What I Know About Heaven

I'm speaking to you on the subject,
What I Know About Heaven and What I Know About Hell. I hope you'll listen carefully
to the message, get your Bible, take notes if you'd like to.
Solomon wrote, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it
was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it. man goeth
to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Paul the
Apostle wrote, it is appointed unto men once to die, and after
this, the judgment. And the great Richard Baxter,
who ministered the gospel two or three hundred years ago, made
this tremendous statement, I preach as a dying man to dying men. I preach as one who may never
preach again. Now I've made a study of the
subject of heaven and the subject of hell. What I know about heaven,
what I know about hell. And you ought to be interested
in this message today because every one of us, every one of
us, one of these days must keep that appointment. It is appointed
unto me and wants to die and after that the judgment. And
every sermon I preach ought to be preached in the light of death,
judgment, eternity. And every sermon you hear ought
to be heard in the light of death and judgment and eternity. There is life after death, heaven
for some, glory, eternal reign with Christ, and for eternal
hell and condemnation. There was a preacher sitting
with a friend out in the garden one day, out in a flower garden.
They were discussing scripture, discussing death, discussing
life after death. And the friend looked at the
preacher and he said, Reverend, wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody
from up there would come down here and tell us what it's all
about. And the minister replied, someone
did. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
came down here and told us what it's all about. And it's right
there in his words. And all you and I have to do
is look into the word and pray that the Holy Spirit will give
us an understanding of what is written. Now I'm concerned about
death and judgment and eternity, and I'm surprised I'm totally
amazed that more of you are not concerned about this subject
because you're so vitally, personally involved in this subject. Eternal
heaven or eternal hell. Now let's look at some things
and let me just, as an outline, give you what I know about heaven. First of all, I know this. that
Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. I'm certain of that.
There's not a doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ is the only
way to heaven. In 1 John 5, verse 11, John wrote,
This is the record. This is God's word. This is a
faithful saying. This is worthy of acceptation
by all men. God Almighty hath declared it.
This is the record. that God hath given to us. We
don't deserve it, but God by his grace and mercy hath given
to us eternal life. That's heaven, that's eternal
glory, that's divine life. This is heaven that God hath
given to us, heavenly life. And this life is in his Son. It's not in the church, it's
not in good works, it's not in the law. God hath given us eternal
life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath
eternal life. He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, trusteth
him, receiveth him, should not perish, but have eternal life. He that believeth on the Son
hath eternal life. and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death unto life." So this life is in Christ. Adam lost three things in the
Garden of Eden. First of all, he lost the way
to God. After he sinned, after he fell,
God put him out of the garden and closed the gate and put flaming
swords and chair bends to guard the entrance. Adam was cast away
from God. The second thing he lost was
the truth. He believed a lie and rejected God's truth. Our
Lord said, I come in my Father's name and you don't believe me.
Let another come in his own name and him you will believe. It's
been that way since the fall. Men readily accept a lie and
reject the truth. And Adam lost the truth. He lost
the ability to recognize the truth. And then he lost his spiritual
life, or he lived on physically for many years, but he died spiritually. God said, in the day you eat
thereof, you shall surely die. And Adam died. Now in Christ,
we have all three of these things restored. The way to God, the
life of God, the truth of God. But Christ said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. no man cometh unto the Father
but by me." All of this is restored to the sons of Adam who have
Christ, who know Christ, who receive Christ in Christ. For he obeyed the perfect law
for you and for me. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us. He took upon himself sin for
flesh and obeyed the law in order that he might reckon to us or
impute to us a perfect standing before God. Man fell, man broke
the law. In order for man to be justified,
man had to keep that law. Well, what the law could not
do, because of the weakness of our flesh, God sending his own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh.
He became a man, just like you and me, in human flesh. And he
was tested and tried and tempted in all points, yet without sin. Why? In order that man might
be justified. in order that man might have
a perfect righteousness. And more than that, he took our
guilt. He took our sins in his body on the tree, and there the
justice of God was satisfied. Both God's law in his life and
God's justice in his death was satisfied. And that way we can,
by God, be accepted. That way you and I, sinners,
born sinners, by nature, by practice, by choice, we can be received
by God. We can be taken to heaven. So
the only way to heaven, according to this book, is Jesus Christ. He is the way. He said that I
am the way. Can words be any plainer than
that? The church is not the door to heaven. Baptism, the Lord's
Supper, laws, rules, regulations, statutes, standards, any of these
things, just name any of them, while they are means of grace,
and while God does bless these things as a means of grace, The
only object of faith is Christ. The only way to God is Christ.
