Travel Guide to Heaven

Revelation 7:9-17

It appears that a number of people have been making round trips to heaven in recent years. “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” is a 2010 New York Times best-selling book about a three-year old’s account of going to heaven and meeting Jesus. If you have a hard time believing a three year old, especially when the book is written by his father who happens to be a pastor, you can read another book. “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Near-Death Experience and Journey into the Afterlife” which was written by Dr. Eben Alexander and published last year. Apparently the heavenly travel agency is running a special for doctors, because another new book is out entitled “To Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story by Mary C. Neal M.D.

These are just three of the recent and well-publicized accounts of people who say they have been to heaven and back. Personally I don’t know exactly what to make of them, but there seems to be more and more people who say they have had such experiences. Some in this church have had such experiences, and have shared them with me. I respect your experiences and your willingness to share. I have not had any such experience. When I read about the experiences in these books, I don’t know how much of what they experienced are physiological, psychological or spiritual. I guess I won’t know until I die. If I have such an experience, my plan is that I won’t be coming back to write a book about it. When the Lord calls me home – I don’t care how many departed loved ones try to convince me that it is not my time, that I should go back to earth, that I still have work to do, I am going to say, “Lord, Let, someone else do the work. I’m going home to heaven!”

The Book of Revelation is a late first century account of a man who also took a trip to heaven and returned to tell about it. He was named John, and is traditionally identified as the apostle John. But the author of Revelation never identifies himself as the apostle in the book. So it may or not be John, the son of Zebedee, one of Jesus’s original 12 disciples. This John who wrote Revelation was on the Greek island of Patmos and he had one of these round trips to heaven. You can call it a Near Death Experience if you want, or a vision or a religious experience. He calls it a revelation. He saw a door open into heaven and a voice called him to come up, and he did. His account is much more interesting and complete than the paperback bestsellers published these days. This morning we are going to explore one small section of it. I am entitling this message “Travel Guide to Heaven” because that is what Revelation is – or at least parts of it.

Just in case you were planning a trip to heaven sometime, there are some things you ought to know and some people you ought to meet. If you have ever visited a foreign country you likely bought a travel guide, especially if you were going to spend time on your own and not just be with a tour group. The guide books are very good at telling you about sites of historical interest, transportation, lodging and restaurants. But they are not so good telling you about the people. Carol Asher, the pastor at the Congregational Church in Center Harbor recently went on a trip to the Holy Land. But her tour was designed not just to visit the historical, archaeological and religious sites; it was designed also to meet the people of the land - the Christians, Jews and Muslims of that land. I have found that when traveling, meeting people is just as important as seeing the beautiful scenery and tasting new cuisines.

I. In our passage today John saw people in heaven – lots of them. In the modern books about heavenly trips people will talk about maybe meeting a deceased loved one or Jesus or an angel, but that is about it. Heaven is sparsely populated in these modern accounts. I think this is because, if they are real experiences of heaven, these authors are just peeking in the door of heaven and are greeted by family and then had to return home. But John of Revelation got the full tour of heaven, and he saw a lot of people. Our passage begins: “I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Who are these residents of heaven? Well it is clear that they are not just the chosen people. If we look back at the first half of this chapter 7 we see that the first group of people that John saw in heaven were all Jews. 144,000 of them  - 12,000 from each of twelve tries of Israel. There are lot of arcane interpretations about who these 144, 000 are. For example the Jehovah’s Witnesses says they are all Jehovah’s Witnesses. But it clear to me that they are Jews. This is exactly who a Jew like the apostle John (who I assume is the author) would expect to see in heaven. The Jews are God’s chosen people according to Scripture, and a Jew would expect to see heaven full of Jews. The problem is that every religion thinks they are the ones who have a monopoly on heaven. Each religious group thinks they have the golden ticket on the Polar Express. John thought his people would be in heaven. And when he first looked around his beliefs were confirmed, but then it says, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands….”

This great multitude dwarfed the number of Jews present. You could count the Jews, but this group of Gentiles was so large that it could not be counted. They were from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. In other words heaven is big. There is lots of room in heaven. This tells us that whatever our vision of heaven is and who I there, the reality is bigger than we could imagine. That was the topic of former megachurch pastor Rob Bell’s 2011 book,  Love Wins. Bell is the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan. He got in a lot of trouble with fellow evangelicals by suggesting the possibility that Mahatma Gandhi might be in heaven even though he wasn’t a Christian. Bell has a new book out about God that promises to be just as controversial. Personally I am not a universalist; I think the scripture makes it clear that there is a choice to be made. Heaven is not automatic. People have to choose to go to heaven, and not everyone chooses to. That is the price of free will. But I aware enough of my own narrow-mindedness and religious prejudice to conclude that God’s vision of heaven is bigger than mine – and that heaven will certainly include people and peoples I cannot imagine. God’s grace is certainly wider than my grace or most Christian’s grace. As the hymn says, “There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea; there's a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty. For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.”

