A City Called Heaven

A City Called Heaven

By Walter Hallam
Christian Publishing Services, Inc.

Tulsa, Oklahoma
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
A City Called Heaven ISBN 0-88144-162-7 Copyright 1991 by Walter Hallam Published by Christian Publishing Services, Inc. P. O. Box 55388 Tulsa, Oklahoma 74155 Printed in United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without express written consent of the author.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my darling wife, Cindy, and our three precious daughters, Catherine, Angela, and Jennifer. We have already spent 15 wonderful years together as husband and wife; and our children have only added to our joy. My greatest comfort in this life is knowing that all of the love we share will never end. Someday we will all live together in heaven.
DEDICATION ...................................................................................3 Preface ................................................................................................7 1. .........................................................................................................9 Heaven: A City For A Child Of God .............................................9 Get Your Eyes On The City ......................................13
The World That Then Was ........................................15 To Be Victorious: Dont Give Up ..........................18
2. .......................................................................................................20 Heaven: The City Abraham Saw .................................................20 Sitting in Heavenly Places .........................................21
Find Your True Citizenship.......................................25 3. .......................................................................................................32 Heaven: The New Jerusalem........................................................32 Characteristics of the City ..........................................35 The Fountain of Life .....................................................38
4. .......................................................................................................42 Heaven: The Bride of Christ ........................................................42 The City Of God Is Unimaginable .........................45 5. .......................................................................................................53 Heaven: A Place Received By Faith ............................................53 God Is Able To Fulfill His Promises ....................56
Is There Anything To Your Faith? ........................60 The Old Testament: Foundation of the New ....63
6. .......................................................................................................68 Heaven: Creation Or Evolution....................................................68 God Turn The Lights Off And On .........................70
We Are Not Bound By Time ....................................75

7. .......................................................................................................78 Heaven: Looking For A City .......................................................78 Choose A Heavenly Lifestyle ..................................82
See Yourself As A Traveler ......................................86 Faith Requires Commitment .....................................89
Preface
This book represents my attempt, as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to portray Heaven as the ultimate reward of all born again believers. Since this is my first book to be widely published, I must openly say that little in this book can be claimed by myself as totally original. For 37 years, both my life and my understanding of A City Called Heaven have been directly formed by the ministries of many great men and women of God. The people who have had the greatest impact upon me for Heaven are my parents, Rev. Bill and Betty Hallam, who trained me and instilled in me an intense desire to go to Heaven after completing my race in this life. Many other great teachers, such as Finnis Dake, Kenneth Hagin, Bob Yandian, Oral Roberts, and John Osteen, to name only a few, have directly affected my doctrine and understanding of Heaven. Their teachings can easily be found intertwined with mine. I do not aspire in anyway to elevate myself to the stature of these great servants of God for their faithfulness in imparting what know to me and countless others. Above all, if I can take what has been revealed to me from the Word of God, and impart it to you in such a dimension that you, above all else, desire to ultimately go to Heaven, then this book shall be a success. Walter Hallam La Marque, Texas
1.
Heaven: A City For A Child Of God
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. .... Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. .... And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stool; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. Exodus 1:8, 11-12, 15-2:2
The word goodly in Hebrew is the word beautiful. So when Moses mother looked at him and saw he was a beautiful little boy, she hid him for three months. In Hebrews 11:23, we see that when the parents looked at this little boy, faith came inside them. Something
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happened when his mother looked into his face. She saw something, the Bible says:
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the kings commandment.
Do you think it made a difference that he was beautiful? What if she had looked at that little baby and it had been ugly? Exodus 6:20 says Moses parents were named Amram and Jochebed. Do you think Jochebed would have looked at Moses and said, Amram, this is the ugliest thing I ever saw in my life; go feed him to the crocodile? No! There is no such thing as an ugly baby, if it is yours. Usually, all babies are funny looking when they are born. They are red or purple, al different colors. Usually it takes several days for a baby to fill out and look pretty. You and I might have a looked at that baby and seen a regular little human creature. We might hope he grew out of that color or shape or whatever. But his mother looked at him, and something happened. Faith came into her, because she saw a proper child. Then Moses; parents were not afraid of the kings commandment. Suppose you got up in the morning, and the newscasters were saying George Bush had decreed that all of the Christian boys in America from now on would be thrown into the rivers and drowned. Do you think a certain fear would come over you, especially if you were pregnant?
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Jochebed had been pregnant nine months, and she must have been worried about this situation. Finally, the baby was born, and when she saw him, something happened. Fear left her, and by faith, she was able to hear God for an idea on how to hide that baby. She was able to get instructions on how to get instructions on how to get that baby to the place where he would be brought up safely and exactly where God wanted him. What did Amram and Jochebed see in that babys face? Did you ever look into a babys face and see dreams and visions? Did you ever look at one of your own children and see one becoming a singer, or a preacher, or a football player? They saw something. The word saw in Greek is eido, which literally means, to see the horizon. That means that Amram and Jochebed looked and saw an overall picture. Another way to explain this is to say they looked at something and perceived something greater. They saw something bigger than a little boy baby. The Word says they saw a proper child. Proper is a tremendous word. The Greek word is asteios, which comes from the root astu, which means city. They looked into the babys face full of fear because of what life had dealt them. But what they saw caused their fear to leave. Somehow God gave them a panoramic view of the fact that their son was destined for the city that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had looked for. Fear left, and they began to take the necessary steps to take care of that boy.
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Every Hebrew mother of that time was probably hoping she would have a son who would be raised up to deliver Israel out of bondage. When Amram and Jochebed looked into the face of Moses, they saw that he was a child of that promised city. They knew Pharaoh was not going to be able to kill him. So they were not afraid of the kings commandment. When you get hold of the city of God and say, With my whole household, we are going to live in eternity, you are embracing that promised city. You dont care what the world deals you. You can just live for God and press on toward that city. No wonder Amram and Jochebed were listed as heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. For years I have read the account in Exodus of Moses birth and realized that probably every mother and father in Israel tried to hide their sons during that period of slaughter. I doubt that a single couple wanted to give up their son. The difference in this couple was that faith came into them; they saw a city. I want to see this in my children, how about you? Men have been saying that Jesus is coming again for two thousand years. And one thing we know for sure; He is closer to coming today than He was yesterday. If you live the Word of God, you will say you are a pilgrim and a stranger in this life. You are just passing through this world, bound for a city beyond the sky. Thank God for men and women who get their eyes on the city!
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Get Your Eyes On The City

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. Exodus 2:3-4
Most of us know the rest of the story and how the Pharaohs daughter took Moses to the palace to be raised as her son. But look at Hebrews 11:24-26;
By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
The word recompense literally means paycheck, or we might say compensation. When you work for your employer, at the end of each week you employer gives you a recompense for that work. The Bible says that Moses, by faith, esteemed the reproach of Christ a greater paycheck than the treasures of Egypt. The recompense referred to is the city of Heaven. Why did Moses easily leave behind the palatial surroundings of Pharaohs palace? He had been raised there. But he also had a real mother who said from the time he was born, You are destined for a bigger city than
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that palace. You are headed for the city of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This palace is nothing compared to what God has in store for you right now. At some point that fact went off inside of Moses spirit; he rebelled and refused to be rewarded here on this earth. He said, Ill not be called the son of Pharaohs daughter any more. I am a child of the City. Moses refused to be called a child of this world. He refused to accept the riches for a season. Instead, he accepted the reproach of Christ. Is there a reproach for serving Jesus? I guarantee you that if you serve Him in this life; you are going to gain reproach. Christians who cant stand the heat of that need to get out of the kitchen, to paraphrase an old saying. I dont understand preachers who stand in a pulpit and act as if they are full of this world when the Word constantly calls on us to point men and women toward another world. Many church leaders through the years have gotten pressured from the world and immediately changed their teachings from the Word of God. The pressure of humanism has been as great, or greater, on the church as it has been on the educational or entertainment fields. However it has never made sense to me to stay in ministry but to proclaim the things of this world. If you are going to go with the world, you might as well be in the world. In our day, it seems there are more people who scoff at the Word of God than there have been since the days of
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the early church. God has never tried to make us acceptable to he world; unfortunately, today the woods are full of churches that seem to have as their goal making people feel good. If you go there, they are friendly and pat you on the back. But many people will walk straight into hell with a friendly pat on the back. In 2 Peter 3:3, there is a prophetic word about the last days. Peter said there would come scoffers people who make fun of the Bible and true Christian living. He said they would follow after their own lusts instead of God. They would scoff the idea of Jesus coming again. Ministers have been saying that Jesus was coming again for nearly two thousand years. For al of that time there have also been scoffers questioning that statement. They mock Christians and say, Where is the promise of His coming? From the beginning of the world things have continued the same, so where is this Jesus you say in coming again. They will enter into their false peace; the Bible days, when they begin to cry peace and safety, then will come swift destruction. (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
The World That Then Was

