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Revelation 21:1-5 "No Need To Speculate!" A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke May 2, 2010
Fifth Sunday of Easter: Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-7; John 16:12-22
In April, 1992, Maclean’s magazine featured an interesting topic. It was about near-death experiences. According to this article, people have become increasingly bold in telling what happened to them during moments when they were clinically dead. Most of those accounts talk about a tunnel of light. They talk about people in glowing clothes who encourage them to reach up toward that light. They talk about hearing the voices of loved ones who have already passed away. In most of these accounts, the person is filled with peace and joy and eagerly desires to approach that light, but is told to go back. Then the patient comes back to consciousness. This past April, Maclean’s carried another article about near death experiences on its website. In that one, it was reported that 25% of heart attack patients report near death experiences and 10% of all others in emergency situations report them. The stories about these experiences have raised many questions and resulted in much speculation. Some people are sure those experiences are just dreams. Others think they are actual glimpses of life after death. Some people claim that these are reactions produced by a brain that is trying to preserve sanity in the face of death. Others see these experiences as proof that they personally will see the Lord once they die again. The latest theory is that high carbon dioxide levels in the blood initiate near death experiences. What do these experiences mean? Are they really proof that heaven truly exists? Are they merely a physical reaction in the brain? We can thank God that we do not have to rely on dreams and speculations or the accounts of people who have been near death to answer that question. We can thank God that He has given us a clear answer already! In our reading from the book of Revelation today we are told exactly what heaven is all about. Of all the things the Bible says about that wonderful place, this is the most important: "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God!" We can thank God that He tells us about heaven through His Word. By that Word we have a way of avoiding the dangers of relying on dreams and mystical experiences to answer the questions that can be so pressing sometimes. We have His word to avoid the danger of staking our future on something that is so personal that it is almost impossible to interpret in a God-pleasing way!
For example, according to that same Maclean’s article, people of all religions and cults seem to have had these near death experiences. Even people who have been not very religious at all have experienced this. Almost to a person, these people are changed by that. They no longer fear death. They gain a great deal of confidence in themselves. Some of these people see this change as a personal proof that eternal life does not have to have anything to do with faith in Jesus. They also feel assured that this sight of the light is a guarantee that they will be in heaven no matter what they do or what they believe in this life! Is it really safe for them to assume that on the basis of what they saw? God's Word tells a little about what we can expect after we die. It is good to review that and see how it compares to what these near death experiences are all about. Firstly, the Bible tells us that it is not just believers who will be raised from the dead! Jesus told the Jews who challenged Him, "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear the voice of the Son and come out--those who have done good and those who have done evil!" (John 5:28) When Paul was on trial, he told the judge in Acts 24:15, "...there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked." Then the Bible tells us why the bodies and souls of all people will be reunited: "We all must appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to what he has done, whether it be good or bad", (2 Cor 5:10). Until that point when the resurrection will take place and the body and the soul reunite, the Bible says the souls of believers will be in heaven. They will be with Abraham and Moses and even the thief on the cross who was promised Paradise that very day! On the other hand, the spirits of unbelievers will be in prison, which is the place where Jesus went when He descended into hell before rising again from the dead. (1 Peter 3:19) Remember, as nice as it may be to actually look upon Jesus in all His glory and to hear His voice, that sight and those sounds are not necessarily heaven! Even the damned will hear Jesus and be brought back to life. Even the condemned will look upon the Lord. Then, however, there will be the judgement. Jesus will separate the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the tares, the believers and the unbelievers, and the unbelievers will be condemned! That tunnel of light that near death experience people talk about may actually be the approach to the judgement seat! It might be the path that their souls take before they are placed in that spot where they will wait for the resurrection. Those people who think that they will go to heaven no matter what they have believed and whom they may have worshipped in this life might just have a terrible shock in store for them when they see what is really at the end of that tunnel! Christian theologians have often said, "One thing is sure, hell contains no atheists, because the damned have actually experienced God as the righteous Judge. There is no room in hell for the lie that there is no God." Part of the suffering in hell is the fact that the people there have become certain about Jesus only after it was too late. The Bible tells us that to be in hell is to have Jesus say, "Depart from Me, you who are cursed." (Matthew 15:41) and to be banished from His presence. In this life, Jesus constantly reminds us He is near to us and will take us into His open arms as we come to Him in faith for the forgiveness of our sins. Yet, many people refuse to see how near He is and reject that offer. On Judgement Day, it will be obvious to any and every unbeliever how near Jesus is, but then those arms will be closed to them. God will ignore them just as they had once ignored God, and in hell, they will understand fully what that means! It could possibly be that the feelings of peace and joy that some people experience in a near death experience actually happen to show them what they will be missing in eternity! How dangerous it is to rely on dreams and visions for hope! How foolish it is to rely on the claims of people, no matter who sincere they are in what they tell us they have experienced when near death! Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. If we don't rely on God's Word to tell us about what to expect, then we take the risk of being deceived just as some of the people with near death experiences themselves may have been deceived! Christians should be cautious when forming opinions about near death experiences. That caution should come, firstly because a consciousness about life after death does not necessarily mean a person is going to heaven. Caution should also come because of the danger of dreams and visions becoming more important than the truth of the written Word of God! That is the second point to consider. We really do not have to look for all sorts of signs and wonders to know what life after death will be like for the redeemed. We already have the greatest wonder of all to help us and to assure us and to comfort us with the Word of truth! John tells us that we have the Holy Scriptures just so that we might see Jesus and believe! Paul tells us that we have faith itself as we hear God's Word and believe. That is the real wonder! That is the real assurance. When the Jews asked Jesus for a sign that He really was the Christ, Jesus answered in Matthew 12:39 that the only sign would be the sign of Jonah. It would be the fact that He would spend three days in darkness and then be raised to life again! That sign, the sign of Easter, is the one on which we rely! That is the sign that we believe as God gives us faith itself. That is the one to turn to so that we can know by our heart of hearts we can trust God's Word. We can trust Jesus has forgiven us our sins. We can trust He has given us salvation. We can trust everything that Bible tells us about our lives now and in eternity! This is the trust that gives us so much comfort when we read the words of our second lesson this morning: "Now the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them." Today we know that Jesus is present in our lives. We know that He is with us because faith tells us so. Faith tells us that we need "fear no evil, for God is with us and His rod and His staff are there to comfort us." (Psalm 23) Faith tells us that the Lord is near to all who call upon Him and call upon Him in truth. (Psalm 145:18) Faith tells us that God is close by so that we can reach out to Him and find Him, for He is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:27) That is what faith tells us, but the day will come when we will see Him fully. We will actually, truly dwell with God. We will look upon Him with our own eyes. Job said, "After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see Him with my own eyes--I, and not another." (Job 19:26) This is what heaven is really all about! Beneath all those images of the Garden of Eden, or of a heavenly Jerusalem made of pearls and gold and precious stones, heaven is that place where you will see God and know Him and love Him perfectly! Heaven is that place where you will live with God and "He will wipe every tear from your eyes. There will be no more mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away!" We don't need to use visions and dreams or speculation to give us knowledge of heaven. God has already told us as much as we need to know! A third point to consider is the fact dreams and visions and the testimonies that people give about those experiences should not be the motive for how we live our lives! There is a temptation to interpret the Bible according to such experiences, instead of interpreting the experience in light of Scripture. One student of this phenomenon, for example, who even called himself a Christian pastor, came to the conclusion that all religions have been invented to explain near death experiences. He felt that Christianity is just one attempt to describe and make sense of the testimonies people have given through the ages. This pastor forgot that if you use dreams to interpret the Bible or to understand faith, there is only one way that those dreams will eventually lead you; that is, away from faith. His conclusions go completely against the testimony of Scripture which tells us our faith is not made by man but is a gift from God! It also caused him to forget that salvation is in no other name but the name of Jesus! If we use dreams and visions to interpret the Bible, the Bible is disregarded well before those visions and dreams are thrown away! Anything that we experience in life as Children of God should be interpreted by us with God's Word in mind. The sight of a flower can strengthen our faith in God when we remember that the Bible tells us God created all things. The experience of Christian love that is shown by one person to another has meaning for us when we see that we love because God first loved us. In a similar way, if you have had a near death experience, the only way to avoid the related dangers is to remember, that God Himself has promised us the privilege of eternal hope and joy in the name of Jesus Christ. That salvation was won for us, not by what we have done or what we have dreamt, but simply out of what Jesus has given to us out of His deep and abiding love for us! In the end, the important thing is not speculation about exactly what things will be like after we die. Even the details about the punishment of hell or the joys of heaven are not the most important. The important thing is that we realize that heaven and hell exists. There will be a judgement, but we have been given time, now , to be ready. Jesus really did die so that all believe in Him have eternal life even as those who reject Him will be condemned. God have us His Word so that we would not reject Him. He offered us faith so that we could know Him and praise Him and thank Him for accepting us as His Children! This is the important thing. Jesus has become the light to the Gentiles so that He could bring salvation to the ends of the earth. That salvation has come even to this end of the earth, even to this place which is among the coldest and harshest places in the entire world where God’s people dwell. That salvation has come as far as your heart and your faith. It has come as far as your home and your family. It has come as far as your congregation. It has come as far as your altar, before which you stand to receive our glorious Lord in, with, and under the Bread and the Wine. As you have heard this Good News, you too, have been given the chance to be glad and to honour the Word of the Lord, and you, who have been appointed to eternal life, have believed! A voice came from Heaven in our second reading this morning. A voice came to remind all who believe that God dwells among us right now for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. He dwells among you and me to remind us that He is indeed our God. Really, when you think about it, your entire life is a near death experience. Sometimes you are too aware how near death is when a friend or a neighbour or a loved one dies. Sometimes it is overwhelming how near death is when that end happens to be sudden and unexpected and it happens to that person who seemed just fine last time you spoke to him or her. Other times you barely give it a thought that you could get bad news at any time. You might not even try to think of the possibility you yourself might not leave that car alive that you are about to climb into after church this morning. Death could come into your life and overpower you at any moment; that is how near death really is. The issue, though, is that you have something even nearer to you than that. You have the assurance that God Himself is with you through His Word and by His grace. You have the assurance that God is now and promises always to be so near to you that He can reach out to you with hope even in the nearness of death. He reaches out to you with the promise that the day will come when He will wipe away every tear from your eyes. God is much nearer to you than death could ever be. He is as near to you as life itself. He is near to you as our Christ, who has made everything new by being raised again from the dead. He is near to you as that true and faithful Word that promises you His life. He promises you life so fully and so completely that you don’t need anything else to be ready. You don’t need anything else to be comforted, as if some “scientific observation” or personal witness of a near death experience could do more for you than God’s own Word. All you need is what only God Himself can give you: the assurance that he who overcomes will inherit all things so that God will be your God with no if, ands, or buts, and you will be His child. The Word of God will continue to guide you in your faith, so that you will be encouraged in your salvation until that day when you stand before the Lord and see Him face to face! Amen. |
