What Will Heaven Be Like?

Revelation 21.1-10, 22-22.5

 What do you picture Heaven being like?  Isn’t that the question we all want answered:  What is Heaven going to be like?

I mean, after all, Heaven is what we’re striving for, right?  That’s why we’re here, this morning:  because we want to go to heaven when we die.  Not that we’re in any hurry to get there, mind you.  There’s an old saying in Jamaica:  Everybody wanna go heaven; nobody want dead.

But, whether or not we like to think about it, sooner or later we’re all going to end up … dead.  And when we do, we want to go to Heaven, don’t we?  Well, don’t we?  Sometimes we don’t act that way.  One of my favorite songs by the Eagles is called “The Last Resort,” and one line goes like this:

“And you can see them there, on Sunday mornings.  They stand up and sing about what it’s like up there.  They call it paradise; I don’t know why you call someplace paradise, then kiss it goodbye.”

Now, that’s a very good question, too.  But there will be other sermons to deal with that question.  Today we’re asking another question:  What is Heaven going to be like?

Despite the fact that we occasionally stumble and fall along the road, we’re not really trying to kiss Heaven goodbye.  Heaven is the place we want to end up in.  But the truth is, we don’t honestly know just what Heaven will be like when we get there.

But before we get into Heaven, figuratively as well as literally, let’s think for a moment about what the opposite of Heaven is going to be like.  Our scripture this morning talks about a lake of fire and sulphur, of course, but I’ve got an alternative view I’d like to share with you.

Most of you probably remember the old television show, “The Twilight Zone,” hosted by Rod Serling.  What you may not remember is that Rod Serling had a second show, called “Night Gallery,” which was on in, I think, the early 70s.

“Night Gallery” was basically the same type of show as “The Twilight Zone” – same type of short stories – but it wasn’t nearly as successful.  However, there’s one episode of “Night Gallery” that I have never forgotten.

Now, you have to understand that this was something like 40 years ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy on the details, but here’s the basic story:

There was this Hell’s Angel type motorcycle guy – a really, really bad man.  Absolutely evil.  He terrorized everybody in town, and nobody would stand up to him.  One day he nearly ran over a little old lady who was crossing the street.  The little old lady scolded him, and told him that if he didn’t change his ways, he was going straight to hell.

The biker just roared with laughter.  He told the little old lady that he couldn’t wait to get to hell, couldn’t wait to meet the Devil face to face.  He just knew that he would have lots of fun in hell.

This being a TV show, that very night this biker took a curve too fast, wrecked in motorcycle, and was killed.  Sure enough, he went straight to hell.

The Devil is waiting when he arrives, and welcomes him enthusiastically.  The Devil assures the biker that he, the Devil, has been watching him very closely all these years, and that he’s glad to have him in hell.  Naturally, the biker is proud of this.  He tells the Devil that he’s ready to enjoy himself in hell.

The Devil tells the biker that there’s a special place all set up, just waiting for him.  The biker can’t wait to see it.

The Devil opens a door and ushers the biker into a room – a typical, 1950s looking American living room.  There’s a “Father Knows Best” type of family:  Mom, Dad, brother, and sister, all very clean-cut.  They’re sitting on the couch watching slides of their vacation.

The biker turns around to ask the Devil what’s going on – only to discover that both the Devil and the door have vanished.  He’s stuck in this room.  He quickly realizes that this family cannot see, hear, or feel him.

It suddenly dawns on him – and on the TV audience – that this is Hell, for the biker.  This monstrously evil biker is going to spend all of eternity trapped in this room, watching this family and the endless slides of their vacation, forever.

That episode of “Night Gallery” had a profound impact on me – obviously, since I still remember it all these years later.  This was the first time in my life – I would have been about 12 or 13 – that I really stopped to think about what Hell might be like.  And, conversely, what Heaven might be like, as well.

Maybe Hell is different for everybody.  If you go to hell, maybe whatever your worst nightmare is, that’s what hell will be like for you.  And if that’s the case, then maybe, just maybe, Heaven is different for everybody, too.  Maybe Heaven will be whatever your fondest dreams are like.

