Beeson Podcast, Episode 346 Mark DeVine June 27, 2017 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. We're going to hear today a sermon by one of our Beeson colleagues, Dr. Mark DeVine. He is a Professor of Divinity here at Beeson, the author of a number of different books, including one on Bonhoeffer, and another one called, Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again. The sermon we're going to hear today was actually preached at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he taught prior to his coming to Beeson. It's called, "Heaven Can't Wait." Dr. Smith, introduce us to this sermon by Mark DeVine. Dr. Smith: This sermon contains pain and pleasure. They're already in the not yet. The title is, "Heaven Can't Wait," and he actually gives the title of the sermon in his very last statement within the sermon. No announced text at all, he actually uses the sayings of Jesus, and the sayings of Paul to buttress and support his argument that Heaven can't wait. Here's his thesis, Dean George, "Believe in the future promise of Heaven now, and live an expectancy with present joy." So, what he's doing is promoting the promise of God before receiving the promise. Its connection finds it's residence in Hebrews 11 that all of these persons died without receiving the promise. It reminds me of the text in Ecclesiastics, where a cord of three strands is not easily broken. There are three strands, here. He weaves the strand of one autobiography, which he talks about his own life, his mother. The second strand of the Bible, in which he quotes from Paul and Jesus, and the third strand of theology, quotes from ___ and Luther, and Calvin that's very logically progressing as you listen to him, very easy to see the connections. The integrating image, or metaphor, is that of birthing. The labor room, which represents our suffering in this present world; the delivery room, which represents the eschaton, where we will live in incessant and uninterrupted joy. What he is doing is sharing the times in which his wife has had their two children and there's pain, but when the children are born, there is pleasure. What he's suggesting is that the labor room, down here, pain, is reality. It's no escapism, it's no denying reality. No, there's pain. After a while, the present sufferings are not worthy to be considered with the joy and the glory that is to come, as Paul would say. In essence, what he is pointing us to is Jesus’s prayer. He does this indirectly "By kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is already done in Heaven." Earth is a harbinger, a messenger to the joy that will await us. The arresting introduction, in Heaven, the preacher will finally be made to shut up and let singing begin. That sounds just like our friend, Dr. Mark DeVine, but we are not in Heaven yet. The key doctrine, my goodness and I love this, is resurrection. Life beyond the grave, which only God can give. He does corrective surgery here. Heaven is not escapism from suffering. Heaven is not just being heavily binded and of being of no earthly use, not at all. A polemic, he's challenging the church. As you wait on Heaven, don't shirk your responsibility. Don't, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, give yourself to cheap grace. Don't be like the disciples, looking up at the Heaven when they've been told to evangelize the world. Holistically, Dean George, this is, I think, one of our most effective sermons when it comes to a holistic presentation where he has married together head and heart: information and inspiration, to bring about transformation in that particular moment, and then he leaves us, I believe, with Paul being in this betwixt and between ambivalence, where we want to be with the Lord, which is far, far better, but yet there's something for us to do while we're here. "Heaven can't wait," he says, "But while we wait on what can't wait, let us do what God has called us to do while we're on earth." Timothy George: Dr. Mark DeVine is a popular lecturer, he's a fine theologian, but he also is a very good preacher. Dr. Smith: Yes, he is. Timothy George: We're going to see why he is when we listen to this sermon, "Heaven Can't Wait," our colleague, Dr. Mark DeVine. Mark DeVine: Thank you so much. I heard a rumor that in Heaven the preachers will be forcibly made to shut up, and let the singing begin. But, we're not in Heaven yet. "Push, Jackie, push." On two occasions separated by five years, this phrase was my happy duty as husband to my wife, Jackie, and as almost-daddy, first to Drew and then to Sam. "Push, Jackie, push." No, I didn't trudge through five miles of snow and ice to get to grade school. No, I didn't endure the Great Depression of the 30's, I didn't fight World War I, or II, or even Vietnam. There seems to be a certain slice of the male population whose mission it is to remind me periodically of these deficiencies. They are right, I am from the spoiled generation. I would simply point out that number one, it is not my fault that I was born too late to fulfill their understanding of manhood; and number two, it's their generation that spoiled me, so it's their fault. However, my generation has its own peculiar claim to manhood, which many WWII vets lack. We enter both labor rooms, and delivery rooms. No pacing and smoking in hospital halls for us, no. We boldly enter the place of despair and say things like, "Push, Jackie, push." Now that, my friends, makes a man out of you. If you haven't been in there, you don't know. No matter that I had to lie down on the cold, tiled floor