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Heaven

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  1. Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.

  2. You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.

  3. We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the

  4. cross. Now let's join the service.

  5. Father God, we come before your throne tonight because you are

  6. Lord of Lords and your King of Kings, and we bow our hearts

  7. before you, Lord, and you see every need that's represented in

  8. this place. Lord, we ask that you move in a

  9. miraculous way. Let us represented here tonight.

  10. Let them start seeing miracles happen.

  11. Let them start seeing your hand moving in those situations they

  12. thought would never, never come to pass.

  13. Lord, let them start seeing Your glory moving through.

  14. Father, we ask that you touch us tonight and let us receive Your

  15. word. Father, reveal to us the things

  16. that You want us to see tonight, Lord, and we want to bless you

  17. and praise You and magnify You in Jesus name, Amen.

  18. I'm going to talk about something tonight that most

  19. people don't talk about or not very often anyway.

  20. I like doing that. I like talking about the things

  21. that most people don't talk about.

  22. We're going to talk about heaven.

  23. I mean, we talk around heaven, we talk around that, but we

  24. don't talk about heaven itself. And I had a friend ask me a

  25. question yesterday, as a matter of fact, and I've known her long

  26. enough, known Bob, and that's a long time.

  27. And she made this statement. She's a wonderful Christian

  28. woman and Saint of God and prayer warrior.

  29. And she says, you know, what will it be like when we get to

  30. heaven? She said, what are we going to

  31. really know anybody there? Are we going to just, you know,

  32. be nothingness type thing? And I said, no, what makes you

  33. think that? So anyway, that's where I'm

  34. going with all of this tonight. And I won't hopefully won't keep

  35. you too terribly long, but I just want you to listen to this.

  36. And some people you, I've talked to a few people and they ask

  37. these kinds of questions about heaven.

  38. Has anybody asked y'all ever ask y'all a question about heaven,

  39. Heaven and not how to get there, but heaven in general.

  40. And, you know, usually they ask, well, is heaven a real place?

  41. And then they ask, is it, what's it going to be like?

  42. And then they usually go on, you know, about what are we going to

  43. be like? And these are some of the

  44. questions I want to address. And the final question I hope I

  45. get to is, will there be animals in heaven?

  46. So the Lord has shown us a lot of stuff in his word.

  47. And I've got a lot of scripture. First one I'm going to start out

  48. with is First Corinthians 2 and 9.

  49. I'll give a second, get it up on the the board.

  50. And then we're going to go to Deuteronomy 29 and 29.

  51. Just a heads up, it says, but it is written.

  52. I has not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the

  53. heart of man. The things which God has

  54. prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto

  55. us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all

  56. things, yay, the deep things of God.

  57. So God has revealed this to us, and maybe it's in little Nuggets

  58. and little bits and pieces, but we can put it together and we

  59. can actually see heaven. Deuteronomy 29 and 29 says the

  60. secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things

  61. which are revealed belonging to us are children forever, that we

  62. may do all the words of the law. So God reveals a lot of stuff to

  63. you. And you know, my favorite word

  64. is he doesn't want us to be ignorant and he doesn't want us

  65. to be ignorant about heaven either.

  66. So the things that we could not even know about heaven, God said

  67. He has revealed them to us. What heaven's going to be like

  68. through His Spirit. Sometimes we ignore that.

  69. Sometimes we just move it on to another subject because we

  70. think, hey, I have and I got that.

  71. Let's move on to another subject.

  72. But I want us to take a deep dive into heaven tonight.

  73. Think about it. I want us to think about it.

  74. Get your thinking caps on. He wants us to understand and

  75. anticipate what is waiting for us.

  76. That's exciting stuff. We're going to go to a real

  77. place, a real heaven. Hebrews 8 chapter 5.

