Isaiah chapter 35 is one of those
tremendous prophecies given in the Old Testament, one of those
many prophecies given by Isaiah, in which he describes in wondrous
language the coming of Christ. But as he describes the coming
of Christ, he describes more than our Lord's first advent
and more than his second advent. He At the same time, and with
the same words, describes our Lord's coming to accomplish redemption
for us, his coming to us in grace, and the consummation of that
work of his by which he shall bring us at last into glory. Let's begin reading at verse
1. The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them. The desert shall rejoice and
blossom as the rose. The prophet is describing how
that God will cause his word to go forth into all the nations
of the world, not to the Jews alone. It shall blossom abundantly
and rejoice even with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon
shall be given unto it. The excellency of Carmel and
Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency
of our God. The Lord Jesus Christ came here
to make men and women see the glory of the Lord, the excellence
of God. It is seen in the face of Jesus
Christ, showing us plainly how it is that God is gracious and
yet just, merciful and yet true in the forgiveness of sin. Strengthen
ye the weak hands, confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that
are of a fearful heart, one time or another, that talks about
every one of us, doesn't it? Be strong, fear Behold, your
God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He
will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened. These eyes that once could see
nothing could not see nor enter into the kingdom of God, could
not see the glory of God. These eyes have been opened by
His grace. The ears of the deaf, these ears
that could not and would not hear His voice, shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap
as a heart, that one who was utterly impotent, with no ability
at all to serve God, to honor God, to walk in His ways, leaps
as a young the tongue of the dove, this heavy tongue, that
never had any idea of what it was, to sing God's praise, shall
sing. For in the wilderness shall the
waters break out, and streams in the desert. A river flowing
from the throne of God cause the river of the water of life
to spring up in your very soul. and the parched ground. You've
been there? Your heart and soul, dry and
parched, utterly barren, parched under the blistering sun of God's
wrath, shall become a pool. And the thirsty lands springs
of water, and the habitation of dragons, this heart, the willing dwelling place of
every imaginable monster of hell, where each leg shall be grass
with reeds and rushes, peaceful, calm. And in highways shall be
there, and a way." Our Lord said, I
am the way. He comes and puts us in the way.
And it shall be called the way of holiness. Not the way in which men make
themselves holy, but the way in which only those who are made
holy can walk. The way of God's holiness, the
way of God's righteousness, the way of God's truth. And the unclean
shall not pass over it. But it shall be for those, the
wayfaring men, those fools. If you ever learn anything about
God, you'll learn this, you're a fool. We are folks who don't
know anything. And the more we know, the more
we recognize we don't know anything. But the things of God don't require
brilliance. The things of God don't require
academic excellence. The things of God, the knowledge
of Christ, doesn't require logic and sophisticated thinking. What
it does require is faith, God-given faith. And the revelation of
God in your heart by the gospel is so crystal clear that though
we are fools, wayfaring men, they shall not err therein. This
is the way. You're not going to turn me away
from it. No lion shall be there. No devouring beast, the lion
of hell that roars against us, is not found there. Nor any ravenous
beast shall go up thereon. It shall not be found there,
but the redeemed, that's who walks in this way, those who
have been bought by the blood of Christ, delivered from the
bondage of sin, delivered from the power of hell, they shall
walk there. Now then, look at this. Here's
my text. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return. Every
one of them. Every one of them. The Lord Jesus
Christ ransomed somebody. He paid somebody's debt. He put
away somebody's sins. And the ransomed of the Lord
shall return. Return where? Return to God.
Return where? Return to heaven. Return to him
from whom all blessings flow. And come to Zion. That's not
talking about that little old piece of land over across the
water. That's talking about heavenly glory to Zion. Sometimes in the
scriptures, Zion refers to a picture of the local assembly. But more
often than not, it's talking about the heavenly Jerusalem,
Mount Zion, the city of our God. It's talking about heavenly glory.