eight or ten times to keep from passing out when Sam was born, at least I was there. Childbirth, surely there is nothing else like it on earth. Isn't it fascinating that both the Apostle Paul and our Lord Jesus himself pointed to this experience of childbirth as an analogy of the transition from this earthly life into eternal life? Isn't it just like men to try to have the final word, or an experience, concretely restricted to women? A little presumptuous don't you think? But, there it is. They both look to this experience, and their struggle to speak of what we usually call Heaven. Eternal life beyond the grave. Paradise. There are those who would warn us of the dangers of dwelling too much on this matter of Heaven. Preoccupation with the afterlife smacks of escapism with regard to the present life. Neurotic wallowing in concern for some paradise beyond the grave, they warned. It's really a defensive recoiling of the mind and heart against the suffering and uncertainty of unearthly existence. In fact, New Testament texts do indeed juxtapose present, earthly, human suffering and uncertainty with future peace and joy in paradise. The great 21st chapter of Revelation addresses a persecuted, threatened, suffering church. The Apostle Paul knew what it meant to be beaten by religious people for the content of his preaching. By his own testimony, Paul despaired of life itself. Paul was confident that however well God sustains and comforts his adopted children in this world, it would be better to lay one's head down in the next world. The human desire for Heaven crops up almost spontaneously, at least the human need for an afterlife seems demonstrable on several fronts without appeal to the Bible. The demand for justice left unfulfilled in this life. The apparently innate, yet unsatisfied human thirst for immortality. The confliction that there simply must be more than this life, and of course there is the dark and sinister face of human suffering staring at us through electromagnetic images of Auschwitz and Dachau, and more recently of Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Frank Tupper, Professor of Theology at Southern Seminary, also spoke of that face of suffering. During and after his wife's fatal battle with cancer, Frank Tupper had a recurring nightmare. In it, he was fleeing on a beach at night from what he called, "the cackling face of chaos." The black figure of evil confronted me in the visage of my mother lying in a casket at the age of 36. The heartfelt attempts of my pastor to comfort me did not suffice. I was a 16-year-old hippie and drug addict at that time, and I desired one thing, and one thing only. This one thing no one could supply; I wanted my mama back. So I admit it, apart from any prompting by the scriptures, I desire, I need Heaven. Don't you desire it and need it, too? What's that I hear in the background? I hear the "ah ha" of Ludwig von Feuerbach over my shoulder. Yes, you want and need a Heaven, and that is precisely why you have one. Feuerbach accounted for human religion as the projection into the metaphysical realm of our own human highest aspirations. Simply put, you want a Heaven, so you construct a God who promises to give you one. We really must face squarely the implications of Feuerbach's critique. The human desire for immortality can in no way secure immortality. The human thirst for eternal life is not a sufficient basis for hope in an afterlife. The human need for Heaven does not create a Heaven, only God can make a Heaven. I suspect that none of us in this room have been to Heaven, and if you've had one of those out-of-body experiences, you still don't know if you're going back. Therefore, we are not in a position to make promises concerning it. Only God has knowledge and authority to make promises about what lies beyond the grave. But behold, the witness of Holy Scripture is that this is precisely what has happened. Paul does not mean to speculate out of the deep existential longing of his mortal angst. He means to report what he has heard from the Lord. The author of Revelation does not conjure up a paradise of earthly comforts. He reports what was delivered to him by an angel. Our Lord did not merely hope for better things if we sinners might perhaps cooperate with him. No, Jesus simply yet clearly said, "I am going to prepare a place for you, and if I do I will come back, and I will take you to be where I am." Brothers and sisters, in the words of Martin Luther, "Das est Evangelium, nicht bar?" That is gospel, is it not? That is unadulterated good news. Let us bask in the light of this word. The same Jesus of Nazareth, who was born in Bethlehem's manger, who lived among us as one without sin, who spoke with authority, who eventually laid down his life for us to redeem us on Calvary's cross, the same one whom God raised from the dead. This One deliberately wanted his disciples to know the truth that, yes, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. This is not a proof for the existence of Heaven. From the perspective of the unbeliever, it is not even an impressive evidence for life beyond the grave. It is not an invitation for us to explore the prudence or relevance of a belief in eternal life. No, it is a promise from the One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, but by Me." It is a promise from the lips of the One who said, "It is the will of Him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day." It is a promise of the One who said, "My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day." Heaven is the promise