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HEAVEN – THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE

by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr.

A sermon preached at the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles
Lord’s Day Evening, December 10, 2000

Before the sermon Mr. Griffith, our deacon, will come to sing for us:

Please stand and turn in your Bible to Revelation 22:3,

You may be seated.

About fifty-five years ago, when I was a very little boy, I used to crawl under my grandmother’s house on the southeast corner of Fargo and Apex, in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. I used to walk through a door in the latticework and go way back under her house. There were many interesting things to look at there, but as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I always went way back, behind all the interesting things, to a special place. There, in the dirt under the house, way in the back, was an oil painting, laying half up against the wall. Many, many times I can remember sitting there in the dirt, looking through the dim light at that painting. It was a picture of Jesus’ mother, angels all around her, up in the clouds of Heaven.

My uncle, Paul Sharp, had painted it long years before. Then he suddenly left. We never saw him again. They said he joined a monastery and became a cloistered monk.

At the time, I was such a little boy that I didn’t even know there was a difference between a Catholic and a Protestant. All I knew was that his painting filled my heart with wonder and awe. "Is there really a place like that up in the clouds?" I wondered, as I looked at the painting. No one in my family went to any church. When I asked them about the angels in the painting, they couldn’t give me much of an answer.

I would then go out in the back yard and lay on the grass, looking up in the sky at the beautiful white fluffy clouds. I couldn’t see any angels, like the ones in the painting, but I formed a thought all on my own. "There are angels up there, way beyond the clouds," I thought. "We just can’t see them. There is a place called Heaven, and there is a God."

I had no brothers and sisters to play with and, being sickly, I seldom went to school. So, when I was well enough, I would go out in that back yard and play all by myself. It may seem strange to say, but I often played with God. I knew somehow that He was real, and I would go out and hide behind the nasturtium plants, with their beautiful, round, green leaves and delicate orange/yellow flowers. I would hide in those flowers and talk to God, and think about the angels in Heaven I saw in that painting. That was the way I learned to pray – all by myself – with God. The memory of those beautiful sunlit days in the back yard with God brings tears to my eyes as I think of them tonight.

I knew, all by myself, as a five-year-old child, that there was a God in Heaven who hears our prayers.

As I grew older, some people next door to my aunt Myrtle (Dr. and Mrs. McGowan) took me to a Baptist church where I began to learn about the Bible. The pastor was an elderly Englishman named Dr. Walter Arthur Pegg. He preached often about Heaven. It was his favorite subject, I think, because he preached on it so often and with such feeling. It seemed to me, as a thirteen-year-old, that Dr. Pegg knew more about Heaven than anyone in the world. I can still hear his voice in my memory, after nearly fifty years, preaching with fervent tones on the wonders of Heaven – and I wanted to go there and see the angels for myself.

And now, this evening, I want you to think about Heaven! You may be young, or you may be older. You may have been raised in church, or you may have been raised as I was, without being taken to church. You may come from a Christian background or you may have been raised in another religion and, like me as a small boy, you may not know much about the Bible, or church, or Christianity. But I want to tell you tonight a little of what God Himself says about Heaven in the Bible.

And it is important for you to listen – because if there is a Heaven, there is really nothing more important that you could think about or know about. If God is telling us the truth in the Bible – and I believe He is – then you could go to Heaven and be there for millions upon millions of years – with God, with Jesus the Son of God, with Christians of long ago, and with the holy angels. Wouldn’t that be an interesting and delightful place to go? Wouldn’t you love to go there and see it all for yourself some day?

My grandfather, my Dad’s father, was born in England, in a wonderful place they told me was named Alston Moor. My uncles, my Dad’s brothers, talked so much about Alston that I dreamed of going there. My uncle Oscar finally did go and brought back some little photographs of him in that wonderful far away place – in England. He brought back an oil painting of it that he had in his living room for years. When he was dying, he wrote in his will that I should have that oil painting of that lovely place called Alston Moor in England. That painting hangs in my living room tonight.

One day, to my great delight, I was finally able to go there to see that spot in England where my grandfather was born. It was a wonderful, indescribably thrilling thing to go there with my wife and boys, and meet my third cousins, David and Malcolm Hymers who had stayed behind when my great grandfather brought his children to this new world, first to Canada, and then to Los Angeles, in America.

Going back to England was like a foretaste of going to Heaven. We got off the airplane and got in a cab and went right away to downtown London. I jumped out of the taxi and looked for the first time in my life, there in the night, at the ancient buildings of Parliament, at Big Ben, the largest clock in the world, mirrored against the sky. Then I wandered around Westminster Abbey, to the back of that great church. They say the back of it was built over a thousand years ago. I stood and looked at that ancient church with tears streaming down my face. It felt like I had come home. Later, with great joy, I met my English cousins, and two dear people who live in Alston, in Cumberland County. John and Winnie Elliott are their names. They took us into their home and fed us. It felt like I had come home.

