This morning, I'd like to talk to you about a subject that I think is so exciting.
I'll start with a little background on me.
I met my lovely wife in West Tennessee.
That's where I grew up.
It was on my first visit to the Jackson Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Hadn't joined the church.
Didn't know all that much about it, but I wanted to visit.
We were visiting.
It wasn't very long after that that we began dating.
Judy was a nurse at the time.
She was teaching nursing.
She was on her way to her career.
On the other hand, was working at a pretty low-paying job, I might say.
Really didn't offer much potential for any advancement at all.
I was, what did you want to say, quote, poor.
I was a poor guy.
I lived in this little one-room efficiency.
I could put everything I owned back then in the back of the car.
Can't do that anymore, but back in those days I could do that.
You might say, well, how poor were you?
You've heard that saying poor is the church mouse.
Well, I was so poor that the church mouse, when he came to visit me, he stayed in the
neighbor's house because I didn't have room.
I was working back then at a wholesale florist doing warehouse work and making deliveries
to retail shops.
When a florist bought flowers from us, they wanted the freshest flowers possible.
They wanted roses, for example.
They wanted them to be tight.
They wanted them to last a long time.
When the roses were opened and they looked beautiful, the florist really did not want
to buy them then because they wouldn't last as long.
They're already on their way out, really.
Sometimes if they had an immediate order and they were in a bind, they would buy those
flowers, but for the most part they wanted fresher flowers.
At our wholesale house, Thursday was clean out day.
After day we got rid of all the old stuff and brought in the new stuff.
We threw away all the oldest flowers.
Many of them were not good.
They were going bad, but some of them, often we threw away a lot of perfectly good, beautiful
roses because you couldn't sell them.
We had this big dumpster right outside where we threw all the flowers.
Our boss would allow us to take some of those flowers for personal use.
I would often take some to my mom.
I'd take her flowers often because I could.
When I met Judy and we started dating, I was able to take her flowers all the time, every
chance I could.
This poor church mouse guy who could hardly afford to take her out to eat could always
show up at the front door with flowers.
I remember two or three times that I brought her 50 roses at a time.
She stuck with me.
That's good.
We got married.
That all moved.
We came up to Southern for me to go to school here.
The flowers had to stop.
All I could do now up here was get little Debbie cakes for her.
I didn't do that that often.
I could no longer afford to buy flowers as I did.
She would not want me to as much because it costs a lot of money.
Valentine's Day is coming up, isn't it?
You know the prices they have out there.
Every once in a while I did splurge and unbuy some flowers, but nothing like I did in those
days.
I'm looking forward that someday, someday we're going to go to that Earth made new.
I hope that we can have right outside of our home a field of beautiful flowers of every
type and color, flowers that will never fade, flowers that will never die.
Isn't that a good thought?
On this Earth, the most beautiful flowers you can get, they'd still fade and they die.
I don't believe that's the way it's going to be in Heaven because there's no death in
Heaven.
I think that includes the flowers.
I hope it does.
In the Heaven and the new Earth, it's going to be different than it is here.
I'm looking for Jesus to come.
I'm longing for Jesus to come because every time I think about Heaven and what's going
on there, I think about all he has in store for us up there that we can't see here.
I've often tried, and I know you have too, often tried to sit down and imagine what Heaven
will be like.
What can Heaven be like?
But I know that we can never imagine how wonderful it's actually going to be.
In fact, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9, he says, I have not seen nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for
those who love him.
You can think about it all day long, but you can't comprehend it, how wonderful it is.
So I hope that you're looking forward to Heaven as much as I am.
I think it's not going to be long.
Today I would just like to read a few words from the Bible that talk about Heaven and
the new Earth.
My sermon is pretty simple, but as we look at the scriptures, I want us to keep in mind
what I just said, that the best imagination of anything we can think of about how wonderful
Heaven is, we're told that it's only a dim reflection of the reality of Heaven and what
the new Earth and Heaven will be like.
In Genesis chapter 1 and verse 31, at the end of the creation week, the Bible says,
God saw everything he had made and behold, it was very good.
And so God placed Adam and Eve there in this beautiful garden, this perfect garden, the
Garden of Eden, but then sin came in and you know the story.
And God banished Adam and Eve from the garden and this world began a deterioration that
has gone down, down, down to the extent of the deterioration of today.
So even though we can't really grasp what Heaven and the new Earth is like, we can know
as the world becomes more evil, it becomes more degraded, that the contrast between how
it is now and how it will be after Jesus comes will be beyond our wildest thoughts.
And you know, I thought about, you know, the world's getting worse and we're going through
a time of trouble, everything is going to happen, but all of that just widens the contrast
between what it is here and what it will be.
So this morning let's just take our Bibles and read a few things about what we are told.
In Revelation 21 and 22 we have a description of what John the Revelator saw in a vision
about Heaven.
And I imagine that John was never the same again after that vision.
He got to see things that we can only imagine.
And let's start with Revelation chapter 21.
You have your Bibles and I have the King James today.