The only foundation is Christ. Other foundations can no man
lay. And that which is laid, Christ the Lord. He said, I am
the door. If any man enter in, he shall be saved. He's not one
of the doors, he's the door. He has said, I am the bread of
life. I am the water of life. I am the rock. You see, he is
our Passover. It's Christ, the whole of salvation
from beginning to end. is Christ. He's the Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and end, author and finisher of our faith.
That I know. All right, secondly, go on, preacher,
what else do you know about heaven? Well, I know Christ is the way.
And then secondly, I know this, heaven immediately follows death
for every believer. Now listen to me. There is no
such thing taught in God's Word, not anywhere from Genesis to
Revelation. It is not that. There is no such
thing taught in God's Word, no such thing as purgatory. It is
not in God's Word. There is no such thing in the
Word of God as soul sleep. A person dies and his soul goes
to sleep and awaits one of these days, a time when he will wake
up in glory. That's not taught in God's Word.
There is nowhere in God's Word a halfway house to heaven. It's
just, it's not there. These are the inventions of men.
You say, why would people invent things like that? Well, three
reasons. Number one, to enslave people to a religious system.
That's right. Secondly, to deceive men. Those
who are deceived want to deceive others. And Israel has company.
And the third reason is to profit. Is to profit materially and financially
from keeping people in the dark, enslaving them. and keeping them
in darkness. That's a sad situation, but Paul
warned about that. He said preachers, religious
leaders, are hucksters. They make merchandise of the
sons of men. There are many people in the
ministry for money, for personal gain, for filthy lucre. That's
so. And if they can enslave people and deceive people and profit
from people, they'll invent anything on earth. But these things are
not taught in God's Word. When our Lord was dying on the
cross and the The believing thief said to him, Lord, remember me
when thou comest into thy kingdom. Our Lord said, Today shalt thou
be with me in paradise. Our Lord didn't go to purgatory,
and his soul didn't sleep. He didn't go to a halfway house.
Our Lord Jesus Christ went back to the Father, and that thief
went with him. He said, Today thou shalt be
with me in paradise. Well, let's go on in the word.
Paul said this, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ,
which is far better. If I depart from you, I'm going
to be with the Lord. What are you teaching? I'm teaching
what the word of God says, that immediately when a person dies,
his spirit goes to be with God. The body decays, and we put it
back in the ground, and it goes back to the earth, but the soul
doesn't die, and the soul doesn't sleep, and the soul doesn't go
to purgatory, it goes to be with Christ. Listen to Paul again.
To be absent from the body is to be what? Present with the
Lord. Now wherever Christ is, that's
heaven. And wherever Christ is, that's where his people are when
they die. And then in 2 Corinthians 5, he said this, we know, these
are things you can know if you'll open your eyes and God will open
your heart, we know that if our earthly house or this tabernacle,
this tent, this house is like a tent, nothing is frail as a
tent. And when this tent is dissolved
or when it falls, we have a building, the soul is not floating around
up there in space with no covering and no boundaries, we have a
building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. That's where it is. When our
body dies, when this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building.
Where is it? It's in the heavens. It's not
in purgatory. It's not in a halfway house. It's in the heavens. At
home, we're absent from the Lord, in the body. But we are longing
to be absent from this body and to be present with the Lord.
Third thing I know, I know Christ is the way to heaven, and I know
that immediately upon dying here that we awaken his presence. And thirdly, I know that the
body will be raised. This body will be brought from
the ground. Now there were those in Paul's
day who questioned the resurrection of the dead. And I can understand
why natural men would question such a thing as the resurrection,
I was in the Navy in World War II. We buried some of our friends
at sea. And the fish ate their bodies,
and other fish ate those fish, and now they're all gone. Where
is the body? And then we put people in the
grave, and in fifty years there's nothing there. You could take
up all the remains in a nickel paper bag. But God says this
body is going to come out of the ground, or out of the sea.
The sea gave up the dead which were in it. Death and hell delivered
up the dead which were in them. The graves are going to open.
And there were people in Paul's day who could not believe this
miracle, as they do not believe much of God's work. But if there
be no resurrection of the dead, this is so. Paul said, now you
listen to me, in 1 Corinthians 15, if there be no resurrection
of the dead, then Christ is not risen. He said, if there be no
resurrection of the dead, our preaching is all in vain. It
hinges on that. It's that important. If there
be no resurrection of the dead, your faith is vain. You think
about that. If there be no resurrection of
the dead, we are false witnesses of God, and that's dangerous.
