theme for us to handle. You know how some people get very embarrassed talking about intimate things. When it comes to talking about how much they love their wives or their husbands, they shy away. And they fall back into a kind of mediocrity in which they live Well, on a safe level, they communicate on a safe level. And so soon they become mediocre husbands and wives who seldom commune together in deep and profound ways or mediocre parents who seldom really talk to their children. We become mediocre, therefore, in every area of our lives, ultimately, even in our worship and our prayer, not truly praying in our prayers or truly worshiping in our worship. And so we just kind of live on and on with things rather than in relationships. And that's precisely where so many people in this world can teach us Americans a great deal. When you go to many foreign cultures, they've got no possessions. They live by their relationship with God and their relationship with one another. It's a relationship centered culture. But what we do is we're afraid of that. Relationships make you vulnerable. And so we shield ourselves. We pad ourselves with things and possessions and toys and hobbies and trinkets. And we're afraid of the intimacy of communion with God. We feel too vulnerable in the presence of God, too naked before Him. And so heaven, with all its intimacy, heaven, as Jonathan Edwards said, is a world of love, with all its love. It's too much for us. Too much for our minds to grasp. Too high for our emotions to sustain. Beyond our capacity to embrace. It's too rich. It's too big. It's too personal for us to contemplate. And yet, we're the losers. in all three of these reasons for avoiding the glories, the assuring love of God in heaven. Yes, there's much about this subject we don't know. But yes, there's much about this subject we do know. And tonight, with God's help, I want to stammer just a little bit about it with you, about this perfect state of assured love the love of God in heaven. I'm just going to read as my text only verse 23, the last part of Revelation 21, 23. And the lamb is the light thereof. And our theme then this evening is God's assuring love in heaven. I have three thoughts. First will be very brief. To himself, the love of God to himself in heaven. Second, and I'll focus here to his people. And third. In the communion of saints, the love of God in heaven to himself, to his people and in the communion of saints. Now, one reason why heaven is a perfect state of love is because heaven is the home of God. Heaven is where God most clearly reveals Himself, His glory and His love. Heaven is where He shows the fullness of His love, where His attributes shine the brightest. Heaven is God's arena of glory and of love. Romans 5, verse 2 calls heaven the glory of God. So heaven opens to us God's world of love. And the center of the love of God in heaven is the love of God within his own Trinitarian being. You see, one of the greatest ways God shows his love in heaven is by letting his love for himself shine. so that his people can see how the father loves the son and the spirit, how the son loves the father and the spirit and how the spirit loves the father and the son. You see, if you really want to focus on someone else you love, you put the focus on them and not on yourself. And so it is with true believers. They're often weary of themselves in this life. I hope you are too. And you long for the love of God in heaven. That love that will focus supremely on God, so that you can worship Him, and adore Him, and end in Him. And so when heaven is full of this wonderful inner Trinitarian love, you want to be drawn into that love. You want to contemplate that love. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, The best moments of my life here below have not even been those moments, as precious as they are, that have been taken up with my own salvation. But they are those moments in which my soul has been taken up to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and to forget myself with holy self-forgetfulness and just behold the glory and the love of God. What assurance! What beautiful assurance comes from centering upon God and His communication of love to Himself as the cause and fountain of all true love. Listen to what Edwards says, God is the fountain of love as the sun is the fountain of light. And therefore, the glorious presence of God in heaven fills heaven with love as the sun placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day fills the world with delight. The apostle tells us that God is love and therefore seeing he is an infinite being, it follows that he is an infinite fountain of love seen as an all sufficient being. It follows that he is a full and overflowing and inexhaustible fountain of love. And in that He is an unchangeable and eternal being, He is an unchangeable and eternal fountain of love. There, even in heaven, you see, dwells this God from whom every stream of holy love, every drop of love that ever was or is or shall be proceeds. What a blessing that our God, is a family God within Himself, not in subordination, but