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This past week some of us attended a professional debate between evolution and creation sides at a local college. The debate was co-sponsored by Campus for Christ and the Atheistic Agenda. Both had tables set up with literature for their respective causes and I browsed through the Campus for Christ stuff, but I made sure to head to the Atheistic Agenda table to get all of their material. I was curious to find out what the purpose of life was if there was no God.

Now understand that I definitely believe in God and He is the center of everything in my life. Not only do I believe in Him, but I have experienced Him and felt Him and He talks with me. And the Bible states that:

Only a fool would make such a claim, and if you think of it for a moment, the Bible is very true in making this statement. For a person to claim that they without a shadow of a doubt knows that a God does not exist, then they would have to be "all knowing." If they were all knowing, then they, themselves, would be god. Therefore there is no such thing as an atheist. When you deny deity, you claim to be it yourself and so to be an atheist is to be quite foolish.

The pamphlets were quite what I expected. With an "all knowing" attitude they pompously proclaimed that there is no such thing as "God" and there is no such thing as a "devil." Furthermore, there is no such places as heaven or hell or reincarnation or karma or any life after death. And then they went on to say that the purpose of life was the joy that comes from relationships with other people. To the atheistic agenda, the true purpose of life was finding fulfillment in their lovers, friends, and family. And then you die. And they made a statement to the effect of "religious people need a god to have a purpose for living, it is really quite sad."

To the contrary, I would like to say that the atheistic agenda's reason for living is what is sad. The Apostle Paul said that if we have hope only in this life, then we are above all men most miserable. If the atheists were correct in their theories, then this rat race and hell hole that we live in called the planet earth is all the heaven that anybody will ever experience -- now that's truly a sad thought! I have friends and I have loved ones but I'm glad that relationships on this side of glory aren't the only thing worth living for! How sad it would be if we just lived and died and then nothing.

If you want proof that there is an afterlife, then you have to look no further than Jesus' resurrection! The tomb is empty proving that death is not a final thing. Furthermore if you act upon the promises of the Word of God by responding with faith, then you will too receive today what has been promised proving that there is a God and that He is alive for evermore! We learned in the debate that science only believes what is observable and can be experienced over and over in repeated attempts. If that is true, then the scientific method proves that there is a God! I obeyed His Word and repented of my sins and was baptized in His name and then surrendered all to Him in worship and I received His Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. Furthermore the fruit of the Spirit have begun to grow in my lives. And in repeated experiments here in our local congregation, we have proved time and time again that there is a God because you have also repented of your sins, been baptized in His name and received His Spirit and work in your life.

And so I've come to preach to you that there if there is a God, then there must be something to His Word. And if there is something to His Word then there is an eternity. And if there is an eternity then there are two eternal destinations, heaven and hell. And if there are two eternal destinations, then you want to make sure that you go to one and not the other. But the agenda of this world is to try to remove the preaching of hell from our pulpits and our services. And I have preached repeatedly on this and most of you already know that Jesus taught on hell more than any other subject including money, forgiveness, and salvation. But lost in all of that is the agenda that has also removed heaven from our religious vocabulary. With the loss of hell from our sermons and services has also been the subtle removal of heaven. Because if one exists then so does the other. And so -- very cleverly -- the devil has been able to not only remove God's judgment on sin from our religious experience, but also the hope of the saints. Both places have become mere bywords for highs and lows of life and we have a "hell of a day" or we have a good day and "are in heaven." Both statements are false and misleading. Your worst day cannot even come close to comparing to the literal place called hell. And your best day cannot even come close to beginning to compare with the literal place called heaven.

When I was growing up we sang about heaven and "flying away" and "mansions" and "heaven's jubilee" and "oh I want to see Him" and all of that every service, but in the past few years, heaven has disappeared from our pulpits and our worship services. But I've come to remind someone of your hope in Christ and the place that you want to spend eternity. To remind you of a place that is spoken of many times in the pure Word of God. A place that if you believe in a God, that you must also believe in this place because it was that God who spoke of. I've come to preach to people that are too busy to even think about your life next year nevertheless at the end of your life and yet I've come to interrupt your busy schedule to remind you of what should be your constant focus. What you are striving for. It has been said that you can tell where a man is trying to go by which way his feet are pointing and which direction that he is stepping. Which direction is your life headed? If you are too busy to think about heaven, nevertheless plan to go there, then you are too busy!

