Month: September 2023

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 9 ~ ~ 1 Corinthians 13:12 ~ ~ “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

From “We Shall See God” – sermons by C.H. Spurgeon with comments by Randy Alcorn.

C.H. Spurgeon:

Seeing the Face of Jesus, part 2

The sight of Christ’s face will be, to the unsaved (those not born again), eternal destruction, separation from the presence of the Lord. But if there are some men who shall see His face, who shall sit down and delight themselves in gazing upon the face of the great Judge upon the throne, then those persons are certainly saved.

Here it is our joy of joys to have the Lord smiling upon us, for if He be with us, who can be against us? In heaven, then, they have this to be their choice privilege. They are attendants who stand always in the monarch’s palace, secure in the monarch’s smile. They are children who live unbrokenly in their Father’s love. They know it and rejoice to know it evermore.

All the saints (those who are born again—who know that Jesus alone is the only way to salvation) shall see their Master’s face. The thief dying on the cross was with Christ in Paradise. Whether dying young or old, whether departing after long service of Christ or dying immediately after conversion as with the thief, of all the saints shall it be said in the words of the text, they shall “see His face.” What more can apostles and martyrs enjoy?

Life is but a moment; how short it will appear in eternity! And though impatience considers it a long wait, yet faith corrects her and reminds her that one hour with God will make the longest life to seem but a point in time.

RANDY ALCORN: In the Old Testament we’re told that Moses saw God but not God’s face: “You cannot see My face.” God said, “for no one may see Me and live…..You will see My back; but My face must not be seen.” (Exodus 33:20 & 23)

The New Testament says that God “lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.” (1Timothy 6;16). to see God’s face has been utterly unthinkable.

That’s why, when we’re told in Revelations 22:4 that we’ll see God’s face, it should astound us. For this to happen, it will require that we undergo radical change between now and then. “WITHOUT HOLINESS NO ONE WILL SEE THE LORD.” (Hebrews 12:14) IT’S ONLY BECAUSE WE’LL BE FULLY RIGHTEOUS IN CHRIST, DEEMED COMPLETELY SINLESS BECAUSE OF HIM, THAT WE’LL BE ABLE TO SEE GOD AND LIVE.

This is the wonder of our redemption, which Spurgeon celebrated and we should also—to be welcomed into the very presence of our Lord and to see Him face-to-face! What will we see in His eyes? Though we cannot experience redemption’s fullness yet, we can gain a foretaste now: “We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19) “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16)

These verses tell us something wonderful beyond comprehension: the blood of Jesus has bought us full access to God’s throne room and His Most Holy Place. Even now, He welcomes us to come there in prayer. In eternity, when we’re resurrected beings, not only will He permit us to enter His presence in prayer, but He will welcome us to LIVE in His presence as resurrected beings.

David says, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple (Psalm 27:4) David was preoccupied with God’s person, and also with God’s place. He longed to be where God was and to gaze on His beauty. God, who is transcendent, became immanent—manifested among us—in Jesus Christ, who is Emmanuel, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23) So whenever we see Jesus in heaven, we will see God. Because Jesus Christ is God, and a permanent manifestation of God, He could say to Phillip, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9). Along with Spurgeon, we can anticipate literally looking into Christ’s face and exclaiming, “Oh what a sight!”

Shut your eyes and imagine seeing Jesus. What a wondrous thought! More than that, what a wondrous promise!!!

Rev. 2:26 And he that overcomes, and keeps my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.

Rev 3:5  He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white clothing; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Rev 3:12 Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

Rev 3:21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 8 ~ ~ Revelation 22:4 ~ ~ “They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.”

From the book, “We Shall See God” containing sermons by the Prince of Preachers, Charles H. Spurgeon, with comments by Randy Alcorn.

C.H. Spurgeon:

Seeing the Face of Jesus, part 1:

The most astonishing sight we can anticipate in Heaven is not streets of gold or pearly gates or loved ones who have died before us. It will be coming face-to-face with our Savior.

The text says they shall “see His face,” by which I understand two things. FIRST: that they shall literally and physically, with their risen bodies, actually look into the face of Jesus.

SECOND: that spiritually their mental faculties shall be enlarged so that they shall be enabled to look into the very heart and soul and character of Christ, so as to understand Him, His work, His love, His all in all, as they never understood Him before!