in equality, a Father, a Son, a Spirit, all co-equal, co-eternal, communicating love to one another. How impoverished are the gods of the heathen, who cannot speak, cannot hear, cannot see. How impoverished is the God of Islam, Allah, who is a solitary individual, who has never penetrated our world, who has never entered into the heart of man, who has never become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh and tabernacled among us. But our God is a communicative God. Our God is a family God. Our God has relationship within Himself. Our God is full of glory and love. Our God is not like Allah, capricious, but is steadfast in His amazing, stupendous love. Everything about God shines forth in glory like beams of love coming from the sun. There is this glorious fountain forever that flows forth, said Edwards, in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight. And these rivers swell, as it were, into an ocean of love in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment as their hearts are deluged with love and glory. Well, that's the first thing. God's assuring love in heaven is grounded and his reassuring love within his own triune being. There is our foundation. There is our security. Now, what a security that is. You know, when I grew up, I never saw my parents give anything more to each other than a peck on the cheek when they said goodbye. It wasn't until my father died that my mother told me at one time, you had a very affectionate father. And I was astonished. I never saw it. You had a very affectionate father. I've thought often about those words. And I believe it's a wonderful thing when children grow up bathed in an atmosphere where they see their father and mother embrace and kiss within limits, of course. But they feel the love, you see, of mom and dad. They feel security when they see their love manifested in words, in actions, in embraces, in hugs. Children need to know that between husband and wife, the other is number one. It gives them security. One of our daughters is very young. She brought home a picture from school. I think she was six years old. And it was two swans in a river and they were like kissing each other. And she smiled and she held it up and she pasted it on the refrigerator door and she told the rest of the family, that's mom and dad. She said it was such confidence. Well, what a blessing in a world broken with trials and problems. There's this security for children growing up. I know, I know my mom and dad love each other. But what security Christians have when you know that the Father and the Son and the Spirit have an unbreakable love for one another. And that the Father hears the Son always. That son who has said, Father, I will that my people, thy people, shall be loved with a very love wherewith thou dost love me. Talk about assurance. There you have it. God's love to you, dear believer, cannot possibly fail. Jesus Christ is your elder brother. He's promised to love you forever. For that love to fail is for him to fail. For that love to fail is ultimately for the love of God to fail. And that is utterly heretical, blasphemous and radically impossible. And so our love is grounded in the love of God. And thank God it is, because our love is inconsistent. We are often unbrotherly to our elder brother. But he never will unbrother us from himself in his brotherliness. Because his love is agape love. His love is steady, constant, eternal, divine love. Love that doesn't fluctuate. Love that doesn't even depend, ultimately, on our obedience. But love that depends on his obedience. He was forsaken. That we might never be forsaken of God. And so this love within the Trinity is the doorway and the foundation into an assured love forever that will consume us to all eternity. But now, secondly, there is this vast field, this vast ocean of the love of God to his people, the love of God to his people. And I want to speak just about two things because this field is so broad. But let give me two things. First, I want to show this to you in the. Christ centeredness of heaven. And secondly, in the perfection. Of believers. The love of God to us in heaven, in heaven's Christ centeredness and secondly, in our perfection. Now, God's love and glory are most richly manifested to us in the love of Christ, which is on display in heaven, even to our resurrected physical eyes. After all, even in heaven we won't be able to see the Holy Spirit. or the Father, because they are spirits. But Jesus Christ will be in our nature, in glory, in perfect, redeemed humanity, in glory. Heaven, therefore, will be a Christ-centered place. The text says, the Lamb is the light thereof. You see, you don't need a son in heaven. Because the Son of God is the Son. He's the light. He's the center. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne. What a comfort that is. When my father passed away, my mother said to me, Son, you'll do the funeral, won't you? I was very close to my dad. He called me every Monday morning. I had the Sunday go. Are there any new people in church? How did the preaching go? Did the Lord help you? You missed that. But I said, yes, I have to do the funeral, no matter how hard it is. No matter how hard. But as I contemplated what to speak on, I came across Revelation 7. These are they who have come out of great tribulation and made their robes white. in the blood of the Lamb. And they are before the throne where the Lamb is in the midst thereof. Revelation 7. And when I got to those words, the Lamb in the midst thereof, I could lose my father. And I could preach with freedom and boldness. He's one among a multitude no man can number that surround the throne and every eye is upon Jesus. Heaven is all about Jesus. Samuel Rutherford said, where there are a hundred, a thousand heavens piled on top of one another, Jesus Christ will be the center of them all. And if you read our forefathers carefully, Jesus Christ and heaven almost become synonyms. To go to be with Jesus is to go to heaven. And to go to heaven is to go to be with Jesus. Heaven is all about being with Jesus. It's all about dying to go to be with Him. It's all about falling asleep in Jesus. That's why Jesus said to the thief on the cross, thou shall be with me today in paradise. And I've often thought, you know those three words, thou with me. That's heaven. forever in perfection. And that's the desire, isn't it? If I woke you up four o'clock tomorrow morning and said, what is your greatest desire in life? What is your greatest desire for eternity? Wouldn't you say, to be with Jesus? Thou with me. But why all this focus on the centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven? So that's a good question. Let me answer that in three or four different ways, first of all, in heaven. Our faith. Will be brought into sight. Some people say in heaven, we'll lose our faith and we'll just be drowned in love. Well, there's a truth, true element about that, but I think in heaven, we'll also have faith. Faith is trusting. In Christ, there is an element of faith in which you trust in what you don't see. Hebrews 11, verse one. But that's not the whole definition of faith. So there's an aspect in which, yes, faith will be drowned into love because we'll be able to see Jesus, but. The capstone of the scripture teaching here is that our faith will be turned into sight, thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty. Now we see through a glass darkly. But then, face to face. I love how John Bunyan puts it in Pilgrim's Progress, describing it so beautifully when he writes about Mr. Standfast. I hope you remember him. When this man joins the pilgrims on their way to the celestial city, he bears his heart with these words, the thought of what I'm going to lies like a glowing coal in my heart. Later on, when he crosses the Jordan into the celestial city, he turns back and he has these parting words for his friends. I am going now to see that head that was crowned with thorns and that face that was spat upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight and shall be with him in whose company I delight myself. Do these very words thrill your heart? That very thought of being with Jesus forever? If they never do, I doubt if you're a child of God. A child of God wants to be with Jesus. You will not enter heaven if you don't want to be with Jesus. If you don't want to see Him, and be in His presence, and have Him never out of your eye, Heaven is a Christ-centered place because heaven is sight of Jesus. But secondly, heaven is a Christ-centered place because my loving engagement to him in this world will there be turned into a perfect marital union. My wife and I have taken college students into our home for Seven or eight years. Don't have any at the moment. But we had a young man named John in our home. And we talked to him about different things. He said to me at one point, I want a perfect marriage and I'll settle for nothing less. Wow. So that's quite some idealism there you have, young man. I'll settle for nothing less. Dear believer in heaven, you will settle for nothing less. You will have a perfect marriage. The Bible is full of this language. It's amazing. Psalm 45 is about the marriage between Christ and His people. So is Isaiah 54, and Isaiah 62, and Matthew 9, and Matthew 25, and John 3 has some verses on it, and 2 Corinthians 11, and of course, Ephesians 5. And then, most beautifully, in the book of Revelation, Turn with me just a moment to Revelation 19 verse 7. What a glorious theme this is. Revelation 19, seven, let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage of the land has come and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he said to me, right, blessed are they which are called into the marriage supper of the lamb. And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God. And then if you turn over to chapter 21, the Second Coming and the Judgment Day has happened. The millennium is now over. And John tells us about the beginning of eternity, the new heaven and the new earth. And verse 2, I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. How? Prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And verse 9, And there came unto me one of