GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 19~ ~ Isaiah 11:6~ ~ “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them.”

From “We Shall See God”—a collection of sermons by the late, great Charles H. Spurgeon, with comments by Randy Alcorn.  We couldn’t fit both on yesterday’s reading, so here is Randy to continue:

Randy Alcorn:

Spurgeon’s happiness about heaven—-his joyful anticipation about being with God and His followers in that place—stands in stark contrast to most people’s view of the afterlife.

Many believe this life is all there is.  Their philosophy?  “You go around only once, so grab for whatever you can.”

If you’re a child of God, you do NOT just go around once on Earth.  This one earthly life is NOT all there is.  You get another—one far better and without end.  You’ll inhabit the New Earth!  You’ll live with the God you cherish and the people you love as an undying person on an undying Earth.  Those who go to hell are the ones who go around only once here.

We use the term ETERNAL LIFE without thinking what it means.  LIFE is an earthly existence in which we work rest, play, and relate to one another in ways that include using our creative gifts to enrich culture and then enjoy it.  Yet we have redefined ETERNAL LIFE to mean an off-earth existence stripped of the defining properties of what we know life to be.  Eternal life means enjoying forever the finest moments of life on earth the way they were intended.  Since in heaven we’ll finally experience life at its best, it would be more accurate to call our present existence the BEFORELIFE rather than to call what follows the AFTERLIFE.

I had a woman tell me this:  “…When I was seven, I was told that when I got to heaven I wouldn’t know anyone or anything from Earth.  I was terrified of dying.  I was never told any different by anyone…it’s been really hard for me to advance in my Christian walk because of this fear of heaven and eternal life.”

Let those words sink in:  “this FEAR of heaven and eternal life.”  Referring to her recently transformed perspective, she said, “You don’t know the weight that has been lifted off of me…Now I can’t wait to get to heaven.”

When a church representative was asked by a colleague what he expected after death, he replied, “Well, if it comes to that, I suppose I shall enter into eternal bliss, but I really wish you wouldn’t bring up such depressing subjects”

(DEPRESSING!!!????!!!!!)

I believe there’s one central explanation why so many of God’s children have such a vague, negative and uninspired view of heaven:  the work of Satan.

Some of Satan’s favorite lies are about heaven.  Rev. 13:6 tells us the satanic beast “opened its mouth to blaspheme God and to slander His name and His dwelling place and those who live in heaven.”  Our enemy chooses three main targets to slander:  God’s person, God’s people, and God’s place.—namely, heaven.

Satan need not convince us that heaven doesn’t exist.  He need convince us only that heaven is a boring, unearthlike place.  If we believe that lie, we’ll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we’ll set our minds on this life and not the next, and we won’t be motivated to share our faith.  Why should we share the “Good News” that people can spend eternity in a boring, ghostly place that we are not looking forward to ourselves?

Satan hates the New Heaven and the New Earth as much as a deposed dictator hates the new nation and the new government that replaced his.  Satan cannot keep Christ from defeating him, but he can persuade us that Christ’s victory is only partial, that God will abandon his original plan for  mankind and for the earth.

Because Satan hates us, he’s determined to rob us of the joy we’d have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent world to come.

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