Thinking back on that trip to England makes me think of what it will be like to go to Heaven. O, to see those golden streets I have heard about so long! O, to see the angels and the great throne of God! O, to see Jesus, and my mother again! O, to sit down and talk with Peter, and James, and John, and Paul! O, to see George Whitefield, and John Wesley, and my friend, Joyce McGowan! O, to see my dear friend Dr. Bob Jones, Jr. again, and to see Dr. John R. Rice, whom I only met once in this life, but who means so much to me! O, to see Dr. Francis Schaeffer again! I had coffee with him and watched President Reagan being inaugurated in his living room. O, how wonderful to see him again! O, what an unspeakable joy it brings to my heart tonight, just thinking about that trip I will make some day to Heaven! "O, who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land!"

Now, if you want to go with me to Heaven some day, you have to think about it and prepare for it now. If I told you I wanted you to go with me to London and to Alston, in Cumberland County, England, you’d have to prepare, you’d have to get ready to go, wouldn’t you? And so it is with Heaven. You have to think about it, and you have to get ready, if you want to go there.

Our text tells us:

This verse tells us two simple things about Heaven:

 

1. First, negatively, there will be no curse in Heaven.
2. Second, positively – God and Christ will be in Heaven,
   and His servants will serve Him.

I. Negatively – there will be no curse in Heaven.

A great curse came on the world when Adam sinned. God said:

The earth itself came under a curse because of our first parent’s sin:

Pain and suffering came upon all animal and plant life. The whole earth, and everything in it, was put under a curse. We now live in a cursed world.

Mankind also came under a curse because of this sin:

Death came to mankind because of Adam’s sin. Every death is proof of this. We are a cursed race. The human race lives under the curse of God.

Not only are we cursed with death, but our very nature was cursed:

Every human being is born a sinner by nature because of this curse. The Bible says that we are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1),

This is true of every person unless he is converted. Even a converted person does not see God as clearly as he should.

We are truly a cursed people, living in a cursed world, because of sin against God.

But, thank God, the curse will be removed in Heaven! Our text tells us, "And there shall be no more curse!" (Revelation 22:3). Thank God – the curse will be removed in Heaven! Mr. Griffith sang these words a few minutes ago:

That brings us to the second point.

II. Positively – God and Christ will be in Heaven, and His servants will serve Him.

Our text says:

The Throne of God will be in Heaven. The Throne of Christ, at the right hand of God’s throne, will be there also. I do not think we will see God. The Bible says,

In the Old Testament, when men saw God, it was the preincarnate Christ. "No man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18), not even Adam before he sinned, according to this verse. It was always the preincarnate Logos, the preincarnate Christ, that they saw. I do not think we will actually see God in Heaven. We are told that many colors come from God’s throne (Revelation 4:3). But we are not told that we see God, Himself.

I know that we will see God’s throne. Our text tells us so. We will see the rainbow colors: jasper, clear as crystal; sardius, blood red; and emerald, green. All will shine out like a rainbow from the Throne of God (Revelation 4:3).

We will see the Throne of Jesus, on the right side of God’s Throne:

John the Baptist called Jesus, "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). And in the Book of Revelation, Jesus is called, "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). Jesus was crucified according to God’s plan in eternity past, before the creation of the world. All the lambs slain on altars in the Old Testament were just dim pictures, types, of what Jesus would do, in the eternal plan of God, when He died on the Cross to pay for our sins.

You see, someone had to pay for your sin. Either you can pay for your sins in Hell, or you can trust in Jesus, and He will pay for your sins. He is God’s Lamb, sacrificed in your place, to pay for your sins, if you will trust Him. How wonderful that in Heaven we will see the Throne of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus! And we will see Jesus, Himself, in Heaven:

We will see Jesus, the Lamb of God, just as John saw Him, recorded in Revelation 5:6.

People ask, "What will we do in Heaven?" There is your answer: "And his servants shall serve him." We will serve the Lord Jesus Christ throughout all eternity. What splendor! What joy! What a future! What a hope!

My friend, will you put your trust in Jesus? Will you be cleansed from your sins by His Blood so you can go to be with God in Heaven when you die?

Scripture Read Before Sermon: Revelation 21:27-22:5.

Solo by Benjamin Kincaid Griffith: "Joy to the World"/
                                                            "On Jordan’s Stormy Banks"/
                                                                        "When the Roll is Called up Yonder"

                          You can read Dr. Hymers' sermons each week on the Internet
                                at www.rlhymersjr.com. Click on "Sermon Manuscripts."

THE OUTLINE OF

HEAVEN – THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE

by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr.

"And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of
God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants
shall serve him" (Revelation 22:3).