I use many Bibles, but I love the poetic way it's written here.
Revelation 21, I'll read verses 1 to 3.
And it says, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away and there was no more sea.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men,
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with
them and be their God.
Beautiful words, beautiful words.
And the most wonderful part of heaven, not going to be the beauty of everything around
us, it's going to be that we will be in the physical presence of God.
The physical presence of God.
Now we can talk to God and he talks to us and we can feel him near, but it's going to
be different to be right there in his physical presence.
God the Father, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
In fact, being with God is what's going to make it heaven.
It's not going to be everything else.
What's going to make it heaven is that we will be with God.
Every other wonderful thing we see or experience is just gravy compared to that.
Now if I skip down to verses 23 to 27, if you want to just follow me along, page here
will cooperate.
And the city had no need of the sun, and neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory
of God did lighten it, and the lamb is the light thereof.
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of
the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.
The gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there, and
they shall bring the honor and glory of the nations into it.
And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defile us, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the Lamb's book of life.
The Lamb is the light.
I love that thought.
And I also like what it says in verse 25, the gates of heaven shall not be shut at all
by day, for there will be no night there.
So that means the gates are open all the time.
Obviously if there's no night, 24-7 the gates are open.
You know in our house I have my routine.
I know some of you do.
The guys get certain jobs.
I get the job.
I take out the trash.
My routine at night is I go around and I turn up all the lights.
I go check all the doors to make sure all the doors are locked.
And we actually purchased a security system with our motion sensor lights on it because
several cars in our neighborhood have been broken into.
And we just live right down the road here.
And you know we have those cameras and we can see what's going on outside or we can
look back and see what happened.
You know you can't always catch anybody, but at least you know what happened.
I've always heard people talk about back in the old days about how it used to be when
they didn't lock their doors.
You heard that back in the, we never locked our doors back in those days.
Well in the 40s, and this is some things that I read, back in the 40s, 1940s, America and
America many people began earnestly locking their doors.
Something began to change in the 40s.
And I don't know all the reasons for that, but I read that and I thought about that for
a little while and I thought you know that's not exactly true that it began then because
people have pretty much always locked up their valuables and locked up their doors or at
least locked up you know the things that were important to them.
And before that many people buried their valuables even in the ground.
The Romans in Jesus' time, they locked their valuables in metal boxes and they carried
the keys around with them all the time.
The ancient Egyptians had pin locks on their wooden doors.
Even in ancient Assyria way back there during the days of Jonah in Nineveh a lock and key
box has been unearthed by archaeologists.
So way back then they were locking up their stuff.
And all throughout history people have locked up their homes even if they didn't have a
lock.
People before that put wooden bars on the inside of their doors you know to keep anything
that shouldn't be coming in out.
But in heaven, like I said, there will be no locks.
No locks on the doors.
There will neither on our homes where we live in the new earth and when we get to heaven
there will be no locks.
There will be no need there because heaven is the place of perfect safety.
Can you imagine that?
Perfect safety.
You never have to walk down the street and wonder who may be following you or what may
be happening because it's the perfect place.
And let's back up now to verse four if you will.
Verse four in Revelation 21.
It says here, and God shall wipe away all the tears from their eyes and there shall
be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the
former things are passed away.
The former things are passed away.
The curse will have been lifted.
The curse will have been lifted and all the former evil things of earth that we see now
will no longer be.
After Jesus comes back the second time we'll spend a thousand years in heaven with him.
And then the New Jerusalem, heaven as we call it, will come down to earth.
It'll rest on the Mount of Olives and the earth will be totally recreated back to its
original state when it was created.
It'll be like the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve were cast out of and each of us will
have a home in the New Earth.
Not too early to start thinking about what you want in your home.
We talk about it all the time.
And what are we going to have when we get up there?
What are we going to build?
Because it says we're going to build it ourselves.
In Isaiah chapter 65 verses 21 to 25, you'll turn there.
Isaiah chapter 65, I'd like to share with you a little bit about that time.
I'll begin with verse 21.
And they shall build houses and inhabit them and they shall plant vineyards and eat the
fruit of them.
They shall not build and another inhabit.
In other words, nobody's going to come in and take your home away from you.
They shall not plant and another eat.
Now I don't think that necessarily means you can't invite somebody for dinner.
I think that means that somebody's not going to come in and steal your food.
For as the days of a tree are, the days of my people and mine elect shall long enjoy
the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain and shall not nor bring forth for trouble for they are the
seed of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring within.
And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer and while they are yet
speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock
and dust shall be the serpent's meat.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.
I particularly like that last sentence.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.
What a great promise that is.
I have to read to you now just a couple more verses.
What it says in chapter 26, 66 in verses 22 and 23.
For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith
the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.
And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another and one Sabbath to another
shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.
Sabbath in heaven is going to be unimaginable.
Unimaginable.
I can't wait for that.
I'm looking forward to heaven.
Imagine being with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with all our loved ones
who have passed on, now raised from death to life, with all of us now, with all of us
who are now alive, who have trusted in Jesus, along with the redeemed of all the ages.
