Randy Alcorn: Answering Questions About Heaven and the New Earth | FULL INTERVIEW | Kirk Cameron

what do we do about marriage i love my wife is is it possible that i get to heaven and i see my wife and i say hey honey uh i need we need to fist bump it's it's side hug time what do we do in heaven yeah great question now that is uh most of the things that we see about life in the resurrection are similarities not dissimilarities to our present life now that particular issue of marriage jesus addressed randy alcorn is the founder and director of eternal perspectives ministries he's a new york times bestselling author of more than 50 books including heaven and face to face with jesus his books have sold over 11 million copies and they've been translated into more than 70 languages randy you're really one of the good guys i so respect your scholarship and your ability to communicate tough subjects in a way that everyday people can understand i love how you've helped us to understand the treasure principle with that great book that speaks of of how to steward money in this life with an eternal perspective and you've studied the subject of heaven for maybe 25 years and you've written an incredibly comprehensive book on the subject i have to kind of laugh what if you think that heaven is a certain way after 25 years of studying this place and then you find out it looks totally different than when you thought based on the stuff that we don't know you know like you thought you were going on a trip and it was gonna look like florida with palm trees and you get there and it looks like alaska with snow peak mountains um what made you focus so heavily on heaven well kirk really as i i look back it was especially because my mom died in 1981 and i read to her every day as she was dying revelation 21 and 22 and as i read it to her i realized that in bible college and seminary both of which i went through and graduated from we had never talked about the new heavens and the new earth in the in the revelation class we never made it to revelation 21 and 22 because we were talking about theories related to timing of the rapture partial rapture you know whatever but we never really talked about where we're going to live for all eternity and that's when it hit me that everything i knew about heaven was about the present heaven where grandma goes or any of us go when we die who know jesus and so i i realized that the bible talks about a whole lot more than that and that the eternal state will be after the resurrection and god will recreate not only our bodies but he will recreate the earth itself and god's redemptive plan is so much bigger and very frankly i even realized when i preached on the subject as a pastor so i thought i got to study this and i started studying way back then so randy as you've been researching the subject of the place of heaven what are some of the common misconceptions that you think people have about it well a lot of people just think of it as a disembodied state and the the present heaven may be to a degree at least a disembodied state although people are described there as walking talking sitting kneeling uh and and even uh wearing white robes and carrying palm branches and things like that which are all very physical so i don't exactly know how you would do that without maybe some form of a body but we know of course that the resurrection hasn't happened yet people are not resurrected one at a time when we die uh the resurrection is coming in the future but people think of heaven as this angelic realm of disembodied spirits floating around the clouds uh kind of a cartoonish view of heaven but the bible has something radically different it's a resurrection-based new earth where jesus said we will eat and drink and abraham and isaac will come and we'll sit at feasts together we will eat and drink and resurrection bodies christ showed us what a resurrection body is like he ate and drank with his disciples he said touch me i am not a ghost a ghost does not have flesh and bones as i have randy what are some of the most common questions that people have asked you about heaven well a lot of people have that very uh so many of their questions are based on a misperception like for instance i had a man say well you know i'm not going to be able to hug my daughter in heaven right because we won't have bodies and i said well wait a minute well well eventually ultimately the heaven we will live in for all eternity of course we'll have bodies because you believe in the doctrine of the resurrection right of course i believe in the doctrine of the resurrection but he said i've been thinking how sad it is i'll never hug my daughter again and i'm saying why would you think that she's going to have a body you're going to have a body it's going to be your old body's made new resurrection bodies that you'll live in for all eternity so do you think that god is against hugging you once told a story about uh somebody who said that they were going to be depressed if they kept thinking about heaven because all they thought of when they thought of heaven was sitting around on a cloud strumming a harp for all of eternity i mean is is is being with god forever and ever like just an unending retirement no and that is one of the misconceptions you see uh in revelation 22 where it says his servants will serve him now think about what servants do i mean servants have things to do places to go people to see right they're active i mean servants do things they don't just sit and ponder you know they do stuff and uh in the resurrection on the new earth we're told that when