  78. I mean Hebrews 8 verse 5, give you a second.

    Hebrews 8:5

  79. Now this is talking about the priest.

  80. It's given instructions and and Paul is talking about what the

  81. priest did back in the ancient days and he said who is the

  82. priest served the copy and shadow of the heavenly things as

  83. Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the

  84. Tabernacle for he God right there said, see that you make

  85. all things according to the pattern shown you on the

  86. mountain. Can you imagine that scene,

  87. Moses on the mountain and here he is, he's talking to God face

  88. to face to God. And he, God's given him

  89. instructions of building a place of worship so God can meet with

  90. his people. And he says, I'm going to show

  91. you this and I'm going to give you explicit instructions, a

  92. pattern of what's in heaven. What?

  93. That's a model. He says you're going to make a

  94. model of what's in heaven, basically, is what he's saying

  95. there. You know, heaven is a physical,

  96. tangible place. God made sure Moses built what

  97. was needed to be built for the Tabernacle, and he gave him, he

  98. even gave the people who helped build the Tabernacle.

  99. They were brick layers. They made bricks for the

  100. Egyptians. Remember that?

  101. And then all of a sudden now they're out in the wilderness

  102. and God gives men and women special instructions on how to

  103. how to make tapestries and how to work gold and how to inlay

  104. precious jewels, all of that stuff.

  105. God gave that to Moses and he says Moses, I want you to do it

  106. exactly as the pattern I have shown you the type and shadow

  107. type thing, if you will. You know we think heaven

  108. sometimes. Most people, I'm not saying

  109. about you, I don't know what most people think.

  110. Heaven is a non physical place. It's like we just kind of

  111. floating around, no real anything.

  112. Just kind of like almost like a ghost, if you will, spiritual

  113. floating around and everything. But let's see what Scripture

  114. tells us about heaven. So Hebrews 9:00 and 11:00 says,

  115. But Christ came as a high priest of the good things to come with

  116. the greater and more perfect Tabernacle, not made with hands

  117. that is not of creation or my parentheses, not of this world.

  118. So Jesus Christ, our great high Priest, came to show us what a

  119. high priest should be doing, and he's going to go into a

  120. Tabernacle made without hands. It's going to be not what you

  121. make, but something that's made in heaven.

  122. Hebrews 9 and 23 goes on to say, therefore it was necessary that

  123. the copies of the things in heaven talking about the

  124. Tabernacle and the things that's in the Tabernacle should be

  125. purified, with these talking about the blood sacrifices being

  126. purified. All this instruments had to be

  127. purified with blood. They had to do all the

  128. sacrifices and everything for the blood.

  129. So but the heavenly things. Now he's talking about the

  130. earthly things first, the copies of the pattern of the model of

  131. the the things in heaven. He's talking about that he said,

  132. but the heavenly things themselves with a better

  133. sacrifice than these. We know what that better

  134. sacrifice was. That was the blood of Jesus

  135. Christ. He's the Lamb of God.

  136. Verse 24 goes on to say, for Christ has not entered into the

  137. holy place made with hands, which are copies of the true or

  138. patterns of the true or types of the true, a model, if you will,

  139. but into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence of

  140. God for us. So if there's something that

  141. Tabernacle that Moses built in the wilderness and they came

  142. there to worship because that's where God wanted to meet with

  143. his people, and God keeps saying that's a a copy of what's in

  144. heaven. Do you get that?

  145. That means there's a tangible real thing up in heaven,

  146. something that you'll be able to see as you're floating around in

  147. your non body. Just joking, we know we are

  148. created in the image of God right?

  149. God says I create you in the image of God.

  150. Doesn't necessarily mean that God looks like us, but what it

  151. does mean is we are spiritual beings.

  152. God is a spiritual being. However, Jesus was also a

  153. spiritual being is now also, but so with that said, earth is

  154. created in the image of heaven. It's a copy or a pattern of the

  155. true, the real thing. We're spiritual beings clothed

  156. in flesh right now. One day we're just going to be

  157. spirit just like Jesus. When we see him, we will be like

  158. him. So we're going to think about

  159. what he was like here in a minute.

