© 1998 "Yes Lord" Ministries
Leader's Guide for Revelation Lesson 12
Heaven -- Your Eternal Home?
Revelation Chapters 21-22
Open with Prayer -- and as always, you do the praying.
Opening comments: I began this class by saying, "Well, believe it or not, we have come to the end of this course on Revelation. And, we have learned a lot. But we are also aware that there is, oh, so much more that the Bible tells us about the future which we have not had the time to study in this course. But, tonight let's look at some of the things that we HAVE learned about that future, especially as it relates to Heaven and Eternity!."
At this point I wrote the title of the visual aid on the board: HEAVEN & ETERNITY.
Suggested Visual Aid: The title is: HEAVEN & ETERNITY. I wrote this in purple. There will be 3 columns. As we have often done, however, do NOT put the headings for all 3 columns on the board now. Instead, we will add them at the appropriate time. But, now, IS the appropriate time for the heading of Column 1 to be put up... so... at this point, after writing the title on the vis aid, I then went on and wrote the title for column 1:
WHEN IT BEGINS AND HOW LONG IT LASTS.
After writing that title, I turned to the class, and since this title is a real "lead-in" for a review, that is what we began to do. I began by asking: "When does eternity begin? What has just happened before the new heavens and earth were created so that eternity begins?" Then I waited for someone in the class to answer with := the great white throne judgment has just happened.
Then I wrote their answer on the board: = AFTER THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGEMENT.
Then I asked: "And, what had happened just before that?" = the 1000 years
"Yes! and just so we can see the entire history of Creation and Mankind, let's put our time line on the board so we can see where Heaven and Eternity begin... and what has gone before."
At this point, we spent about 2 or 3 minutes putting the time line on the bottom of the board, while doing a brief review with the class, as we have done in previous lessons. I began by putting the Circle, again as in the previous lessons, and said, this is where it all began....when God created the heavens and the earth, the stars, the plants, the animals, and Adam and Eve
Then, I put Adam and Eve on the time line as 2 little stick figures (indicated on your sample
time line below by two exclamation points. Then...
F for the flood
A for Father Abraham and the beginning of the Jewish nation
T for the Cross
(____Church age___)
R for the Rapture
B for the Bema
<___the 7 Years__>
J for the Judgment of nations
(__the 1000 years__)
GWT for the Great White throne judgment
~~~~~~~~ for eternity
Of course, I used little stick figures and colors to make this more interesting and colorful, but am using these letters and symbols here just to show you where I put them on the time line. .... as we have done in the last few weeks. (For those of you who are doing this lesson without having done the others, if this is not clear, read the Leader's notes for Lesson 11 and some of the other lessons where this is explained in slightly more detail.)
It will be helpful to have this time line available not only at this point in the discussion to enable your group to see where we are with this lesson on the Time line...but also...for the "end of the course question and answer time" that will be at the end of this lesson.
Anyway, after about 2 or 3 minutes of asking questions and putting their responses on the visual aid, our time line looked like this:
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O_(!!)__F___A_______T(___church age___)RB<_7 Years_>J(__1000 y__)GWT~~~~~~~
You will notice we did not go into details and also that this time line is NOT to scale. (How long would "eternity" be?)
Anyway.... after putting this time line on the bottom of the Vis. Aid.... I returned to the top of the vis aid... under column 1 and said.... "So, we see that eternity begins AFTER all of these events but most particularly AFTER the Great White Throne Judgment...."
Then I asked: "And, how LONG will eternity be??????" = Forever!
And I wrote that on the board also...
So By now your visual aid should look something like this:
....................................HEAVEN & ETERNITY.................................
WHEN IT BEGINS &
HOW LONG IT LASTS
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begins after the GWT judgment
Will last forever and ever!!!
.
.
O_(!x!)__F___A______T(__church age__)RB<__7 Years__>J(_1000 y_)GWT~~~~
Then I wrote in Column 1 as another heading:
WHO IS IN HEAVEN AND WHY & WHO IS NOT THERE AND WHY?
I left space between the headings for the answers which will be obtained during the discussion.
Now your visual aid looks like this:
..................................................HEAVEN & ETERNITY.................................
WHEN IT BEGINS &
HOW LONG IT LASTS
.
begins after the GWT judgment
Will last forever and ever!!!
.
WHO IS IN HEAVEN & WHY
.
.
.
.
WHO IS NOT IN HEAVEN & WHY.
.
