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Here's Anne Graham Lutz.
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Jesus knows the colors you like best, the landscape you want to see, the music you enjoy, the people you want to be with. So that when you walk through those pearly gates, you'll know you've been expected. You are welcomed. Heaven is prepared in detail just for you.
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Today on Living in the Light, Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz takes us to Revelation, chapter 21. That's where the. The apostle John gives us a glimpse of our heavenly home. A prepared place, a perfect place, a physical place, and a populated place. Let's join Ann now to find out more about the Christian believer's future home.
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Several years ago, my mother got pneumonia. We thought she was going to heaven. So I went up and I was sitting beside her bed, just stroking her hand and touching her face and just to sort of comfort and talk to her. I told her I had recently been to London, which I had. And when I was in London, I went to Westminster Abbey, that great, glorious cathedral where King Charles was coronated. You remember? I don't know if you watched that. And kings and queens are married, buried, crowned. It's a fabulous cathedral. That's right downtown London, next to Parliament. And when I had gone to it before, I was talking to Mother, it was different. Now it's different. But when I went there, it has a small door. Had a small door. And you. You go through that small door, and it opened into a narthex or a foyer. And in the foyer is where I bought my tickets. And that would take me through the next door, that would go into the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. And then I bought a guidebook to tell me something of what I was going to see when I went into the sanctuary. And I told my mother, I never saw anybody getting their ticket and their guidebook, then running out into the street and telling everybody they'd been to Westminster Abbey. And the whole point of the foyer or the narthex was to get your ticket so you could go through the next door into the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, and the guidebook would just tell you what you were seeing. So I told Mother, this life is like the narthex. And in this life, we get our ticket to heaven. And when you come to the cross, you confess your sin, tell God you're willing to turn away from it, believe Jesus died on the cross for you, claim him as your savior, receive the eternal life that he offers you, open up your heart, you invite him to come in. When you're born again into God's family, you have your ticket to heaven. Heaven is your birthright. And when it comes to the next door, through your death or through the rapture, you turn in your ticket and the door is opened and you enter into the glorious sanctuary of our Father's house. So this is our guidebook, and John gives us a glimpse into our heavenly home. So I want to take you through what John saw. And I don't understand it all. I can't explain it all. I just know I want to be there. So open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 21. And the title for this is that the vision of his glory is resplendent in a prepared place, in a perfect place, a physical place and a populated place. We're just going to go through those four points in this chapter. The glory is resplendent in a prepared place. Verses 1 and 2. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. Jesus said in John 14, if I'm going to prepare a place for you, I'll come again to receive you to myself, that you may be where I am also. And he was speaking of his Father's house. It's a prepared place. He's talking about heaven and it says it's prepared. Years ago I went to one of my trips to India. I made the time to go down to see the Taj Mahal. And I'm not a touristy kind of person, but I wanted to see that. And it was worth the trip because the Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. It's smaller than I thought, but it's built out of white marble. The outside is inlaid with onyx in the verses of the Koran. Inside it's inlaid with semi precious stones that are birds and flowers and sits on a red sandstone platform. There are minarets at each corner of the platform that point like fingers, white fingers to the sky. It has reflecting pools all around it. And I know it's deteriorated some over time, but it's absolutely magnificent. And it was built by an Indian prince, a maharaja. It took him over 20 years to build, 22,000 skilled craftsmen to build it. And he built it as a tomb in which to bury his wife, to whom had only been married 14 years. And I was. It's just a monument of love is what it is. And I was sitting in a coffee shop looking at that gorgeous, exquisite building, thinking if a pagan Indian prince could build something that magnificent as a tomb to bury his wife, to whom had only been married 14 years. What is Jesus preparing for his bride? And it's not taken him 20 years, it's taken him at least 2000 years at this point. And he's not going to bury her there, he's going to live with her forever and ever and ever. But I can tell you that heaven is prepared with a heart of love. Every