They shall return and come to Zion, and when we do, They'll
come in with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, and they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing, for any
reason of every kind, shall flee away. Now let's talk about, or
think about, heaven. And I want to talk to you about
it. Set our hearts now on things
above, upon Christ our Lord. Set our hearts upon things above,
that we may long to be with Him. Set our hearts on things above,
that our hearts may be henceforth and forever ruled by the grace
bestowed upon us and the glory awaiting us. Let me give you
my message tonight in four or five points, very brief. First,
let me give you a short, very short description of heaven. Oh, what is it? I hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. I wouldn't even begin
to sit down if I had time and ability to write down everything
I have been taught concerning heaven and say this is what heaven
is. I haven't yet begun to scratch
the surface imagining what it is. The glory, the bliss, the
life, the blessedness of heaven, we cannot begin to imagine here.
But these three things I know are true. Turn to Revelation
chapter 4 for a moment. Learn this. Heaven is a place
of rest. You're familiar with Hebrews
9? There remaineth therefore rest to the people of God. When
we enter into glory, when these Souls enter into life when we
have put on that house not made with hands eternal into heaven.
We shall rest from our labors. We shall rest from our sin. We shall rest from our trouble. We shall rest from our struggles.
We shall rest from our battles. We shall rest. We will enter
into rest. Nothing compares to rest when
you're weary. Nothing. Sometimes, not often,
but occasionally, I just get absolutely exhausted. Just totally
exhausted. And I can't drink enough coffee
to make up for it. I can't find anything that gives
me enough excitement to make up for it. I'm just exhausted.
And the only thing to take care of it is to lay down and rest. So, this exhausted soul shall rest. But it's a place of rest where
there's never any rest. Now look at this. Revelation
4 verse 8. And the four beasts had each
of them six wings. about him, and they were full
of eyes within, and they rest not day and night." Oh, but even
this is rest. Look at it. Saying, holy, holy,
holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come. In heaven, Bobby, we're going
to rest from everything we want to rest from. And we're going
to begin to do forever, with no rest, what our souls most
long to do. We'll worship God. Second, heaven is a place where
the soul is always satisfied. David made this statement, Psalm
1715. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness." When I am conformed to Christ, conformed to Him in His obedience,
in His sacrifice, in His submission, in His perfection. in his consecration
to God, in his sinlessness, conform to him, then I'll be satisfied. Not until the end. And yet, while heaven is a place
where we shall have that great satisfaction of being made in
his likeness, it's a place where we can never be satisfied. Well,
Pastor, what do you mean? In heaven, we will always see
his face. And yet, we will always want
to see more of him. In heaven, we will always embrace
him. I'm not talking about a physical
embrace. There's something better than
that. We will always hold him with our hearts. And yet we will
always want to embrace him more. We will always feed on him. And yet we will ever want to
feed on him more. In heaven there's both satisfaction
and hunger. It's a place full of mysteries,
I admit. Things that we can't really put
together in our minds here. But the more we have of Christ,
the more we'll want of him. The more we know of Him, the
more we want to know Him. The more we're with Him, the
more we want to be with Him. Understand what I'm saying? Well,
no, not really. It's just beyond us. But we shall
have Him and want Him. And thirdly, heaven is a place
where there is joy and love eternally flowing into our souls. while admiration and praise eternally
flow out to God our Savior. All the saints in heaven speak
like this, hallelujah, praise to the Lamb who sits on his throne. What will it be to be taken into
the gates of that blessed city, to hear the music of Jehovah's
praise, to hear the choirs of heaven singing that new song
which none could learn but those who are redeemed of God. What
will it be to enter into that rest in which there will never
be a rest from Emmanuel's praise? What will it be? To be satisfied,
perfectly, completely, fully satisfied with that satisfaction
that causes us ever to hunger for Christ. All right, secondly,
think with me for a little bit about the employment of heaven. And I'm about to get into stuff
a little over my head. When we think about heaven, Heaven,
we shall soon go there. Whatever, wherever it is, wherever
our Redeemer is, we'll be with Him. But when God makes all things
new, as we read in Revelation 21, and the holy city of the
new Jerusalem, that is the church of God, comes down from God out
of Heaven, He's made this new Heaven and the new Earth will
dwell on this earth. And we're talking about eternal, endless
life with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth. And we're not going to just be
sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We're going to be doing something.
