If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God, when Christ, who is our life, or just
when Christ, our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with Him in glory. Back to Colossians. I'm going
to start preaching on Wednesday night about heaven. And tonight will be my first
message on it. And I've titled my message, Let's
Talk About Heaven. Let's Talk About Heaven. And
most people, if you take a survey, if they want to take, say, a
Gallup poll, I dare say that 75 to 80 percent of the American
people would say, yes, they believe there's a heaven. And yes, they
believe they'll go there when they die. You ever met anybody
yet that said, well, I have. I've met some folks that said,
yeah, I'm going to hell and I have plenty of company. Well, they
won't enjoy one another's company when they get there, I'll tell
you that. But anyway, most people think they'll go there when they
die. But the same people, if you ask them the same people,
The majority of them also believe there's more than one way to
get there. They believe there's more than one way to get there.
All religions have their own versions of heaven and the way
they describe it and how to get there. Jehovah's Witnesses say
there ain't gonna be but 144,000 there. And then there's, you know, the
Mormons believe that that's why they so strong on their genealogy.
is that they can, that's why they trace their genealogy, because
they can be baptized for the dead, and the dead will get to
go to heaven when Christ comes again. That's why they call them
saints of the latter day, because they just say, well, back up. And then, of course, there's
purgatory, where you go suffer a long, long time, and then you
get to go to heaven once you get out. But for those of us
who believe the Bible, believe God's blessed word, They expect
us to accept their way, while they'll reject our way. I couldn't
tell you how many people tell me, and I've had told and said,
that there's got to be more than one way to heaven. I heard one
fellow say, you know, there's got to be more than one way to
Central Park. But we're not talking about going
to Central Park. We're talking about going into God's presence.
Yeah, there's lots of ways to get to Central Park, but there's
only one way to get to heaven, only one way to get to God. And
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He said there's no other name
given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved other
than Jesus Christ. And that's the only way. There's
no other way. Our Lord Jesus Himself says that
no man comes unto the Father but by Me. And the Word has an
awful lot to say about Heaven. You know how many times our Lord
spoke about the Kingdom of Heaven is, the Kingdom of Heaven is,
the Kingdom of God is. And the Word of God has a good
bit to say about Heaven and how to get there. And God sent His
Son into this world to save sinners. And He loved this world, and
He loved the world of His people, that He gave Himself as a sacrifice
for our sins that we might have everlasting life. And if there
ain't but one place to get everlasting life, then you can't get it no
place else. And let me ask you, do you ever
think about heaven? I do, and I believe you do. I
think about heaven. The Word of God's full of eternity.
Do you know that eternity and things about eternity, or the
Bible is full about eternity, everlasting life, everlasting
damnation? God dwells in eternity. We'll
last throughout eternity. And always talking about life,
everlasting life, eternal life. Or it talks about the judgment,
and the judgment and the eternal judgment of men. It talks about
the great gulf that's pitched between heaven and between hell,
between the lost and the saved. Great gulf pitched, great gulf
pitched. And Ecclesiastes 3 says this,
that God put eternity in our hearts. It says He put the world
in our hearts, and that world there means eternity. He put
eternity in our hearts. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world to save a multitude of which no man could number
out of every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every kindred of
people on the face of this earth. So I'll tell you my first point
is this. Do you believe or do you not?
Do you do or do you not? Yea or nay? Scriptures mentions
heaven some 600 times. 600 times. It tells us of a blessed hope.
It tells us of glory. Right here, it talks about glory. In verse 4, when Christ, our
life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. So you see, it tells of a blessed
hope of glory that's going to be revealed. And it's revealed
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and those who trust Christ.
But lots of people view it entirely different. They look forward
to, you know, some look forward to some day, but some people
are like this. They say, well, it's kind of
like Social Security. You know, I only need it. I don't worry about it until
I need it. And that's the way a lot of folks look about heaven.
I ain't going to worry about it until I need it. Never take it serious. Never
take it that serious. And some out and out reject the
hope of heaven and eternal life. You know how many people in this
world just out and out rejects the idea of heaven and eternal
life? A fellow said today, he just
said today, he says the Bible only makes sense if you're really,
really high. It don't make sense any other way.
