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Will Heaven Ever Grow Boring? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, you know that feeling that you get, that anticipation
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  Speaker 1: when you're waiting for a package to arrive, and then
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  Speaker 1: it does, and there's that little hit of excitement when
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  Speaker 1: you see the box on your doorstep, You grab it,
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  Speaker 1: you tear open the box, and within like five minutes,
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  Speaker 1: the thrill is gone. New thrills wear off so very
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  Speaker 1: quickly for us. It's a major failing of our fallen
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  Speaker 1: nature to be so easily bored with everything. So how
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  Speaker 1: do we know that heaven will not grow boring to
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  Speaker 1: us after a million years? The question comes from a
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  Speaker 1: young man named Mason Pater John and I have been
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  Speaker 1: struggling with the concept of eternity lately. Mason writes, I
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  Speaker 1: started reading Randy Alcorn's book about Heaven. That's a good start,
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  Speaker 1: along with DG articles, videos and listening to APJ. At first,
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  Speaker 1: I had difficulty imagining what heaven would be like even
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  Speaker 1: for a short time, But after reading I began to
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  Speaker 1: understand joy for thousands, millions, or even billions of years. However,
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  Speaker 1: even one hundred trillion years still seems like nothing. In
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  Speaker 1: light of eternity. I struggle to process something with no end.
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  Speaker 1: How are we not going to get bored. I know
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  Speaker 1: we won't experience time like we do on Earth, and
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  Speaker 1: we will be with God, who is the ultimate source
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  Speaker 1: of joy. But as I read, I see that we
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  Speaker 1: will be doing things, learning, creating, which means time in
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  Speaker 1: the sense of progress will pass. I already question what
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  Speaker 1: more we can do in our short time on Earth.
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  Speaker 1: TV shows that last twenty plus years can become boring,
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  Speaker 1: and technology feels close to its max. And many areas
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  Speaker 1: in heaven without sin or fear of death, there will
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  Speaker 1: be no need for doctors, police, or anything else that
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  Speaker 1: comes within perfections, So all our progress from Earth would
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  Speaker 1: be perfected and accomplished faster. Even with infinite planets to explore,
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  Speaker 1: many would be similar, and it seems like there would
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  Speaker 1: be little distinction between exploring one planet or another. Eventually
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  Speaker 1: we might know every skill, answer every question, or at
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  Speaker 1: least reach a vast understanding. Would we eventually experience everything
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  Speaker 1: and then repeat it? In this life we do things
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  Speaker 1: again when something breaks or needs improvement, But if everything
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  Speaker 1: is perfect in heaven, why would we repeat it? I
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  Speaker 1: know much of this comes down to trust, Trusting to
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  Speaker 1: God and his infinite wisdom has a plan beyond my understanding.
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  Speaker 1: Yet eternity is still so hard to grasp.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. It is beyond question that eternity, whether
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  Speaker 2: we conceive it as time without beginning or ending, or
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  Speaker 2: whether we conceive it as a dimension beyond time, timelessness
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  Speaker 2: is hard to grasp. H I mean, I don't even
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  Speaker 2: know what grasp means when it comes to to something
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  Speaker 2: like that. So let no one be discouraged by that fact.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody acknowledges it unusual. You're not in trouble because you
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  Speaker 2: see that and feel that the Bible confirms it. It's
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  Speaker 2: really a biblical truth, and it doesn't mean to discourage us.
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  Speaker 2: For example, in Ecclesiastes three, God has put eternity into
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  Speaker 2: man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what
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  Speaker 2: God has done from beginning to end. Seems to me
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  Speaker 2: that the least that verse means is that God intends
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  Speaker 2: for us to be aware of a reality of a
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  Speaker 2: kind of eternal time or non time that is not
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  Speaker 2: fully comprehensible. That's the least the verse means. He means
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  Speaker 2: for us to be aware of what we cannot fully grasp.
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  Speaker 2: So you're in a good You're in good company. If
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  Speaker 2: you see something but you can't quite grasp it. C. S.
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  Speaker 2: Lewis expressed something similar when he said that famous line,
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  Speaker 2: If I find in myself a desire which no experience
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  Speaker 2: in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is
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  Speaker 2: that I was made for another world. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: there are pointers in our experience and in the Bible
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  Speaker 2: that there is a reality beyond this world that is
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  Speaker 2: so great and goes so far beyond the present ability
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  Speaker 2: to comprehend, that we just can't grasp it yet. I
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  Speaker 2: think Mason is right when he says, I know much
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  Speaker 2: of this comes down to trust, trusting God in his
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  Speaker 2: infinite wisdom. Well, yes it does. But it's not as
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  Speaker 2: though God simply says there's an eternity coming, you're going
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  Speaker 2: to live in it, so trust me. But that's all
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  Speaker 2: he says. That's not all he says. There is that right,
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  Speaker 2: trust me, Trust me, it's gonna be good. But there
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  Speaker 2: are so many places in the Bible where God seems
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  Speaker 2: bent on trying to help us trust him by giving
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  Speaker 2: us pointers so that we can stretch our imaginations as
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  Speaker 2: far as possible about the happiness of those eternal days.
