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Here is the link to this week's Sabbath School Lesson Study and Discussion Material: Click Here
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Re: Lesson #9 - Heaven
[Re: Daryl]
#113501
05/23/09 09:33 PM
05/23/09 09:33 PM
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This is reformatted for easier reading from the Sabbath Afternoon section that introduces us to this week's topic:
Memory Text: " 'In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. . . . I will come back and take you to be with me' " (John 14:2, 3, NIV).
For many the word heaven has become meaningless, a concept that belongs to the realm of the fairy tales.
We delude ourselves, they say, if we think there is some kind of life beyond this earthly existence.
Some go so far as to say that it is positively wrong to tell people that there is a heaven.
They argue that it keeps people from putting all their efforts into what they could achieve in life here and now.
Even many Christians struggle with the concept. They are not so sure that heaven is a real place.
Should heaven rather be interpreted as a state of mind?
On the other hand, there are many who believe that at death the soul is released and enters heaven to live with God.
They are confident that their father, mother, husband, wife, or child—who has preceded them in death—is now with God in heaven and that a few years at most separate them from a reunion with their loved ones.
What's the truth on this important topic?
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Re: Lesson #9 - Heaven
[Re: Daryl]
#113503
05/23/09 09:51 PM
05/23/09 09:51 PM
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John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
14:2 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.
14:3 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.
This is the hope that uplifts the Christian.
In spite of sorrow, death of loved ones, and all the other trials, we don't mourn as others do BECAUSE WE HAVE THIS HOPE!
Personally, I don't see how people can cope without such a hope. I guess many can't that's why there is so much drug and alchol abuse and suicides -- they've lost hope.
This hope also gives purpose to this life!
It enriches our lives here.
There is a "peace, joy, love and mission" that finds it's motive in the glorious promises of our wonderful Savior, Who has a place prepared for us and wants us to be with Him.
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Re: Lesson #9 - Heaven
[Re: dedication]
#113525
05/24/09 12:44 PM
05/24/09 12:44 PM
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I think it is the wrong picture of heaven and when people get there and who gets to go there that is the root of the problem as stated below from Sunday's section:
It is quite astonishing that the idea of an immortal soul—which is separable from our physical body and which ascends to heaven right at death—has become so dominant among Christians. Satan's lie in Eden was: " 'You will not surely die' " (Gen. 3:4, NIV).
In order to have a more correct picture of heaven, one needs to have a more correct picture of death.
When we die, we enter into a state of unconsciousness that the Bible compares to sleep. Unaware of what happens in the world, we await the morning of the resurrection. Only then will the great multitude of the redeemed enter heaven to join the very few, such as Enoch and Elijah, who have preceded them! But it is not going to be a long wait. The moment we close our eyes in death, the next thing we know will be Christ at His second coming. In other words, as far as those who die in Christ are concerned, it will make no difference whether it was 3,000 years ago or the day before Christ returns. They close their eyes in death, and the next thing they are conscious of is Jesus returning to get them. It will seem, to them, instantaneous.
The above picture of death is a lot better than some sort of energy being beamed off to an energy type of heaven, where nothing is seen as being of any physical type structure there in this type of wrong understanding about death.
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Re: Lesson #9 - Heaven
[Re: Daryl]
#113641
05/26/09 06:41 AM
05/26/09 06:41 AM
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The Bible pictures death as a sleep.
Psalms 13:3 NKJV 3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
John 11:11 Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 11:12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well... 11:14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
1 Corinthians 15:51 NKJV 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--
Death is called "a sleep" because everyone will be awakened out of it --
The saved in the first resurrection when Jesus comes to take His faithful to His Father's house to be with Him.
The lost will be awakened in the second resurrection after the 1000 years.
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