  160. But a pattern or model on earth of what is in heaven is the

  161. Scriptures is what he's telling us.

  162. That's what we what we saw back then.

  163. And he said this is a model of what was in heaven.

  164. The garden was created with trees and flowers and water and

  165. animals. The original pattern or the

  166. original model came from heaven. Let's dig a little deeper.

  167. Revelation 7 and 9 And these things I looked and beheld a

  168. great multitude which no one could number of all nations,

  169. tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and

  170. before the Lamb, clothed with white linens, with palm branches

  171. in their hands. And verse 10 says, and crying

  172. out with a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God who

  173. sits on the throne and to the Lamb. 11 says all the angels

  174. stood around the throne and the elders sorry and all the four

  175. living creatures fell on their face before the throne and

  176. worshipped God. There's going to be a lot of

  177. people in heaven. There's already a lot of people

  178. in heaven. It says he saw them and they

  179. were all trying. We, we studied that when we

  180. studied the trumpets, remember in the, the, the seals and the

  181. trumpets in the bowls, we discussed that about all the

  182. people, all the nations that are going to be there.

  183. And we just that lot of folks are going to be there.

  184. A lot of people from every nation, every language around

  185. the world is in heaven. They have faces, it says they

  186. have faces. They bowed on their faces.

  187. They have legs to stand on. They stood up in heaven.

  188. They wear clothes in heaven. What?

  189. That's what it says. He saw them, John saw them.

  190. Revelation was written after the ascension, resurrection and

  191. ascension of Jesus and he saw them and they were saying

  192. salvation belongs to our God. So they were speaking.

  193. Can you imagine? I don't know, maybe I'm just I

  194. see a lot of y'all staring at me.

  195. I just I just want you to put your heads on.

  196. Think of what's going to happen when we get there.

  197. Revelation. We talked about that a lot too

  198. when we studied this the trumpets.

  199. There's trumpets in heaven. Remember God created Lucifer to

  200. lead worship and he gave him a voice and he gave him musical

  201. instruments. There's musical instruments in

  202. heaven. I think that's awesome.

  203. So when we're, we get down here and we're going to have all the,

  204. we have all this music and this singing, guess what?

  205. When we get to heaven, we're going to have music and there's

  206. going to be instruments and they're going to be played

  207. perfectly and everything's going to be wonderful.

  208. But we're going to see it in heaven.

  209. This, let me just give you a description of Lucifer.

  210. If you doubt what I say about Lucifer, Ezekiel 28 and 13, he's

  211. saying you were in Eden, the Garden of God.

  212. Every precious stone was your covering.

  213. The Sardis, the Topaz, the diamond, the barrel, the Onyx,

  214. the Jasper, the sapphire, the turquoise, emerald with gold,

  215. the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes.

  216. That's his voice. We're prepared for you on the

  217. day you were created. So God created an an Angel to

  218. lead worship and then all of a sudden he got the big head and

  219. said, I'm going to be just like God.

  220. And God says my version is you're not.

  221. And we know the rest of that story, not only musical

  222. instruments, there's precious gems in heaven.

  223. You just read he had all of this covering on Lucifer.

  224. He had the Onyx and the diamonds and and Topaz and turquoise.

  225. There's precious gems in heaven. We also know that when God tells

  226. us about the the the 12 stories in the new Tabernacle that's

  227. going to come down to heaven. He talks about the gates of

  228. Pearl. So there's precious gems,

  229. there's beauty in heaven. And you say, well, I knew that,

  230. but did you really know that? Do you really think about it,

  231. how beautiful heaven must be? Break out into the song.

  232. My next question that somebody's asked me, are we really going to

  233. eat anything in heaven? Let me give you these examples.

  234. Revelations 2 and seven said, Who has an ear?

  235. Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who

  236. overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is

  237. in the midst of the paradise of God.

  238. Revelation 22 and 1 And he showed me a pure river of water

  239. of life, clear as crystal, he says, proceeding from the throne

  240. of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its streets.