They shall literally, I say, see His face, for Christ is no phantom. In heaven, thought divine, He is still a man, and therefore material like ourselves. The very flesh and blood that suffered upon Calvary is in heaven. The hand that was pierced with the nail now, at this moment grasps the scepter of all worlds. That very head which was bowed down with anguish is now crowned with a royal crown. And the face that was so marred is the very face which beams brilliantly amid the thrones of Heaven. Into that selfsame face we shall be permitted to gaze. OH, what a sight!

We shall see and know even as we are known, and among the great things that we shall know will be this greatest of all, that WE SHALL KNOW CHRIST. We shall know the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the love of Christ that exceeds knowledge.

In the blessed vision the saints see Jesus, and they see Him clearly. We may also remark that they see Him always, for when the text says they shall “see His face,” it implies that they never at any time are without the sight!!! Never for a moment do they unlock their arm from the arm of their Beloved!

They are not as we are—sometimes near the throne, sometimes far away; sometimes hot with love, sometimes cold with indifference, sometimes bright as angels, sometimes dull as clods. Rather, forever and ever they are in closest association with the Master, for they shall “see His face.”

They surely see His face the more clearly because all the clouds of care are gone from them. Some of you while sitting here today have been trying to lift up your minds to heavenly contemplation, but you cannot. The business has gone so wrong this week; the children have annoyed you so much; sickness has been in the house so severely. You feel in your body quite out of order for devotion—these enemies break your peace.

God’s people are bothered by none of these things in heaven, and therefore they can see their Master’s face. They are not burdened with Martha’s cares; they still occupy Mary’s place at his feet. (Luke 10:38-42). When you and I have laid aside the farm and the merchandise and the marrying and burying, which come so fast upon each other’s heels, and when we will be forever with the Lord, then:

FAR FROM THE WORLD OF GRIEF AND SIN, WITH GOD ETERNALLY SHUT IN.

Furthermore, the glorified see God’s face more clearly because there are no idols to stand between Him and them. Our idolatrous love of worldly things is a chief cause of our knowing so little of spiritual things. One cannot fill his life cup from the pools of earth and yet have room in it for the crystal streams of heaven. But they have no idols there in heaven—nothing to occupy the heart, no rival for the Lord Jesus. He reigns supreme within their spirits, and therefore they see His face.

More about this tomorrow.

Isaiah 51:11

 Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away

Revelations 21:4

And God shall wipe away all 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.

Luke 12:32

Fear not, little flock: for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 7 ~ ~Rev 2:17~ ~ “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches; To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knows saving he that receives it.”

From the book, “We Shall See God” with sermons from the “Prince of Preachers” Charles H. Spurgeon and comments by Randy Alcorn.

Spurgeon:

Seeing Our Loved Ones in the Morning:

When death comes to take away someone we love, we grieve—and rightly so. But for the believer, that grief is infused with hope. Our loved ones are not truly lost—after all, we know where they are, and we will see them again.

There is a dear old friend of mine, now in heaven. When he came to this church one Sunday, I said to him, “Our old friend has gone home.” the one to whom I spoke looked at me in a most significant way, and his eyes twinkled as he said, “He could not do better, dear Pastor…..He could not do better. And you and I will do the same thing one of these days. We also shall go home.”

My friend has since gone home, and now I say of him, “He could not have done better.” why, that is where good children always go at night…….home.

OH! Let us not live in this world as if we thought of staying here forever, but let us try to be like a pious Scotch minister who was very ill, and being asked by a friend whether he thought himself dying, answered, “Really, friend, I care not whether I am or not, for if I die, I shall be with God. And if I live, He will be with me.” (I love that!!!!)

But as for those who have fallen asleep in Jesus, we need not fret or trouble ourselves about them. When children go upstairs to bed, do their elder brothers and sisters, who sit up later, gather together and cry because the other children have fallen asleep? AH NO! They feel that they have not lost them, and they expect to see them again in the morning, and so do we!

Therefore, let us not weep and lament to excess concerning the dear ones who have fallen asleep in Christ, for all is well with them. They are at rest; shall we weep about that? They are enjoying their eternal triumph; shall we weep about that? They are enjoying their eternal triumph; shall we weep about that? They are as full of bliss as they can possibly be; shall we weep about that? If any of your sons and daughters were taken away from you to be made into kings and queens in a foreign land, you might shed a tear or two at parting, but you would say, “it is for their good; let them go.”