Again, who are these people, this great multitude? Where did they come from? That is the question that one of John’s heavenly guides asks him. Verse 13 “Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” John replies, “I don’t have a clue! You tell me.” (That is the Davis American English translation) Verse 14,” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

This tells us two important things. First these people came out of what is called the “great tribulation.” A lot of people have wasted a lot of ink and inkjet cartridges writing about this verse. Some people think this refers to the three hundred year persecution of the church that began in the first century and continued until Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire in the fourth century. That makes the most sense in the historical context of when this book was written. But in the last couple of hundred years this passage has been interpreted to refer to a greater persecution which will occur at the end of history. People get out their calculators and predict the years, dates and lengths of the great persecution in the end times. Others take a broader view of history and see that persecution of Christians has been an ongoing affair throughout the millennia. For example, more Christians died by persecution in the 20^th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined! In the 21^st century the persecution seems to getting worse with increasing violence against ancient Christian communities in places like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, and Palestine. Christians are becoming extinct in the land of their birth. Christians are being driven out of lands that they have never had to flee before, chiefly because of persecution from radical Islamic groups.

Personally when I read this chapter of Revelation, I refuse to get into prophecy calculations or end times scenarios. I see this chapter as proclaiming a timeless truth. There is a great hymn entitled “Once to Every Man and nation” (unfortunately not in our hymnal) based on a poem “The Present Crisis” by James Lowell. The poem reads in part: “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.” These saints in white robes in Revelation 7 represent those in every generation who were on the scaffold while wrong was on the throne. God kept watch over them even unto death. And in heaven they praise him.

This chapter also says that this multitude “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” This is speaking about forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. When interpreting Revelation, one must always remember that the focus is on Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As Christians we understand that salvation comes through Christ. It is not about religion – not even the religion called Christianity. It is not about taking sacraments, following commandments, holding correct doctrine, or being good. It is about being forgiven. And forgiveness is something that happens by the grace of God through faith in Christ – specifically through the Cross of Christ. Beyond that simple gospel truth, salvation is a mystery to me. But I am comfortable with mystery. I don’t feel the need to judge other people about whether or not they are going to heaven.  I leave that up the Judge of all the Earth.  All I know is that I am trusting in the cross of Christ.  What we cannot do for ourselves, God did for us in Christ. God provides the way. He opens the door to heaven all the way. Not just to peek inside the door so you come back and write a bestseller. You don’t get to heaven just by dying, regardless of what the Near Death Experiencers say. We get to heaven by Christ dying and by rising from the dead. That is how this multitude ended up in heaven.

John met some other residents on his trip to heaven according to this passage. It says in verse 11 that John saw “All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God.”  Angels are the original residents of heaven. You could call them the natives. They are fantastic creatures, when you study what the scriptures say about them and how they are described. But unfortunately I do not have time to get into that. That is a whole sermon in itself. The elders are mentioned in this passage also. Here it doesn’t mean folks over 65. There is no senior discount or special seating for retired folks in heaven. Sorry.  These elders are usually thought by scholars to represent the OT patriarchs or the NT apostles.  Or perhaps not. Maybe they are other people entirely. Jesus said that the first shall be last, and the last first. But there seem to be some special folks in heaven, whoever they are. Then there are the four living creatures. These are fantastic animal like creatures, described earlier in the book, which represent the animal kingdom. Yes, all dogs go to heaven. And cats, too. All of the animal kingdom are represented here. Heaven is not a human only zone.

There are some things that you won’t see in heaven. And these are just as important as what you will see. Our passage says about the multitude of people in heaven, verses 16-17 “They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

When you get to heaven, you will see neither hunger nor thirst. You will see no natural catastrophes, nor diseases. And you will see no tears in heaven, for God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  In short, this is saying there will be no more suffering. Suffering is one of the dominant characteristics of our earthly existence. In fact religions like Buddhism have as their main goal the elimination of suffering. The Cross of Jesus Christ tells us that there is no elimination of suffering in this life. We can reduce it, and we should do everything we can to reduce poverty and disease and oppression and injustice. I think that psychological treatment can reduce a lot of psychological suffering from mental illness. I also think that spiritual practices can reduce much of the unnecessary mental and emotional suffering that we put ourselves through. The more we can forgive, the better off we are. The more we can love unconditionally, the happier we will be. The less attached we are to money and possessions, the better off we are. The less dependent we are on people’s or society’s opinions and the more we  care solely about God and his kingdom, the better off we will be. The less we fear death and the ore we trust God for eternal life, the better off we will be.

In short the more we live the heavenly life while in this earthly life, the less suffering we will have I our own hearts and minds, in our families and country and world. When Jesus taught about heaven, he did not just talk about it as a place you go when you die. He did speak about that aspect of heaven also. But he also taught about how the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand now. That was his earliest and dominant message. The Kingdom of heaven is spread abroad across the world and people don’t see it. He even taught that it is within us and around us and in our midst.  This is the practical reality of heaven. Heaven is not just a reward in the sky by and by. It is present here now. God is omnipresent, which means that God just as present here and now as in heaven when we die.  So we do not have to wait until death or a near death experience to reap our eternal reward. We can enjoy in a lot of the qualities of heaven – called the fruit of the Spirit - while still present with our earthly bodies. We can experience – to a greater degree than most of us realize – heaven on earth. We experience it the way those in our passage experience it – by the selfless worship and service of our risen Lord.