  241. It's got streets. And on either side of the river

  242. was the Tree of life, which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding

  243. its fruit every month. The leaves on the tree were for

  244. healing of the nation, and the fruit on the tree was for

  245. nourishment. It's also described like that in

  246. Ezekiel 47, but I'm not going to go there and take you there.

  247. But it talks about the tree of life and it talks about the

  248. trees and they're going to bear fruit.

  249. The same trees going to be 12 different fruits all year long.

  250. The fruit is not just to be admired, but it's for

  251. nourishment. Can you imagine going down The

  252. Walking down the street to go, oh, I think I'd like that.

  253. Hey, how you doing, Jerry? How you doing?

  254. Praise God. The river of life and the tree

  255. of life appeared to be a source of eternal life in the garden.

  256. Adam and Eve remember them. They ate the fruit that was

  257. provided by God. They ate that fruit.

  258. That was their. That's what they ate.

  259. All the animals ate fruit. They didn't eat meat until after

  260. the ark. That's when, if you read it,

  261. that's when animals and people started eating meat before the

  262. ark. They ate fruit.

  263. Even the animals ate fruit. So Adam and Eve ate the fruit

  264. that God had provided for them. They were designed to live

  265. forever, but they never ate of the tree of life.

  266. Genesis 3 and 22. I want you to take a look at

  267. that. It says, then the Lord God said,

  268. behold, the man has become like us to know good and evil, and

  269. now lest you put on his hand and taken to the tree of life and

  270. eat and live forever. So he's saying we need to get

  271. him out of the Garden of Eden. And you remember the story about

  272. how that he, they got kicked out of the garden and God put an

  273. Angel with a sword in the front of the garden so they could

  274. never get back in there again because that's where the tree of

  275. life was. Now I'm not going to go there.

  276. I think to myself a lot. But now the book of Ezekiel and

  277. Revelation say the fruit will serve for food and their leaves.

  278. Healing of the nations three times.

  279. If you notice, the inhabitants of the new earth are referred to

  280. as nations. Nations are not going to be

  281. eliminated. They're going to be healed with

  282. the fruit from God, with the leaves of the trees of God.

  283. More references to food. Luke 22 and 15 then he.

  284. This is talking about Jesus said to them with fervent desire, I

  285. have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

  286. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is

  287. fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God.

  288. Luke 22 and 30 says that you may eat and drink at my table in my

  289. Kingdom and sit on Thrones judging the tribes of Israel.

  290. He's talking to his disciples. He said one day you're going to

  291. eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom refers to food.

  292. Revelation 19 and 9 Then he said to me, right, blessed are those

  293. who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

  294. And he said to me, these are true sayings, Wow, we're going

  295. to have supper in heaven says we're going to have a big

  296. banquet, a marriage. Usually when you have a wedding,

  297. there's a big banquet afterwards.

  298. You call it a reception. And so we're going to have a eat

  299. supper in heaven, food in heaven.

  300. Remember, Jesus was always eating when he was here on earth

  301. and he always was talking about eating.

  302. He even ate with the disciples after the resurrection.

  303. People don't always think about that.

  304. They don't. Most people don't get past.

  305. Well, he's resurrected now let's move on to something else.

  306. You know, what will we be like when we're in heaven?

  307. That's the next question. What will we be like when we're

  308. in heaven? A late 1800s evangelist, pastor,

  309. teacher, author. His name is RA Torre, He writes

  310. We will not be disembodied spirits in some space, but

  311. redeemed spirits in resurrected bodies living in a redeemed

  312. world. So we're going to have

  313. resurrected bodies. We're not just going to be

  314. floating around on a cloud and nothing to do.

  315. First John three and two tells us this, Beloved, now are we the

  316. sons of God? And it does not appear what we

  317. shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we will be like

  318. him, for we shall see him as He is.

  319. So when we see Jesus as He is in his glorified body, we're going

  320. to be like Him. Luke 24 and 39.