the seven angels that had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues and talked to me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. Now, what in the world does this mean? We say we are not given to marriage in heaven because we will be married to Jesus Christ. But what is it to be married to Christ in heaven? Well, for one thing, the whole Trinity is involved in this marriage. The Father gives us as a bride to the Son. But also the Son has purchased his bride with his own blood and his own death. And Ephesians 1 says that the Holy Spirit is given to us as an earnest or guarantee. And that word, that special word, is sometimes used in non-biblical Greek to describe the guarantee given in a betrothal, or we would say an engagement. It was shown by a down payment. Today it is shown by an engagement ring. And Christ betroths us to Himself. He gives us the Spirit here as a guarantee, an engagement ring, that by grace we will persevere and not desert our commitment before the actual wedding. He will keep us. And by grace, we will then keep ourselves. And we will be preserved. for that great wedding, in that great future, with the great witnesses of heaven, with the whole congregation of glory, testifying that this marriage is legally binding forever. Well, who performs the wedding? Well, God does. God the Father. You know, pastors often marry their own children. Well, this marriage, God the Father. The pastor of pastors declares his people married to his son. And what a special wedding gown the bride will have on on that day. The Bible speaks about it in Revelation 19, verse 8, which I just read to you. We're told that the ultimate gown is the robe of Christ's perfect righteousness. He purifies us from all sin. And the bridal gown includes something of ourselves as well. It's not that our works add to our salvation. But the Bible says that as Christ saves us with justification, he continues to cleanse us through sanctification. And that will now adorn the gown that has been given to us. There will be pearls, as it were, adorning that gown of sanctifying righteousness that Christ has given to us. And we will be married forever. to Jesus Christ. The story is told of a young woman who became a Christian young in life. She grew up, wanted to follow Jesus, wanted to get married, but never did get married. She reached her forties and her fifties, still living at home, caring for her sick mother. Her father died. In the course of time, she became very sick herself with tuberculosis. Doctors couldn't do much. She was fading fast. She was about to die. Her mother was hovering over her. One day, she's talking to her mother and she says, Mom, I've got good news for you. What is it? Her mom said, I'm going to get married at last. All her mom said, Honey, I think your mind is going a bit. Let's talk about something else. No, she said, Mom, I mean, I'm going to be married at last to the Lord Jesus Christ and he will be my husband forever. Well, she died that day and went to be with her real husband. You see, we will have an intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven greater than with the angels who have been holy for thousands of years. We will somehow catapult past them and be in the intimate fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ, redeemed from a history of a bad record and a bad heart of sin and forever, forever married in direct union, in beatific union. with the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what bliss! Oh, what heavenly ecstasy! Without any sin or any hindrance, in deepest, purest emotions of love imaginable, we will be as purified brides with a purified husband. There will be raptures of holy delight in each other, like when a husband and wife come together. They take their greatest joy in one another. So it will be. and a thousand times more to be married to Jesus. Then 1 Peter 1, verse 8, will be fulfilled, truly fulfilled. Whom ye have not seen, ye love. In whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Well, the hundredth part of this has not been told us. But let me leave behind for you two or three quick practical lessons that come from this. The first is this, we ought to remember on earth that Christ is the very jewel of heaven's crown. He is what makes heaven. Heaven. You can get to heaven without money. You can get to heaven without education. You can get to heaven without beauty. You can get to heaven without friends. But you can't get to heaven without Jesus Christ. Are you engaged to Him, my friend? No. Has He got your love? Has He run away to heaven with your heart, as Samuel Rutherford once said? He comes to you today. as the servant came to Rebekah and he says, will thou go with this man? What has happened to you? Have you been made willing to go? Are you engaged? Have you said, by grace, I will go. What a joy it is to be even engaged to the Lord Jesus Christ. When I was 18 years old, I got a low lottery number. It was the last year of the lottery system. That dates me, of course. But I went into the Army, and I was in the Army. I was very distraught with the shallow