of the One who said, "No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise Him up at the last day." Heaven is a promise from this One. The first question confronting us is, can we believe this promise? Will we believe this promise? Are we willing and able to embrace it as the truth of Almighty God? Are we? If not, then let us pray for the gift of faith to believe. Let us groan within, "I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief." But if perchance we refuse to even pray for faith to believe in the promised resurrection, and the promised paradise, even in the face of such biblical testimony, or if we might even belittle the promise with phrases like, "pie in the sky," then shame on us. Shame on us. What ingratitude, as the living Jesus Christ stretches out his hands to us with the nail prints still visible? And on his lips, the promise of hell. Woe unto us if we do anything except respond, "Thank you Lord. I know that it cost you dearly, and that you purchased it willingly for me. Thank you for this unspeakable gift." Calvin was right, which I know is a great shock. The Scriptures do not contain everything which can be known, but only that which it is profitable for us to know in order to glorify Him, and enjoy Him forever. God was not compelled to promise us Heaven, or give us Heaven, but He did. He who knows best what we are, and what we need, has graciously shouted and whispered into our ears, "Yes, you will mourn. You will grieve. But I am coming back to get you, and I will wipe away every tear from your eyes. There will be no more pain, no more death, for these former things have passed away and best of all, you will be with me forever." Some of those who are most squeamish when it comes to this promise of Heaven, claim to be so out of a sensitivity to those who suffer most in the present life. Certainly we should acknowledge the legitimacy of such concerns. How dare we, from our cushy, middle-class easy chair suggest to our fellow believers in the inner cities, or in Bosnia, that they simply buck up and persevere. After all, it will soon be over. And yet, do not the American negro spirituals remind us that just those who suffer most understand best what welcome news is the promise of Heaven. Ultimately, the question is not whether we desire or think we need a Heaven, but whether there is one. We've all heard the cliché, "Some folks are just too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good." Surely we never should underestimate the power of us sinners to distort, abuse, and misuse God's good gifts to us. We can, and will, make narcissistic, hedonistic use of God's promise of future paradise. But our unfaithfulness will not nullify the faithfulness of God. The promise is on our side in receiving the promise, not with the promise itself. So yes, we may well employ the promise of Heaven in order to evade our present duties as witnesses to Jesus Christ, but this is not inevitably so. The Saints of Old who appear in the great roll call with faith in Hebrews 11 and 12 show us a better way. We are told that they were still living by faith when they died, not having received what was promised. We are told that they glimpsed a city from a distance, not made with hands and that they confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth because they desired this better country. So how did this heavenly-minded bunch respond? Did they retreat from life? Did they shirk their responsibility for this world? Just the opposite. Listen. By faith, Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw that he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. By faith, the walls of Jericho—I put that in for my five-year-old son—by faith the walls of Jericho fell after the people had marched around them for seven days. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength, and who became powerful in battle, and routed foreign armies, women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced years of flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins, goatskins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. They were commended for their faith, yet none of them received what was promised. These believers have turned the cliché on its head and inside out. They were so heavenly-minded that they were of the greatest possible earthly good. But let us remember, they belong to the roll call of faith. They had not received what was promised, but they did believe the promise. For now, we cannot know whether there is a Heaven or not, but we are invited to believe the promise. We are given the promise in this world in order that we might be sustained and comforted by Heaven before we come into possession of it. We have already seen that such faith is meant to comfort us in our suffering by promising that suffering will end. But there is another astonishing suggestion in the promise. It is that somehow, some way, beyond our current capacity to perceive it, that when we arrive in Heaven, the suffering of this life will have been worth it. Or in the language of some current eschatologically focused theology, I apologize for that phrase, "Earthly suffering will be redeemed." I have to confess that I would never entertain such a notion, except that the Scriptures seem to teach it. And it teaches this particularly through the analogy of the joyous new mother, who forgets the pain which precedes the birth of her child. My father was not at my mother's side when I entered this world. He was pacing, and smoking. Nevertheless, he enjoyed telling me stories he'd heard of the