He don't even want to read it. But let me read you this poem
by a man named A.E. Housman. And he used Isaiah 55-1
as a jumping off point for this, where our Lord says there, Everyone
that thirsteth, let him come and drink without money and without
price. And this fellow, this houseman,
this is what he said, Oh, everyone that thirsteth and has the price
to give, come to stolen waters, drink, and your soul shall live.
Come to the stolen waters and leap the guarded pail, and pull
the flower in season before desire shall fail. It shall not last
forever, no more than earth or skies. The lad that hopes for
heaven shall live before he dies. Due sons, you cannot store them
to warm the winter cold. The lad who hopes for heaven
shall fill his mouth with mold." And what he's saying is this,
You only got one life to live, or you're going to get six foot
of dirt. You're going to be six foot and your mouth is going
to be full of mold. And so sin all you can possibly pick the
flowers. Do everything live before you
die. And live and sin all you possibly
can before you have, while you have time. But Paul says just
the opposite of that. He said in verse 1 and 2 here
in Colossians 3. If you then, If you then be risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above, which are Christ's,
that's on the right hand of God. And listen to this. Set your
affection, your mind, your heart, your will, on things above. Not
on things on this earth. This fellow had his mind on earth.
Set your things on things above. Set your affection on Christ.
Because Christ, that's on the right hand of God. And people
make excuses. Oh my, so many excuses. So many
excuses. Most think there's a heaven and
they're going. And most just have an assumption
about it. Why would you know? Why would you know that you're
going to go? How would you know? And most people think heaven
is something that when you describe it, you know, when they describe
it to you in the way it's caricature, it's really a caricature. You
know, heaven is weird. They call it otherworldly. Heaven
is not very practical. You can be so heavenly-minded,
you have no earthly good. I had a preacher who used to
say that all the time. The Scriptures teach us the very
opposite of that. Oh, set your affection on things
above. Be heavenly-minded. When Christ
reveals our lives, shall appear where our affections are set
on things above. I don't think heaven's weird
at all. I think we got a little heaven in our hearts right now.
And then folks say, well, heaven's boring. The folks will be there
in white robes, have their halos over their head, sitting on clouds,
have them a big ol' long heart like David had, and they'll be
plucking them strings, singing songs. It'll be like going to
church for a million years. It'll be boring. And heaven's too hard to think
about. And a lot of folks don't want to talk about this. They
say it's just too hard to think about. Where is it? Where is
it? How does it work? What do you
do? How do you get there? I know
that Jesus went there, and I know He's there, but it's hard for
me to understand how to get there. But let me tell you something,
beloved. The real issue is not one of those things that I just
mentioned. People can make every excuse, they can come up with
every weird idea they want to, make light of it, put it out
of their minds, say, I'm going to sin all I want to do, there's
no heaven, we're just like animals, we're like dogs, we just go to
the dirt, and that's it. But the real issue is not none
of the things I mentioned. The real issue is why we don't
want to go to heaven, people don't want to think about it,
is because we're tied to this life right here too much. Look over here in Luke chapter
12 and I'll show you what I mean. Luke chapter 12. And I think this is one of the
things that God does for us. It says here in verse 16 of Luke
12, And thy Lord is speaking now, And he spake a parable unto
them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because
I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This
will I do, and I'll pull down my barns and build greater, and
there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods, and I'll say to
my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.
Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Here's a man, like
most folks, too busy getting wealth, too busy getting money,
too busy to think about heaven or hell, too busy even to think
about God. They're walking by sight. They're
walking by what they can touch, taste, and handle. They're not
walking by faith. They say, we're alive now. We're
healthy. I have a lot of life to live.
I know the world's a great place, even with the troubles it's in,
and this thing appeals to us. But listen, death and eternity
seem so far away to people until the day comes. And look what
God said here, verse 20. But God said, who? Who? This night, tonight. Your soul shall be required of
thee. I'm going to require your soul.
I'm going to require an account of you. I'm going to require
an account of your life. I'm going to require an account
of your thoughts. I'm going to require an account
of your money. I'm going to require an account
of your time. Then, who shall those things
be which thou hath provided? And oh, beloved, that's the problem
that men face. And when you talk about the claims
of our Lord, and you know our Lord Jesus Christ says, if a
man loves anything more than me, he's not greater than me.