Two of the most interesting scientific verses in the Bible are 2 Peter 3:5-6:
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of Old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
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Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
The Bible literally says that in the old days, before our present civilization, there was another world that was also created by the word of God. Peter said that the heavens were of old, and the land mass was in the water and came out of the water. This is where the evolutionists and creationists part company. The world is willingly ignorant that, before Adam and Eve, there was another world right here. Civilization as we know it is only approximately 6,000 years old. Evolutionists cant find the missing link between that prehistoric world and the one we are in right now. There is a good reason they cant find it, because it doesnt exist. There is no missing link! Peter said that a world was created by the Word of God; then Lucifer rebelled, was cast down out of heaven to it, and the lights went out. Genesis 1 says that gross darkness covered the earth before God said. Let there be light. Personally, I believe that this is when what we know as the ice age began. I believe that when God shut the lights out on Earth, He turned this thing upside down and stuck the devil down there in the water and pitchblackness. Then god froze everything over. The entire civilization just ceased. I dont know what all was in that life. I have no idea, but I do know that there are scientific facts are proving something was on this planet longer than 6,000
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years. However you cant find human life, as we know it people like you and me, longer ago than that. You did not descend from a monkey like creature. Nor did you come up out of a mud pile as an amoeba. One preacher once said, They came right up out of the goo, to the zoo, then to you, but that is not the way it happened. God made a man in His likeness, His image, when He restored the created earth. When man got here, the Garden of Eden was created by God, Lucifer already was here. I am sure it gave the devil had a nervous breakdown when God said, Let there be light! Fish fossils have been found at the top of mountains thousands of feet high, why? They are there because millions of years ago God turned this thing upside down and froze it over. The devil may have been stuck here in the water for millions and millions of years. That is no big thing to God. What we look on as millions of years is nothing but a few days to God. I am convinced there are millions of years represented between the first and second verses of Genesis 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, then millions of years of untold events passed resulting in the earths being covered with water. In verse 2 we begin the next phase. The earth was without form and void. The Hebrew word translated as was in verse 2 is really the word became. So a correct translation also would be that the earth became without form and void, and darkness covered everything.
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The Apostle Peter was saying scoffers in the last days would mock at the idea of Jesus coming again because they willingly refused to believe that God created a heaven and an earth. They are willingly ignorant that God created a civilization upon this earth and that He created man to live with Him eternally in Heaven. How could Peter say they chose to remain ignorant of these things? Because then, and now, they had the Word of God written down in black and white explaining these things. However they choose not to believe it. But men and women who live upright before God keep rising to the top of everything around them. God will rebuke the things that come against Him. I have made a decision to stay on that Rock and not care what the world does. We are citizens of another world. We may live here, but we belong to another place. We are going to rise to the top.
To Be Victorious: Dont Give Up

When I was a boy we raised a few milk cows. One of my chores was to churn milk into butter. I had to do it, although I would ask my mother why my brother Michael couldnt churn. She would say that he was too little, so I had to do it. Because of my experience with churning, a little story about frogs became meaningful to me. Two frogs fell into a churn of milk and couldnt get out. They were swimming around trying to tread water
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in the milk, but there seemed no way out of the problem. Finally one of them said, I cant keep going any longer. This is all I can do, and he went under the milk to the bottom and drowned. The other frog kept kicking and saying, I dont care how long I have to do this. I am not going to give up, and he just kept kicking and swimming. Before long a clump of butter started forming. The next thing he knew the milk had a big chuck of butter in it. The frog jumped up on it and was able to jump from it out of the churn. And he kept right on going. Men and women who make decisions not to give up on God but keep churning the waters in the Spirit are able before long to find some chunks of milk and honey forming under them. Then they begin to eat at a table the world knows nothing about. They know the churn of this world, this little pond of milk is not their real habitat, their eternal home. Victorious Christians always look for that city Moses parents saw in his face as a little baby.
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2.
Heaven: The City Abraham Saw
One of the keys in the Bible to remaining steadfast in faith, once faith comes to you, is that understand there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob embraced the fact that there is a heaven. They became pilgrims and strangers looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. That city has foundations. Revelation 21 describes the city and the twelve pillars under it. Each pillar represents one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Somehow Abraham saw that, as did the other heroes and heroines of faith. (Hebrews 11.) Regardless of their circumstances and conditions in this world, all of them began to press forward to that city. The Bible says they lived as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, citizens of the household of faith. And by faith they did great things. If you believe in your heart there is a literal heaven, you will remain steadfast before the Lord, even when times get tough. All of those great men and women of faith died not yet having received the promise; but that didnt stop their faith, nor did it stop their living as citizens of another world in the midst of this one. You and I both know that in our personal walk today there are times when we do not immediately receive the manifestation of promises. But we cant throw up our hands and quit.
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We cannot say, Now God, we are not going to live fore You because You didnt respond when we pushed Your button. God is probably going to answer, No, you didnt respond when I pushed your button. I have found that men are at fault; God never is, no matter the circumstances. You will know that in that moment you come to the realization that you are in a place where you are able to stand against the storms of life. That realization comes with having seen that city which the Bible talks about. That is the goal faith has set for us. We must live in this world as if we are already in Heaven. Hebrews 12:22 says that we have already come to Mt. Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem.
But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
In the ages to come we are going to be in Heaven. One person said that God wants to show us ass of the vaults of Heaven for eternity. Right now we have the name of Jesus, and that is all we need to obtain what we need to exist in this world.
Sitting in Heavenly Places

The Apostle Paul wrote the Christians in Ephesus:
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But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7
When you need something in this life, you can claim it in the name of Jesus. Provision comes in His name; Salvation comes in His name; healing comes in His name; faith, peace and joy come in His name. But Paul wrote that there is a mighty reserve in Heaven called grace. Gods grace is shown through His kindness to us through Jesus. Paul was saying that, in the ages to come, God is going to have a great time showing us just how good a God He was, is and always will be toward us in Jesus. You know in Heaven you are not going to simply float around on a cloud plucking on a harp. I believe we will get grand guided tours of the riches that are so immeasurable and so tremendous that John could not even find words to describe them. John said in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, There are things going on up there that I do not have human words for. That is one reason God gives us other languages. Just think; guided tours by the Holy Spirit! John wrote that when the Spirit of truth came, He would guide us into all truth (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit is a guide.
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One morning in Heaven you might say, I believe that I would like to go look at all those pillars, the foundations of the city that has all those precious stones in them. Id like to see them today. The Holy Spirit would then reply, Come, there is a guided tour ready for you. I will show you what belongs to you today. For, if it belongs to Jesus, then it also belongs to you. We are going to look at some of the riches of Gods grace that He manifested to you through Christ Jesus. This all belongs to you; just come along. While on that tour if you want something to eat, you may just pick it off the trees. If you want something to drink, you may take a drink from the River of Living Water. And ladies, just think about it, there will no longer be a need to get up each morning and put on your makeup; for your true inner beauty will show on your faces always. We need to make decisions that, regardless of what happens in this life, we are not going to leave off the level of faith because we do not want to get off the road to the city. When men and women begin to fasten themselves to that city and embrace it, the Bible says their lives will begin to emphasize the fact that they are headed toward that city. I heard a story once of a very wealthy man who died. When the people were coming by and looking into the coffin; one man said to another as they passed, I wonder how much he left? The other man answered, All of it! That is the way it is. There is only one kind of thing you and I are going to take to the other side, that being the
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promises God gave us in His Word. There is the promise you and your whole household can be saved (Acts 11:14). There is also the promise of no more tears in Heaven (Revelation 7:17). Have you ever had your heard broken? That is a miserable feeling. Rejection and a broken heart are about the worst feelings in this world; but part of Gods exceeding grace toward us is that Jesus will heal our hurts down here. Secondly, He is preparing a place where hearts will never again be broken, a place that is wall-to-wall joy. There may be only a few moments of silence when we first get there; but from that point on it will be controlled pandemonium in the Holy Spirit. Lets take a look as Hebrews 11 again.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
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Of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. Hebrews 11:12-19
We call Hebrews 11 the great faith chapter. Yet it is also the great works chapter, because those people all put actions to their faith. They lived tremendous lives of faith and did might exploits for God. The faith was alive and showed through in the works that they did. Abraham and the other patriarchs of Israel lived and died by faith, not having received the promises - but seeing them afar off. They confessed, and lived by their confession, that they were strangers and pilgrims on this earth.
Find Your True Citizenship

