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Sermon on Heaven (page four)

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As creature comforts

 are piled on,

Heaven recedes. 

I like reading history. (The older I get the more interesting history becomes!) Recently I read an interesting statistic about life in the 1600’s in England. The average life expectancy for people living then was 35-40 years. We know this because when they made labour laws, they only made them up to age 30. So the laws went from age 18 to age 30 because they assumed, it was just a given, that no one was capable of working past age 30. They were too old. They were just a few years from death.

  What’s the average life expectancy now? It’s around 80! We’ve more than doubled it since 1600. Things that used to be luxuries we just take for granted. There’s been progress. Life is good.

  And as we indulge the flesh, and all the creature comforts are piled on one after another, Heaven recedes. We don’t think about the fact that this life is just a brief moment in the span of eternity. That’s why we are a little embarrassed by the words of Jesus that show Heaven is real.

  But it is real. What God has prepared for us is not just the appetizer, which is our present experience as a Christian, but the main banquet which is to follow at the wedding supper of the Lamb. One day we who believe on Jesus are going to be filled with such joy that we cannot imagine it! “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9, quoting Isaiah 64:4)

  Why are our eyes not on that land? Our true home is Heaven. “If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed,” by whatever means, at whatever age, “we have an eternal home in Heaven.” That should be the heartbeat of each one of us. We’re heading home! We’re heading home!

  And we should want to be there because that’s really where we belong. It’s the most natural thing in the world for the Christian to long to be home with Christ in glory. Heaven is real. Jesus is preparing Heaven for us.

  That’s the thing that I find so amazing about these verses. Jesus said, “I am going to prepare a place for you.” Looking ahead to Heaven requires waiting. That’s part of the hard thing about being a Christian quite frankly. We have this fantastic vision of what’s coming and then, “Oh, here we are, back on this earth.”

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