If there be no resurrection of the dead, you are yet in your
sins. And Christ said, if you die in your sins, you can't come
where I am. If there be no resurrection of the dead, we are of all men
most miserable, but we shall rise. Christ said, because I
live, you shall live. Now, watch this. 1 Corinthians 15.35. But Paul
said, Some will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? I have not anybody listening
to me that hasn't been to the cemetery with a loved one or
a friend and watched them lower that casket into the ground and
cover it with dirt. And I know you've come away from
that cemetery saying this, well, how are the dead raised and with
what body do they come? Want an answer? Right here in
1 Corinthians 15, 35, and Paul replies, the seed of corn which
you sow in the ground, and many of you farmers, and you who aren't
farmers, have your little garden in the backyard, and you know
what it is to sow seed of corn. Well, that seed of corn which
you sow in the ground does not spring up. It does not bring
forth. It does not live till you put
it in the ground and it rots and it dies. And after you put
it in the ground and it rots and it dies, then it springs
up. And the seed that you sow is not the body of corn that's
going to come up. You sow a little old wrinkle,
swivel seed grain of corn. You put it in the ground, it
rots. And then after a few weeks, there comes out a beautiful,
firm, strong, living, green stalk of corn. Well, that is corn. You planted corn and corn came
up. But what a difference. What a difference. And one of
these days they're going to take my body to the cemetery, if God
grants that I live a little longer. And it's going to be old. It'll
be raised new. It's going to be buried or sown
in corruption. It's going to be raised in incorruption.
It's going to be sown in dishonor, raised in glory, sown in weakness,
raised in power and strength, sown a natural body, raised a
spiritual body. You see that? You planted corn
and you got corn, but what a difference. What a difference. You planted
a shriveled, wrinkled, dead piece of grain, and coming out of that
was a juicy, green, living stalk of corn bearing many foes. more grains than you ever put
in the ground. And Paul said that's the way
the dead are going to be raised. This body is planted and it's
coming forth with a new body. Well, here's another thing I
know about heaven. I know we will retain our identity. Now, many questions are going
through many hearts right now while I'm speaking. Will we know
each other in heaven? Will we remember our days on
the earth? Will we be the same person? I'm
Henry Mahan, You who are listening to my voice today, you know your
name, who you are. Will we be the same persons in
heaven that we are here? The answer to every one of those
questions is emphatically, yes. No question about it. We will
know each other. We will retain our identity.
We will be the same person. We will remember life here on
this earth. Now, first of all, will we be
the same person in heaven that we are now? Of course we will.
When our Lord was transfigured with Elijah and Moses, Elijah
and Moses had been gone from this earth for several hundreds
of years. Well, who were they when they
appeared with the Lord? They were Moses and Elijah. That's who.
They never changed identities. They were the same men they were
when they left. Lazarus died and was buried. Three or four
days later, Christ raised him. Who was he? Lazarus. Lazarus
when he died, Lazarus when he came back. Christ Jesus, our
Lord, brought him back and he was still Lazarus. Let me ask
you this. Scripture says that we're going
to praise Christ eternally for saving us from our sins. What
sins? Well, sins here on this earth.
Our identity in Adam, identification with him, our evil thoughts and
evil deeds and evil words and the things that we have done
in breaking the law of God. Well, how are we going to thank
God for saving us from our sins if we don't remember them? if
we don't know anything about it. How are we going to praise
the Lord for saving us if we are not ourselves? You know,
in Revelations it says, the song of the redeemed in heaven is
unto him who loved us and washed us from our sins. We remember
his death, his burial, his resurrection, who washed us from our sins,
The person who was born on this earth, lived on this earth, died
and was buried and rose again is present with the Lord. Our
sins, he saved us from our sins and made us kings and priests
unto God. Our bodies will be like Christ.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, through Christ, by faith
in Christ. And it does not appear what we
shall be. In other words, it doesn't yet appear what kind
of body we're going to have in glory. I can tell you a little
bit about it, but not a great deal about it, because I've never
seen a glorified body. The disciples did. They saw the
Lord after he arose from the tomb. And it says that we'll
be like him. They were in the upper room that
day, and our Lord appeared to them, and they were frightened.
And he said, don't be afraid, fear not. They thought it was
a spirit. They'd seen him crucified and
buried, and they thought now standing before them was a spirit. And he says, reach out and touch
my hand. A spirit doesn't have flesh and bones as you see me
have. He said, if you've got something
to eat, and they had some honeycomb and a piece of fish, and they
gave it to him, and he ate before them, that's the kind of body
we're going to have. That's the kind of body. It's going to be
a body without pain. A body without old age. A body without fear and doubt. a body without suffering, a body
without tears, a body without sickness, a body without death,
eternally young, in the very image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now then, what I know about hell. Now this is an unpleasant subject.