Do you feel like a pilgrim and a stranger in this world? You need to believe God that your whole life will begin to show that you are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, and not just a citizen of this world, as you embrace the things of Heavens Kingdom. The people listed in Hebrews 11 saw the city of God afar off and embraced the thing of it as they walked the sands of this earth. We, too, are to set our affections on the things that are above, and not on the things of this world (Colossians 3:2). I once heard a story about President Theodore Roosevelt and a missionary. Both were returning to the
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United Stated on the same ship. When the President went down the gangplank the bands were playing, people were throwing confetti and a chauffeur-driven car was waiting for him. He got into the car and was driven off to a grand homecoming parade. The missionary had been overseas for many years and was now returning to his homeland. As He was standing on the deck watching all of the festivities in honor of the President, he began to feel sorry for himself. He said, God, I dont understand it. Ive been out there for years; I gave up my home to work for Your name, sacrificing my life. The President just makes a little trip and gets all of that welcome when he returns, but there is no one here to greet me. No one cares that I have come home. He was having what we would call a pity party all by himself. Then the Holy Spirit spoke to him in his heart and said, That is because you are not home yet! If you embrace the city of God, self-pity will go right out the window. You will come to a place where you will not care what this world has to offer you, or what it can do for you; because you are simply passing through. You are a pilgrim and a stranger here. That is exactly what happened to Abraham. He had wealth flocks, cattle, herds and servants but none of that moved him. Yes, he possessed all of it, but it did not possess him! The Bible says that men and women who seek that country afar off have lives that emphasize the fact that they are citizens of another country.
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I want the world to know that I am different. I want them to see that I dont belong to this world; I belong to the city of God. Dont you? Two-thirds of this world may avoid us, but the other third will go to Heaven, the city of God, with us. You may say, But what if people dont like us? Well, I would reply, What if they do? This is when you are in trouble; for your eyes have slipped from the promises of God and His city. Though we are not trying to be obnoxious, if we live by the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven the very nature of the differences in the kingdoms will bring about a confrontation with this world. When your lifestyle declares that you are living as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, then the people around you are brought to a place where they must think about eternity; and they do not like that. Modern lifestyles do not reflect the fact that we are eternal beings. All of the advertising and everything else that bombards our senses reflect the humanistic philosophy that says; Live for today, for tomorrow you will be gone. Today is forever for you, so live it up. Indulge in the good things of life, for this is all there is. But I have good news for you. Today is not forever; it is only another day, another step on your path to Heaven. There is something else I would like you to see in Hebrews 11: If the heroes mentioned in that chapter had hung onto the countries from which they came, they would have
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gone back there. If they had been talking about those countries as home, and had carried them in their hearts, they could have returned probably would have. So you need to get your mind out of the place from which God has delivered you. God not only wants you to be born again, but also to have your mind washed clean with the water of His Word. You are never to lust after the sin of yesterday. I assure you that if you do, you will find every opportunity to return to it, and some day you will. If you live in the past, dwelling on it with your secret thoughts, be sure that your adversary is going to encourage those thoughts and make every opportunity for you to go back there. The reason people backslide is not because of hared times, but because their minds were not renewed from the things of the world and fixed firmly on the things of God. The Bible says that if Abraham had been mindful of the country he came out of he could have turned around and gone right back to it. But he did not keep his mind on Ur of the Chaldees. He said, I am looking for a country and a city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). However, Abraham was like many of us in the beginning. It took him some time to get out of the old country, or rather to get the old country out of him. God had told him to get up and get out, take nothing with him (Genesis 12). But Abraham took Lot with him. And it took him many years to get that family situation straightened out. When he was finally separated from Lot and his household, then the Covenant God had made with him
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began to work the way it was intended to in his life. Once he was delivered from Ur of the Chaldees he could clearly see the City of God and begin to move toward it. He got his thoughts off the past, the things that were behind him, and way able to focus on the things that lay ahead. That is why God had told Abraham not to take anything with him. When Abraham had complete left his past behind he began to possess the land in a new and very different dimension. Then a little guy named Isaac came on the scene; and God was not ashamed to be called their God. Think on this question for a minute; is God ashamed to be called your God? Have your children ever acted up when you have taken them out somewhere so badly that you might have said, I am ashamed of you; I am ashamed to admit that youre my kids? Most parents have thought this from time to time, whether on not they have ever said it. Then there are the times when you have taken those same children somewhere and they have acted so politely. Everyone bragged at how well behaved they were, and you were not ashamed to call them your children. We should look at ourselves the same way. Are there times when we might God ashamed to call us His own? We need to live as if we are already in the Kingdom of God so that He will not be ashamed that we are His children. If you keep your eyes on the city ahead the things this world has to offer will not distract you. When the storms of life come (Matthew 7:24-27), you can find out quickly whether your house is built on the Rock of Jesus
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through whom you possess that future city, or whether your house is built on the shifting sands of this world. You build your house on the Rock by hearing the Word of God and doing it. In like manner, you build you house on the worlds sand by hearing Gods Word and not doing it. Did you notice that no matter which house you live in, they are both attacked? At some point in our life you are going to have to take a stand against the attacks of the devil. You might as well get on the Rock and live like a citizen of Heaven so that the gates of Hell will not prevail against you (Matthew 16:18).
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. Matthew 7:24-27
It is amazing to me that Abraham looked for a city that had foundations. In his day people just built on rocky places. They didnt know about foundations; but Abraham did. He had a revelation of the City of Heaven, the things he saw stimulated such faith toward God in him that it was the catalyst God has used for the creative thinking of all mankind.
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Abrahams lifestyle said something about the country that he was truly a citizen of and where he really belonged. Your life today is also witnessing something to those who life and work around you. Can you look at the impression you make and see whether people who meet you know that you are looking for a better country? Or do you seem to be content to remain a part of this world? Before I completely surrendered my life to the Holy Spirit to do all that God said, I was saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and lived a good, Christian life. But my lifestyle and the focus of my attention confessed that I was a businessman, trying to become wealthy and a deacon if the church, in that order. If that is our calling in life then there is nothing wrong with it. But I knew that it was not my calling. So I had to change my focus; I had to begin looking for a city that was not of this world, the City of God. No matter what kind of person you are or what kind of life you live, your life is a witness to those around you; what is the witness of your life?
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3.
Heaven: The New Jerusalem
Lets take a look at the city all Christians should be looking for and about whose existence our lives should be witness of. In Revelation the Apostle John was caught away in the Spirit and saw some things. In Chapter 21 we read that he saw a city coming sown out of Heaven. I make no claim to be a preacher of eschatology the study of end times but we see from the end of the book of Revelation of Jesus Christ that John saw things that happen after the Millennium, the thousand years we believe Jesus will reign on earth after the Great Tribulation period. At the end of His millennial reign Jesus will judge the world and renovate the whole thing with fire. God has destroyed and remade the whole earth twice before with water, but this time it will be with fire (2 Peter 3:12).
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. Revelation 21:1-2
There will be no more oceans then, which is very important in understanding the kind of life there will be on the new earth. In our world the seas are the primary foundation of life and the food chain of the entire planet.
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Water comes up out of the oceans and falls back down on the seas. Food grows because of it. Our human bodies need fresh water to maintain life. But in the new heaven and earth you are not going to have to eat and drink as you do today. There will be no more fried chicken or junk food then. In the new heaven and earth we will live because of the Lamb. The glory of the Lord is the life of mankind. Not only that, but Gods Word says there is a river that will flow out of the throne of God that will be the water source of the new earth. John called this city the new Jerusalem. Historians and Biblical scholars call the earthly city of Jerusalem the eternal city. However there is a better city to come, one that is truly eternal. We dont know when or how Jerusalem was named but in Genesis 14, when Melchizedek visited Abraham, the city was called Salem, which means peace. The Jebusites, a Canaanite tribe, possessed the city in the days of King David. They had renamed the city Jeru and Salem, which literally means City of Peace. Melchizedek was a type of Jesus. In the Old Testament we believe that you can see many places where Jesus visited the earth in different forms. He manifested Himself to Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He spoke to Moses out of a burning bush. In Genesis 18 it is believed that He was the angels that visited Abraham at his tent in the plains of Mamre, because it says that Abraham stood before the Lord discussing the coming destruction of Sodom and
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Gomorrah. However He never manifested Himself as a man until He was born of a virgin. He took upon Himself the seed of Abraham. He was the true Son of Promise of which Isaac was a type. That means that today in Heaven Jesus still looks like a man. You would have no trouble at all recognizing Him among all of the angelic beings, even if He didnt walk in all of His glory. He is the only one who looks like a man. He already has His glorified body, and He will give each of us one when He comes the second time. Jerusalem on earth was a type a natural, physical counterpart of the city that is in Heaven.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. Galatians 4:26 Him that overcometh 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 cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. Revelation 3:12
Ever since the Lord showed John the new Jerusalem the devil has done all he could to keep the natural Jerusalem in bondage. John said that city was adorned as a bride for her husband. Now you know that sometimes the adorning process takes a little time to be completed. I have never been to a wedding that started right on time; they usually
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begin a little late. Not long ago I was at a wedding that was an hour late in getting started. The reason that wedding was late is that the bride was still getting ready. She was adorning herself for her bridegroom. But the moment she walked in to the hall everyone forgot the ceremony was an hour late. Suddenly it was a wedding and everything was all right. You may say, Pastor, when is Jesus coming? All I can say is that he will come when His bride is ready. She is still adorning herself and He is preparing a place for her. When His timetable is right He will come, and His bride will be adorned. Everything will be ready and we will forget all of the troubles and trials of getting ready. We will forget all about how long it took. When John saw that city nothing was left undone. In His Revelation to John, Jesus said, I am the beginning and the end. I am showing you the first and the last. This is the tale the fate and the glory of mankind. And the tale is finished in the natural.
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. Revelation 21:6
Characteristics of the City

In chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation, John was shown some of the details about that city. Here are some of those characteristics: It is the tabernacle of God
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He will wipe away all tears There will be no more death in that city No more sorrow or pain will exist All things will be made new
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. 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. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, write: for these words are true and faithful. Revelation 21:3-5
God will live in that city as His tabernacle among those of mankind who have been redeemed by Jesus and claimed as His very own. We will be Gods people, and He will always be with us as our God. We will have no more death, no sorrow, no pain, and not even any tears. The Greek word translated sorrow actually means mental anguish. Every painful memory, all mental pain, is erased. Some may say, Pastor, I am going to feel so bad if I go to Heaven and my loved ones dont go. How can I be happy? I dont want to go if they dont. You will not know that your earthly loved ones are not there. And you certainly dont want to go where they will be!
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I have had people tell me, If my dear, old Mama is not in Heaven then I dont want to go. I can tell you that if your dear old Mama is not in Heaven and you could talk to her she would say, Oh child, dont come where I am! she would be pleading with God to come back one more time to tell you not to come where she is! God said He would erase all the tears, pain and the very memories of every painful thing in this world. When Jesus said, Behold I make all things new, (Revelation 21:5a) the Greek means, I will continually make all things new; I will keep on making everything new. Isnt that exciting? Every day in Heaven will be just like the first day. You cant get bored or tired in Heaven, because God continually makes everything new. Every day is better than the day you were saved. Every day in Heaven is better than your wedding day. Every day in Heaven is better than the day you go get a new car. Everyone has their own philosophy about cars, but I believe they are the worst investment that you can make. I like to buy a new car every two years. I trade mine in before I lose too much on its resale value. Long before I became a preacher I did this, and I will continue to do so until Jesus comes to give me a chariot I cant trade in. Every two years my nose starts twitching; I begin to smell that new-car smell. I stop at every car dealership I pass, open the door and fill my lungs up with that smell. I love the smell of a new car. But after I drive that car for a while it is just a car; it has lost its newness. But in Heaven
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every thing is always new. It is better than a new car and its new-car smell. The Lord said to John, Write this down, for what I am about to tell you is true. It doesnt matter what anyone says, Heaven and hell are real places. What I am giving you are the facts. When the new city comes down, it is finished. Everything that was to be done concerning Gods plan for mankind on this planet has been completed. God has finished everything He is going to do, and John saw the end in advance. When the end of the Millennium comes, here is the City of God coming down to earth adorned for Him. People who have been privileged to visit Heaven or who have died and been brought back to life, all say one thing; the colors are phenomenal. There are colors in Heaven that make the earth colors look like mere shadows. When I visited Ireland I was amazed at how green the grass was. The hillsides in the country are such a deep green compared to the grass here. I had never seen any grass quite like the rolling hills and countryside of Ireland; but they are only shadows when compared to the colors in Heaven.
The Fountain of Life

