A few months ago I wrote about a new songs that Misael and I wrote, that we also sang in church. Here is a demo mp3 and also the chord sheets. Note that Read the rest of this entry →

Genesis 11:27-12:9

Genesis 6:14-7:5

Genesis 6

To say that the word “heaven” is an important Biblical concept can be easily proven by the fact the word appears over 580 different times in the Bible. Sometimes the idea of heaven refers to the sky, as when Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  While other times it focuses on that place where God lives, such as when Jesus said in John 14:23, “…if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

The popular view that heaven’s entrance is a pearly gate where Saint Peter grants admission to that lush filled land of golden streets comes from both popular imagination and Scripture. Nowhere do we read that Peter stands at a pearly gate. However, Revelation 21:21 says the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are made of a single pearl and the “street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.”

But there is more to heaven than gates and gold. For example, the Bible teaches us that heaven will not be a land far away in another place and time; instead, it will be localized on the new earth. Revelation is clear that we do not go to live in some celestial enclave; rather, God brings heaven with him to the earth. God makes heaven, heaven.

Certainly heaven will be a place where there will be no more death, no more sin, no more suffering, and it will be filled with light, angels, rejoicing, and pleasures. Revelation 7:9 states that people from every corner of the earth will stand before the Lord, giving us the hope that we will see those loved ones who died in the Lord, and we will meet men and women whom we’ve grown up longing to meet for their exploits of faithfulness, along with those of whose faith we have never heard. But all of this will take a back seat to the fact that we will see Jesus face to face.

Volumes have been written on the splendors of heaven, and this article could have been written from a purely theoretical standpoint. But what each of us ought to keep clear in our understanding is that heaven is a real place, and our only access to it is through Jesus Christ, for at the end of the day, wherever Jesus is, that’s where heaven will be.

Dana Arledge, Will Uminn, Phil Meade, Kevin Farmer

“When men talk of a little hell, it is because they think they have only a little sin, and they believe in a little Savior.  But when you get a great sense of sin, you want a great Savior, and feel that if you don’t have him, you will fall into a great destruction, and suffer a great punishment at the hands of the great God.” -C. H. Spurgeon

Hell is a reality that the world ignores It is the butt of jokes and a swear word that to most has lost any since of meaning. What does the Scripture teach about the final place of punishment?

Hell, the Lake of fire, the final judgment that was made for the Satan and his followers is a place of rejection. Matthew 7 describes people being sent away from the presence of the Master, “depart from me, I never knew you”. This image of being in the presence of God and being sent away is a startling one. It shows not only are they sent away and not allowed to enjoy the presence of God, but that for a moment they new the presence of God and will have that knowledge for eternity.

The Lake of fire is pain. Its name befits the type of punishment that will be executed there. Mathew 13:40-43, along with other passages uses the imagery of a fiery furnace where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is a pain that is worse then we can understand here on earth. Christ warns us not to fear those who can hurt the body, but He who can destroy it in hell.

Hell is a place of loneliness and darkness. Mathew 22:13 says, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness, in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” This is in contrast to the presence of God who is the light of New Jerusalem. Away from God man is in utter darkness without hope and alone.

The most sobering thought about the doctrine of Hell is that it is the eternal judgment. This will not just be for a moment but forever: “everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46), “everlasting fire” (Matt. 18:8), “the fire that will never be quenched” (Mark 9:45) and “the worm that never dies” (Mark 9:46). There is no easy way out, only the grace of God. And so as the Apostle Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:11, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.”

Kevin Farmer, Will Uminn, Dana Arledge, Phil Meade