worship services. And I got special permission to go only in my Army uniform. While I was in basics, I had to keep it on, except when I slept. I could go to church in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, which I later became a pastor of that congregation. I went there the first week and not knowing it, I just become a member of the church back in the Kalamazoo, Michigan. They had the Lord's Supper. People would come up to the front. And. I debated, should I go up to, well, no, I'm not a member of this church and I, you know, I've got an army uniform, I'm going to attract attention. I'll just sit in the pew and I wanted to, I wanted my first Lord's Supper to be back in my own home church, of course. But The home I stayed in. Well, they told me about the Lord's Supper, and I tried to dismiss it from my mind, but then I started thinking, what will it be like not to go? When the invitation comes, I pushed it away. And that night I went to bed. Before I turned the light out at the nightstand, I noticed there was a little book by the nightstand. It was by Brownlow North. And the cover of the book was Wilt thou go with this man?" And it swept over me. I cannot stay away from being invited to be the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I called the minister. I explained what happened. He said, my son, you are more than welcome. Jesus Christ receives sinners. Will you go with this man? Will you be engaged to the perfect bridegroom, to be married to Jesus Christ. He's available. And He asks you tonight, will you go with Me? Secondly, as the bride prepares herself for the wedding, so should we. The more we yearn for this wedding, the more holy we will become. A bride looks after her gown. She looks after the details of her marriage. During the engagement, no fiancé or bridegroom is allowed to date other people. That's how we must feel about Jesus Christ. If we're engaged to Him, we must not flirt with anything else. any other sin, he should have the first love of our souls. We will want to keep ourselves pure for the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, take this application with you when you come to die, you will go to be with your heavenly husband. That's the beauty of this marriage, it doesn't end at death. You know, if you have a wonderful marriage, The thought of being apart from your wife is almost unbearable. It's almost unbearable. I can be thousands of miles from home. Sitting in some motel room late at night and just thinking about my wife. Brings tears to my eyes. But the thought of losing her in this life would be overwhelming. And yet we have to say to one another at times, don't we? Someday this will happen. This marriage is only temporary. Of course, everything in glory will be better than here on earth. I will love her better and more perfectly in glory, though I won't be her one husband in glory. Everything in glory will be better than anything on earth. And yet the thought of separation is overwhelming. But you see, this bridegroom, You will never be separated from this engagement leads to an eternal wedding. What a joy this is. When death lies heavy on our lifeless bodies in the grave. Our spirit will already be in heaven and the first face we will see. Will be Jesus. Well, there's a third reason why the focus in heaven is on Christ. And that is because in heaven. We will be fully conformed to his image. And that really is the ultimate purpose. Of all of Christianity. You know, we often think, well, the purpose is to get saved and we have our testimonies and we talk about how we got saved. But that's the beginning. The goal of getting saved. is to be conformed to the image of Christ. Romans 8.29, God's elect are predestined to what? To be conformed to the image of His Son. The goal is not just to get saved. It's not just to get in the door. The goal is to be like Him. That's why John said, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. Oh, what bliss this is! Like Him! like him. No more sin. No more struggle with sin. No more temptation. No more temptation to be tempted. Sin free in Emmanuel's land with Jesus, my food, my drink, my all and in all. Oh, what a wonder I will be like him. He who came to this earth and grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. And I will forever grow in wisdom, in favor with God and man in glory, forever cumulatively growing in this perfect land of everlasting bliss, being conformed, ever conformed. Think of it. It will be impossible for me to be unchristlike, impossible for you to be unchristlike in glory. This is part of the blissful love of God in heaven to interact with the people of God and see Christ everywhere, see Christ in every face, see Christ in every word. Everyone that we meet in heaven will remind us of Jesus and will teach us more about Jesus. That's why the language of the Song of Solomon is so beautiful. Have you ever read the words of the bridegroom to the bride and wonder how can Christ think of his people with such love? Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee. Thou art a lily among the thorns. So is my love among the daughters." It's hard to imagine that as a sinner that Christ can speak this way of you. That His heart will be ravished by you, His bride. And you will be able to look Him in the eye without shame and rejoice in His loving glances and say, my beloved is mine. And I am His. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes that's hard for me to grasp. Because sometimes the fear rises in my heart. Will I really make it? I'm such a sinner. I fear what I'm capable of if left to myself. Can I really be made sinless? Never to fall again. But it's precisely here, you see, that the focus on Christ gives me so much comfort. It is only if the glory of Jesus Christ can be dimmed or put out that the glory of the individual believer can be dimmed. But His glory cannot be dimmed. Heaven needs no sun because Christ is the light thereof. And His light will lighten every believer. And we will bathe in the sunlight of His love forever and forever and forever. So the glory in heaven. that the believer has is reflected glory. Just like the glory the moon now has. You know, the moon has no light of its own. It's often regarded as a symbol of the church. Christ is the Son of Heaven. There is nothing that can come between Him and His people. He'll shine in glory. And they will reflect His glory forever. They will always be full moons reflecting Him in His fullness. There will be no new falls into sin to blot out the moonlight. There will be no impossibilities. Everything will be true and full and rich in Jesus Christ. And then finally, the focus in heaven is on Christ because His glory will always shine undimmed. His praises will never grow old. through an endless eternity. We will never get tired of glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll never run out of reasons to sing His praises. You know, one time, my wife and I had an evening alone together. And in that evening, she told me 100 reasons why she loved me. And I gave her 101 reasons why I loved her. It took quite a while. But it came to an end. But it was wonderful. We both felt bathed in love at the end of that session of conversation. But in heaven, there'll be 10,000 reasons why we love the Lord Jesus Christ. There'll be no end to the diversity and the magnitude of the reasons why we love Him. Every name of Jesus is self-revelation. Every name is an object of love. There's 280 names of the Lord Jesus in the Bible. Every step of His humiliation will be a reason for love. Every step of His exaltation will be a reason to sing His praises. His offices. Oh, there's a field, an ocean of love in His prophetical office. An ocean of love in His priestly office. An ocean of love in His kingly office. You'll never run out of praise for Jesus. Sometimes I stand in our library at Puritan Reformed Seminary and look around at the 55,000 books and say, isn't it amazing? 55,000 books that have come out of the womb of one book, the Bible. And the Bible has only begun to sing its praises. Yes, John says, I suppose where everything recorded about him, the entire world could not contain the books that should be written. Forever and forever and forever, there is endless praises of the Lamb who is the light thereof. And in that realm of glory, you see, you shall be so overflowing with the assurance of His love that you'll take the crowns from off your own heads. Here we're trying to put crowns on our heads. You'll take it off and you'll throw it at His feet and you'll say, not unto us, but unto Him, the all-honor and glory forever and ever. But heaven will not only be an assurance of God's love Because Christ is a center. It will also be an assurance of God's love. Because we will be made perfect. Our souls. Will be made perfect in holiness, Hebrews 1223 says that we've come to God, the judge of all into the spirits of just made just men made perfect in glory. The Westminster Confession says that we are made perfect in holiness and to immediately pass upon death into glory. Our souls, as they are at present, would defile heaven. But as we die, our sin is buried in the grave and we arise perfected. All who die in Christ are purified at the moment of death completely from every trace of sin. This is an amazing act of just love. No more sin. We had only one wish. I'm sure it would be this. John Owen said he is no true believer and to whom sin is not his greatest burden, sorrow and trouble. Are there ever times you hate yourself? Hate your sin. Are ashamed of yourself, self-centeredness, how selfish we are. No more. Our dishonesty? How often we say something less than the full truth? No more. Our impurity? How often are those thoughts of lust or evil that we would be desperately ashamed for any other human being to know about? No more. Our lack of self-control? The way we snap at our children? The way we fume and fret when we don't get our way? The way we get irritated so easily? No more. Our obstinacy? Our reluctancy to say, I'm sorry, no more. Our cruelty, even to those that we know and love best, no more. Our resentment. Our unforgiving spirit. Our hardness of heart. The whole network and complex of sin