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  Speaker 2: He doesn't leave us and say just wait you'll find
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  Speaker 2: out He's giving these glimpses again and again. This struck
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  Speaker 2: me really powerfully. It was a couple of years ago
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  Speaker 2: when I stumbled across a sermon by Jonathan Edwards based
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  Speaker 2: on Revelation twenty one eighteen with the title it's the
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  Speaker 2: title of the sermon, nothing upon Earth can represent the
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  Speaker 2: glories of Heaven. Now. Revelation twenty one eighteen is describing
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  Speaker 2: the New Jerusalem, which represents the condition of the people
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  Speaker 2: of God in the eternal state. Here's the way Edwards
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  Speaker 2: puts that. Here is the end, this picture of the
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  Speaker 2: New Jerusalem. Here is the end of all the labors
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  Speaker 2: of the Christian Here is our Father's house. Here is
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  Speaker 2: the end of the race. Here is what Christianity aims at.
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  Speaker 2: Here is the consummation of all God's wondrous dealings with men,
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  Speaker 2: of all those great things which Christ did and suffered.
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  Speaker 2: Here is the end of it all. Wouldn't you just
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  Speaker 2: love to have heard Edwards say that? I mean, you
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  Speaker 2: heard me say it, But I would have loved her.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, that's written so clearly with rhetorical force here
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  Speaker 2: here I wonder how he said it. But that's a parenthesis. Sorry, then,
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  Speaker 2: Edwards focuses on this sentence from Revelation twenty one eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: Here's the sentence. The wall was built of jasper, while
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  Speaker 2: the city was pure gold, like clear glass. And you
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  Speaker 2: stop and say clear glass, gold like glass. And here's
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  Speaker 2: how Edward's reasons from that perplexing image. He says, we
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  Speaker 2: may observe a transcendent property of this gold, that is transparency,
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  Speaker 2: that it is as clear as glass. Such gold as
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  Speaker 2: there is none in the world. There is pure gold,
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  Speaker 2: There is bright gold, but no transparent or clear gold.
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  Speaker 2: Pure gold, although it is the most precious of all metals,
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  Speaker 2: was not sufficient to shadow forth the glory of that city.
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  Speaker 2: There was nothing upon earth that could do as a similitude.
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  Speaker 1: Here.
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  Speaker 2: Therefore, the simile made use of is such a thing
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  Speaker 2: as is not to be found on the earth, clear gold.
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  Speaker 2: And here's the doctrine that he draws out of that observation.
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  Speaker 2: There is nothing upon earth that will suffice to represent
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  Speaker 2: the glories of heaven. In other words, by the very
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  Speaker 2: strangeness of its language, the Bible is trying to help
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  Speaker 2: us adjust our minds to the inconceivability of the glories
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  Speaker 2: and the happiness of eternity. Another example of how the
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  Speaker 2: Bible helps us adjust our minds to handle the unimaginable
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  Speaker 2: glory of our future future condition of happiness is in
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  Speaker 2: First Constance fifteen forty two to forty four goes like this,
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  Speaker 2: So it is with the resurrection.
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  Speaker 1: Of the dead.
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  Speaker 2: The body, the body that is sown that dies is perishable,
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  Speaker 2: while it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor
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  Speaker 2: it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness,
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  Speaker 2: it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body,
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  Speaker 2: it is raised a spiritual body that's like clear goal,
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  Speaker 2: a spiritual body. The point here is to emphasize that
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  Speaker 2: in the resurrection we are going to be embodied persons,
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  Speaker 2: and yet embodied in a way that is like and
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  Speaker 2: yet incomprehensibly unlike our present bodies. He describes it as imperishable, glorious, powerful,
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  Speaker 2: and spiritual. And the reason that matters is that sometimes
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  Speaker 2: we are frightened that our present capacities in this mind
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  Speaker 2: and body are so weak we would never be able
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  Speaker 2: to feel the kind of supernatural eternal joys that would
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  Speaker 2: satisfy it for eternity. And Paul is saying, you won't
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  Speaker 2: have the same body, do panic. You're right you can't
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  Speaker 2: feel it now the way you should or the way
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  Speaker 2: you should. Then too, you won't have the same body.