And do you begrudge your well-beloved their crown of glory and all the bliss which God has bestowed upon them? If the departed could speak to us, they would say, “Bless God for us. Do not sit down and mourn because we have entered into His glory, but rather rejoice because we are with Him where He is.”

Therefore, let us comfort one another with these words. Did you ever notice, concerning Job’s children, that when God gave him twice as much substance as he had before, He gave him only the same number of children as he formerly had? Why did He not give him double the number of children as well as twice the number of cattle? Why, because God regarded his children who had died as being Job’s still!

They were dead to Job’s eye, but they were visible to Job’s faith, (and certainly visible to God). God numbered them still as part of Job’s family, and if you carefully count up how many children Job had, you will find that he had twice as many in the end as he had in the beginning. In the same way, consider your friends who are asleep in Christ as still yours—-NOT A SINGLE ONE LOST.

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Randy Alcorn:

Spurgeon performed countless funerals, but he wasn’t the sort of pastor who didn’t get to know his people until they were dying. In fact, he had a weekly time set aside to meet individually with people who had trusted Christ and wanted to become church members. It appears he came to know by name at least SIX THOUSAND church members by this one method alone. He heard each of them tell how he or she had come into a relationship with Jesus. So in his sermons, when he speaks of church people who have died, in many cases he knew them well. And he looked forward to a great reunion in which people of the Metropolitan tabernacle would one day see each other again the the presence of Christ.

Death is painful, and it’s an enemy. But for those who know Jesus, death is the FINAL pain and the LAST enemy.

“(Christ) must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1Cor 15:25-26). We on this dying earth can relax and rejoice for our loved ones who are in the presence of Christ.

As the apostle Paul tells us, though we naturally grieve at losing loved ones, we are not to “grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” (1Thes 4:13) Our parting is not the end of our relationship, only an interruption. We have not lost them, because we know where they are. Don’t you love Spurgeon’s point about children going upstairs to bed? Of course brothers and sisters don’t weep over their sleeping siblings because “they expect to meet again in the morning, and so do we.”

When they die, those covered by Christ’s blood are experiencing the joy of Christ’s presence in a place so wonderful that Christ called it Paradise. And one day, we’re told, there will be a magnificent reunion. They and we “will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thes. 4:17-18

Jonathon Edwards, whose theology of sovereign grace Spurgeon loved, saw no conflict between between anticipating our relationships with God and anticipating our relationships with our loved ones in heaven:

“Every Christian friend that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven. There will be the infant of days that we have lost below, through grace to be found above. There the Christian father, mother, wife, child and friend, with whom we shall renew the holy fellowship of the saints, which was interrupted by death here, but shall be commenced again in the upper sanctuary, and then shall never end. There we shall have companionship with the patriarchs and fathers and saints of the Old and New Testaments, and those of whom the world was not worthy…And there, above all, we shall enjoy and dwell with God the Father, whom we have loved with all our hearts on earth; and with Jesus Christ, our beloved Savior, who has always been to us the chief among ten thousands, and altogether lovely; and with the Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier, and guide, and Comforter; and shall be filled with all the fullness of the Godhead forever!” (Jonathon Edwards)

What a world that will be—to live in rich eternal fellowship with the triune God and the great family of His redeemed. I’m overwhelmed just thinking of it. What a great God we’ll enjoy and serve forever! What a great time we’ll have together there! I can’t wait for the great adventures we’ll have with Christ and one another, with Edwards and Spurgeon, with Mary and Joseph, with our ancestors and children who have fallen asleep before us. Deep and joyful human relationships will be among God’s greatest gifts in heaven—relationships that by God’s grace will never end.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 6 ~ ~ 1Corinthians 15:3-6 ~ ~ “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.”

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From the book “We Shall See God” sermons by the great Charles H. Spurgeon with comments by Randy Alcorn.

SPURGEON:

When someone we love dies or when we look ahead to our final breath, it feels like death is the crushing blow. But for the believer, death no longer has the final say. FOR ALL WHO ARE IN CHRIST, DEATH IS JUST THE MOMENT BEFORE WE TRULY WAKE UP.

Witnesses of Christ’s resurrection died as other men did. They had no immunity from death and no extreme old age was granted to them, for the apostle (Paul) said, “Some have fallen asleep”.