detail prepared as a bride, it says, have you, you were a bride, have you been a mother of a bride, the sister of a bride? I mean details, my goodness. First detail is picking a groom. You decide the date and the place. And then you go that incredible day when you pick out your wedding dress, whether it's short or long, whether it's white or candlelight, and the veil if it's shoulder length or all the way down or, you know, chapel length. And you pick out the flowers if they've got stems or they're short bouquets, what color they are, and the attendants that are going to be there and then the reception, the food that's going to be served and the hardest thing of all, the guest list and who you're going to invite and who you're not going to invite. Just detail after detail after detail. I'll never go to a wedding after, during my two girls weddings, I'll never go to another wedding without looking at all the details. Knowing somebody has really put a lot of thought and time into everything that we're looking at and enjoying. Heaven is prepared with a heart of love in detail for you. When my daddy was here and I'd drive up to see him, I go up into the house and walk through the front door into the kitchen. And in the kitchen on the counter was a silver tray with my favorite coffee cup and my favorite coffee. And I would look in the refrigerator and there was my favorite yogurt I would have for breakfast. I would go upstairs to my room and on the table beside my bed would be a bouquet of flowers and a handwritten note. Ann, darling, welcome home. I love you. And it was signed, Daddy. And as he got older, I know his staff helped him do that. But it came from his heart of love for me, wanting me to know that I was expecting, I was welcomed, I had come home. I'm the father's child, so listen to me. Heaven is prepared out of a heart of love, in detail, just for you. And Jesus knows the colors you like best, the landscape you want to see, the music you enjoy, the people you want to be with. And he's preparing it for you so that when you walk through those Pearly Gates. You'll know you've been expected. He's been preparing for you. You are welcomed. You've come home. You're the Father's child. Heaven is a prepared place. And that's not just cutting the grass and making sure the flowers are there. And, you know, it's prepared for you in detail because he loves you. So I don't know what's in your heart, what you would really long for in heaven. I know the people I'd like to see, and I know some of the landscape. I love the mountains, but I love the beach. Maybe I can have both up there, you know, and bottom line, I want to see his face. But he's preparing that place for you and me. So it's not only a prepared place, it gets better. It's a perfect place. So he says in verse one. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. And I thought, mm, when I first read that. I love the beach. So every summer our family tries to go to the beach and we go to North Carolina beach for our family vacation. And I don't get in the water up to the breakers. I'm not a strong swimmer, so if I go in, I go knee deep, you know, and then. So. But what I really love to do, I get up before dawn and I walk the beach. I love to see the sunrise come up over the ocean. And I love to see the sea birds. And it's fun. Some of them won't get their feet wet, and some of them going up to their knees and some of them will float on it. And some of them dive in head first. I just as a whole illustration, I won't go there. But anyway, I love to see that. I love to feel the sea breeze. I love the smell. And I'm not sure about heaven without any seas. So then I thought, maybe it doesn't mean there are no oceans or big bodies of water. Maybe it means in heaven there's no separation. Because seas separate things, don't they? They separate continents from each other and countries from each other and families from each other and loved ones from each other. And maybe it means in heaven, there's no longer anything that will separate us from those that we love who place their faith in Jesus. So then I got to thinking, what is separating you from someone that you love? What is separating you from someone, perhaps, who has turned on you or maybe separated in your church or. So I just made a list of things in heaven. There are no more hard feelings, no more hurt feelings, no more misunderstandings, no more gossip, no more slander, no more lies, no more critical spirits, no more death, no more divorce, no more business trips or military deployments. No more prisons, no more sickness, no more fires, no more floods, no more hurricanes, no more evacuations. No more racial prejudice, no more political parties, no more different languages, no more denominations, no more religions. Just think of the things that separate us down here. Maybe things that are separating you from your friends or loved ones or somebody of misunderstanding, you know, somebody at work. In heaven, there'll be no more separation. There are none of those things I just mentioned. Heaven is a perfect place. No separation. There are no scars. In verses one and five, he says, I'm making everything new. So the home I live in, I've lived there for 55 years, same house, and it was already, I don't know, maybe 25, 30 years old when Danny