HEAVEN-ANTICIPATED
Alas! how we forget that we are but strangers and pilgrims on the
earth; that we are journeying to our eternal home, and will soon be there!
I don't know
about you, but the more I think about the new heaven and the new earth, the
more excited I get! It is incredible to think that one day soon we will not
only experience the resurrection of our carcasses, but the renewal of the
cosmos and the return of the Creator. We will literally have heaven on earth.
Eden lost will become Eden restored and a whole lot more! Not only will we
experience God's fellowship as Adam did, but we will see our Savior face to
face. God incarnate will live in our midst. And we will never come to the end
of exploring the infinite, inexhaustible I AM or the grandeur and glory of his
incomparable creation.
Hank Hanegraaff
Resurrection, W Publishing Group, 2000, p.
92.
God limits
the happiness and pleasure we have now precisely so we might not become
attached to this world or dependent upon it or fearful of leaving it (dying),
as well as to stir in our hearts a longing and yearning and holy anticipation
for what is yet to come.
Sam Storms
One Thing, Christian Focus, © Enjoying God Ministries, 2004, p.177. www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Most North
American Christians have things so good right here in this world that they
don’t really know what it is to long for heaven. God
has blessed us with an abundance of earthly comforts – more than any prior
generation in history. There is a danger that we become so comfortable in this
life that we forget we are but strangers and pilgrims in this world. Like
Abraham, we’re supposed to think of ourselves as vagabonds here on earth,
looking for a city with eternal foundations, whose builder and maker is God
(Heb. 11:10)… I often meet Christians who live as if heaven would be an
unwelcome intrusion into their busy schedule – an interruption of career goals
or holiday plans.
John MacArthur
The
Modern Romance with Heaven taken from The Glory of Heaven by John MacArthur,
copyright 1996, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton
Illinois,60187, www.crosswaybooks.org,
page 11.
The very
happiest persons I have ever met with have been departing believers. The only
people for whom I have felt any envy have been dying members of this very
church, whose hands I have grasped in their passing away. Almost without
exception I have seen in them holy delight and triumph. And in the exceptions
to this exceeding joy I have seen deep peace, exhibited in a calm and
deliberate readiness to enter into the presence of their God.
C.H. Spurgeon
The Christian
is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the
world. He is like a traveler in an inn, perfectly satisfied with the inn and
its accommodation, considering it as an inn, but putting quite out of all
consideration the idea of making it his home.
C.H. Spurgeon
The best
moment of a Christian's life is his last one, because it is the one that is
nearest heaven. And then it is that he begins to strike the keynote of the song
which he shall sing to all eternity.
C.H. Spurgeon
I would not
give one moment of heaven for all the joy and riches of the world, even if it
lasted for thousands and thousands of years.
Martin Luther
If I find in
myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity, Macmillan, 1960, p. 119.
I know what
Eternity is, though I cannot define the word to satisfy a metaphysician. The
little child taught by some grandmother Lois, in a cottage, knows what she
means when she tells him “you will live forever,” though both scholar and
teacher would be puzzled to put it into other words.
Alexander MacLaren
Surely it is
not wrong for us to think and talk about Heaven. I like to find out all I can
about it. I expect to live there through all eternity. If I were going to dwell
in any place in this country, if I were going to make it my home, I would
inquire about its climate, about the neighbors I would have – about everything,
in fact, that I could learn concerning it. If soon you were going to emigrate,
that is the way you would feel. Well, we are all going to emigrate in a very
little while. We are going to spend eternity in another world… Is it not
natural that we should look and listen and try to find out who
is already there and what is the route to take?
D.L.
Moody
This is a life of desire and prayer; but that [heaven] is a life
of satisfaction and enjoyment.
Richard Baxter
Excerpts
from The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, a classic work first published in 1650.
Because faith
makes invisible things real, and visible things
unreal, earthly dissatisfaction becomes the road to heavenly satisfaction.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 98. Used
by Permission.
We pilgrims
walk the tightrope between earth and heaven, feeling trapped in time, yet with
eternity beating in our hearts. Our unsatisfied sense of exile is not to be
solved or fixed while here on earth. Our pain and longings make sure we will
never be content, but that’s good: it is to our benefit that we do not grow
comfortable in a world destined for decay.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 112. Used
by Permission.