From this fact, I gather that earthly lives, which appear to us to be extremely necessary, may not be so regarded by God. The Lord sometimes takes away from us those whom we can least spare. This should teach us—if we are wise enough to learn the lesson—to regard the most invaluable person in our own Israel as being only lent to us by the Lord, for a season, and liable to be summoned to higher service at any moment.

In the heathen part of the catacombs of Rome, the inscriptions over the place where their dead were buried are full of grief and despair. Indeed, the writers of those inscriptions do not appear to have been able to find words in which they could express their great distress, their agony of heart, at the loss of a child, husband, wife or friend. They pile the mournful words together, trying to describe their grief. Sometimes they declare that the light has gone from their sky now that their dear ones are taken from them.

Alas! Alas!! says the record. “Dear Caius has gone, and with him all joy is quenched forever, for I shall see him no more.” Paganism is hopeless to comfort the bereaved. But when you come into that part of the catacombs which was devoted to Christian burial vaults, everything is different. There you may constantly read these consoling words: “He sleeps in peace.” There is nothing dreadful or despairing in the inscriptions there; they are submissive, they are cheerful, they are even thankful. Frequently they are victorious, and the most common emblem is not the quenched torch, as it is on the heathen side, where the light is supposed to have gone out forever, but the palm branch, to signify that the victory remains eternally with the departed one. It is the glory of the Christian religion to have let light into the grave, to have taken away the sting from death, and, in fact, to have made it NO MORE DEATH TO DIE.

The saints in Heaven have a better rest than sleep can give, but sleep is the nearest word we can find to describe the state of the blessed. They have no poverty, no toil, no anguish of spirit, no remorse, no struggling with indwelling sin, no battling with does without and fears within.

Revelation 14:13 ~ ~ “Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

Oh, what a sweet thing to fall asleep—to enjoy perfect calmness and to be beyond the reach of all influences which make life here to be so sorrowful!!!

Do not regard your departure out of the world as a thing to be surrounded with horror. “The valley of the shadow of death,” of which David spoke, I do not think was ever meant to be applied to dying. For it is a valley that he walks through, and he comes out again on the other side. It is not the valley of death, but only of the SHADOW of death.

I have walked through that valley many times—right through from one end of it to the other—and yet I have not died. The grim shadow of something worse than death has fallen over my spirit, but God has been with me, as He was with David, and His rod and His staff have comforted me. Many here can say the same.

I believe that, often, those who feel great gloom in going through “the valley of the shadow of death” feel no gloom at all when they come to the valley of death itself. There has generally been brightness there for the most sorrowful spirits. Those who, before coming there, have groveled in the dust, have been empowered to mount as on eagles’ wings when they have actually come to the place of their departure into the future state.

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Randy Alcorn:

The physical part of us “sleeps” until the Resurrection, while the spiritual part of us immediately relocates to a conscious existence in heaven. (Daniel 12:2-3-3, and 2 Cor 5:8) if we have accepted the salvation of Christ alone.

The book of Revelation describes human beings talking and worshiping in Heaven prior to the Resurrection of the dead (Rev 4:10-11; 5:8; 7:9-11). These examples demonstrate that our spiritual beings are conscious, not sleeping, after death.

I’ve read at memorial services the following depiction of a believers death. It captures the sense of tranquility Spurgeon sees in the Biblical view of death as a sort of sleep:

“I am standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She’s an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come down to mingle with each other. And then I hear someone at my side saying, “There, she’s gone.”

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in ME, not in HER.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming, and there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “HERE SHE COMES!!!”

And that is dying.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 5 ~ ~ 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” 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.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 4 ~ ~ “Hebrews 11:13-16

 “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.”

From “We Shall See God”

excerpts from sermons from Charles H. Spurgeon, with comments by Randy Alcorn.

THE JOYS OF ETERNAL LIFE

Spurgeon

When we think about eternal life, does it spark in us feelings of joy or of fear? This sermon speaks to the never-ending happiness that awaits us.

When David said in dying, “He has made with me an everlasting covenant” (2 Samuel 23:5), his comfort lay in his belief that he should live in the everlasting age to enjoy the fruit of that covenant.

In very deed the covenant that God made with Abraham was not altogether, or even mainly, concerning temporary things. It was not the land of Canaan alone of which the Lord spoke to Abraham, but the patriarchs declared plainly that they desired “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:16).