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O_(!x!)__F___A________T(___church age___)RB<__7 Years__>J(_1000 y_)GWT~~~~~~~
At this point, we continued our "review" by discussing those topics. The main points you want your group to understand and to tell you (as you ask questions to get these answers) in this discussion are that:
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1. Only those who chose to serve God will be in heaven
2. Those who did NOT choose to serve God will not be there. They will spend eternity in hell.
3. The reason the people who are not in heaven are in hell is because of their sin.
4. Unconfessed and unrepentented sin and sinners can NOT be in Heaven.
5. Only sinless (Righteous) people are in heaven
6. The only way to be Righteous is to have received the Gift of Salvation and forgiveness provided by Jesus' atoning substitutionary sacrifice.
7. The Righteous people in heaven will include people from the beginning of history.... Adam and Eve, Abel, Abraham, etc. etc. etc. ... ALL who have chosen to serve God (in OT times) and who chose to serve God and Jesus (in NT times, during the Church age, during the 7 years of Jacob's trouble, and during the 1000 years).
I did NOT record all those things on the board... but did ask questions until ALL of those things were mentioned and understood.... and I recorded summary type comments on the visual aid... so that at the conclusion of this discussion (which took about 3 or 4 minutes), the visual aid looked something like this:
...................................................HEAVEN & ETERNITY.................................
WHEN IT BEGINS &
HOW LONG IT LASTS
.
begins after the GWT judgment
Will last forever and ever!!!
.
WHO IS IN HEAVEN & WHY
.
Only those who chose to serve God will be in heaven
Only sinless (Righteous) people are in heaven.
Only those who have been "saved" will be in heaven
The Righteous people in heaven will include people from the beginning of history.
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WHO IS NOT IN HEAVEN & WHY.
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Those who did NOT choose to serve God will not be there. They will spend eternity in hell.
Unconfessed and unrepentented sin and sinners can NOT be in Heaven.
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O_(!x!)__F___A________T(___church age___)RB<__7 Years__>J(_1000 y_)GWT~~~~~~~
Now it is time to begin Column 2 on your visual aid.....which I entitled: NO MORES
And I began this discussion by saying: "Ok, we know who IS and IS NOT going to be in Heaven and the New Jerusalem and Eternity.... and we have also seen that there are several things that exist today that will be NO MORE in Heaven, in the New Jerusalem, and in Eternity. Based on what you studied in your homework and what you read in Revelation and in other places in the Bible, let's list some of the things that will be NO MORE !!!! ...things that will NOT exist in the new heaven and new earth...."
Then let your class give you these NO MORES. As they give them to you, write them on the visual aid. Also, briefly discuss for each "No More" why it is that it will be No More.
They will probably (hopefully) give you such answers as:
No More..... any sea, death, mourning, crying, curse, night, pain, .... etc....
You may have to ask questions in such a way that you give a scripture reference as a hint in order to get your list of "No Mores." You would do this by saying...if perchance they had not mentioned, for example, the NO MORE CURSE.... you would say...."There is a NO MORE thing mentioned in 22:3, what is it???" ..... and wait till they look at that verse and discover the answer..= CURSE and tell you... then write that on the visual aid...
and say... "Great! And what does it mean when there is no more curse? What will be missing ?" Then wait till they think and understand that this means that ALL the effects of sin (which were the CURSE) are gone... will be NO MORE... so there will be NO MORE Cancer, diseases, heart attacks, strokes, death, being stung by bees, having allergic attacks to pollen, no more jealousy, hatred, murder, greed, lust, deception, dishonesty, lying, stealing, etc. etc. etc.
WOW... what a GREAT "NO MORE "!!!! No More CURSE is WONDERFUL !!!
And, even though SIN was not included in the list of the NO MORES that they made in their homework, be sure that they do include SIN as one of the No Mores on the visual aid.
Remind them that in their homework, this was a short list of 7 things... but that there are MANY things that will be NO MORE besides those 7... and one of those things... is SIN!!!!
Be sure that they also include the fact that there will be NO MORE SIN !!!! and why!!! (because everyone living in the New heaven and new earth have been made Righteous (sinless) by having Chosen to Serve God and by having been forgiven and cleansed from sin by the BLOOD of Jesus' sacrifice of His life to pay the Sin penalty. ) BUT, those who did not do this are in HELL ..forever... because that is where sinners must go since they can not be in the presence of God ..because NO sin and NO sinful person or thing can EVER be in God's presence....
Spend about 10 minutes discussing the NO MORES, what they are and WHY they are no more and the implications of living without these things... and how wonderful it will be... and how this was the ORIGINAL intention of how life was to be. For, This is the way that God had originally intended Adam and Eve and all their descendants to live.... in a world with NO curse... and No death... and no mourning... and no sea... and no crying ....and no curse... and no pain.. And etc. etc. etc.....
When you have finished this section of your discussion... your visual aid (Column 2 only) will look something like this: (Remember, this is only column 2... column 1 is, of course, still on the board)
.........................HEAVEN & ETERNITY.................................