In our text, the Apostle Paul wrote:

Paul speaks of a man that was caught up into heaven and when you get to verse 7 of this chapter you discover that this "man" was none other than the Apostle Paul, himself. He couldn't tell whether he had been transported there in spirit or in physical body, but God had allowed Paul to see a glimpse of glory. He said that this happened fourteen years before he wrote this letter which would have placed it somewhere around A.D. 44 which would have been during Paul's first missionary journey. That missionary journey of Paul's was a very difficult and trying time of his life and so somewhere during these trials, God allowed Paul to see a fresh and new glimpse of heaven. It is likely this experience that helped Paul keep enduring against tremendous opposition in his missionary endeavors, and I would say that it could be that there would be some here today who are living for God despite circumstances and that are living for God "through some things" and while you "battle some things!" God wants you to leave here today with a fresh revelation and a fresh vision of a much better place that is coming. God wants to encourage someone with the visions of the heavenly.

I read a story this week of a man who was thinking of buying a newly built house in England several hundred years ago at the beginning of the industrial revolution when factories had been newly built. As the realtor was taking the man on a tour, they came to an upper chamber with a big window that looked out from a high place and the realtor stated that "from this window on Sundays, you can see the local castle." Peering through the window to the horizon and seeing nothing, the man asked "why on Sundays?" To which the realtor replied, "on Sundays the factories are shut down and so the atmosphere clears from smoke and additives so that you can see it."

It is my desire today that amidst all of the hustle and distractions of life that on this morning, that the spiritual air would clear and we would be able to glimpse a clear view of heaven! And that such a glimpse would cause you so much desire to go there that you would yield yourself completely to the Word and will of God. Let the cobwebs and distractions fade away this morning and get for yourself a clear glimpse of what heaven is.

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Heaven is . . . First of all,

If you believe in Jesus, then you realize that if Jesus is real, then so is heaven. He said in our text this morning:

Just as sure as Jesus Christ walked this earth and lived and died and was resurrected, so you can be as sure that there is a place that He has gone to prepare for you and I! There is a place beyond this earth and this physical universe. Daniel and Ezekiel and Isaiah all got a brief glimpse into this place. Elijah and Enoch were translated into it. John saw it and wrote down what he saw in a glorious final book to the Bible. And -- as we just read in our other text -- the Apostle Paul also got a glimpse of glory. All of them testified to it's existence and we can know that heaven is a reality! Furthermore:

A "high place." That is what the original words for "heaven" in the language of the scriptures means. When the Apostle Paul described his experience, he wrote that he was caught away into the "third heaven." The scripture speaks of "three heavens" with the first being the air and atmosphere of our earth through which clouds float and birds fly. The second heaven of scripture is the universe with the solar system and galaxies and stars and planets. The "third heaven" into which the Apostle Paul was transported is the spiritual realm of Almighty God. This third heaven is what we are speaking of today. It is the place that God is preparing for us one day.

Let's think of all this in terms of "height" above the surface of the earth upon which we now exist. The "first heaven" of this earth's atmosphere consists of the lower layer, the "troposphere" which is where planes fly and clouds float and then several higher layers. The lower layer goes 14 kilometers above the earth. The rest of the layers extend into space over 350 kilometers. That is the "first heaven" the atmosphere of earth.

Beyond earth, begins what we call "space." Go 380,000 kilometers or so and you come to the moon, a distance that it took the Apollo astronauts two days to cover. From the earth to the sun is 150 million kilometers and that distance is known as an Astronomical Unit or "AU" for short. Keeping in mind that one AU is 150 million kilometers, then from the Sun to Mars is 1.5 AU. From the Sun to Jupiter is 5.2 AU. From the Sun to the farthest planet in our solar system that is named, Pluto, is around 50 AUs! This is just our solar system and we haven't even got to another star in our own galaxy yet. To get to another star, we have to stop using AUs and use another measure, the light year, which is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year. If you must know one light year is 9.460536 with fifteen zeros meters. Aldebaran, the yellow star visible to the east tonight, is 65 light years away. The north star is 600 light years away. The great Orion Nebula is 1,400 light years away. And we could go on and on. These are other stars in our galaxy. Every star that you can see in the sky at night is in our own galaxy. If you go as far as 10 million light years out from our galaxy, there are only 6 other galaxies there containing somewhere around 10 trillion stars! There are at least a 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe that we can detect with our level of instruments and the universe is getting bigger every moment that goes by. This is the second heaven, the universe, and Paul was carried by God into the third heaven which is beyond all of that. A high place indeed!

All of these large numbers about how high the universe stretches beyond the earth ought to excite you about our God because of this scripture:

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love to those who honor and obey and trust Him! This universe is just a small sample as how much God loves you! That's why He went to prepare an even higher place for you to live with Him forever. The question of "why would a loving God send people to a hell?" is a faulty question indeed, the question ought to be "why would you not respond in obedience and relationship with a God who loves you so much that He has invited you to go to a better place?" A high place indeed! Because it is the only thing that surpasses the height of God's love for you! The place that we call the "third heaven!"