Even when they were in Canaan, they were still looking for a country, and the city promised to them was not Jerusalem, for according to Paul in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, they still were looking for a “city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (Verse 10)

They did not find in their earthly lives the complete fulfillment of the covenant, for they received not the promises but saw them from afar off and were persuaded of them. The temporary blessings which God gave to them were not their expected inheritance, but they took hold upon invisible realities and lived in expectation of them. The covenant blessings were of an order and a class that could not be contained within the space of this present mortal life.

Now, if the Lord made with them a covenant concerning eternal blessings, these saints must live to enjoy those blessings. God did not promise endless blessings to the creatures of the day. More especially, it is to be remembered that for the sake of these eternal things the patriarchs had given up passing or temporary enjoyments. Abraham might have been a quiet prince in his own country, living in comfort, but for the sake of the spiritual blessing, he left Chaldea and came to wander in the pastures of Canaan, in the midst of enemies, and to dwell in tents in the midst of discomforts.

The patriarchs left friends and family and all the advantages of settled civilized life to be rangers of the desert, exiles from their fatherland. They were the very types and models of those who have no abiding city here. Therefore, for certain, though they died in hope, not having received the promise, we cannot believe that God deceived them. Their God was no mocker of them, and therefore they must live after death.

They had lived in this life for something not yet seen as yet, and if there be no such thing and no future life, they had been duped and deceived into a mistaken self-denial. If there be no life to come, the best philosophy is that which says, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die” (Isaiah 22:13); 1 Cor. 15:32).

Do you see the force of our Savior’s reasoning? God who has led His people to abandon the present for the future, must justify their choice.

Besides, the Lord had staked His honor and His reputation upon these men’s lives. “If you want to know how I deal with my servants, go and look at the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Does the Lord want us to judge His goodness to His servants from the written life of Jacob? Or from the career of any one of His servants? The judgment must include the ages of endless happiness. This present life is but the brief introduction to the volume of our history. It is but the rough border. These rippling streams of life come not to an end but flow into the endless, shoreless ocean of bliss.

God would not have spoken as He did if the visible were all there is and there were no future to counterbalance the tribulations of this mortal life. God is not the God of the short lived, who are so speedily dead, but He is the living God of an immortal race, whose present is but a dark passage into a bright future which can never end.

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Tomorrow, we’ll see the comments by Randy Alcorn about this subject.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 3 ~ ~ John 11:26 ~ ~ “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die….”

From: “We Shall See God” —excerpts from sermons by Charles Spurgeon, with comments by Randy Alcorn.

SHALL WE SEE OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN?

Charles Spurgeon:

Why should we not? The saints in Heaven are never spoken of in Scripture as moving around anonymously, but their names are spoken of as written in the Book of Life.

The apostles knew Moses and Elijah on the Mount though they had never seen them before. I cannot forget old John Ryland’s answer to his wife:

“John,” she said, “will you know me in Heaven?”

“Betty,” he replied, “I have known you well here, and I shall not be a bigger fool in Heaven than I am now; therefore I shall certainly know you there.” That seems to be clear enough.

We read in the New Testament, “Many will come from east and west to recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11)—not sit down with three unknown individuals in iron masks nor three spirits who make a part of the great pantheistic cosmos or three spirits who are as exactly alike as pins made in a factory……..but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

These good men have lost nothing that really pertained to their individuality, nothing that made them precious in the sight of the Lord. In fact, they have gained infinitely. They are now at their best. As Abraham is not lost to Isaac, nor to Jacob, nor to God nor to himself, so are our loved ones by no means lost to us. We are by no means deprived of our dear ones by their death. They ARE themselves and they are ours still.

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Randy Alcorn:

Just as each of us has a unique genetic code and fingerprints here on earth, we should expect the same in our new bodies. God is the creator of individual identities and personalities. He makes no two snowflakes alike, much less two people. Not even “identical twins” are completely identical. Individuality preceded sin and the curse. It’s God’s plan, and He receives greater glory through our differences than He would if we were all alike. I love what Spurgeon says about how our uniqueness will manifest itself in heaven: “All the saints exist in their personalities, identities, distinctions, and idiosyncrasies.” It is not sin that sets us apart from one another but God, our Creator. Yes, even many of our idiosyncrasies are not the result of the curse but of God’s playful creativity!!!