.
...........NO MORE !!!!
.
Any sea
death
mourning
crying
curse
night
pain
SIN
etc etc etc....
put as many things on the list as your group gives you
O_(!x!)__F___A________T(___church age___)RB<__7 Years__>J(_1000 y_)GWT~~~~~~~
When you have put a bunch of NO MORE's on the visual aid and discussed them... now it is time to begin COLUMN 3..... I did this by saying:
"Well, we could go on and on as there are a LOT of things that will be NO MORE... but now let's look and see what some of the NEW THINGS are going to be.... (at this point, I wrote the heading for Column 3 on the board: THE NEW THINGS !!!)
Then I said, "In your homework, you made a list of 7 new things. Of course, there will be MANY more new things than just 7. This was just a list to get you thinking and aware of how DIFFERENT and how AWESOME the things that God has prepared for us will be..... so.... let's begin by listing the 7 new things we studied in our homework.... What are they? Let's list them and then we will look at each one briefly after we get the whole list on the board...."
At this point your class should shout out the 7 new things as you write them on the board. (You probably won't have to give them any "hints" ... but if you do... use the old "What does it say in 22:1?"... or wherever ... as you have done before with your hints'....)
At the end of this listing of the 7 New things... your visual aid (Column 3 only) will probably look something like this: (Note that you should leave some space between each item on the list so that when you complete this list of the New Things, you can go back and briefly discuss each and, as you do this discussing, you can put a few words of clarification, description, illustration, explanation, etc. under each.)
......HEAVEN & ETERNITY......
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THE NEW THINGS !!!!
.
New EARTH
.
New HEAVENS
.
New JERUSALEM
.
New EVERYTHING
.
New PARADISE
.
New LIGHT
.
New LOCATION OF GOD'S THRONE
.
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O_(!x!)__F___A________T(___church age___)RB<__7 Years__>J(_1000 y_)GWT~~~~~~~
After writing these 7 New things on the Vis. Aid... go back to the top of the list and begin to discuss each one briefly... You could do this by saying:
"Great! What a List! And now let's look at some of these things in more detail. For example... when we are told there is going to be a New EARTH .... what did we learn about it... do we know of any details????"
Wait for them to think and to answer... (you may have to give hints... so be ready with some scripture references to give them as "hints"....).... They should tell you such things as .. There will be NO more Sea in this new earth.... there will be rivers (because we know of at least one which is described as being in the New Jerusalem)... there will be trees.... ? will there be animals? Etc. etc. etc.....
You will probably spend MOST of your time in this discussion of NEW THINGS in the discussing and describing the NEW JERUSALEM.... great! That is OK.... we spent about 10 minutes on that one topic.... and probably 10 minutes on the other 6 things combined... for a total of about 20 minutes on this column....
Of course, depending on how much time you have for your class (we usually have 90 minutes), judge your time accordingly.
By the time you finish this discussion, your Column 3 of the visual aid will probably look something like this:
......HEAVEN & ETERNITY......
.
THE NEW THINGS !!!!
.
New EARTH
.......no sea! (21:1)
.......will have rivers (in the New Jerusalem...)
.......will have nations
.......we discussed, will there be animals? And what kinds? And what they do?
.......etc. etc. etc...
.
New HEAVENS
.......?? no sun at all???
.......?? no moon at all??
....or will there be a sun and moon
............BUT.... they are NOT the main source of light...
...........but are the light for the nations and those outside the New Jerusalem???
...................(we discussed this theoretically' for about a minute and then went on)
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New JERUSALEM
.....comes down from Heaven!
....has a river flowing down the street
....list the MANY descriptions of the city....
.........re. the walls, foundations, height, width, etc. etc. etc.
.........(we spent a lot of time here...and listed MANY things)...
New EVERYTHING
.......we discussed what this might mean but didn't write anything on the board.
New PARADISE
......we discussed what the similarities (if any) of this Paradise might have been to the Earth
BEFORE Adam and Eve sinned.... but didn't write anything on the board...
.
New LIGHT
........God and Jesus are the Light....
.............we discussed if this is the ONLY light....
New LOCATION OF GOD'S THRONE
.........it is in the New Jerusalem....
.........no temple .....
O_(!x!)__F___A________T(___church age___)RB<__7 Years__>J(_1000 y_)GWT~~~~~~~
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In this and all of your discussions, ask questions which are short and which will get you a short answer... do NOT ask questions which are "open ended" in which a person can get up and expound and go on in great length..... what you are aiming for is summary type comments and answers... where you are recording the truths that they learned in their homework. Do NOT spend much time on the "I THINK" type of answers... try to get ALL of your answers to be based on what they learned from the BIBLE... and not what they might think! Of course, there will be some speculation' and I Think's' in this section on the New Things.... but try to NOT let those types of answers dominate the discussion... just touch on them briefly and go on...
