whom you’ll want to see is the One who saved you. That is my feeling, and I’m sure it’s yours as well. After the first thousand years, you may want to start looking up some of your relatives. When we get to glory, we won’t be in a hurry at all. All of our problems will have been left behind. Q. I f my mother was saved and I was lost, could she be happy in heav en without me?” A. Frequently we receive questions of this type containing some real heart-felt suppositions. Keep in mind that, first of all, heaven is going to be a happy place where there will be no tears or sorrow. How it is to be worked out is not revealed in the Word of God, for our finite minds could never begin to comprehend it. I sometimes wonder if Isaiah 65:17 applies to such a case, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” It is my feeling that God will wipe away memories of an unpleasant na ture, such as loved ones who may never have confessed Christ as their personal Saviour. Q. “Do we have any scriptural war rant for the belief that we shall meet our loved ones in heaven? There evi dently will be no husbands and wives, and therefore no fathers and mothers. The Lord Jesus said in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage. How then could we be happy in heaven with such beautiful earthly relationships ter minated?” A. Frankly, some of these questions I shall be able to answer better a few years from now when I see the Lord myself. As for the present, with my little knowledge on the subject, I’m convinced that we’ll not know less in heaven than we know now. Paul de clared, “Now we see through a glass
“Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and t h r u s t it into my side” (John 20:27). It is my own view that when we get to heaven, we’ll find the words to that hymn to be true, “I shall know Him, I shall know Him, by the prints of the nails in His hands.” Q. Will you please tell me if after death the departed ones are perfectly conscious of where they are? Are those who are saved able to see and speak with the Lord?” A. I believe that both saved and unsaved when they die know exactly where they are in their respective places. The saved are absent from the body but they are present with the Lord (II Cor. 5:6-8). There is no purgatory whatsoever coming be tween the two states. When a man dies, who has rejected God’s perfect salvation, he goes to hades, the abode of the unrighteous dead. In Luke 16:19-31 we have a very clear illus tration of this given by our Lord Himself. This was before Christ emp t i e d Paradise (or Abraham’s bosom) following His death, to take those souls to heaven (Eph. 4:8, 9). I believe Christ has reference to two real people. This is not just a para ble. As to believers again, look how it is with us now. We can get on our knees and talk with the Lord. That’s a very real conversation. When we get to heaven, surely our privileges will be much greater. Only then we’ll be able to see Him. If you are having a difficulty concerning your loved ones in Christ who have departed, read the 21st and 22nd chapters of the book of Revelation. A greater statement and more blessed than all the other descriptions of heaven it self are those words, “and we shall see His face.” When you get to heav en, you’re going to see an innumer able company. But the first One
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