Heaven’s inhabitants don’t simply rejoice over nameless multitudes coming to God. They rejoice over each and every person (Luke 15:4-7). That’s a powerful affirmation of heaven’s view of each person as an individual, someone whose life is observed and cared for.

When Jesus was resurrected, He didn’t become someone else; He remained who He had been before His resurrection: “It is I myself” (Luke 24:39). In John’s gospel, Jesus deals with Mary, Thomas, and Peter in very personal ways, drawing on His previous knowledge of them (John 20-21). When Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28) He knew He was speaking to the same Jesus he’d followed. When John said, “It is the Lord!” (John 21:7), he meant, “It’s really Him—the Jesus we have known.”

“’As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before Me’ declares the Lord, ‘so will your name and descendants endure’” (Isaiah 66:22) Our personal histories and identities will continue from one earth to the next. Jesus said that He would drink the fruit of the vine again WITH His disciples IN His Father’s Kingdom (Matthew 26:29)

When the Bible says that the names of God’s children are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev 20:15; 21:27), I believe those are our earthly names. For instance, God calls people in Heaven by their earthly names—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To have the same name written in heaven that was ours on earth speaks of the continuity between this life and the next. (and goes right along with Jesus’ statement that we “will never die” (John 11:26))

In addition to our earthly names we’ll receive new names in heaven (Isaiah 62:2; Rev 2:17; 3:12). But new names don’t invalidate the old ones.

A man wrote to me expressing his fear of losing his identity in heaven. “Will being like Jesus mean the obliteration of self?” He was afraid that we’d all be alike, that he and his treasured friends would lose the distinguishing traits and eccentricities that make them special. But he needn’t worry. We can all be like Jesus in character yet remain very different from one another in personality.

Distinctiveness is God’s creation, not merely a fleeting whim. What makes us unique will survive. In fact, much of our uniqueness may be uncovered for the first time in heaven. We’ll be real people with real desires, but holy ones. We’ll have real feelings, but feelings redeemed from pride, insecurity and wrong thinking. We’ll be ourselves—-with all the good and none of the bad. And we will consider it, in just the right sense, a privilege to be who God has made us to be.

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 2 ~ ~ Luke 20:37-38~ ~ “But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.”

From the book “We Will See God”—With the sermons of Charles Spurgeon and comments by Randy Alcorn

Charles Spurgeon:

Will I Be Myself in Heaven?

Will we be ourselves in Heaven? In this sermon, Spurgeon emphasizes the personal nature of heaven—that we will be more ourselves, not less, in Heaven.

Luke 20:37-38: That the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him.

God is not the God of the dead—that cannot be! If Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob are reduced to nothing but a handful of ashes, God cannot be at this moment their God.

We cannot take a dead object to be our God; neither can Jehovah be a God of lifeless clay. A living God is the God of living men; and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive.

God is not only the God of Abraham’s soul, but of Abraham as a whole—his body, soul, and spirit. God is the God of Abraham’s body. We are sure of that because the covenant seal (circumcision) was set upon the flesh of Abraham. There is the confirming seal, in his mortal body. There was no seal set upon his soul, for the soul had life and could not see death. But it was set upon his body, which would die, to make sure that even it would live.

The grave cannot hold any portion of those God has chosen: eternal life is the portion of the whole man. God is the God of our entire being—spirit, soul and body—and all live unto Him in their entirety. The whole of the covenant shall be fulfilled to the whole of those with whom that covenant was made.

It is clear that they live PERSONALLY. It is not said, “I am the God of the whole body of the saints in one mass.” But “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God will make His people to live individually. My mother, my father, my child—each will personally exist.

Abraham is Abraham, Isaac is Isaac, and Jacob is Jacob. The three patriarchs were not all melted into one common imaginary substance. Neither was any altered so as to cease to be himself. They are the same men they used to be. All saints exist in their personalities, identities, distinctions, and idiosyncrasies.

What is more, the patriarchs are mentioned by their names; and so it is clear they are known: They are not three anonymous bodies but they still are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

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Randy Alcorn:

Jesus called people by name in Heaven, including Lazarus in the present Heaven (Luke 16:25) and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the future heaven (Matthew 8:11). A name denotes a distinct identity.

They remain the same people—without the bad parts—forever

Spurgeon says, “They are what they were and more. Abraham has about him everything that is Abrahamic. He is Abraham still.”