He says, if he hates not his father and his mother and his
brothers and his sisters, he can't even be my disciple. And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
said, He said, come unto me. You've got no place else to go.
If you want to know God, if you want to go to heaven, you want
to be in the kingdom of heaven, you've got to come to me. And I heard
a man say that one time. He said, I read, and this is
an incredibly intelligent man. And he said here just a few days
ago, he says, I don't believe in religion, and I'm an irreligious
man, because I read the Bible, and it says that Christ says
that if you love anything more than Him, and He said, I'm a
family man, and I love my family, and I ain't going to give up
my family for nobody. And He's exactly right. But here's the thing about it.
When you give up everything, and you get Christ in, you get
everything a thousandfold. Don't you? You know, my wife, my children
and aunts, they're secondary to Christ, but look at the love
that we have among ourselves, the love that we have for our
children, the love that we have. This goes way beyond denying
something. And oh, beloved, and then not
only that the claims of our Lord Jesus and the fact of facing
a righteous judge, they're offensive. And an awful thing to think about,
that's why Felix told Paul, after he reasoned of righteousness
and temperance and judgment, he said, now wait a minute, Paul. You wait till tomorrow. I'll
call you again at a more convenient time. When he called on him to
believe, I'll wait till a more convenient time. But, oh, beloved,
there's never, never a better time than to be a believer than
right now. Right now. But, oh, beloved, thinking about
heaven. Oh, what a blessed thing. What a blessed thing. Oh, life
is brief to some. And, oh, are we going to live
forever? Everybody knows they're not. And where will you spend
eternity? Everybody's going to spend it
somewhere. And that's what people don't seem to understand. is
that death does not change your relationship with God. With eternity,
we will have everlasting life. Others will have everlasting
damnation. Those that will enter into glory
with Christ We'll have everlasting peace and rest in a life that
will endure forever and enjoy God forever, and the rest will
evidently be down here in torment and agony and suffering throughout
all eternities. But it'll still be life, but
it won't be what we'd call life. It'd be perishing, but never
perishing. And oh my, what are people banking
on? What are you banking on? Here's
the thing, what are you banking on? What are you banking on to go
out into eternity? What are you banking on? The best you could? Well, I made
my decision. I joined the church. I was talking to Todd today, and
he was talking about a young man that wants to be baptized.
And the young fellow's in awful bad condition right now. And
he says when he gets over what conditions, he only wants to
be baptized. And I said, are you going to
do it? And he said, not until there's
some things changed. Because he said, all I'd do is
be baptizing a man that don't know Christ right now. And he
wouldn't talk with him the other night. And he's just in terrible
shape. What are you banking on? If you
get the news, and some of you have, and some of you will yet,
what are you baiting on? Huh? John the Baptist, when all
that crowd come to him, you know what the first thing he said?
Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Huh? And they say, oh, listen, we're
all right. He says, you know, we don't need
to repent. He said, if you think that God needs you and you don't
bring forth fruit and meat for repentance, don't you know that
God is able to bestow to raise up children unto Abraham? Don't
just presume you're right with God because you had a religious
experience or religious ceremony and went through a ritual. You
see, being born the first time, all it does is make you fit for
hell. Being born again, is the only thing that can make you
fit for heaven. And oh, and there's a false hope.
How many people have false hopes? It's an easy, easiest thing in
the world to do is have a false hope. Have trust in a false hope.
And you all have heard this many times. Oh, God's too good. God's too nice to put decent
people like us in hell. Universal salvation is the normal
belief. Wouldn't you say that, Gary?
Universal salvation is the normal belief. Nobody, nobody perishes. In fact, you know, I tell you,
anybody that dies, I mean, the more popular you are, the more
well-known you are, and your concept, you know, say, boy,
he's watching down from heaven to hell. Now, he's watching down from
heaven now. Oh, he's playing the guitar for
Jesus now. They're singing in the heavenly
choir. What did you say about the angels are teaching Mama
how to sing? Oh, my. People with a false hope would
rather cling to their false hope than to cling to Christ. Cling
to Christ. Oh, beloved. But believers are
not like that. Believers are not like that.