We're going to all come together on Sabbath.
And as we come together we are going to worship God in a peaceful, perfect environment.
I can't even imagine what a joyful experience that will be.
And to think we have that to look forward to every Sabbath, every Sabbath in heaven,
if we'll just remain faithful until Jesus comes.
And you know, just remaining faithful to God for a few years means that you're going to
enjoy heaven for eternity.
So there's nothing more important than being faithful to Jesus now for this short time
of life, because we have so much that will be repaid to us if we are.
Ruth and Bob were the parents of an only child, a little boy, and his name was David.
But they always called him their Davey boy.
Davey was a tender-hearted, thoughtful little boy, and he loved both of his parents very
much.
But I guess you could say that Davey was especially close to his mother.
He was what we call a mama's boy.
And I know all about that.
I mean that in a very positive way.
That's a good thing.
My son and my grandson are both mama's boys, and that's just the way it is sometimes.
And of course, Dad gets his share too.
But you can tell when they're a mama's boy.
And from just a toddler, Davey would go out into the yard, and he'll pick the little
wildflowers that popped up, you know, the dandelions and such.
And sometimes he would pick a lot of weeds along with those dandelions, and he would
bring them in and show them to his mother, but that didn't bother her at all.
She was happy to have the weeds.
It just melted her heart every time Davey boy came through that door with a big smile
and a handful of dandelions and weeds.
And Ruth always pretended that these were the most beautiful flowers that she had ever
seen in her life.
And she'd find a glass or a little cup, and she'd put them on display in the living room
for everybody to see.
And people will come over and they say, oh, and you know, most people are intuitive.
They'll come over and they know you got a little boy and they see that on the table,
and they say, ah, I know what that is.
You know, the children have helped out and have given to Mommy.
And as he would raise her, excuse me, as he would hand her the flowers, Davey would always
say, I love you, Mommy.
I love you, Mommy.
And that made it even more special.
She looked for that every time.
And this was going on for a long time.
And finally, Dad decided, and that's Bob in the story, decided to help out Davey and also
to slow down all the weeds coming in.
And so he took Davey boy to the flower shop and he told Davey, he said, now, son, I will
help you buy a pretty rose every week.
And that way it won't be necessary to bring them in from the yard.
And so Davey thought that was a great idea.
So that began what was the routine of a rose a week.
And Davey never forgot and Dad stuck to his promise.
And so every week there was never a time when there was not a fresh rose in the house in
a vase sitting on the table in the living room.
And every week Davey would hand that flower to his mom and he would say, I love you, Mommy.
Every week.
Well, it was Mother's Day and Davey boy was eight years old.
And the young boy came in the front door with flowers in his hand.
But on this very special day, it was not a single rose.
Davey was carrying a beautiful vase, a rose bouquet in a vase.
And it was made into an arrangement and it was beautiful.
And Dad came in the door about that time following the boy and he looked at his wife and he said,
this was all his idea.
I had nothing to do with it.
He saved up his allowance for a long, long time because he really wanted to do this.
And he said, I even offered to pay for it, but he wouldn't have it.
He wanted to get them all by himself.
And so as Davey sat that arrangement down on the table, he pointed something out to
Mom.
He says, look, Mommy, they are silk, but they look like real flowers.
They will last forever.
That's how much I love you, Mommy.
And so it was a gift of love.
And of course, you know, it got to Mom, tears fell.
And she said, oh, honey, they're beautiful and so are you.
And it was a very special moment that would never be forgotten.
Then years went by, years later, Davey had moved out, established his own home.
Things going on.
And his dad had died a few years before.
And now his mother was up in years.
And Davey got word that his mother was very sick.
And so she was in the hospital.
And Davey went to be with her.
And a few days later, Ruth passed away with her Davey boy right beside her holding on
to her hand.
And just moments before she passed, Davey leaned over, still holding her hand, and he
whispered in her ear, I love you, Mommy.
A few days later, Davey decided it was time to go over to the house that he'd grown up
in and to just kind of check on things in his parents' house.
And he walked into their bedroom and he noticed on her dresser an old arrangement of flowers.
And he realized that those were the flowers that he had given her so long ago.
And they had faded a lot.
They looked their age, but they were clean.
They were in order as though they had been dusted off and as though they had been taken
well care of.
And so Davey looked at that, thought back.
Then he noticed a little card underneath the vase.
And as he pulled it out, he recognized his mother's handwriting.
And even though the ink had long begun to fade, he was able to read it.
And the card showed these words.
These flowers are a gift from my son.
They remind me every day that I will always be loved.
You know, for in some day, when we get to heaven and we are in the presence of God,
where there's no sin and sorrow and death, none of that will be there where the flowers
will never fade or die.
But even now, we can know that in God's eyes, that when we get to heaven, we will be the
most precious flowers in his garden.
You and I.
That's because that's how much he loves us.
How much he loves us.
Think about that today as we sing this beautiful song about heaven.
When we all get to heaven, number 633, our closing song.