  321. I know I'm tossing a lot of this, but to me, and I've always

  322. said this for many, many years now, as long as I've been

  323. teaching just about that the Bible is like a, a picture

  324. puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle. And you dump it out and you're

  325. trying to find something and you take pieces and pieces and

  326. pieces and you start putting it together until you see the whole

  327. picture. And that's what I'm trying to

  328. do. That's why when I'm talking to

  329. you guys is I use so much scripture because I want you to

  330. put these pieces of the puzzle together so you can get the

  331. whole picture. Luke 2439 It says, Behold my

  332. hands and my feet, that is, that it is I myself handle me and

  333. see. For a spirit does not have flesh

  334. and bone, as you see I have. When He had said this, He showed

  335. himself his hands and his feet, but while they still did not

  336. believe for joy and marvel, He said to them, Have you any food

  337. He liked to eat? Jesus ate while He was here on

  338. this earth, even after the resurrection.

  339. The empty tomb is the ultimate proof that Jesus resurrected

  340. body was the same body that went into the tomb.

  341. They saw him. They recognized him when they

  342. saw him. Not right at first, but if

  343. resurrection meant the creation of a new body, then his old body

  344. would have stayed in the tomb, right?

  345. Does that make sense? I mean, but he, he was out of

  346. the tomb. His body was gone and he was

  347. walking around and he was talking to the people, eating,

  348. even eating. Jesus told his disciples, it is

  349. me, it's myself. He was emphasizing that he was

  350. the same person. That's what he was telling

  351. everybody. I'm in spirit and I'm in body.

  352. And the disciples saw the marks of his crucifixion confirming

  353. that it was the same body. And that's what he showed him

  354. here, look at this, touch me, touch me, handle me.

  355. He says handle me. Jesus walked the earth in his

  356. resurrected body for 40 days. A lot of people skipped that 40

  357. days time. A lot of people said, well, he's

  358. resurrected and then he went ascended.

  359. No, he stayed on this earth for 40 days.

  360. He walked around, visited all his friends, and he still spoke

  361. to the people. When Jesus walked with the men

  362. on the road to Emmaus, remember this road to Emmaus, The people,

  363. they didn't see anything different about him to tip them

  364. off that it was Jesus from the tomb, the resurrected Christ,

  365. until their eyes were open, until he broke the bread.

  366. And when he broke the bread, there was something there that

  367. go, you're him and you know what?

  368. Jesus disappeared. I love that story.

  369. Jesus disappeared. Now they walked from Jerusalem

  370. to Emmaus and they were just like man, I can't believe this

  371. happened. I thought he was the one.

  372. I just knew it was him. Didn't you think it was him?

  373. And Jesus walks up beside him and he says hey guys what y'all

  374. doing? He was from Texas.

  375. He says how's it going? Haven't you heard?

  376. He says, heard what? And so they told him and he said

  377. he started telling them about himself starting at the

  378. beginning of the Bible until the end, and they still didn't get

  379. it until they let him in. They said, man, what you're

  380. saying just burns inside of us. He said.

  381. They said, come on in and eat with us.

  382. So he went into their house and they still didn't get it.

  383. And they brought him bread. And when he broke the bread,

  384. they recognized him as the resurrected Christ.

  385. And again they walked. But when they recognized him,

  386. what they do, y'all know what they did?

  387. They ran all the way back to Jerusalem to tell somebody.

  388. I got to tell somebody. They said I got to tell

  389. somebody. So they walked slowly to home, 7

  390. miles, 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

  391. And they walked. And then they just, you know,

  392. sad. But when they saw him, boy, they

  393. ran all the way back. I love that, that difference

  394. there. Once you see him, you can't help

  395. but hurry up and tell somebody. You want to tell somebody who he

  396. is. When Mary saw him in the garden,

  397. she said, Sir, because she didn't really recognize him.

  398. He, he, he looked like a man, you know, And they weren't

  399. really believing that he was going to be resurrected.