There are at least these five things that exercise God's saints
in heaven. And I have no doubt many, many
more things. But these five things will be
constantly our employment, no matter what else we may do. As I was trying to figure out
how to preach this to you, I sat down and I thought to myself,
wouldn't it be marvelous if all the day long, every day, as you
go about your business, you go about your labor, you could be
engaged consciously and constantly in admiring Christ. praising God, rejoicing in the
Lord, loving Him, and gazing on Him. That'd make putting those nails
in the wood pretty good, wouldn't it, Merle? If all of that, we
shall. We shall. whatever eternity holds
for us, whatever God has for us to do on that new earth, in
that new creation, we shall be constantly, consciously engaged
in admiring Christ, praising Him, rejoicing in Him, loving
Him, and gazing upon the face of the incarnate God. There's not one look in glory
land that's not fixed upon our precious Redeemer. How can that
be? I just caught Larry Chris' eye.
And you know something? I'm looking on Christ too. We don't become omniscient, omnipresent
gods. We're not talking about anything
of the kind. We're talking about real life, real spiritual life. And all that we do and all that
we look upon in eternity, we shall look upon Him. There is
not one movement of the tongue that is not spent commending
Him. Oh God, give me grace to know something about that now.
Not one step of the feet that is not bent on following him. Not one stir of the hand that
is not occupied with serving him. Not one thought that is
not filled with him. Not one desire that is not taken
up with loving him. What makes heaven such a lovely
place? Is it not Christ, who to you
who believe is precious? The Lamb is the light of the
city. Heaven would be a dark, dark place without Him. I hope
you know something about what I'm talking about. Heaven is
that everlasting world of light, adoration, holiness, perfection,
and ceaseless worship to which God saves. are moving with rapid
pace. Will you find your lodging there? The Spirit and the Bride say,
Come. The three persons of the Holy Trinity say, Come up hither. Come up here with us. All the
saints and angels cry, Come up here with us. This is a good
place to be. Will you be there? Only if these things are true,
only if your name is written in the book of life before the
world began. Oh, if we enter into glory, Sam Wall,
because God Almighty chose us to this end. Only if you've been
redeemed by the blood of God's darling Son, washed in His blood
from all your sins. Only if you've been made perfectly
righteous before God. There shall be no wise enter
in, anything that defiles or makes a liar, abomination, unbelief. None of that's going to enter
in. None. But only those who washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. That's all. Look here in Revelation
chapter 14. Revelation 14. I looked, and lo, a lamb stood
on the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand."
Now, just in case you have been stricken with the curiosity of
those heretics who have walked around the earth for a number
of years now since they began, and said there's just a hundred
and forty-four thousand going to enter into heaven, they've
got a real problem because we've got more of them than that now.
But folks want to know who's the 144,000? It's talking about
the whole body of God's elect. A definite number given for an
indefinite number. All the people of God. Who are
they? They are those who have the Father's
name written on their foreheads. And I heard the voice from heaven,
as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder.
And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And
they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before
the four beasts and the elders. And no man could learn that song
but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed
from the earth. That's who they are. These are
they, look at this, which were not defiled with women, for they
are virgins. What on earth is he talking about?
Well, there are a lot of things that could and should be said
from that last statement. But this is the essence of it.