For me, true
contentment on earth means asking less of this life because more is coming in
the next. Godly contentment is great gain. Heavenly gain.
Because God has created the appetites in your heart, it stands to reason that He
must be the consummation of that hunger. Yes, heaven will galvanize your heart
if you focus your faith not on a place of glittery mansions, but on a Person,
Jesus, who makes heaven a home.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 126. Used
by Permission.
If we want to
prepare for our final destination, we should begin to worship God here on
earth. Our arrival in heaven will only be a continuation of what we have
already begun. Praise is the language of heaven and the language of the
faithful on earth.
Erwin Lutzer
Taken from One Minute After You Die by Erwin Lutzer,
Moody Publishers, 1997, p. 87-88.
This world is
only an anteroom of the next. This short life is incidental compared with
eternity. This world is not home to the Christian. Here we are only sojourners,
temporary dwellers in a foreign land. Our citizenship is in Heaven. Our
treasure should be in Heaven. Our thoughts should dwell lovingly and longingly
on that sweet home of the departed saints, of our Savior and of our Heavenly
Father.
John R. Rice
Bible Facts About Heaven, Sword of the Lord, 1940, p.
11.
Since Heaven
is so near and since such a cloud if witnesses surrounds
us, let us run our race with patience, laying aside the weights and our
besetting sin of unbelief. Jesus will give us the soul-winner's power while
Heaven looks on. And one day we shall share with them the soul-winner's reward
and enter more perfectly into the soul-winner's rejoicing.
John R. Rice
Bible Facts About Heaven, Sword of the Lord, 1940, p.
37.
We ought to
sing song about Heaven, long after its beauties, rejoice because of the
certainty that one glad day we shall be there. We ought to welcome the call that
may come for us at any moment. We ought truly to be homesick for Heaven and
willing to stay here on earth only that we may do the will of Christ and bless
others in His name and work.
John R. Rice
Bible
Facts About Heaven, Sword of the Lord, 1940, p. 38.
We [wrongly]
feel that heaven is bearable, all right, when one has sucked dry all the
pleasures of earth. We feel that, only after old age has come upon us, when
life is a burden, when health has failed, when we are in the way and our
children don't want us, then perhaps we should be resigned to go to Heaven.
Subconsciously we look upon heaven as a scrapheap for the worn-out and useless,
a kind of old people's home – better than nothing but not as good as this
world, with youth, health and prosperity.
John R. Rice
Bible Facts About Heaven, Sword of the Lord, 1940, p.
38.
We Christians
often act like heathen. We preach that it is wonderful to be a Christian, that
Heaven is to be gained and Hell shunned. Then when one of our loved ones dies,
we act as if it were all a lie. Our actions say that this world is better than
the next, that death is a tragedy, and we ask querulously in our unbelief, Why? Why? Why?… Shame on us! When
we weep and lament at the death of our loved ones [beyond God’s-honoring grief],
we often make void our testimony, cast reflection upon the Bible and irreverence
on Heaven. For the Christian, death is not a tragedy but a glorious promotion –
not the sad end, but the glorious beginning.
John R. Rice
Bible Facts About Heaven, Sword of the Lord, 1940, p.
38.
Puritan
writer Thomas Watson said, “Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset;
eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise.” Eternity is the grand
climax of all history. It is the age to come when every person will acknowledge
Jesus as Lord. Eternity will bring to
this world all God intended for us. Sin will have been judged and banished.
Rewards will have been presented. Life will continue with new vitality,
meaning, and perfection. What an age that will be!
George Sweeting
Who Said That? Moody Press, 1995, p. 176.
Christ is the
desire of nations, the joy of angels, the delight of
the Father. What solace then must that soul be filled with that hath the
possession of Him to all eternity!
John Bunyan
O Lord, I
live here as a fish in a vessel of water only enough to keep me alive, but in
heaven I shall swim in the ocean. Here I have a little air in me to keep me
breathing, but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales. Here I have a beam of
sun to lighten my darkness, a warm ray to keep me from freezing; yonder I shall
live in light and warmth forever.
Unknown
Puritan