John saw a wonderful vision of a glorious city that came out of the new heaven that God had prepared and descended to a new earth. It was a resting place for those who would spend eternity with God and John gave it's dimensions in Revelation:

The wall is 212 feet wide and 1500 miles high! The city would reach from Maine to Florida and from the Atlantic to Colorado. This New Jerusalem is "very large" to say the least! If heaven contained rooms each a one-mile cube, it would contain over 3.3 billion of them! If we started in the time of Adam and spent one hour -- just one hour -- in each of the room, we would only have now visited 53 million of them and would still have over 3 billion left to see. If we had started at the time of Adam and visited each mile wide room for one minute each, we would still have 210 million rooms to go before we even spent saw every room! New Jerusalem is a big place and it is just a small part that came down out of the New Heaven and to the New Earth! Heaven will be a large place and it will have a large city!

If the idea of a big city doesn't appeal to you, then you would be excited to know that heaven is also called "a better country." In talking about those that died faithful to God in the past, the 11th chapter of Hebrews says:

It is a "heavenly homeland" and a "better country!" If the New Jerusalem is something to behold, then imagine the land in which it sits! Better than America. Better than the prettiest place that you've ever been. Whatever your idea of the most beautiful countryside is, then heaven will far surpass it and make it look like a garbage dump! Which leads us to another fact:

Forty-three times, we read in the Book of Revelation that John "saw" something. As for heaven itself, the throne of God was magnificent with seraphims flying back and forth crying "holy, holy, holy, is the one who was and is and is to come!" A sea of glass with fire mingled in it was the floor. Lightening flashes around the throne.

And then the New Jerusalem: This large, large city whose size we have so vividly expressed is not made of the cheapest material to save money. But the walls are of jasper and the streets are of purest gold so pure that it is transparent to look through -- a feat that even man today cannot produce! The twelve gates of it are each made from a single, tremendous pearl. The twelve foundations of the city are all the most beautiful and expensive jewels and gemstones. A river flows from the throne of God in the midst of the city and surrounding the river are treeS of life with healing leaves. What a glorious place to see! And furthermore:

To the angel's cries will be joined the "song of the redeemed" where countless millions will overpower the angel's praise with a praise that heaven has never experienced. The worship of that moment when the saints arrive will be so thunderous that all of heaven will look on in amazement! The thunders and roaring from around the throne will be drowned out by the cry of jubilant people that by the mercy of God and the blood of the Lamb reached this glorious place!

And yet there will be thirty minutes of silence. And that silence will say much because it will reveal that -- unlike here on earth -- the praise of the saints is not drowning out the cries of those that are hurting. The silence will reveal that there is no weeping going on that needs to be covered up! The silence will reveal that there will be a lack of crying out in pain or depression or in hopelessness! The silence will reveal that there is not a sound of war or strife in the background; no cursing or arguments; no 911 calls and no wail of a siren! And as the silence testifies to what is not in heaven, it will create even more volume from those who will then open their mouths and praise God for what He has done! Because somewhere from within this silence will come the voice of the One who died for us at Calvary and His voice will ring loud and clear to many: "well done thou good and faithful servant!" Heaven will certainly be something to hear!

And really we must admit that these facts from scripture are just a teaser to us, because the Apostle Paul in our text wrote:

The NIV says "which man is not permitted to tell." Such were the wonderful things that Paul heard in his trip to heaven! Such were the wonderful things that he saw! So great that to try to write them down was impossible! So great that only the few glimpses of other scripture are given to us. So great that even Paul who was very familiar with the writings of Ezekiel and Isaiah said "it was beyond anything like that!" Truly the "half has not been told" of the wonderful things that God has prepared for them that love Him! You don't want to miss heaven because it will be something to see and hear and behold! It will be a place to lay down your burdens and fighting and to rest and be refreshed and see the glory of God revealed!

But the best part of all of this is:

The cruel thing about this life is that even the best day comes to an end. Even the highest high doesn't last long. Time seems to rain eventually on every parade. But not in heaven; the Apostle Paul wrote:

The most wonderful thing about heaven is that it will last for forever! This building from God will be "eternal in the heavens!" We will not enjoy it for a year or two or a billion years, but for forever! The experience will last for always! What a truly "high place" heaven is!

But the best part of heaven is that:

One writer said, "we must remember that going home is not going to a place, but to a person." Heaven would not be heaven without the One who made it all possible there at the center! There we will come face to face with the One who died for us and extended salvation through His grace to us. There we will come face to face to the One whose voice we had hearkened to all of these years. There we will see the nail scars and the visible image of God Almighty! Take the best service and the mightiest move of the Spirit of God that you have ever experienced and realize that heaven is a "higher place" than even that! To bow before Him and worship around His throne. To talk with our Savior there in such a splendid place! Heaven is only heaven with Jesus Christ there! John called the record of all of the great things that he saw "the Revelation" not "the RevelationS." All of these great sights and sounds add up to reveal one thing: the great revelation of the mighty God in Christ! Heaven is the revelation of Jesus!