You will be yourself. Not someone who never before existed, but someone who has been transformed into a better person than you’ve ever been.

Even though we may feel lost in God’s immensity, we ultimately find our identity when we are found in Him. “Whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25)

GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 1 ~ ~ 1Corinthians 2:9-12 ~ ~ “ But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God”

I’m starting a different book with writings from the late and great, Charles H. Spurgeon, known as the “Prince of Preachers” and preaching in the 1800’s…, with additions from Randy Alcorn.

The Book is called “We Shall See God” and it describes the eternal life of the true believer in Jesus Christ. To obtain the beautiful life this book describes, one must make Jesus their personal Savior, believing that He died for their sins, was resurrected from the dead, will return to rule heaven and earth, and that He is the second person of the Triune Godhead, (The Trinity), having come to earth as fully God and fully man, in order to save mankind from sin. A beautiful life awaits us after physical death. This book is written as assuming that the reader has made this personal commitment to live for Jesus Christ.”

Charles Spurgeon:

We can’t see things clearly because we can’t yet see God clearly. However, in the midst of our squinting and straining, we can anticipate the day we will see him as he truly is—when our joy will be complete.

The whole creation is fair and beautiful even in its present condition. I have no sort of sympathy with those who cannot enjoy the beauties of nature.

Climbing the lofty alps, wandering through the charming valley, skimming the blue sea, or traversing the lush green forest, we have felt that this world, however desecrated by sin, was evidently built to be a temple of God, and the grandeur and the glory of it plainly declare that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” –Psalm 24:1

The Earth in ruins reveals a magnificence which shows the sign of a royal founder and an extraordinary purpose. Creation glows with a thousand beauties even in its present fallen condition, yet clearly enough it is not as when it came from the Maker’s hand—the slime of the serpent is on it all—this is not the world which God pronounced to be “very good” in Genesis chapter 1.

It’s a sad, sad world. Thorns and thistles it brings forth, not from its soil alone, but from all that comes of it. Earth wears upon her brow, like the mark of Cain, the brand of transgression—sin.

The groaning and anguish which are general throughout creation are deeply felt among the sons of men. The apostle Paul tells us that not only is there a groan from creation but this is shared by God’s people—Romans 8:22-23

We were once simply a part of creation, subject to the same curse as the rest of the world, but distinguishing grace has made a difference where no difference naturally was. We are now no longer treated as criminals condemned but as children and heirs of God. We have received a divine life by which we are made partakers of the divine nature, having “escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 2 Peter 1:4

God dwells in us, and we are one with Christ. We have at this present moment in us certain priceless things which distinguish us as believers in Christ fro all the rest of God’s creatures. “We HAVE,” it says in 1 Cor. 2:12, not “we hope and trust sometime we have,” nor “possibly we may have”, but “we have, we know we have, we are sure we have.”

Believing in Jesus, we speak confidently—we have unspeakable blessings given to us by the Father. True, many things are yet in the future, but even at this present moment, we have obtained an inheritance.

Randy Alcorn:

In Heaven the barriers between redeemed human beings and God will be gone forever. “The groaning and anguish which are general throughout creation” that Spurgeon speaks of will be replaced by the joy of seeing things clearly for the first time. Why? Because not only will we see god, He will be the lens through which we see everything else—people, ourselves, and the events of this life.

To look into God’s eyes will be to see what we’ve always longed to see: the One who made us for His own good pleasure.

What is the essence of eternal life? “That they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3). Our primary joy in heaven will be seeing and knowing God. All other joy will be derivative, flowing from the fountain of our relationship with God.

Jonathon Edwards, who lived a century before Spurgeon and whose theology Spurgeon shared, describes in one of his sermons the delight we can anticipate in Heaven: “God Himself is the great good which the redeemed are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased (by His death on the cross) The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things….but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, each other, or in anything else, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.

The Psalmist says: “whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25) We desire many other things, but in desiring them, it is really GOD we desire. Augustine called God the “end of our desires”

In heaven, we’ll at last be freed from self-righteousness and self-deceit. We’ll no longer question God’s goodness; we’ll see it, savor it, enjoy it, and declare it to our companions. Surely we will wonder how we ever could have doubted His goodness. One look at the scarred hands of our Savior will suffice, for then our faith will be sight—we shall see God.