The next thing Jesus showed to John about the City of God was that it has a fountain of life giving, living water from which He will freely allow everyone to drink.
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There you will literally be able to drink of Gods living water; but here on earth you can only drink spiritually of that fountain that never runs dry. In John 7:37-38, Jesus said:
In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
In Revelation 21:7, Jesus continued to describe the city to John:

He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
In 1 John we see a little more about Jesus meant. In chapter 4 verses 1-3 John wrote about discerning the spirits, whether they are of God or not. He wrote to Christians not to accept every spirit that claimed to be of God but to test them, then in verse 4 he says:
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Them in verse four means demons. John wrote that they are of the world, therefore the speak things of the world and the world hears them (verse 5). But we have overcome the devil and all of his evil ways; because greater is He who lives in us than the devil who lives in the world.
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When Jesus revealed to John in Revelation 21:7 that the one who overcomes will inherit all things, He was literally saying that the one who has the Greater One living inside him, and who overcomes the world by the blood of the Lamb and by his testimony of Jesus, will inherit everything Heaven has. Jesus then said, Write this down, because it is literally true. The next verse talks about all of those who will not be found in that city; the fearful, unbelievers, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, liars, and abominable people. All of these will have their part, their inheritance, in that lake of fire and brimstone. Jesus told John that destination was called the second death (Revelation 21:8). There are two deaths, physical and spiritual. Physical death is when your spirit and soul leave your body. Spiritual death is when you are eternally separated from God, spirit and soul. Those who experience spiritual death have never been born into the bloodline of Jesus Christ. At the end of the Millennium sinners will be judged at the /great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:11-15) and will be cast into the lake of fire; the devil also be bound and thrown in there with them (Revelation 20:10). We need to understand that God did not make Hell for men, but for the devil and all of his angels (Matthew 21:45). We also need to understand that God doesnt send men to Hell; they end up there by their own choices. If they reject
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Jesus as their Lord and Savior they automatically choose the devil. So where he ends up, they will also end up.
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4.
Heaven: The Bride of Christ
A lot of interpretations are being taught today on who the bride of Christ is; but the Bible specifically says that the bride is the City of God and the Body of Christ rightly related to that city. The bride is not just a city; the city-bride cant be fully adorned until all of us are4 in it. The final adornment of the city is you and I. The Bride of Christ is the city, the new Jerusalem, the holy city occupied by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ. John said, I saw that bride coming toward me.
And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; Revelation 21:9-11
If you look at Revelation 17:1-2 you will see something else about those seven angels. In that chapter John relates how one of those angels showed him a special judgment.
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And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
There are many types and shadows, many analogies, in the book of Revelation and I do not pretend to understand every one of them as yet. But I believe with those who say that the great whore is the counterfeit of the Church of Jesus Christ. She is the symbol of mankinds religions that are demonically inspired, religions that worship anything and everything . . . except Jesus of Nazareth. There are even religions that recognize Jesus, but classify Him as only one of their gods. If you do not agree with me on who the woman of Babylon is in the book of Revelation, then forgive me; but you must love me anyway to go to Heaven. When we get there we will all find out for sure who is right and who is wrong; but I am convinced that religions that dont worship Jesus and Him alone are a part of the great whore of Babylon. There is only one Lord, one Savior, one Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, and only one way of access to the Father given to men by which you can be saved. That is Jesus Christ. In the day that John saw there will be a great judgment upon all the cumulative religions of the world that we see today beginning to come together in unity. If the Lord tarries I believe we will see a universal religion
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released upon the face of the earth. Children will be told in school that they should have some kind of allegiance to that religion. And that religion will not accept Jesus; but will present Him as a prophet, a teacher or a philosopher. However, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15). How about you? The great whore is the opposite of the Bride of Christ and sits on many waters. The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and worshipped together, Jesus said (Revelation 17:2). There are two kinds of fornication talked about in the Bible, and which type is spoken of is meant is always indicated by the context in which it is used. Physical fornication involves people indulging in sexual acts outside the bounds of marriage; but Spiritual fornication is when men and women are unfaithful to God. They place another god in His place whether it id a demon, an idea, another person, or anything else. Anything that comes between you and God, anything that becomes more important to you than He is, becomes a god to you. When this happens, you are committing Spiritual adultery against Jesus! The Bible says the kings and rulers of this world will turn their back on the Bride and the Savior and will commit Spiritually adultery with the great whore of Babylon. At the end of time Jesus will judge those other religions, and He alone will sit for ALL to see as King of kings and Lord of lords. James 1:27 says,
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
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The context of this verse is the basis of Christianity, the only true religion. In the first chapter of his epistle James is talking about being doers of the Word and not just hearers only. He goes on to say that if anyone seems to be religious and doesnt bridle his tongue take authority over what he says his religions is in vain (James 1:26). True religion involves accepting Jesus as Savior, then doing what He says to do. Faith in Christ without doing His Word is dead (James 2:20). On the other hand, good works without a real belief in Jesus are in vain totally worthless. Many of these other religions do great works but they do not believe in Jesus Christ. I am convinced that if they are not yet full of the spirit of antichrist, they soon will be. John wrote that anyone or any spirit that denies Jesus is God in the flesh and is of the spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:22 and 2 John 7). On earth during the Millennium God will set up His temple in the presence of the City of Jerusalem. Jesus will personally rule form the temple for a thousand years and believers will come in and out year after year to pay homage to the Lord Jesus in Jerusalem. Then the world will be destroyed by fire at the end of the thousand years. Then God will set up the new Jerusalem, the city that John saw.
The City Of God Is Unimaginable