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  Speaker 2: You won't have the same limitations. You will have a
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  Speaker 2: body perfectly suited to eternal, supernatural, unimaginable pleasures, so unfathomably
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  Speaker 2: more capable of enjoyment than you could ever imagine. You
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  Speaker 2: won't ever run out of the ability to see glory,
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  Speaker 2: be amazed, be refreshed, be thrilled forever. And I think
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  Speaker 2: Jesus is getting at the very same thing in the
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  Speaker 2: High priestly Prayer of John seventeen, when he prays in
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  Speaker 2: verse twenty four, Father, I desire that they may be
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  Speaker 2: with me, the people you've given me, my disciples in
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  Speaker 2: every generation, may be with me where I am to
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  Speaker 2: see my glory that I had with you before the
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  Speaker 2: foundation of the world. Now to which we might respond, well, yes,
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  Speaker 2: that would probably be eternally amazing, But I don't have
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  Speaker 2: the ability to see and enjoy that kind of glory.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a dud when it comes to seeing glory and
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  Speaker 2: feeling it with the kind of admiration that I should,
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  Speaker 2: which is why I think Jesus goes on in verse
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  Speaker 2: twenty six, and praise like this, Father, I will continue
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  Speaker 2: to make your name known to them, so that the
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  Speaker 2: love with which you have loved me may be in them.
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  Speaker 2: Think about that the love with which you have loved
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  Speaker 2: me may be in them, and I in them. Is
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  Speaker 2: that not a prayer that God the Father will give
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  Speaker 2: to us in our resurrected bodies the capacity to love
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  Speaker 2: and enjoy God the Son with the very capacity that
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  Speaker 2: the Father has to love the Son, which is infinite.
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  Speaker 2: He will in some sufficient measure put his love for
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  Speaker 2: the Son in us, so that we love the Son
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  Speaker 2: with the love of the Father. The capacity that has
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  Speaker 2: kept the Trinity in infinite happiness for eternity will be
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  Speaker 2: shared with us. Let me say it again so that
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  Speaker 2: you can hear it for yourselves. Not take my word
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  Speaker 2: for it, that the love with which you Father have
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  Speaker 2: loved the Son may be in them. Be able to
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  Speaker 2: love the Sun, enjoy the Sun, be satisfied in the Sun,
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  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, in his glory, with the very love of
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  Speaker 2: the Father, which has existed from all eternity and never
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  Speaker 2: been bored. So yes, Mason, it does come down to
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  Speaker 2: trust now. But God has given us many helps in
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  Speaker 2: the Bible to feed that trust with expectation. He helps
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  Speaker 2: us again and again to adjust our thinking and our
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  Speaker 2: expectations concerning the never ending glory of eternal joy.
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  Speaker 1: In his presence a glorious episode. Thank you, Pastor John
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  Speaker 1: for painting this image for us. It is something I
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  Speaker 1: can't stop thinking about. It's a vision of a world
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  Speaker 1: where nothing just absorbs light. There's no black hole that
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  Speaker 1: sucks light in, where everything, everything in the New Creation
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  Speaker 1: is perfect crystal catching and throwing off light in every direction.
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  Speaker 1: The light that is the glory of Christ radiating everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds me of years of driving past downtown Minneapolis
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  Speaker 1: on my way to DJ and the offices in the
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  Speaker 1: morning and on the clearest days, seeing the sunrise catch
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  Speaker 1: the perfect angle to bounce off the glass, the glass
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  Speaker 1: outside walls of the skyscrapers downtown, just radiating light. You'll
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  Speaker 1: multiply that by infinity, just clear gold, pure glass, every
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  Speaker 1: single material thing in the New Creation radiating Christ's glory
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  Speaker 1: like a cosmic light show that will delight us forever.
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  Speaker 1: Majestic thoughts, But we are back to the pains of
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  Speaker 1: life next time. We all know that feeling when life
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  Speaker 1: just sort of piles on all these hard moments, the
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  Speaker 1: ones that feel like they might break us. Those moments,
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  Speaker 1: those actually are more like strength training for the soul.
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  Speaker 1: Few of us love to lift weights, and none of
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  Speaker 1: us love it when life gets hard. Persecutions, trials, the
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  Speaker 1: crushing burdens that make make us wonder how much more
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  Speaker 1: we can take. But here's the thing. God isn't trying
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  Speaker 1: to break us. He's making us stronger. Every pinch of
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  Speaker 1: pain has purpose. That's the theme next time, Antonio Ranki.
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  Speaker 1: We'll see you on Thursday.