striking change which can come upon a woman in labor. He said that it's reported that the sweetest church-going ladies were known to cuss like sailors during those minutes or hours of labor pain. Apologies to those sailors unfairly stereotyped. Whatever my father thought he knew, my wife communicated to me that even when fathers-to-be are in attendance in the delivery room, they fail to grasp the true and complete nature and extent of the pain endured. You see, subsequent to the birth of my first son I found myself for a couple of weeks afterwards offering commentary on what had taken place. I was the spokesman for the family and the like. One of the phrases I was known to repeat was, "The actual labor and delivery were not really all that bad." Eventually, Jackie drew me aside and suggested that henceforth she would assume the duty of describing the blessed event. I yielded. Still, I did witness on two occasions a remarkable transformation in my wife. I will not attempt to improve on the language of Jesus, John 16:21: "A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world." The joy does not nullify the pain, the pain is all too real. My wife has noted that in mixed groups, the men often seem to be more comfortable waxing eloquent on the events surrounding their children's birth, than do the mothers who did the real work. The real pain is blocked out. She forgets the pain. Likewise, Heaven does not promise to turn evil into good, or to call suffering pleasure, rather Heaven simply sets beside the concrete reality of evil and pain, and suffering another reality equally true. God has promised that this suffering will end for those who believe, and when it does, it will end forever. The pain of childbirth is real, but so is the baby. So is the baby. And that puts the pain into a different and true perspective. The joy of a new baby is comparably greater than the pain endured in it's birth. Paul understood this comparative relativizing of this world's suffering. He said, "I consider," or better, we know he was a southerner, "I reckon that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." If we face the future without believing in the Heaven promised to us, we ought not count ourselves, especially wise or subtle or realistic, rather we are blind and actually living according to the lie that no Heaven awaits us. But of course, we cannot possess this new perspective now anymore than the first-time mother, until she holds the baby in her arms. Her only comfort is to believe the testimony of experienced mothers, who assure her that once the baby is born, it will all have been worth it. So it is with Heaven. We do not yet have it in our hands, but we do have the promise now. I remember so well when Jackie smiled at me after she learned that indeed, we could expect, and in around nine months we would become parents. Of course, we could not know at that time that the pregnancy would go smoothly. At that point, we could not know if the baby would even come to term, or survive the birth process. Perhaps the sober thing to do, the reasonable course of action, the realistic approach, would have been to have refrained from rejoicing at the news, right? God forbid. We had the promise of parenthood. We had the hope that a child, our child, would be born. There was only one appropriate response to that promise: to receive it. To gratefully embrace it, and actually to plan for its fulfillment with Lamaze classes, and nursery purposes, and laughter. And so we did. And so it should be in regard to Heaven. One reason for giving promises is to allow the recipient to begin enjoying it before the time. Another reason is to help the recipient adjust their plans according to what is promised, and so to live not according to a false future, but according to the real future promised by the God who knows the future. But of course, only those who believe, reap these benefits. While Frank Tupper was having nightmares, his wife Betty, suffering with terminal cancer was having dreams. In the dreams Betty reported that she faced a dark future, stretching toward the barrier of death, but that she could hear beyond the dark curtain of death, the voices of children laughing, and the sounds of children playing. In the wake of my mother's death, a little word came crashing into my grief-stricken consciousness. The word was resurrection. Hadn't that religion in which I was raised spoken of a resurrection from the dead? Could it be true? Might I someday by the power of God see my mother's face, and run to her and throw my arms around her and kiss her and be with her forever? Could it be true? For at least four years after my mother's death, this dream recurred. Sometimes it took a little while after I would awake for the truth to sink in. It was just a dream. She was gone. I admit it. I need a Heaven. I desire a Heaven, and that is interesting, but it's not the gospel. The gospel is that God has promised resurrection and paradise to all who believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel is that it has not pleased God for his children to live without this promise. Let us believe the promise now. Let us embrace our citizenship in Heaven now, and earth will not defeat us. For the sake of this world, Jesus died to redeem, truly Heaven can't wait. Let us pray. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the promise of Heaven. Amen. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website: beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope that you will listen to each upcoming addition of the Beeson Podcast.