We will stand before God Almighty in the perfection of holiness
as chaste virgins in Christ who have never been defiled. find your lodging in heaven's
glory. If God Almighty ever does this for you, you will. And that's
all. Blessed then are the dead which
die in the Lord. Blessed indeed. These rest from
their labors. Let's move on. Let me see if
I can describe something of the excellence of heaven. what makes heaven such a blessed
place. All the windows of every house, all the streets of that land,
all the walls of that city had the smell of the rose of
Sharon and the lily of the valley upon them. That's what makes
heaven an excellent place. What a great sight it was that
John had when the angel talked with him and said, Come up hither,
and I'll show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried
him away into an exceeding high mountain and showed him the holy
city, the new Jerusalem. What is it that makes heaven
so grand, so excellent beyond compare? It is the soul-satisfying
vision of God that we shall have there in the person of Christ,
God's darling Son, our Mediator, when we shall see His face. That's it. That's it. Oh, but preacher, what about
all the other folks going to be there? I'll be honest with
you now. I have no question at all. We're going to know, as we're
known, we're going to know one another. I have no question at
all. In heaven's glory, we shall embrace
and love one another perfectly. But in heaven's glory, it shall
be as it ought to be. Our love for one another, our
embracing of one another, Our holding one another, our enjoying
one another, will all and only be because of Him. Here we see our Lord dimly. We're
going to eat the bread and drink the wine, and I hope as you hold
the bread in your hand and the wine in your hand, As you eat
the bread and drink the wine, you see the Savior crucified
for you. And you remember Him, but we
see Him so dimly. We see Him dimly every time we
see one confess Him in the waters of baptism. We see Him, but we
see Him dimly. We see Him dimly now through
the preaching of the Word, through the ministry of the Gospel, through
the hymns of praise. But then, we're going to see
Him as He is. face to face. Wonder what the bride's thoughts
will be when Christ first takes her into his arms. Who can imagine? This is my beloved. This is my
friend. He brought me into his banqueting
house and his banner over me was love. I read a sermon by
a fellow named Andrew Gray, just 23 years old when he died. I
read it several times last week. He was dealing with this subject
and got me thinking this direction. And he said this to his congregation
back in 1633 to 1656. That's when he lived. Scottish
preacher. He said, what shall be your thoughts? when Christ shall take you in
his arms, if ever he will take you." He said, I think we'll
just fall apart. And I think that's just about
as good as I can make it. Oh, is not heaven an excellent place? Now, here are some questions
that I ask of my Lord. Maybe you can. Shall this tongue, which is so often blasphemed
his name, and so often brought pain to
so many, be made to speak his praise in
perfection? Yes, it shall. that have wandered and looked
upon so much evil and brought so much evil into my soul, these
eyes have been used for so much perversity. Look on him and see
his face. Yes, they shall. I think the first hour we see
Christ if there are such things as ours in eternity. We might
blush to look on him, were it not for his grace, we surely
would. When we see his face, his transforming
face, where shall we turn our eyes? I have seen him with the eyes of my soul by faith. And the revelation of him in
my soul has been such and is yet such that I have never gotten
over it. What then shall it be to see
him perfectly? It will be the wonder of eternity.
Shall these ears which were for so long stopped
against his voice and are still often stopped against
his voice. Hear the music of heaven and
hear the voice of my beloved. Indeed they shall. These feet
have run to so much evil and are yet so swift to run to good,
shall they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes? Surely, yes, they shall. Shall this heart, the house of so many idols, this heart so cold toward Him,
who loved me and gave himself for me, this heart so hard. Shall this heart forever embrace
the Son of God? Yes, it shall. Yes, it shall. Shall these hands which have worked so much havoc,
hold him and serve him perfectly? Yes, they shall. Yes, they shall. Pastor, how can you say that?
How can you say that? Because my name is written in
the book of life. I've been redeemed by his blood.
I've been washed in his blood and I'm robed in his righteousness.
And I know it so because I believe him. I struggle now with doubts and
fears. I struggle now with times of
terrible desertion. I often cry out for my soul,
like David of old, How long, O Lord, how long will you hide
your face from me? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? I don't know if I've ever learned
anything at all about prayer. Most of the time when I try to
pray, I recognize I'm seeking things according
to my lust. And I find most of the time,
the heavens are brass. Most of the time, when I read
the Word, or sometimes, sometimes I think maybe I've got to speak
to God, sometimes I think God speaks to me, but most of the
time, Bobby, It seems like I'm just going through the motions,
and my heart's deader than stone. I wish it weren't so, but that's
just fact. That's just fact. But listen,
listen. Just as soon as I close these
eyes for the last time, just as soon as I breathe my last
breath, I'm going to say goodbye to desertion, to emptiness, to
barrenness, to death, to lifelessness forever and live with rejoicing and singing in
Zion because Christ has come to me and he'll bring me to him. Let's see if we can sing this
chorus, we haven't sung it in a long time. Say sinner, will you meet
me? Say sinner, will you meet me? Say sinner, will you meet me? On Canaan's happy shore. By the grace of God, I'll meet
you. By the grace of God, I'll meet
you. By the grace of God, I'll meet
you on Canaan's happy shore. There we'll shout and give Him
glory. There we'll shout and give Him
glory. There we'll shout and give Him
glory. For glory is His name.