I'd much rather talk about heaven than talk about hell. I'd rather
think about people preparing to go to glory than preparing
to hear Christ say, depart from me, I never knew you. I don't
enjoy preaching on hell. I enjoy preaching about heaven.
I'm longing for the day when we shall be with the Lord. We
shall enjoy uninterrupted fellowship and communion with our Redeemer.
And I tremble to think of anybody related to me or friends of mine
or in my audience or congregation ever perishing in the pits of
hell, but it's a reality. Our Lord said there's a place
called hell. He said it's a place where the worm dieth not and
the fire is not quenched. Our Lord said the unbelieving
man died, the rich man died, and in hell, in hell, he lifted
up his eyes. Now the average preacher never
gets beyond talking about the fires of hell. And I'll be honest
with you, without fear, I'll say unto you, I don't know a
great deal about fire in hell. I don't think really that's the
problem. I really don't. I know the rich
man said, I'm tormented in this flame. Whether it's figurative
or literal language, it really doesn't matter, because there's
some things that make up hell that are worse than physical
pain. That's right. There's several
things about hell that our Lord pointed out in this passage of
scripture in Luke 16. Now, you get your Bible and look
at it. First of all, he said that hell, hell is a place of
memory, memory. The rich man cried, Father Abraham,
send Lazarus that he may dip his finger in water and cool
my tongue. I'm tormented in this flame. And Abraham replied, son,
remember, remember. Do you know there's nothing as
tormenting as memory? Oh, if I had only done this,
if I had only done that. That Sunday or that Tuesday or
that day when that preacher was preaching about salvation and
eternal life and knowing the Lord and being delivered from
sin, if I'd have only listened to him, that's all I'd have had
to do. The scripture says, he that believeth
on the Son hath life. If I'd just listened to him.
I believe in hell people are going to remember every sermon
they ever heard, truthful sermon, I believe they'll remember every
prayer that was ever prayed, every song they ever heard sung.
They're going to remember these things. That's what Abraham said,
son, remember. Remember. And then hell is not
only a place of memory, it's a place of truth realized too
late. Too late. You know, hindsight's
a good thing, but it's not very profitable. It's not profitable
at all. And down in hell, this rich man
said, well, Father Abraham, I've got five brothers on the earth.
Send Lazarus back to preach to them. Preach what to them? Well, preach the gospel. Wait
a minute now. You mean you believe the gospel? There's nobody in
hell who doubts the inspired word of God. They know it. There's
nobody in hell who doubts that Jesus Christ is the only way
to glory. They know that now. There's nobody
in hell who doubts at all that the church can't save. They know
it can't save now. They know these little easy decisions
and believism and walking an hour and shaking a preacher's
hand won't put sin away. They know it now. Now that they're
in hell, you see, truth realized too late. And then another thing,
hell is unfulfilled lust. Now the man who has a terrible
appetite for drinking and drunkenness, he can find some relief. He can
get a bottle and knock himself out. And a man with a horrible
appetite for drugs, he can give himself a shot or some type of
drugs and take the easy road. And a man with a terrible appetite
for lying can lie. And a man that likes to swear
and curse can swear and curse. And the people of this earth,
all human flesh can find some outlet, but no outlet in hell.
Scripture says, he that's filthy, let him be filthy still. He that's
unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still. But no outlets for all
of these fleshly lusts. There'll still be that. Now,
the believer has a problem with the flesh, but one day he'll
be done with that. This flesh will be annihilated,
cast aside. But the unbeliever's going to
keep his flesh. He's going to keep his flesh. It's going to
be cast into hell. And then hell is separation from
God. That's the worst part of hell.
It's not the fire. It's not what we call physical
suffering. It's to be separated from all love. God is love. There's
no love apart from God. There's selfishness and personal
vain glory, but there's no real love. God is love, and to be
in hell is to be separated from God, and never in any degree
know any love or light. God is light. That's what even
hell is, darkness, outer darkness, unparalleled darkness, unimaginable
darkness, because God's not there. In hell there's no joy, nobody
lasts in hell. Hell is separation from God,
and hell is eternal. He said between us and you there's
a great gulf fixed, and nobody can come from you to us or from
us to you. That's what I know about hell. I know it's memory, I know it's
truth realized too late, I know it's unfulfilled lust, I know
it's separation from God, I know it's eternal. If you'd like to
have this message on cassette tape, write to me. There's a
small charge. We have to do this. We send out
so many of them. You write to me. Until next week
at this same time, God bless you, everyone.

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What I Know About Heaven

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