1 Peter 2:5 says that each born again person is a stone in Gods holy city.
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Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
In Hebrew 12:22-23 we see that we have already come into the heavenly Jerusalem. We are already one of the stones in Mt. Zion. In previous verses the author of Hebrews pointed out that we have not come unto a mountain that would burn you with fire if you touched it, nor one characterized by thunder and lightening, earthquakes, and tempests, as Mount Sinai was for the Israelites. In Moses day Gods presence was exterior to the people. His presence on that mountain meant that even the animals touching it would be destroyed. No one can come into the presence of God except those who have been covered by the blood of Jesus, who stand in the shadow of Gods glory. Moses went up there on the command of God and with perfect trust perfect faith in Him. When Moses returned from communing in the presence of God His face shone with the brilliance of Gods glory. His face was so bright that the people would hide from him unless he wore a veil to shield them from the remnants of Gods glory that still shown on his face (Exodus 19). The light of Gods presence is different from any kind of light we are familiar with. It seems to be almost like a solid object, because it is so pure. Once you become Gods through Christ Jesus you are already in the heavenly Jerusalem. That is how Abraham could see it and feel apart of it, although after
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thousands of years it is not yet visible and seems like it is not yet a reality in the natural realm. Abraham did not have the New Testament to tell him of a city whose builder and maker is God, yet he clearly saw it. Did you know when you come into the Body of Christ you need to honor the men and women in the Body with you because God has called them just? God says their spirits have been made perfect (Hebrews 12:23). You may say, But I look at them in the flesh, and I dont agree with everything I see. I do not agree with everything they do or say. You need to learn how to know other Christians in the Spirit, because all of us are still being perfected in our flesh. There are things about each of us that are not yet conformed to the image of Christ. Yet our spirits have been made perfect complete. We need to know and understand that we are already citizens of that city. The natural Jerusalem has twelve gates. After a remnant of the nation of Judah returned to their country from Babylon, Nehemiah supervised the rebuilding of the citys walls. In Nehemiah 2 and 3 we find the twelve gates listed: The Valley Gate The Fountain Gate The Sheep Gate The Old Gate The Dung Gate The Water Gate The Horse Gate
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The East The Miphkad Gate The Fish Gate The Prison Gate The Gate of Ephraim
Before and after Nehemiahs time some of the gates became known by other names; such as the East Gate was also called the Golden Gate. My point is that the earthly Jerusalem is a physical counterpart to the Heavenly one. In Revelation we see that the heavenly Jerusalem has a wall with twelve gates and twelve angels, one for each gate. The names of the twelve gates are the names of the twelve of Israel, just as the names on the foundations are the names of the twelve apostles of the New Covenant. The gates are made of gigantic pearls, representing The Pearl Of Great Price, Jesus Christ. John was saying, I looked up and no one was forsaken. The Old and the New Covenants were together in the new City of Jerusalem. The city had a great, high wall with twelve gates. And the names thereon are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Revelation 21:1013). On each side, east, west, north, and south, there were three gates that John saw. According to Revelation 21:17 the gates were 216 feet high, just as the city was measured at 1500 miles in each direction (Revelation 21:16-17). An angel took a golden measuring rod and
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measured the wall for John. That was a pretty good-sized gate. It is twenty stories tall and each gate was made up of one pearl. So there is this 215-foot wall around this 1,500-mile high, cubed city. Underneath that wall are twelve foundations; twelve layers stacked one on top of the other. They are named after the names of the twelve apostles. The twelfth one who walked with Jesus, of course, was Judas Iscariot; he lost his place. Then the apostles drew lots and appointed a man named Matthias, who had walked with them and followed Jesus. However he is never mentioned again in the Word, and I believe they got ahead of God. They named him before the day of Pentecost and the coming of The Holy Spirit. I believe that Paul is the twelfth apostle whose name will be on those foundations. He said that he was an apostle born out of time (1 Corinthians 15:8). In other words, he didnt get to walk and talk with Jesus, but he had a personal visitation from Him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-7). In another place Paul wrote that we are built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets. I believe John was seeing the same thing when he saw the foundations and gates of the holy city.
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
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In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22
John said, I saw that habitation, that city, coming down. And the city was foursquare, the length is the same as the breadth (Revelation 21:16). In the King James Version it says lieth foursquare. In the Greek the word translated as lieth her literally means suspended, so actually John saw the city hovering above the earth. No wonder he could see the foundations. So that you can picture the actual size of the City of God, it is about the same size as our moon. John saw a city the size of the moon hovering above the earth, and the building materials were precious stones, silver and gold. If the natural things of the city John saw and described are so awesome, what must the spiritual things really be like? There is nothing known to us that can be used as a comparison to the things of that city. We should simply be pilgrims and strangers pressing on toward it, knowing that the city for which we are looking is so far beyond what we can understand the it is literally unimaginable. Even the gold of the streets is transparent (Revelation 21:21), and the light was like jasper [some scholars say that this jasper is the same as our modern day diamond], as clear as crystal. The glory of God coming through those diamond walls, transparent streets of gold
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and gates of pearl must have been like a prism of colors that shook those who saw it to their very foundations. The heroes of faith saw it, Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2 saw it and John saw it, too. None of them could find the exact words to describe it. In one place the things that John saw were so great so amazingly awesome that he was told not to write them down (Revelation 10:4). The entire city is one big color with the light of the Lord Jesus shining through it. Each foundation is garnished with precious stones; first is jasper [diamond], second is sapphire, third is chalcedony, fourth is emerald, fifth is sardonyx, sixth is sardius, seventh is chrysolite, eighth is beryl, ninth is topaz, tenth is chrysoprasus, eleventh is jacinth, twelfth is amethyst. And each gate is a pearl. When I was a boy growing up I used to sing a song about the pearly gates swinging wide open. I used to think about those gates as if they were a string of pearls. When I got old enough to read and understand the Word of God I realized that each gate was one pearl. Thank God for that city where night never comes, where the Lamb is the Light. If you want to see that city, you must set your affections in it (Colossians 3:1) and not be captivated by the things of this age. We are citizens of a much higher order than that of this world. II Corinthians 5:17 says that when we are born again we become new creations, new creatures. Some Bible scholars say that means a new species of being, like a new race. There has never been anything like you on the face of the earth before. We have been delivered out of
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the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of Gods dear Son (Colossians 1:13). The indication of whether you have been faithful is whether you have fulfilled your call in God on your path toward His Heavenly City. Make your calling and election sure in Jesus, for He is the only door to that city. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ. He is the door to the everlasting rewards of Heaven.
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5.
Heaven: A Place Received By Faith
After I had been pasturing for some time I was amazed to discover that many Christians, particularly Charismatics, didnt know very much about Heaven. I grew up in a branch of the Pentecostal movement where is seemed as if Heaven were preached about in almost every service. If we never learned anything else, we knew about Heaven. We are going to heaven someday. If you and I are born again, serve and obey God, and remain faithful to the end we will go to Heaven. Heaven is a literal place, but we arent told exactly where it is. However the Bible does give us some ideas about its location. The Bible says that there are three worlds, and the name of Jesus is above everything else named in those worlds. Those three worlds are Heaven, earth and under the earth (Philippians 2:10). There is an underworld where the demons live and a world above that we know as space. In the realm above outer space is where God and Jesus are. The best definition for Heaven that I know is this; Heaven is where God lives. The Kingdom of God is inside of you because His Spirit lives within you, but the city of Heaven is a literal place where God and Jesus of Nazareth, raised from the dead, now are. Where is the Holy Spirit? He is right here on earth with us. Isnt that very exciting?
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Earlier I talked about Hebrews 11:10 which says, Abraham saw that city whose builder and maker is God. Think about it, Jesus as God helped and is helping build and make that city. When Jesus, in His youth on earth, he was apparently trained as a carpenter because Joseph, who stood in as His earthly father, was a carpenter. Sons in those days, and on through time until our recent history, were trained to follow in their fathers footsteps. The word builder in Greek is technites, which literally means architect or master designer. Technites come from the root word techne, the Greek work for carpenter. Have you ever wondered why Jesus came to earth as a carpenter instead of a shepherd? He is the shepherd of our souls, but Jesus of Nazareth is the carpenter, the builder, the chief architect and the designer of the universe. Abraham caught a glimpse of that city whose builder and maker is the architect of the universe, Jesus. When he saw that something went off in him, he began to look for the city that was so different from the carnal realm in which we walk. Abraham was a very wealthy man for his day. He had all kinds of cattle, sheep, gold, and all those worldly things. So did his kinfolk, his entire family was rich. Abraham was so blessed of the Lord that his relatives got in on the blessings, too. But once he saw that city, he refused to allow his possessions to possess him. Abraham died in faith, not having received the promises of God but saw them afar off. Hebrews 11:13 says that Abraham and
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the other people of great faith not only lived in faith, but died in faith, too:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
You also must die in faith if you are going to go to the place of faith. Faith is not only a great way to live; it is the only way to die. If you are going to inherit the city, you will have to die in faith or be caught up with the Church to meet Jesus in the air. Either way you must go in faith! I know people say, Pastor, I wish you wouldnt talk about dying. I wonder why not? Everyone who has ever lived, or ever will live except those alive at His second coming, will die and move into the real realm. The life of this world is simply a beginning that is very, very brief. So, as death is inevitable in every man and womans life, we might as well learn how to live in order to inherit the city of God. There may be times in this life when you do not receive all of the promises available to you before you go through the door of death into the next life; but that can have nothing to do with your faith. Your faith must be in GOD not in what God gives you! Thank God for all of the things that we receive through Calvary, but those things are not indicators of walking in faith.
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At some point you must grow up spiritually and be able to say, I dont care if God ever gives me anything else, He is my god and I am His servant. All I know is that God is able; that is what the people listed in Hebrews 11 knew. What kept them in faith when they had not yet received the promise? Hope kept them in faith! The Apostle Paul wrote that they against hope believed in hope (Romans 4:18).
God Is Able To Fulfill His Promises

If I only preached the promises of God for this life, and people didnt receive the promises, they would begin to look for reasons why not. I could name reasons and you could name reasons, but I dont know your heart. If you never received the promises and all you knew of God were the promises of health and prosperity for this life, you might get disillusioned. You might say, I prayed and believed God; I served Him. But He didnt give me the promises; therefore He must not be real. Im not going to serve Him anymore! But there is more to God than these promises we walk in down here. Our lives on this earth are for but a fleeting moment in the span of eternity in which we will exist. You will never stop existing. There is a promise that is not attainable until after you leave this life. So if you never receive anything else from God but eternal life with Him through Salvation in Jesus Christ and the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the one promise of a place in the city
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whose builder and maker is God makes living for Him here on earth very worthwhile. Abraham had things promised to him by the same God who showed him Heaven the he didnt receive in his lifetime. God told Abraham that his children would be like the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky in number (Genesis 22:17). And that promise was repeated to Isaac and Jacob.
And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
But Abraham didnt receive innumerable offspring while he walked on the face of this earth. He had Ishmael, Isaac and six sons by Keturah, his wife after Sarah died. Isaac had Jacob and Esau, and Jacob had 12 sons, but they didnt see this promise come true either. It was hundreds of years later before that promise was realized. Paul wrote to the church at Rome about it:
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be.
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And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Romans 4:16-22
Today we can see multitudes of the children of Abraham including Christians the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ as Paul wrote. However, even in the days of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews said that Abrahams natural descendants had fulfilled the promise unto him.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. Hebrews 11:12
But Abraham never saw that promise come true. At some point, like Abraham and the other patriarchs of Israel, you must embrace the promise for your life and say, If nothing else in this life went the way I wanted it to go, I am going to get to Heaven anyway. Against hope I will have faith in the hope that God is able to keep and fulfill all of His promises. Everything Abraham put his hand to was blessed, but he didnt care about all of that once he had a glimpse of that city. He said, I am looking for a city. Gold doesnt
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move me; this land I own doesnt control me. No things control me any longer, for I am looking for the place where God is! Abraham refused to be controlled by his prosperity and by the promises he had received; therefore God could trust him. And He gave Abraham more and more of this worlds goods. There are things that, even if you cant see them in this world, you can see them afar off and are persuaded by faith that they are true. I have reached the point where I am more persuaded by what I see in faith than by what I see in the natural. When sickness comes on the body, I see healing. I see the promise instead of the circumstances. When you can see in that way, then you are walking in faith. Then the Holy Spirit takes over and marvelous things happen. And you can apply that principle to every area of your life. If you are having trouble financially, you need to make sure you are obeying God with your finances. You also need to know that God is Jehovah Jireh, the One who will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). Cast your worry about you situation onto the Lord (1 Peter 5:7) and keep your eyes on the promise. Refuse to be moved by the condition or circumstance, and the Holy Spirit will supply your need and take care of that circumstance. If you get bound up in the fact that you have not yet received, then you wont receive. If you are moved by the circumstances and the conditions in this life, then the devil is god of your world, and he will accommodate you with more adverse conditions. But, if you will raise up in faith
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and say, I am not moved by what I see, I am moved by what God promised that I do not yet see. These visible things are temporary, but the invisible things are eternal. The word translated temporary in the Greek means subject to change. If I see it in the natural, it is subject to change. Natural circumstances always change; even if they didnt, eternal things are so far above them that we cant even imagine the difference. Once you get a glimpse of the eternal city, your possessions no matter how many or how great they are will pale by comparison. That was exactly the case with Abraham. He was a dweller of the heavenly city while still in this world.
Is There Anything To Your Faith?