shall be dismantled and thrown away forever. Evil, said Paul, is present with me. Until heaven. Until heaven, Paul! No more sin. I will never sin again. I'll never grieve the Spirit of God again. I'll never break a single commandment again. I will always love God above all. I will always love my neighbor as myself. Sinless perfection is not a utopian dream. It is a future reality. God has predestinated you, dear believer, in His stupendous, assuring love to be conformed to the image of His Son and to be perfect in glory. So that even the Holy God, looking upon your soul, cannot find one thing that stains or tarnishes your inmost being. There on the day of glory you will enter in. There on the day of glory, your prayer that you prayed a thousand times, deliver us from evil, will be ultimately fulfilled. You will be delivered. Delivered from all evil. And you will bathe in the assuring love of God. Like Robert Murray McShane said, when I see thee as thou art, love thee with unsinning heart, then, Lord, shall I fully know. Yes. Then you will fall in love all over again with Christ as if it were the first time. And you will bathe in that love with no barriers, with no sins between, with no shadow of grief upon your soul. No father's face clouded. But then the struggle with all sin shall be done. No more Romans 7. Then it will only be Romans 8. Forever with the Lord. What a comfort this is. Some of you tonight are weary of your sins. There's some besetting sin you've struggled with, you've wrestled with. It throws you down again and again. Sometimes, You're so unsettled by it, you even doubt your own salvation. You begin to lose your assurance. But God's Word says to you, child of God, take heart. Those sins are doomed. Their death sentence has been pronounced. Your Savior is in glory as the first fruit among many brethren. You shall come there too. And the moment you come there, and enter sin-free Immanuel land, every sin will disappear forever. All drown in the depths of the sea. Perfect souls and perfect bodies. We are not Platonists who believe like Plato that the soul is the bird and the body is the cage. We want to get out of the cage and throw away the cage and be free. No, our Savior redeems the whole man. Our bodies shall be raised in glory. They are temples of the Holy Ghost. They will be perfect, says Paul. And they will be recognizable. They will be the same. And yet they will be different. They will be infused with qualities acclimate them to the eternal, spiritual, heavenly world. Actually, Paul says four things about our bodies in 1 Corinthians 15. Perhaps turn there with me for a moment, and then I will be concluding with a few thoughts on my third point. Paul says in verse 42, our body, 1 Corinthians 15, 42, our body is sown in corruption and raised in incorruption. That's the first difference here. And now you see our bodies are decaying and dying. But then in there, the hour of the resurrection, they'll never decay, never ache again, never feel pain again. Verse 43, our bodies are sown in dishonor, it will be raised in glory. Well, as ministers, we we often see dead bodies, don't we? And what does the casket contain? The casket contains a poor, weak, wasted shell. The body of an old person. The body of someone ravaged by disease. Empty clay. Evidence of the wages of sin. Shown in dishonor. But now says Paul, raised in glory. In heaven our bodies will be awesome and radiant and beautiful and marvelous. Jesus said the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of heaven. Every mark of aging and weakness will be gone, will be forever in the beauty of our strength, forever in the strength of our manliness or womanliness. There will be a glory about us, a magnificence, a beauty. C.S. Lewis said, if we could see now fellow believers as we will see them in heaven, we will be tempted to fall down and worship them. raised in glory. Thirdly, Paul says our bodies here are shown in weakness, but there they will be raised in power. Here, a one hour and 45 minute worship service can wear us out. There, an eternity of worship cannot wear us out. Our bodies will pulsate with energy and dynamism and power and never know weariness. And fourth, it is sown, verse 44, a natural body. It is raised, a spiritual body. Now spiritual here does not mean non-material. What it means is a body dominated by the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit will govern us and mold us and guide us. And Jesus will look not only at our soul, but also at our body and see the travail of his soul and be satisfied and receive us as his beautiful, fault free, perfect, beautiful bride. And never be disappointed in us. Dear believer, God's work in you will be brought to such a pitch of glorious perfection that the Lord will fall in love with you, his church, his bride, with no spot, no wrinkle, no blemish, no such thing, because he's always been in love with you. But now he will love to see his own work in you brought to perfection. He will look at you and say, I see in you everything, my dear bride, I desire everything I want. I will make no more improvements