I don’t know, this is all just speculation, but it certainly gives us some food for thought, and thinking is always better than not thinking.  The fact is, no one knows for sure just exactly what Heaven will be like.  John the Revelator, however, gives us a glimpse of Heaven, the glimpse that he’s able to see here in the climax of his amazing vision.  And from this brief glimpse, there are a few things we might be able to figure out about Heaven.

First of all, we know Heaven is going to be magnificent because God will be there.  Heaven, first and foremost, is the dwelling place of God.  Now, let’s stop right here for a minute.  Can you think of any other place or places that have been called the dwelling place of God?  Keep that thought in your mind.

As we see in John’s vision, God’s presence fills Heaven.  “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”  There’s no need for any type of light in Heaven, “For the glory of God is its light.”

Whatever else Heaven might be, it is the place where God lives, and that alone makes it paradise, a place worth striving for.

There will be no tears in Heaven, no death, no mourning, no crying, no pain.  “Nothing unclean will enter … nothing accursed will be found there.”  In other words, evil is gone.  Where God lives, evil cannot dwell.

Throughout this vision, John the Revelator writes about the triumph of God over suffering and pain and death.  People feared those things then; we still fear them, today.  But in Heaven, those things will be no more.  Evil cannot exist, in any form, in Heaven.  In Heaven, we will have nothing to fear.

We see that God will meet all our needs in Heaven.  “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.”

Water is the most precious commodity we have, far more valuable than gold or silver or diamonds or oil.  With water, you can live.  Without water, you will die.  In Heaven, water flows abundantly.

Alongside the river is the tree of life, with 12 different kinds of fruit, and leaves that heal.  In Heaven, God’s provisions are plentiful.  We won’t have any unmet needs in Heaven.  We are left to live an abundant life, free from worry, so that we can spend all our time praising God.

Let’s stop again.  Tree of life?  That sounds vaguely familiar.  Where have we heard that before?

“Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.’  Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.”

Ah.  The tree of life was in the Garden of Eden, humankind’s original dwelling place.  After Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden so that they couldn’t eat from the tree of life.

The Garden of Eden – that’s another place that has been called the dwelling place of God.  You see?  We’ve come full circle.  We – human beings – were created to live in the Garden of Eden with God.  The Garden of Eden is home to the tree of lie.  The Garden of Eden is the dwelling place of God.

And now we see, in John’s vision, that Heaven is the home of the tree of life.  Heaven is the dwelling place of God.  What we have learned is that Heaven is the Garden of Eden – the place where we were originally meant to live.

We were created to live in – Heaven.  Originally, God intended for us to live in Heaven, with God.  That’s what God planned for us, and ultimately that’s what God still wants for us.

Unfortunately for us, we kissed it all goodbye through our own sinful ways.  Whether there were really two people named Adam and Eve and they ate some bad fruit is beside the point.  How it happened doesn’t really matter.  The fact is, it happened.  Humankind’s sinfulness got us kicked out of paradise, the Garden of Eden, Heaven.

But now, through Christ Jesus – the Lamb who was slain – we have the hope that once again we can dwell in Heaven with God.  We’ve come full circle, Genesis to Revelation.

“And in the spirit [the angel] carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God.”

There is a third place that is often referred to as the dwelling place of God:  our hearts.  My feeling is that Heaven isn’t some far off place that we cannot reach until we die.  God brought Heaven to us, in the form of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb.

Heaven – paradise – begins for us as soon as we make Christ at home in our hearts.  Heaven is the dwelling place of God; when God’s Son dwells in us, we are in Heaven.  But how, exactly do we make Christ at home in our hearts?

“Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children … those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

Those who conquer.  What is it that we have to conquer?  We have to conquer our own desires, our own will, our own sinful nature.  We have to submit ourselves to the will of God.  We have to give our hearts, our lives, to Christ.  We have to obey the commandments of Christ – the commandments that we love God, and love one another.

When we put our whole trust, our whole faith, our whole being, in Christ Jesus, the Lamb, then he will write our names in the book of life.  Christ will be our ticket into Heaven, which begins right here on earth, right in our hearts.

So, what is Heaven going to be like?  Heaven is going to be like going home.  Home to where we’re supposed to be.  Home, where God is waiting for us with open arms.