That must be our position toward God and toward the city of Heaven; otherwise one day you will be serving God and speaking faith, and the next day you will be saying, I dont know if there is anything to this faith-stuff of not. Im telling you there is everything to this faithstuff. The real question is; is there anything to your faith? God has not changed; He is the same with you as He was with Abraham, with only one exception. You have Jesus! Abraham only had the promise of Jesus; he rejoiced to see the coming of the Lord. Jesus said of this:
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. John 8:56
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At some point you are going to have to embrace the promise of the city to come and be persuaded about God, regardless of the circumstances. I have talked to people who have said, Im sick. The doctor says that I have a 50/50 chance. They talk as if they are taking the 50% chance of dying to heart. Look at it the other way; the doctor said they are going to live. Look at the bottle as half full instead of half empty. Keep your eyes on that heavenly city and say, I am a child of the city. I am a citizen of the household of faith. For by faith I am a child of Abraham, and his promises are mine through Jesus Christ. I already live on Mt. Zion, the city of God. I am part of the Church of the First Born, and I live in the company of innumerable angels. Those words need to be in your spirit, not just on your mind or in your mouth. To embrace something means to catch hold of it tightly, with the intent of never letting go. Abraham embraced the promise and confessed it. Have you ever noticed that faith people have the biggest mouths you will find in Christendom? They never stop talking; if they do there is something wrong with them! If you walk in faith, you need to be confessing something. When people ask me if I am one of those confession preachers, I admit that I am and I go on to say, If you are not a confession person, brother, you may not make Heaven. People are always going to speak out what they believe. If faith is in your heart, it will come out of your mouth. If you believed that Jesus provided healing for you in His atonement, you will be saying youre healed by His
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stripes (2 Peter 2:24). You will not be confessing how bad you feel or how sick you are. The revelation of the city of Heaven was so strong inside of Abraham and Sarah, as well as Isaac and Jacob that they lived in tents always ready to move on looking for that city. They were tent dwellers, just passing through this earth. Strangers and pilgrims in the Greek means transients. Abraham confessed that they were only temporary residents of this earth. If the devil can make you think that today is forever, he can control your life; but if you have your affections set on things above, you will know that today is temporary and will pass away. I am going to live on this earth as long as God allows. I do not want to leave it one day early. You and I, however, are on our way to Heaven. This life is simply a journey, a process of passing from natural birth to eternal life with God. Death is but the doorway to the city of Heaven for us. The lives of the patriarchs emphasize that they were pilgrims and strangers passing through on their way to the City of God. Your life also emphasizes something. You are either promoting yourself, some way of life, or the city of God; whatever it is your life is promoting it promotes who you really are and where you are headed. In order to truly understand Heaven you need to know both the Old and New Testaments. There are many Christians today who do not believe that anything in the Old Testament is for us, in spite of the fact that Jesus quoted over and over from the law and the prophets.
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Throwing out the Old Testament is a very tragic thing, as it is the foundation from which the New Testament grew. All of the Old Testament is the foundation of knowledge concerning Jesus as Messiah. If you only have the New Testament, your faith has no solid foundation and you are only half armed with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. If we didnt have all of the quotes by Jesus, we would have Peters quotes in The Acts and in his epistles that emphasize the Old Testament writings, as well as the writings of the other apostles.
The Old Testament: Foundation of the New

Lets look at Peters second letter to see what Abraham and the apostles saw.
This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: 2 Peter 3:1, 2
The phrase pure minds simply means minds free from sin. There are three kinds of sin: in your mind, in your mouth and in your flesh. You can sin through corrupt thoughts, corrupt speech, and corrupt flesh. Plenty is spoken of in the church about the sin of the flesh, adultery and so forth. But not much is said on the sin of corrupt minds and mouths.
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On the other hand the Bible has much to say on the corrupt tongue, and even more on the corrupt thoughts of men. Peter was writing to some people who had had their minds washed pure by the water of the Word, through their faith. They had been renewed in their minds. Therefore Peter was taking them deeper into the Word. He was stirring up their memories of what they had already received in order to give them deeper insight into the things of God. He told them to be mindful of the words spoken by the holy prophets and of the apostles. Peter talked about the two things they needed to know the Old and New Testament writings! The things of the Old Testament many times will explain the New Testament to you. Jesus and the apostles preached from the Old Testament. It was the only scripture they had until the letters of Peter, Paul, James, and John to be passed around from place to place years later. The story of the life of Jesus in the four gospels was not written until years after the first born again people began what we call the Church. The Apostle Paul learned the revelations contained in his thirteen epistles from the Old Testament scriptures. When God took him off into the wilderness of Arabia for years of study at the beginning of his ministry (Galatians 1:17), it was the scriptures of the Old Testament that he studied. If Paul could get all of his revelations for his letters out of the Old Testament, dont you see that we can still get revelation from those books, too?
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Paul studied the books of Moses and the prophets until Jesus just jumped off the pages at him. Then he was able to say, Ive got it! Im in Him and Hes in me, and he wrote thirteen books about the revelation of Christ in you, the hope of glory. You can be healed from reading the Old Testament. You can read it and see so much about prosperity that you will not know what to do with yourself. You cant read the Old Testament, stay in faith and remain sad. God will turn your mourning into dancing just like Psalm 30:11 in the Old Testament. And your whole life will be changed if you make it over into the New Testament. Peter went on to warn the early believers about scoffers, walking after their own lusts, coming in who would say, When is Jesus coming back? Everything is still continuing just as it has since the beginning of the world (2 Peter 3:3-4). Today men are doing just that. Men have always tried to create Heaven on earth. They are doing everything they can to build a sinless, poverty-less, completely perfect society. All of those things in the natural are fine; but I am telling you there is only one way we are all going to come into a perfect existence and that is when we get to Heaven. You can walk in faith, have your own personal society of no sin, no sickness and no poverty; but this planet is not going to have that until the heavenly city comes down to this earth. God made Adam and mankind came from him. By nature man yearns to return to the sinless conditions of the Garden of Eden, but also because of the Adamic nature,
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most of mankind want to do it by themselves. They want to be god and make all things perfect. Even Christians have these ideas of a perfect earth. Some have visions, or make visits, to Heaven. However anytime you begin to read their descriptions of Heaven, they are different from the Word of God. Let me recommend you use those books as fire starters. Peter said, If you want to know about Heaven, be mindful of the words of the apostles and prophets that are written in the Bible. I am sorry to say that some of the books about Heaven are written by people want to make a bunch of money, so they fabricate something to attract attention, or perhaps they have a small vision and they decide to increase it, to add to it. God calls that lying. One person who had written a book about his visit to Heaven came up to a friend of mine and asked if he had read the book. My friend said, Well, I read parts of it. The author said, was there anything in there that you disagreed with? My friend said, I dont know. I didnt read it all. Why? The man answered, I am fixing to re-publish it, and if there is anything not right, I want to rewrite it. My friend said, But if you went to Heaven, why are you asking me this?
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I agree with the Apostle Peter; if you want to know about that city, read the apostles and the prophets.
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6.
Heaven: Creation Or Evolution
The problem is that scoffers dont understand the process of creation. For if they did then they would understand that Jesus is coming back and why He hasnt returned yet. They might also begin to understand the times and seasons and tell us His return is getting nearer. Why do you think there has been a worldwide push for generations to deny creationism and to embrace the theory of evolution? Since pagan times there has been a mindset that created legends around false ideas on the origin of man; a mindset that denied the fact of a single sovereign Creator. In our day the legends have become the belief of science. Evolution was the product of the mind of Charles Darwin in the middle of the 19th century. Since the 1920s and 1930s it has gained respectability and acceptability to the point that if you do not believe it you are considered weird and unacceptable. The theory of evolution is the gospel according to Satan as it pertains to the origin of man. The Word of God is the gospel according to the Lord Jesus Christ and contains the truth about creation. The Apostle Peter wrote that if you are ignorant of creation, you couldnt know about Jesus. Lets look at what Peter wrote immediately after telling his readers to be mindful of the things written by the prophets and apostles:
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Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 2 Peter 3:3-7
The comment about the world that then was is a tremendous fact quickly passed over by the apostle, as if it were well known by the people to whom he wrote. Peter said there was literally a world order before the one we are in now, a world that didnt contain people like you and I. God had previously created a planet that had an order to it of its very own. The word earth in verse 5 in the Greek word ge, which means terra firma - earth, as we know it. It is from this Greek root word that we get our words geology and geography. The earth, made just like our planet, was in water and stood out from it. There were islands and continents on it, although they were probably arranged differently. As far as our present earth is concerned history doesnt go back much farther than 6,000 years. This is the point where creationists and evolutionists disagree and is the point where they get into such big fights. The reason is that many people from both camps are ignorant of what
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the Word of God says. I want you to know that you didnt evolve from a monkey, but also that this world has been here billions of years. Civilization as we know it is only 6,000 years old. That is why there is such a big gap between some of the fossilized finds and all if the prehistoric age. There is a gap in time between the world of those fossils and this present society. However there really is no missing link. There was a time span when God destroyed the world that then was and turned out all the lights. On this planet if you get rid of the sun and have nothing but water everywhere it is going to freeze over. Personally I believe that is what we know as the ice age, as I wrote in an earlier chapter. I believe that Lucifer was cast down to this earth. God judged him and turned the lights out on the whole thing.
God Turn The Lights Off And On