God's people, there must be a new birth. There must be a new birth. The Holy Spirit must come and
regenerate the heart, regenerate the soul, give life to the soul,
give life to the heart. bring life out of death, and
bring a man out of that darkness. He creates in that man a new
life, and that life causes that soul to look to Christ by faith,
by God's blessed grace. And into this new nature, into
this new nature that God creates within a man, He puts heaven
in that soul when He saves it. I really believe that. We have
eternal life right now. Ain't that what it says there
in verse 1? We are raised together with Christ. We're raised together with Him.
And we're focused on things above. We're focused on... our affections
are set on heavenly things, things above. We're not interested in
earthly things. What's earthly things? What are
they? We're going to leave them all behind. Life is so temporary. Our relationships are so temporary. How many of your children have
gone as a temporary? Husbands gone, wives gone, temporary. But beloved, that's why we set
our fiction on things above, not on things of this earth. Our focus is not on this world.
Our focus is not here. We're like Abraham. We're looking
for a city whose builder and maker has died. And oh beloved,
we have one who sees this and sees that we'll believe and keep
on believing. Look what he says, we're looking
to one where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Christ is
for us then. Christ is the one who takes up
our cause. Oh my. You see, we set our fictional
things above. Our mind is on Christ. We think
about Christ. We think about God. We think
about heaven. We think about eternity while
we're bound here in time. Don't you do that? Don't you
think about eternal things? Don't you think about the things
And that's why you're always preaching, and witnessing, and
reading the Scriptures, and praying, and talking to your loved ones,
and trying to instruct your children, and trying to instruct your grandchildren.
You know why you do that? Because you know they're eternally
bound. And oh, look what a promise is
made here for us. First thing, here's the truth.
In verse 3, you are dead. And your life is hidden. What are we dead to? Dead to
sin? Even our old man, we consider him to be dead. That old man
does not rule us. That old man does not control
us. That old man is not the one that's
ruling our lives. And look what it says, and our
life was hidden with Christ in God. We're hidden there. Who
can get in and get us? God knows where he hid us, because
he hid us there. Oh, sin is not our rule anymore. Oh, we have new life. New life
with Christ. Our life. We have new life. We're
in new creation. We have new directions we're
going in. We have new motives for what we do. We have new desires. We have new visions. We see things
we never saw. And we have this vision and this
new desire for time, beloved, and eternity, to live our time
here to the glory of God and enter into eternity with the
glory of God. And then look what a prospect
we have here. And he said in verse 4, when Christ, our life,
shall appear, and He will, He will, What happens? Well, we will,
too, when we appear in glory. We have heaven right here in
our hearts right now. God put it down. And I'll tell
you something, beloved, while you turn over 1 Corinthians 2
with me, I'll tell you something. Our future is also our present. Our future is also our present.
What do you mean by that? I mean, beloved, our future,
right now, our present and our future are one and the same. Our future is also our present. Oh, look what he said here in
1 Corinthians 2.9. But as it is written, I have
not seen, ear hasn't heard, neither has it entered into the heart
of a man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him. Oh my, if we stopped back there, we'd say, boy, what in
the world's going on? But look what it says in the
next verse. But God hath revealed him unto us. Why? He revealed
our eyes. He revealed our ears. He put
it in our heart. What He's got prepared for those
that love Him. He revealed them to us by His
Spirit. That Spirit took the things of
God, the things of time, the things of eternity, the things
of Christ, the things of the Scripture, the things of heaven,
and the things of salvation in Christ, and showed them unto
us. And because of our future, while we live here in the present,
we can live in hope, we live in faith, we live in love, we
live in great expectation. Why do we do that? Because we
are looking for the blessed hope, looking for the blessed hope
and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. No wonder he said, set your affection
on things above. Beloved, don't wait. Don't wait. Don't wait. Listen. If you don't know Christ,
seek Him. If you ain't sure that you have
life, go to the one who has it. And if your affection is set
on this world and all that's in it, then this world and all
that's in it is all you ever have. Amen. I heard Brother Henry say, I
couldn't tell you how many times he said, hold everything, even
the things that you love the most, hold them very, very loose,
so God won't have to twist your fingers and break your hands
to get them out of it.