  400. They didn't believe it. How do I know that?

  401. It's because the women got up early in the morning to get

  402. spices to wrap his dead body with.

  403. They thought, we're going to go wrap his dead body.

  404. No, he told them, I'm not going to be there.

  405. He told them I'm rising up, I'm not going to be there.

  406. I'm the risen Christ. He told them and told them and

  407. told them and told them. But on that day they went back.

  408. They had their spices and they went in.

  409. Nobody was in the tomb. They saw an Angel.

  410. Angel says he's not here, my version.

  411. And then Mary runs back and tells the disciples he's alive,

  412. he's alive. And they go, Mary, you got heat

  413. stroke. Can you believe it?

  414. And you can you look at them, but you also need to look at

  415. yourself because it's a lot that we don't believe.

  416. Just like that's why I'm going over heaven.

  417. There's a lot that we don't believe, lot that we don't even

  418. think about when we talk about heaven.

  419. And they didn't even understand it until he said her name on the

  420. shore when the disciples, they all depressed.

  421. We're going fishing again. He was standing on the shore.

  422. He had a fire going. He was cooking fish, and he

  423. said, hey, guys, come on out. And then they recognized him.

  424. He ate breakfast with them in his resurrected body.

  425. Remember, he hadn't ascended yet.

  426. He didn't have his glorified body yet.

  427. Yet He appeared in a room and then he disappeared from a room.

  428. Jesus picked up with the relationships that he had left

  429. off with before the crucifixion. He knew the people and they knew

  430. him. So what's heaven going to be

  431. like? Are you going to recognize

  432. people? I say yes, because Jesus clearly

  433. shows us. We'll continue on in this.

  434. Philippians 3 and 20. There'll be a New Jerusalem.

  435. It's going to be 1500 by 1500, by 1500 feet.

  436. It's going to be 12 stories tall, and it's going to be built

  437. of jewels. Yes, and then for 1000 years I'm

  438. skip ahead after that thousand years there's going to be

  439. battling Armageddon and then there'll be a new heaven and a

  440. new earth come at that point. So yes, you're right.

  441. But his body was not a new body. His body was now spiritual body,

  442. but it was his body. That's why he said look at me,

  443. look, look at me. OK, so where was I?

  444. Philippians 3 and 20 it says for our citizenship is in heaven,

  445. which from which we are eagerly await for the Savior and the

  446. Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body.

  447. Thank God that it may be conformed to His glorious body

  448. according to the working by which He is able even to subdue

  449. all things to himself. They're saying where He's going

  450. to take this body, this old and achy breaky body that we have

  451. here, and He's going to give us a glorified body, same body.

  452. It's just going to be glorified. And we can't figure that one out

  453. how He does it, because it says it's going to be according to

  454. His working, which only He's able to do it to subdue things

  455. for himself. He's able to do it.

  456. We shouldn't even try to figure it out.

  457. Remember the amount of transfiguration before the

  458. crucifixion and the resurrection?

  459. That was in Matthew, early part of, well, Matthew 17 and two to

  460. be specific, but the amount of transfiguration He took three of

  461. the disciples, remember, with him, and he went up and he was

  462. transfigured, it says, and He was transfigured before them.

  463. His face shone like the sun, His clothes became as white as the

  464. light. And behold, Moses and Elijah

  465. appeared to them, talking with him on the Mount of

  466. Transfiguration. He was transformed before their

  467. eyes. This was a preview of his

  468. glorified body. Still him, they recognized him.

  469. He was just now shiny and bright.

  470. Now you can say, well, that's all well and good, but even

  471. Elijah and Moses were also. If you read Luke 31 and I'm not

  472. going to read it, but it says they appeared in glorious

  473. splendor. So they were already up there

  474. and when they came down they were in glorious splendor.

  475. And it shows that Jesus was in glorious splendor.

  476. His eyes and hair and feet, everything just shined.

  477. And I want to, I wasn't don't have this, but this is a

  478. freebie. Remember Moses, when Moses went

  479. up on the mountain to spend with God and to talk with God, He was

  480. up on the mountain and he came down with the 10 commandments

  481. and all of this and he has spent time with God.