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A preacher once said, "Jesus is going to make it heaven to us; who is going to make it heaven for Him?" What would be the purpose of His going to great lengths to create such a place if someone does not determine in their mind that they are going! What good has such a tremendous sacrifice of Calvary done if nobody responds to that love and allows it to transform them? And so let me focus in these last few moments of this message on three things that Heaven is relative to us getting there.

First of all, scripture reveals that:

Not necessarily of "good people" although if you are truly redeemed and transformed by Christ, you would become a "good person." I am speaking about the common belief that most people have that "good" people go to heaven and "bad people" go to hell. That is not a scriptural concept. I would challenge you to find one verse in all of scripture that states that "good people go to heaven." The Bible never says such a thing, but says that it is the redeemed church who has become the bride of Christ because of their obedience to His word that will inherit such things. It will be the righteous, those who have applied His blood and received His Sprit and allowed "old things to pass away and all things to become new" that will live in heaven for eternity. You could have been a bad person for forty years and yet obey the Word of God and allow Him to forgive you and change you and transform you and become a part of the redeemed church that will inherit all things of God. You don't get there by just being "good" however you define "good" but rather by obedience to the Word of God and submission to His will for your life!

Heaven is to be a banquet supper and a marriage celebration for a bride that "has made herself ready." A pure bride who has washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and through God's mercy become a chosen generation.

And let me say this, you might think that the church of the Living God has its faults and is imperfect, and let me say that anything made up of human beings will not be perfect on this side of glory, but you still better get in the church because it is the one thing that is going to inherit eternal life! I imagine Noah's boat -- being his first and not much more than a crude box -- wasn't anything to look at and professional ship builders could have probably found room for improvement, but you'd better brush all of such thoughts aside because God has said only those onboard will be saved! It's the same with the church: it's got people and as such is imperfect, but you'd better get on board because this is what God has said is going to the other side! Heaven is for the redeemed church of God, the bride of Christ. And as such:

I would not be telling you the entire story if I did not read to you three passages of God's Word of this subject. First John wrote:

And Paul -- who had also received great revelations about heaven, remember -- wrote:

This world's philosophies may water down the clear teaching of God against sin, and many churches may erase such terminology from their vocabulary and their pulpit. But God's Word is clear on this case: people who do such things will not be a part of the heavenly place that God has prepared. Being saved is more than just a one time experience where you are saved from your past, but it also must be something that changes us and transforms us into holiness and living according to as God would desire. True salvation changes our outlook and our lifestyle and gets us ready to inherit a place that God has provided for us! It's more than just getting forgiveness of the past, but it must be the transformation of the present so that we can go to that holy place in the future!

And finally:

It is a high place. Paul wrote in our text that he was "caught up" to the third heaven. The word for "caught up" in the Greek is "harpazo." In the Latin it is "raptus" which is where we get the English term "rapture." You get to heaven by being "raptured" there. Or "caught away" or "caught up."

Maybe Paul experienced some sort of spiritual experience much like the Apostle John did, but if you and I are going to get to the heavens one day, it will be when Jesus Christ comes back for His church. Jesus told His followers:

Jesus Christ is coming back to receive His church! The scriptures say that if the same Christ which raised Him up from the dead, dwells within us, then it will be what "quickens" our bodies and causes us to fly away from this world! (Romans 8:11) Man has no means to get beyond this universe, but God does and it is called the Holy Ghost! We need to receive it and keep it and listen to is so that we are sensitive to God's call when the final trumpet sounds and we are "raptured out of here!" The dead in Christ will rise first and those who are alive and remain will be "caught up" to meet Jesus in the air. He will come in the eastern sky in a time when you think not. To miss this "catching away" is to miss heaven and its wondrous splendor!

And so I would urge someone today! There is nothing in this world that is worth missing out on the eternal glory that is waiting! There is no lust worth missing heaven. There is no past worth missing heaven. There is no excuse worth missing heaven over. No person worth missing heaven over. Let us repent of our sins, and apply His wondrous blood to our spiritual robes through being baptized in His name and let us receive His wondrous Holy Spirit within us. And then let us allow that Spirit to work with the Word to cleanse us of willful sin and the things of the past and make us a new creature in Christ Jesus. And then let us become a part of the redeemed church that is spiritually attuned to His voice and Spirit day in and day out so that when the call to be "caught away" comes, that we would hear and respond! Let us "make ourselves ready today," because heaven is waiting!