The MAIN thing you want your class to get from this discussion about New Things is that God has prepared awesome and amazing things that are really beyond our comprehension and our wildest imagination...!!!
Anyway...try to plan your discussion time so that you will have about 5 or 10 minutes left so that you can use the closing minutes of your class time to allow for Questions concerning the WHOLE course... Soooo
AFTER you have finished this list.... then say...."Well, we could go on and on.... because there is sooooo much about our new home in Heaven and the New Jerusalem... and it is probably going to be sooooo astounding when we get there. ... that we will be just filled with amazement and wonder at ALL that God has prepared for us.....BUT.... since this IS the LAST week of our study, let's spend the last few minutes of our class time ... thinking about the entire course. Are there any questions or things that you want to talk about or discuss or clarify????
(Note to leader.... let this be a time for discussing WHAT we have studied... do NOT go off into topics that have NOT been covered in detail.... this is NOT the time to start WW3 over anything... but just to simply CLARIFY things that might still be confusing.... For example... this is NOT the time to try to decide WHO the Antichrist is.... or to determine the day, hour, and minute of the rapture, or any of those IMPOSSIBLE things..... BUT... your class might have some honest questions about such things as ....
? Is there REALLY a Lake of Fire? = YES...
? Why doesn't everyone go to Heaven? Why would God be so "mean"?
= because unrepentant sinners can NOT be in God's presence... therefore they HAVE to go to hell....
? Is everyone in heaven in the same category? Ie. All angels? All members of the Church, etc.
= No, there are different groups and categories in heaven.... angels, members of the Church, those who chose to serve God before the time of the Cross, those who chose to serve God during the 7 years, those who Chose to serve God during the 1000 years, the Jews... etc....
? What will we DO in heaven and for eternity?
= Serve God and we will have assignments based on what happened at the Bema... etc..
And there will be other questions... of course, these are just some that came up in our classes...
But, as I said.for those questions which ARE based on things we studied in this course, DO try to answer them, IF they are answerable. Not all are, of course. And when there is NO answer or if you don't know the answer, admit it to the class. Just be honest and say "I DON'T KNOW"......
And for those which are NOT things that we have studied... just say.... "That is a great question and I wish we could try to answer that BUT since We didn't go into that in our course... at this point we could only guess or conjecture... so let's not do that now... let's just stick with things that we did study...."
Then... after the questions have been answered... or your time for your class runs out (and I suspect that your time will run out before the questions do).... say... "well....we could go on and on... but... I see that our time is up..... so.... let's bring this discussion and this course to a close. It has been a wonderful time of studying God's Word and I have really enjoyed these weeks with you. You are a Great Group!!!... and I thank you for ALL you have done... your interest... your doing your assignments... your participation... for everything.. You are a GREAT group..... and now, let's close with prayer.....
And again... YOU do the praying.... I closed with a prayer something like this:
Oh Father.... Thank you soooo much for ALL that you have revealed to us about your plans for the future... You are such an awesome God, and, as we see things get scarier and darker around us, and.... As the end times approach, we are so grateful that you have told us what to expect.. And we are sooooo glad to know that You ARE aware of what is going on and, indeed, are working all things out according to YOUR plans and purposes. Father, we know that many of our friends and family members and people with whom we work are NOT aware of what is going on and are NOT aware that their eternal destiny is going to be in Hell IF they do not repent and turn from their wicked ways and choose to serve and obey You. Help us to let them know of the Good News... that they CAN be saved and that they can spend eternity with You in your New Heavens and New Earth and New Jerusalem.... oh, Father, use us this week, this month, and in whatever time is left... to tell others... Help us to see things from Your perspective... and to be aware of what you want us to do. Lord, we want to be your servants even now.... We give you permission to use us in whatever way You desire to spread the good news, to alert others to what is coming and to witness to them. Christ we do all adore you! We love you! And we eagerly await the time when will be with you with forever... in Your New Heavens and New Earth.... Yes, Jesus.... we do eagerly anticipate your return... but we also know that you are waiting so that more will be saved.... and we know that is right... so while we wait, we Give you all the Glory.... for You alone are Worthy.... We love you! We thank you! We Praise You and we say with John as he said at the end of the Book of Revelation........"Come Lord Jesus, Come!"
..................................And we pray this .....In Jesus Name....... Amen!
Then, as your class leaves, as always, be ready to talk with anyone... and give everyone a BIG hug or a FIRM handshake (depending on your group and 'culture' ) as they leave and thank them for having been such a faithful student!!!!
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