  482. And excuse me, when he came back, they were looking at him

  483. like because his face shined, shone is what they call it,

  484. shined so bright that he had to cover his face because the

  485. people couldn't stand to look at it.

  486. Because he has spent time with God in the presence of God.

  487. Just a glimpse of a glorified body situation.

  488. And after the resurrection, after the ascension, Paul on the

  489. road to Damascus. Remember his experience on the

  490. road to Damascus. There was a great life from

  491. heaven suddenly shown around him, him being Paul.

  492. And it said Saul, Saul, it was Paul.

  493. And he fell on his feet when he heard the voice calling his

  494. name. And it's the voice says, I am

  495. Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.

  496. Great light shined around him. This was after the ascension.

  497. This was after everything had happened.

  498. And Paul had been converted from Saul to Paul.

  499. And he was when he was still Saul.

  500. At this point he was still Saul and he was going on his road to

  501. Damascus to persecute more Christians.

  502. And he, the bright light shined on him.

  503. And I like to say it knocked him off his high horse.

  504. So he knocked down, he fell down, he was on the ground and

  505. he the light was so bright that God put scales over his eyes and

  506. he went off. You know the story if you don't

  507. go read it. And he sent someone to preach to

  508. him and tell him about Jesus. And then Saul became Paul, one

  509. of the greatest apostles in the Bible.

  510. He was a scoundrel before Paul says in First Corinthians 15 and

  511. 49. It says, as we have borne the

  512. image of man, of dust, this is it.

  513. We shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.

  514. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit

  515. the Kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

  516. Behold, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we

  517. shall all be changed. Yay, we're all going to be

  518. changed. Now I've got a comparison here

  519. of imperial bodies, earthly bodies, and resurrected bodies.

  520. And this is all part of that First Corinthians, it's previous

  521. 42 through 50. It goes on if you read the whole

  522. thing. But an earthly body was sown in

  523. perishable, A sown A perishable body.

  524. A resurrected body is raised in perishable.

  525. Earthly body is sown in dishonor.

  526. A resurrected body is sown in glory or raised in glory.

  527. Earthly body sown in weakness. Resurrected body is raised in

  528. power. Earthly body is sown a natural

  529. body. A resurrected body is a

  530. spiritual body. Difference is quite a bit of

  531. difference, right? Flesh and blood cannot inherit

  532. the Kingdom of God, nor does perishable inherit imperishable.

  533. We will be made incorruptible. We'll have a new body, praise

  534. the Lord. God's going to decide what our

  535. body's going to look like. Ultimately, he's going to

  536. decide, but he's giving us glimpses.

  537. He's giving us pieces of the puzzle, things that we thought

  538. well, that might not, but it does.

  539. If we put it all together, we have a We're going to have a

  540. sense of well-being and approval, and God's going to be

  541. happy with us. Jesus's resurrected body was

  542. able to appear and apparently walk through locked doors.

  543. Remember the stories? And he disappeared from the men

  544. in Emmaus. He defied gravity because then

  545. he was ascended into heaven. We're told in several places

  546. that our resurrected bodies will be like Christ when we see him,

  547. we will be like Him. That's what it says very

  548. clearly. We don't know the glorious plans

  549. God has for our bodies, but we knew.

  550. No, He's got a plan. There's also eternal in the

  551. Eternal City. It talks about streets and it

  552. talks about gates, implying that there's going to be normal.

  553. Somebody's going to be walking on those streets when the Saints

  554. go March in in when the Saints y'all don't know that one again,

  555. somebody's going to be walking on the streets.

  556. Somebody's going to be going through those gates.

  557. Otherwise there would just be a lot of clouds and fluff.

  558. I'm going to give a few seconds here to this last bit.

  559. Animals in heaven. She better hurry up.

  560. She going to miss it. Isaiah 11/6 through 9 talks

  561. about lions and lambs and wolves and oxen, cows, bears and

  562. cobras. You see it.