When God covered the planet that then was with water and iced it over, Satan and his demons were locked into that circumstance. Genesis 1:1-2 says:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
God created the earth in the beginning and He never creates anything that is not perfect. Therefore something had to happen between the events recorded in the first and
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second verses. First God created it; then something happened and it became empty and without form. The Hebrew verb translated was has two meanings; the other meaning of it is became. So it would also be true to translate this verse as: And the earth became without form and void. So it is possible that between verses one and two millions of years had passed, because with God there is no time, as Peter goes on to explain in 2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Peter wrote that one day or a thousand years is all the same to God. Literally that means that God doesnt care about time; He is not moved by it. Scientists say that time is a dimension confined to this planet. God is an eternal being, and so are you. Right now you are locked into a temporal temporary body; but there will come a day when God will match your body to your born again spirit. He will give you a spiritual body, one that doesnt grow old, wrinkle and whose hair doesnt turn gray. I believe Peter was writing here about the first time the earth was completely flooded with water. Noah and his family lived through the second time; which was probably not as drastic as the first. Water covered the earth in Noahs day, but the earth was not void, nor did darkness cover the face of the deep. Also in Noahs day the sun was not darkened. At some point Lucifer was cast down to this place that God had created. When God cast him down, I believe
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that God judged him. Because Lucifer was here God turned out the lights on the whole earth and covered it with water. And it stayed that way for a long time! The Bible doesnt say that there were any other people here before mankind, but evidently there were creatures. When God turned our the lights, covered the whole world with water, turned it upside down and iced it over, it stayed that way for quite a while. I can see all of the demons trying to get out. Twothirds of the angels who fell with Lucifer must have been trying to get out of the darkened ice. Can you imagine what it must have been like? That would have been a bad place to be, locked in ice and pitch darkness. I will not argue with anyone about all of this, it is what I believe the Bible is talking about. I believe that this is where all of the fossils came from. Animals and plants were compacted by a sudden, God-caused catastrophe of water and ice. We have a tremendous amount of fossil fuels today because of this prehistoric disaster a result of Gods judgment. All of a sudden one day, the entire aquarium turned right side up. All of a sudden the lights came back on. I imagine that every demon in hell ran because they knew that Light. God said, Let there be light! (Genesis 1:3). The demons probably wanted to kill the devil that day. They had been locked away for millions of years in that ice and darkness; and he wasnt even able to turn the lights on.
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God simply flipped the lights on. He turned on earths power switch and said, Im back. and there was Jesus. Immediately God said, Now were going to re-do things here. From verses three through nineteen of Genesis one Moses relates how God went through the process of restoring the earth. When God created Adam and Eve, Lucifer was already there. He didnt climb down on Jacobs ladder to get here. Jesus said that He saw Satan cast out of Heaven (Luke 10:18) However, out of judgment, God let His mercy be shown. He brought the lights back on and put a garden in the middle of the earth. He stuck a man in the garden and said, Boom! Now lets do this thing right from here on. Man fell, God didnt; His mercy is still here today. In 2 Peter 3:6 it says,
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
If you look at the original Greek you will see the word earth in verse 5 is not the same as the word translated world in verse 6. Earth is ge, which I talked about earlier. World is translated from the word cosmos, which means a distinct order or the entirety of creation, whereas ge simply means the landmass. So, Peter was saying the entire order that was there, the whole creation, was wiped out and perished. Then in verse 7 Peter wrote about the heavens and earth, which are now.
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We are now in the second world or the second creation. Peter said it was the same Word that created the first heaven and earth, shut it down and began the heaven and earth that are here now were. He said they are kept in store, that means guarded in their present state until the Day of Judgment and destruction by fire. Men that do not understand creation itself have no concept of this progression of world history. Peter said that they are willingly ignorant of it; therefore they make fun of a living God whom they dont understand. If you read the Bible you can understand creation clearly. There may be some truths and many details we dont understand, but the basic facts are there. In our own world we still dont understand how a baby forms in the womb. We cant yet go to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Yet there are people trying to go back millions of years and figure our how man got there! Then they sit back and say, We theorize that man came from a little amoeba, a single-celled mass of protoplasm that somehow began to grow parts. Finally it grew a tail and began to have a strong craving for bananas. Everyone knows that amoebas love bananas! If that theory were true people would still be coming into existence that way. Why has not one person evolved from a monkey-type creature in the more than a hundred years this theory has been around? Some people act like monkeys, but we do not show any signs today of looking like them. If evolution is true then butterflies may be a higher form of life than humanity.
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What the Apostle Peter was saying is this: Because people deliberately choose not to believe that the first world was created and destroyed by God, they cant understand that the second world, which also came into existence by God will also be destroyed and that a third one is promised. God is not bound by time. He said this will happen and it will. Just because it hasnt happened yet, doesnt mean that it never will.
We Are Not Bound By Time

Everything we do is based on time. We are finite creatures, not infinite. There is a time clock inside of you, so to speak. It is not winding up; it is winding down. It begins to wind down the second you are born. Whether you have thought about it or not we are pushed by time, somewhere inside we know that we have only a limited number of ticks on the clock of this planet. For this reason we judge everything based on time. However, to God there is nothing of importance that concerns time except for the moment when His plan is totally fulfilled and the city He is preparing for His people is completed. God makes the rules, not you. Suppose in summer you say, God, either heal me by November 15th or Im going to backslide and go get drunk. You might as well go get drunk. What if God healed you on November 9th? Are you going to get mad because He healed you six days early? God is not bound by our time clock.
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Abraham was not bound by time. He got a glimpse of that city, and suddenly time was no longer important or binding. He and Sarah were close to 100 years old and their reproductive organs were dead. So what? Time didnt matter. Abraham said, God, you said it would happen, so in your time I know it will take place. I am going to have the son You promised. I saw a city that will come down one of these days. I had a conversation with you; I know your will Those of you who put out fleeces before the Lord, dont be ignorant of Gods timetable. If you keep your hope against hope and believe in faith, it will happen. Then the answer of God will make rich and have no sorrow. Did you ever notice how many things that come to pass cause you a lot of trouble?
The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22
Why not simply pray and get the mind and will of God, then wait on His timing for that promise to be fulfilled. When you realize there is a city ahead for you where there is no day or night, but Light of all time, life will become exciting for you. Are you seeking the things above? Those things are in Heaven. The Apostle Paul was talking about Heaven in Colossians 3:1 when he said to fix your affections your on things above. There is a Heaven and that place is not a
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figment of religious imagination. You will be able to live like God lives when you get there. Are you looking for that city?
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7.
Heaven: Looking For A City
I used to wonder why so many Christians wanted big houses; then I found out why. When you become born again God put house dweller down inside of you. Down here you may not have that big house, but there is coming a day when you will have a mansion. Jesus went to build you one; He put a nature in you that wants to live where He is. Jesus encouraged Peter with this promise. He spoke about mansions to come immediately after He warned Peter that he would betray his Master three times before the cock crowed. Peter was relying on his own strength to follow Jesus at that time. Jesus wanted to give him a reason to look beyond his own strength and to rely on the Lord.
Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
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And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. John 13:36-38, 14:1-4
The house God lives in is no cheap place. The city for which His people have looked for thousands of years is a big place; a monumental place. Jesus said, I am going away to prepare you a dwelling place where you will be able to live as God lives. Not only are you going to experience that in Heaven, the Father wants you to experience that kind of living on earth I call it kingdom living. On earth kingdom living doesnt necessarily have to do with houses and land, but with attitudes and blessings that bring peace of mind. When Paul wrote to the Colossians to seek the things which are above, he was talking about the things that abound where Christ sits on the right hand of God: Peace Joy Love Health Prosperity Unity, because there is no division of any kind in Heaven.
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I am not only looking for that city where these things are a way of life; but I am also seeking them right now. I grew up in the Pentecostal movement; to one degree or another I have been in the house of God all of my life. One thing I have noticed that is different about people of my early years and those of today is commitment. I am sorry to say that I do not see the commitment to God and to the Christian walk today that I saw in earlier years. In many peoples lives when they experience a little trouble or a little persecution and they fall by the wayside. They throw up their hands, blame God for everything and say, If God is going to be that way, Im not going to live for Him. When this happens, the first thing I worry about is whether that person is really saved. The second thing I wonder about is the state of his or her mind. Once you are born again the Word of God says that your mind is to change. You still live in this world, but you are no longer to be of this world. Paul wrote several things about renewing the mind and the inner man:
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
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And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Ephesians 4:21-24 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Colossians 3:10
Contrary to the way your mind feels you are not going to live in this world forever. If the devil can make you feel as if your lifetime is forever, he will try to distort the way you live. On the other hand the old mentality of we only around once, might as well experience all that we can is the other extreme. The mind cant understand the things of the spirit, so it feels like it will live forever. That was the whole point of Jesus Parable of the Rich Man who had so much that his barns couldnt hold it all.
And he thought within himself, saying, what shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, this will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. Luke 12:17-18
In the next verse, however, God told him that his soul would be required of him that very night and everything he had laid up so boastfully would belong to someone else. Jesus also said that everyone who lays up treasure for himself was like that man. It is better to be rich toward God (Luke 12:21). If you walk in that old mentality, the first thing that will happen is that your life span will be shortened. If you
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embrace that philosophy and lifestyle, I guarantee that you will die prematurely. Eating, drinking, and being merry, will probably insure that you will die with cirrhosis of the liver or something similar. Let me be very plain: If you live life according to this worlds standards you will die early! Not too long after World War II the devil really came out of the closet in this country. He began to promote the thought that we can live our life anyway we want to, and society bought the lie. Now people predict that more than ten million people will die of AIDS by 1995. Some of those will be innocent of wrongdoing, but others, you might say, will be killed by the modern mindset that nothing is basically wrong. Humanism says, If it feels good, go for it. But God said in Psalm 92 that those who are planted in the house of the Lord and who walk uprightly before Him would still be bringing forth fruit in their old age. I will take Gods guarantee over the worlds any day. Are you wondering how to do that? It is simple; after you are born again, set you mind on things above.
Choose A Heavenly Lifestyle