for there are no more improvements to be made. I will make no changes. So there are no changes to be made. You're the exact bride I've always wanted you to be. And why is that? Because we've done something. Well, no, it's because he sees himself in us. He sees us conform to his image. It's Himself He loves in us. It's His own graces, His own perfections, His own beauty He admires in us. That's the joy, the beauty, the glory of heaven. Jesus loves me. This, I know, will ever be sung in glory. Now this will be manifested finally also in the communion of saints. This assured love of God will spill over. We won't be able to contain it. So we will commune with each other. We will commune with the angels. There will be no disagreements in heaven. Luther and Calvin will see eye to eye on everything. What a glorious future! No divisions, no denominations, no Presbyterians, no Methodists, no Baptists. Only Christians living out of Jesus Christ in perfection and union with one another. You know, here in this life, There are even Christians that we, well, let's put it this way, they're not our favorite people. There are even Christians who have difficult characters, but no more in heaven. All will be holy. All will be beautiful. Everyone in heaven will be honorable and lovable and attractive and appealing and glorious and clothed with the beauty of Jesus Christ. You know, we ought to learn from that is when we when we relate to difficult children of God here below, we ought to remember, we're going to love these people forever. We're going to love them to all eternity and glory. We better start learning to love them here. Can we not try to see them now? As they once will be. when all the nonsense and shortcomings and rough edges of character are swept away and the image of Christ will be perfect in them. Let us love our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith now. Let us forgive them now. Ask them to forgive us now and strive to live now as we will live then. Well, I conclude by commending you to this perfect love. this glorious love, this progressive love, this responsive love. And when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we have no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. So what must we do now? Well, let the love of God in heaven give you new strength on earth. Think of a traveler on a stormy, rainy night. He's been stranded. He has to walk the last ten miles to get where he's going. He plods along. The gusts of wind rip at him. The hail gashes his cheek. He thinks of sitting down and giving up. But he sees the lights of his home twinkling through the trees. And he picks himself up. And with renewed energy, he keeps going. Tonight, God has allowed the lights of home your home, dear believer, to twinkle through the darkness of this world in the Word that has been preached. Tonight, you hear, now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. It's only a little while longer. And the weary night will be past. And when I awake with eyelightness, then, then I shall be satisfied. So press on. That's my first application to you. My second is this. Let the love of God encourage you to face your own death with courage. You need dying grace when the dying hour comes. But remember, it's just the Jordan that needs to be crossed. It's just the last installment that will carry you over to the next life. Let the love of God and the foretaste of heaven make you long more for your eternal home and your eternal crowning. And finally, certainly. But the love of God, if you are yet an unbeliever, move you today to fly to God for mercy and forgiveness. Wake up. Before you wake up in hell. Hide from God by hiding in God. Fly to Christ now. Christ died to save sinners just like you. Don't turn Him away. May I close this series of messages by telling you the story of a highland shepherd boy who settled in with his flock one night, his sheep one night, and a great storm blew. And the viaduct, the train tracks that went over the valley in which he shepherded his sheep, broke, and in the morning lay in the valley. And the shepherd boy awoke, saw the disaster, ran up the embankment in time to stop the coming train and waved to the conductor. And the conductor just waved him away. And the boy did the only thing he could do. He ran to the track and he fell on the track. And the conductor slammed on the brakes and ran over the boy and stopped just in time. And all the passengers get out of the train, most of them ended up sleeping, they ran to the front, they saw the mangled remains of the poor Highland Shepherd boy, they looked down into the valley, they saw the track crooked laying there, and they were silent. Finally, one man spoke. That boy there. He saved my life. My dear friend. Your train track, your train is going 90 miles an hour. You're busy with all kinds of things that Jesus Christ tonight is throwing himself across your track. Will you stop? Will you repent? Will you get out of your train? And will you go to gaze upon Calvary's cross? And looking upon that cross, will you say, that God-man there, He saved my life. Let's pray.