  563. Isaiah 6525 describes a future time of peace among all the

  564. animals in the renewed world. Revelation 5 and 13.

  565. I'm throwing them at you fast, darling, it says.

  566. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and

  567. under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in

  568. them, I heard saying, blessing and honor and glory and power be

  569. to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and

  570. ever. Animals in heaven, it just said

  571. all, all creatures in heaven and on earth, they're all going to

  572. worship God. In the seas under the earth,

  573. they're going to worship God. Every creature in heaven, it

  574. says, and on earth. Second Kings 2:00 and 11:00.

  575. And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that

  576. behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire.

  577. Now this is talking about Elijah and Elijah.

  578. It's their stories. Chariot of fire and horses of

  579. fire. And parted them both asunder.

  580. And Elijah went up by whirlwind into heaven.

  581. There's horses in heaven. We know that because the Lord

  582. says we're going to be coming back on a White Horse.

  583. We saw the all the descriptions of the horses in heaven.

  584. There's going to be horses in heaven.

  585. There's going to be lions and lambs and wolves because they're

  586. going to lay down beside each other.

  587. They're not going to fight each other.

  588. There's going to be cows, it says, and bears and cobras.

  589. The child will play with the cobra, it says in Isaiah, where

  590. I'm talking about the child's going to play with the cobra.

  591. It describes it as that. And then Revelation says and

  592. every creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth

  593. and the sea, they're going to start worshipping God.

  594. So are there, are these just symbolic?

  595. Are these a physical reality? Jesus was not symbolic, was he?

  596. His word is real. His word is truth and he's, he's

  597. telling us all of this stuff and it's in his word.

  598. But sometimes we get, we want to get to the better stuff.

  599. Sometimes this might be a little boring.

  600. I may be putting you on to sleep.

  601. Y'all might go home and just sleep your heads off after

  602. tonight. But this is a real deal.

  603. Heaven is real. It's a physical place we're

  604. going to go to, and we're going to get glorified bodies just

  605. like Jesus had a glorified body. It's going to be me, only I'm

  606. going to be shiny and new, Hallelujah.

  607. I won't have to put sparkles or sprinkles or nothing on my face.

  608. It's just going to be I'm going to be glowing and you're going

  609. to walk around and you go say, hey, Tommy, look at you, Tony,

  610. look at you. Hey, you guys, we're going to

  611. know you. Jesus knew his disciples after

  612. he was resurrected. He knew them.

  613. He's going to know us. He knows us already.

  614. We have no idea what he's got prepared for us, but he's giving

  615. us a glimpse of heaven. It's real and we're waiting on

  616. it. And we should be so excited

  617. about going to heaven because sometimes we go ho hum, yeah,

  618. heaven. Oh, I don't want to go to hell

  619. because it's hot and it's fiery and it's, you know, all of that

  620. bad stuff. But I want to go to heaven

  621. because it's beautiful and the trees give off fruit and we can

  622. eat it, and there's going to be supper there because Jesus likes

  623. to eat. There's going to be separate.

  624. We're going to have all of that. I just pray that y'all get this

  625. inside of you so that your hearts leap when you think about

  626. heaven. It's a real place, and we're

  627. going to go there one of these days and we should be able to

  628. tell people about heaven just as easily as we can tell them about

  629. hell. Yes, Sir.

  630. Father, we thank you for your word.

  631. We thank You for the glimpse of heaven You have given us in Your

  632. Word, Lord. Sometimes we have to dig for

  633. those Nuggets and we have to dig for that information, Lord, but

  634. You laid it out in Your word. Thanks for listening to the

  635. Cross Power Church podcast. May you know that true?

  636. Hope, peace, and salvation can only be found in Jesus.

  637. If you're near Campbell, TX, we would love for you to join us in

  638. person. You can find service times at

  639. crosspowerchurch.com.