and I bought it. So at this stage, there are dents in the woodwork, there are cracks in the tile, there are things that need to be done. And even if I polished and waxed and cleaned and shined, which I don't, but if I did, it still would bear the signs of age because it's just an old house. And I think planet Earth is like that. So planet Earth is showing signs of age, and we should take better care of it. But even if we took the best care of it, it's still deteriorating because of its age. And I think human life is like that. I know because of my age, there's some things that just are not going to get fixed. You just bear certain scars. And in heaven there'll be no more scars because they'll make everything new. But I think sometimes we bear scars, not just on our bodies, but in our heart. And I was talking to a woman after I spoke one day, and she came up and told me something of her story. And she said she was born and raised in a home where her father and her brothers abused her. All of her growing up sexually abused her. And she turned into a rage, she was so angry. But she married and she had children, and she abused her children. And then somebody told her about the love of Jesus and told her that she could get right with God. And so she came to the cross, claimed Jesus, forgiveness of her sin, forgave others, and so she was set free. But she looked at me, the tears were coming down her cheeks, and she said, ann, what do I do about the memories? And I said, I don't know. I know you can fill your home with worship music. I know you can memorize scripture. I know that there is a healing from memories. I believe that healing setting us free from memories of darkness and abuse. But sometimes in the middle of the night, the memories come back. All I can tell you is when we get to heaven, there're no more memories like that. Everything is made brand new. I believe that. So some people think we're going to have that kind of. I don't believe that. I believe it's going to be wipe clean. We're not going to suffer like that from things that happen down here. I'm going to digress for a moment. Okay. My mother told me a story. It's a true story. Years ago, there were some fishermen in Scotland and they finished fishing for the day. They came into this little pub at night and they ordered their drinks. And then one of them was telling the story about the fish that got away from him. So he threw out his arms to say how big the fish was. Just when the little maid was coming with a tray of drinks. So his hand hit the tray of drinks. The drink smashed up against a whitewashed wall, crashing glass. And the drink was just creating an ugly brown stain on that whitewashed wall. And everybody was just sort of shocked, staring. And then there was a man in the corner that jumped up and pulled out a piece of charcoal from his pocket. And he began to sketch around the ugly brown stain. And he turned it into this magnificent stag that was running across a Highland meadow. And then he signed it, whose name was Sir Landseer. And Sir Landseer was Great Britain's foremost wildlife artist. And I went into Balmoral Castle, not as a guest, but as a tourist. And in the bottom great room where you're allowed in, there were his drawings and paintings all around the room. And my mother gave me a print, I have it hanging in my home of this magnificent stag. And it's signed by Sir Lancer and it's a print of his. But reminds me that a master artist can take an ugly brown stain and turn it into a masterpiece. So what's the ugly brown stain in your life? The thing that comes back to your memory that haunts you in the middle of the night? Would you take that ugly brown stain? Would you surrender it to Jesus? Forgive whoever it was that inflicted it on you and just say, I forgive so and so you say that because God has forgiven you, they don't deserve it. So I'm not saying that they won't get by with it. God will hold them accountable, but you don't have to. So you're set free to just say, I forgive you. I forgive you, whatever it is, whatever happened. And then you surrender that to Jesus and let the master artist turn your ugly brown stain into a masterpiece of his grace. Do you hear me? He can do that. The pain in your life, whatever it is, whether it's an ugly bronze stain or whether it's just untimely death or something, could be a financial bankruptcy, something that is hurtful and just rocked you to the core. You just turn it over to the Lord and let him transform it into a masterpiece of his grace. And he can use it for his glory. All things remember, all things work for good to those who are called according to his purpose. So for your good and for his glory, heaven is a perfect place. There's no separation, there are no scars, there's no suffering. In verse three, it says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. So in what way are you suffering? We talked about maybe emotional suffering or mental suffering, spiritual suffering. But are you suffering physically in some way? So when we get to heaven, there'll be no more suffering of any kind. So he started the list when he said that there's no more death or mourning or crying or pain. So I'm just going to keep on going on that list. No more hospitals, no more funerals, no more walkers, no more wheelchairs, no