Heaven-bound - Seeing God
Heaven-bound
Seeing God
Isa 6:1-10
If you were to spend an evening with anyone you wished, maybe it is someone from history, or current who might that person be? Perhaps someone fascinating, knowledgable or accomplished. I might like to spend an evening with CS Lewis or Jonathan Edwards. Or maybe Tiger Woods or Queen Elizabeth...Take a moment and write down a person you would like to spend an evening with. Perhaps you chose someone beautiful or talented. Maybe by the end of the evening you’d hope that at the end of the evening he or she would have enjoyed your company enough that they would want to spend more time with you again.
Is Jesus the first person you would choose? Who is more beautiful, talented, knowledgeable, powerful or interesting?
The good news is HE CHOSE YOU. If you are a Christian, you’ll be with him for eternity. Incredible, he enjoys your company. After all, he paid the ultimate price just so he could have us over to his place for all eternity.
Most of us would love to spend the evening with a great author, musician, artist or head of state. God is the master artist who created the universe, the inventor of music and the main character of the unfolding drama of redemption. Head of state?? He is the king of the universe. But when someone says I want to go to Heaven to be with God forever, and others might wonder “Wouldnt that be boring?”
What are we thinking?
The very qualities we admire in others – every one of them – are true of and in God
He is the source of everything we find fascinating. Who made Bach, Beethoven, Michelangelo? Who gave them their gifts, everything came from God, he holds everything together and He wants to see us and for us to see Him.
Last week, we considered how for us to gain an understanding of Heaven, we were going to have to use our imagination to see and understand what God has in store for us.
I asked you to read Rev 21-22 and I hope you took the opportunity to do that.
Rev 22:4
They will see his face,
When we go to Heaven, we have the incredible opportunity to see God, Seeing God is not small thing...
Seeing God
- It is a big deal to see God – never to be taken lightly
Isaiah 6:1-4 Isaiah saw the Lord...
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
We must never consider seeing God like the characters in the Wizard of Oz – where in the beginning they were afraid but soon find out that the wizard is mearly a man and nothing to be afraid of. Dorothy cut the wizard down to her size. God is nothing like the Wizard of Oz who creates an environment and a show to impress people but is in reality nothing impressive.
God is beyond anything we can imagine and yet we are captivated by the thought of Him and long to see Him.
Ancient theologians often spoke of the “beatific vision”; a term that comes from 3 Latin words together that mean “a happy-making sight”. The sight they spoke of was of God.
To see God’s face is the loftiest of all aspirations – though sadly for most of us, it is not the top of our wish list. To be told we’ll see God’s face is shocking to anyone who understands God’s transcendence and inapproachability.
In ancient Israel, only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies, and but once a year. Even then, according to tradition, a rope was tied around the priest’s ankle in case he died while inside the Holy of Holies. Why?, Well God struck down Uzzah for touching the Ark of the Covenant (2 Sam 6:7). Who would volunteer to go in to the Holy of Holies to pull out the high priest if God slew him?
When Moses said to God (Ex 33:18-23)
"Now show me your glory."
19 And the Lord said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, ... But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." ... 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."
Moses saw God but not His face.
The NT says: 1 Tim 6:16
God, “who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.”
John wrote Rev 1:17
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.”
That is why, when we are told we will see Gods face we should be astounded. For us to see God face to face, we must undergo something radical between now and then.
In the Wizard of Oz, for Dorothy and her friends to see the wizard and receive his blessings and gifts they have to do something to show that they are worthy. So often we think we have to “do” something to be worthy to see God, and to be sure the obstacles to seeing God are daunting:\
Matt 5:8
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
- 2. We see Him for who He is
Isa 6: When Isaiah saw God he said
2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
God is Holy –
When Moses first encountered the God he followed, it was in a burning bush and all the area around the bush was made holy
Ex 3:5-6
5 "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 6 Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Holiness is a general term used to indicate sanctity or separation from all that is sinful, impure, or morally imperfect; i.e., it is moral wholeness. The term is used with reference to persons, places, and things.
Holiness of God. Holiness is one of the essential attributes of the divine nature. It is, on the one hand, entire freedom from moral evil and, on the other, absolute moral perfection.
God’s Holiness means He is good, pure, true, right in everything and in every way
Isaiah saw God for who He is in all of God’s holiness
Heb 12:14 “...without holiness no one will see the Lord.”
Our ability to see God has nothing to do with what you have done but what has been done for you. It is only because we’ll be fully righteous in Christ, completely sinless, that we will be able to see God and live.
Not only will we see his face and live, but we will likely wonder if we ever lived before we saw his face! To see God will be our greatest joy, the joy by which all others will be measured.
This is the wonder of our redemption – 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 its fullness yet, we can get a fortaste now:
Heb 10:19
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,
Heb 4:16
16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,
We should not read these verses casually, for they tell us something wonderful beyond comprehension – that the blood of Jesus has bought us full access to God’s throne room and His Most Holy Place. Even now, he welcomes us there in prayer. In eternity, when we are resurrected beings, he will not only permit us to enter his presence in prayer, but he will welcome us to live in his presence, with Him in Heaven.
When we see God, it is a big deal, we see God for who He is and we also
- 3. We see ourselves rightly
When Isaiah saw God this is what he said...
5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
God is not our equal, He is our creator who is holy in every way, He is right, true and good.
I have listened to many people explain the bad choices they have made in their lives, to somehow justify their own desires, and as you listen to their explanations it is not hard to see how they desparately want to make themselves look good in the eyes of themselves adn others around them. However when we stand in the presence of a truly Holy God, we have no place to run, no storyline sufficient, no explanation but to say like Isa “Woe, to me? I am ruined” I am a man of unclean lips, thoughts, words, attitudes, actions.
We, in that powerful moment, realize we are there because of God’s love for us, demonstrated in Jesus – His son, whose blood was shed and life taken for us to be there
Heb 9:22
22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Rom 5:8-9
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood,
Heb 10:19
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,
We stand in God’s holy presence, able to look into His Face because we are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ – there is no other way, no other explanation, We see ourselves and in that moment more than any other time in our lives realize the great significance of the precious blood of Jesus
Isaiah said...
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
- He dwells with us
God’s great desire has been for us, His creation whom he has loved, to live with him. His desire is not only that they live with him, but they live with him because they are like Him and want to be with him, as He is. Through the whole Bible, God has repeated this theme
“They will be my people, and I will be their God.”
Deut 7:6
6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
Exodus 29:45-46
45 Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. 46 They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
Jeremiah 24:7
7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
Jeremiah 31:33
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the Lord.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
Ezekiel 11:20
18 "They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. 19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord."
Ezekiel 14:11
Ezekiel 37:23
. 23 They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding,b and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 37:27
26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. 27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.'"
2 Corinthians 6:16
16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."c
Hebrews 8:10
10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Revelation 21:3
21 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. 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. 3 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. 4 He will wipe 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."
We are only able to see God, to be in his presence because of our relationship with Jesus
John 14:6-7
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would knowb my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."