I know that sanctified living is not a popular subject in most of todays charismatic, Spirit-filled churches; but it is going to get popular. This is the way the Lord is moving today. Once you are born again and Spirit-filled, your responsibility is to get your mind renewed and your lifestyle separated from the worlds.
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If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3
The more you see the world going down, the more you are going to see ministers of the Gospel reminding people of the things in the Word of God like the verses above. They will again concentrate on reminding people of a world that is not going to go down. In the United States, societys lifestyle since the 1970s has produced the biggest national debt that has ever been in the history of the plant; and that debt is guaranteed to double about every four years, just in interest alone. I dont care whether it is the federal government or your personal household; you cant keep taking out of something that is not there. Ultimately, someone is going to call in your note. I am not talking politics; I am talking about keeping your mind renewed on the things above. There is a Heaven to gain and a Hell to shun. There is a heavenly lifestyle you and I are called to embrace, and there is a lifestyle of Hell that we are to be delivered from. I would like to see all Christians become more and more Heaven-conscious. Are you Heavenconscious or earth-conscious? You will not be Heaven-conscious unless you are confident that there is such a place and that you are going there. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:6-8:
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Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. Philippians 1:23-24
You cant be confident of what you do not know, and you cant be confident of what you do not believe. You may know about Heaven, but not be confident that it is a real place. You must know Heaven is a real place; that is what gives you confidence. There some religious groups that say you cant know for sure until you stand inside the pearly gates; but Paul didnt teach that. He believed he was living the kingdom life on earth but that eventually he was going to stand before the throne of God. He was confident that when he died he would immediately be in the presence of Jesus. Some religious beliefs teach that if you work hard enough, you might get to be one of those who get to go to heaven. I tell you that if you work to get there, you will never make it. There is only one way to reach that city for which we are looking and that is through Jesus Christ. There is only one door in the ark of safety, one door that leads into the Kingdom.
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Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. John 10:7-9
There is only one way you can get through the door into Heaven, and that is Jesus. Paul had a revelation of that fact. He knew who he was in Christ, so his mind was always on the Lord. For the sake of the people in the churches he planted, it was better for him to remain on this earth as long as possible. However he knew for himself it would be better to be with the Lord. Paul was confident because he had seen that city above. He had lost any fear of death. He knew there was a Heaven where Jesus was. He said, you can kill me if you want to; but all you can do is kick me up, not kick me out. Anyway I go, I win and God wins. I like that kind of mentality. There is no such thing as losing in Christ. Pauls attitude is what all of us need to have. We need to realize that anytime we go somewhere, Jesus gets there when we do. I asked the Lord, How did the apostles get so much faith? What was it about them? Then I began to think about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah and Moses. What gave them so much faith when they didnt have as much of the Word of God as we do? What about Daniel? What
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about the men who get thrown into a den of lions and are confident of victory? Then I began to see from the Word how they got so much faith; they had their eyes and their affections on things above. There are people who get a cold and backslide because God didnt heal them. There are people who leave churches because the preacher preaches a little too long for them. But, you couldnt get me to deny God today.
See Yourself As A Traveler

One result of the Old Testament saints seeing that city was that they became constant travelers, passing from one world to the next. Abraham journeyed throughout his entire life. Everywhere he set down his feet was to belong to him through his descendants, yet he didnt settle down anywhere. Imagine owning even 500 acres with cattle as far as you can see. You have gold for more than your needs. You have camels for transportation you have everything you want in life, but you dont build a big ranch house. Instead you live in a tent and every so often you pull up your tent stakes and move to live on another of your acres. Abraham could have built an entire modern city for Sarah if he wanted to; but instead he wanted to journey through this world. He wanted to be a sojourner in the land by faith. That attitude needs to be understood in our lives. Abraham didnt want a man-made house; he wanted a
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mansion built by God. He didnt want an earthly city; he wanted that heavenly city. When Jesus came as a carpenter, He was witnessing to the descendants of Abraham. He was saying, Our father Abraham looked for a city that the great architect and carpenter of the universe has made; and I am He. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob refused to become bound up with the things of this life. They refused to compromise and get pushed down by the things of this world. They knew and kept in their minds all the time that there is a city whose builder and maker is God and it belonged to them. I believe Abraham had a revelation of Jesus during His lifetime, hundreds of years before Jesus came to earth. Abrahams whole life and his lifestyle testified that he was blessed by God and that he was only a pilgrim and a stranger here. Our lives need to be saying plainly that we are in the world but that the world is not in us. The world doesnt have a hold on us. If the thrust of your life is to get everything you can for yourself down here, you may be emptying out your home in Heaven. Our lives need to be like those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob focused on the eternal city of God. There is a life that is bigger and better than this. It is called eternal life. The place where that life is to be lived is called the Kingdom of Heaven. I am convinced that in the beginning earth was supposed to be like the City of Heaven. I am convinced that when I get there I will have the same red hair and blue eyes that I have here. I am
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convinced that I will know my wife, Cindy, and our three children and they will know me. I believe I am going to live with them or around them. God put that in my heart. Hebrews 10:10 says that Abraham looked for a city. That word looked means to anxiously wait and expect. Abraham had somehow seen that city as in a vision; he anxiously waited and expected to see it in person. That was the central desire of his entire life. Once he caught hold of that vision, God could bless him. God said, Abraham, you are the kind of man I can bless with a lot of money, because you have the money; it doesnt have you. You have cows, sheep, goats, and camels as far as the eye can see, but those herds and flocks dont have you. You look for a better city. Yet Abraham and those others never received the promise; that is so precious to me. Thank God we have examples of men and women who, even if they never receive the promise, still kept their faith. One thing is certain; whether or not God ever manifests another promise for you, if you have Heaven in your heart you can live by faith. If God never answers another one of your prayers, He has already answered the big one if you have Jesus in your heart. If you never own a Cadillac down here, you have a golden street to walk on one of these days. You already have it even though you cant see it until you move into the next life. Every single day of your life you need to be at the point where you could die and remain in the faith. There should never be a day in your life when you get out of the
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faith especially because of circumstances or promises not yet received. Abraham didnt have Jesus manifested in the flesh. He didnt have Jesus sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead; we do. We should have greater commitment to faith in the promises of God in His Word than Abraham did.
Faith Requires Commitment

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the apostles of the New Testament all had one thing that kept their faith strong, that was commitment. Without total commitment to the things of God and the Christian walk, you will waiver and sometimes be double minded (James 1:6-8). Your lifestyle needs to show plainly that you are of the household of faith, a citizen of Heaven. Those people mentioned in Hebrews 11 all had Heaven in and on their minds. Heaven was their goal. Because they had that inside them, and they were going in that direction, they were persuaded that the promises of God were for them. They embraced those things and refused to let go. They took hold of those things with the commitment of never letting go of them. They never released their hold on what they had received by faith. At some point in your life you will have to embrace take hold of permanently the city of Heaven, or you will remain a carnal Christian all of your life. You can be a Christian, speak in tongues, shout, dance, jump the pews and still be carnal. You can be baptized so many times
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that you know every turtle in the creek and still be carnal. None of those things will make any difference in your Christian walk until you embrace the truth of your final destination: Heaven. You must come to a point where you are convinced you are living for God for a reason. You are not living to whip devil. You can overcome him in your life every time by faith. Heaven literally mean the place where God lives. Abraham embraced the place where God lives. You must make the decision to do the same. At some point you will have to say, I know I am just flesh and blood; but I know there is something more, someone greater, somewhere where I will be and have the ALL that God has promised to me. Jesus said as much when He said not to hold on to the things of this world:
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Matthew 6:19-21
If you can see yourself plainly, you know that by looking in the mirror every morning that life is changing rapidly. You can use cosmetics, dye your hair, exercise, and dress attractively, but you cant run away from the facts; the life of the body is winding down from the moment of birth. If
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you think the first years of your life have gone by fast, what about the next 10, 20, or 30? I would like to bring every reader to the point of reality - that there is a Heaven to gain and a Hell to shun. When men and women truly begin to look for that city, the things of this life suddenly become insignificant. All they want to do is live a life that is a testimony and a witness to that city to come. Can you imagine what they thought about Abraham? I heard a preacher say once, I am just on my journey to Heaven. I had to come through this life to get there. Another preacher said, Today on my way to Heaven, I stopped off to speak to you. In a little while I am moving out on my journey once again. Have you ever underlined a passage in your Bible with a highlighter? I am telling you that if you seek that city by faith then your life highlights to those around you the fact that you are looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.
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A City Called Heaven

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A City Called Heaven

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A City Called Heaven