more grief, no more broken homes, no more broken hearts, no more broken lives, no more broken hopes, no more famines, no more betrayals, no more abandonment, no rapes, no physical handicaps, no muscular dystrophy, no muscular sclerosis, no blindness, no lameness, no deafness, no diabetes, no heart disease, no paralysis, no cataracts, no strokes, no cancer, no aids, no Covid, no arthritis, no migraines, no Parkinson's, no fentanyl or any other drug that the enemy is using to destroy our children. No chemical warfare, no nuclear warfare, no biological warfare. Actually, no warfare at all. No weapons at all. There'll be no suffering in heaven. So you make up your own list. That was just what's on my list. But what's on your list when you get to heaven? Heaven is a perfect place. No scars, no separation. And no suffering. And the glory of God is resplendence in that prepared place, in that perfect place. But it's also a physical place. And by that I mean heaven is not a whim. Heaven is not a fantasy. Heaven is not a dream. Heaven is not a hope. So heaven is an actual physical place. Look at this. In chapter 21, verse 9, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, come up here. And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city. All right, I just want to pause on that angel for a moment, because the angel, if you read through the Book of Revelation, there are seven seals, one by one, then seven trumpets, one by one. And then when you get to the bowls of wrath, that's when God pours out his judgment on a rebellious world. I mean, no holes barred. It's all over at that point. And this is one of the angels that poured out one of those bowls of wrath. And now look what he gets to do. And I just think it's so special after he's just gone through that. And now he gets to take John on a tour of the heavenly city. So he took him up to the heavenly city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. In verse 15, that same angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. So I won't take you through the measurements, but I will tell you what they are, because they're in cubits, and, you know, somebody's put them into feet or miles. And description is of a city that is 1500 square miles. So that's from the Atlantic coast to the Rockies, from Canada to Mexico. But it's not just square, it's a cube. So it's as high as it is long as it is wide. And if there were 20 billion residents of heaven, which they're not going to be, but anyway, so that's more than people have lived. And not everybody's going to heaven. But 20 billion residents of heaven, every single resident would have 75 acres to himself or herself. And that still leaves room for public buildings and parks and streets. So I tell you that he measured it, so the angel walked it off. And I think the message is that heaven is a great big place. It's not going to be overpopulated. It's not going to be too crowded. So listen to me. Feel free to invite everybody to come. Everybody in your family, everybody in your neighborhood, everybody in Your school. There's room for everybody in heaven. It's a great big place somewhere up in the universe right now. If we could go there, we could walk, we could touch it, we could feel it. It's an actual physical place. So then John begins to zero down and he sees the walls. And the walls are made of Jasper, which is best way to describe it would be like a yellow diamond. So a diamond, but that gives off sort of a yellow glow. And can you imagine these walls? In verse 12 it says they're great high walls. And verse 14 says they're 200ft thick. So John is looking at this magnificent city surrounded by walls that look like diamonds, like yellow diamonds and 200ft thick. So it's spectacular. But I think there's another message there, that heaven is a safe place. Inside those walls there'll be no violent crime, no peaceful protests that look like riots to me. And no drive by shootings, no rapes, no robberies. Nothing that would disturb the beautiful peace of that place. No guns and no bombs. Nothing that would hurt God's people. You're safe inside those walls. And you know, if I can just think for a moment, Cheryl was talking about her grandchildren. I can't believe you're a great grandmother. But you know when our children are little, how we want to protect them. And so when we cross the street, we hold them by the hand or we cover up the little electrical outlets in our home and we make sure the medicines have the childproof cap that I have to ask a child how to unlock, you know. But we want to keep our children safe, right? So what about keeping them safe for eternity? Will your children and your grandchildren be safe inside those walls? Please share the gospel with your children and your grandchildren, your great grandchildren. Make sure they know that there is a place up there being prepared for them. Tell your children and your grandchildren about heaven.
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Living in the Light is a weekly study in God's word with teacher and author Anne Graham Lotz. Learn to listen to his voice. Then start making the choice to keep on going and believing and trusting who God is. Go to anngramlotz.org Take advantage of the many helpful free resources to get you started. Join us again for Living in the Light.