jesus says you've been faithful a little i'll put you over much you've been faithfulness i'll put you over five cities i'll put you over ten cities you will be rewarded by responsibility of ruling and the new earth will be that eternal kingdom in daniel 7 it says god will entrust that new earth that that eternal kingdom where his saints will rule it forever and ever not just for a thousand years the promises are we will rule the earth forever not just temporarily for a thousand years uh but we will rule the earth forever and ever to god's glory here's a big question a lot of people have is will my dog make it to heaven do you do you think fido will be in heaven well kirk i don't know your dog personally i know i know one of my dogs will not be in heaven for sure we even baptized the dog and that it just didn't stick you tried to cast the demons out and it didn't work i get to yeah well um i i actually believe there's a biblical basis for believing that pets at least some of them will be in heaven for eternity because romans 8 tells us that the whole creation longs for deliverance from the present suffering we're undergoing the whole creation groans and waits for the deliverance that will come with the resurrection of god's children but the whole creation isn't just us it puts an emphasis on not just us the whole creation well who is suffering now besides us as human beings i mean i think obviously the the higher animals for sure know what suffering is they feel suffering and you've ever seen a a dog or any animal uh that is dying and is in great pain and you just realize that it knows something's wrong and it wants deliverance and so we're told the whole creation which fell on our coattails uh in the fall when adam and eve sinned the whole creation will rise on our coattails the new earth will have animals we know this for sure isaiah 16 is a new earth passage it's quoted twice in revelation 21 and 22. clearly new earth and there's a bunch of animals in there and isaiah 65 and other passages that talk about the the lion and the lamb and and the goat and the um the the different predatory animals uh that the leopard and all of that and they will lie down together and so the the way that i think maybe that includes our pets not just god making up a bunch of animals that never existed in the past but maybe you raising them or bringing them back to physical life is that he says those that are groaning under suffering are those that shall be delivered so who's going to be delivered but animals alive in this world and i think in many cases probably animals uh that were our pets wouldn't it be just like god a loving heavenly father to say you know what i'm going to bring this animal back to life that you love so much and not only will you never experience pain again but your animal never will either no more death no more crying no more pain i don't know if my chihuahua makes it to heaven there's going to be a little more crying and a little bit more pain hey here's a great question he will be transformed oh well hey uh randy here's another big question is what do we do about marriage i love my wife is is it possible that i get to heaven and i see my wife and i say hey honey uh i need we need to fist bump it's it's side hug time what do we do in heaven yeah great question now that is uh most of the things that we see about life in the resurrection are similarities not dissimilarities to our present life now that particular issue of marriage jesus addressed and said in the resurrection um we are neither married nor given in marriage according to scripture it's not that there will be no marriage in heaven it's that there will be one marriage in heaven christ to his bride the church and what that means is nancy and i will be part of that same one marriage for all eternity of christ to his bride we will both be part of the bride of christ but he will be the perfect groom the only marriage partner who will never let anybody down and uh in our best moments you know all of us have failed in our marriages but we have not been ever forsaken by jesus and that marriage will be part of for all eternity and uh so nancy and i look forward to being part of that same marriage to jesus together for all eternity randy uh you have been researching and writing and lecturing on the subject of heaven for so long and in your book you talk a great deal about explaining the new earth and you talk about a difference between the present heaven and the new earth uh explain what you mean by that right and i think it's it's just a preface by saying it's just key that we understand this because it is so much confusion surrounds this if we think there's only one heaven and it's all the same way forever when we die of course we depart from our bodies our bodies are left on earth so we don't take our bodies with us to heaven the present heaven then is a somewhat it could be a somewhat disembodied state we certainly won't have our present bodies there but in the resurrection which is what the the new earth follows the resurrection happens at the end of revelation 20 then we have the new earth where we're going to live for all eternity revelation 21 and 22 and there we will have our resurrection bodies and we will live in a place where there are streets and there are precious stones and there's a river running through the middle of the new jerusalem and there's the tree of life which is now a forest of life growing on both sides of this great river and rivers of course always go out into some whether it's uh lakes or you know whatever it is and the trees and the animals so this is what the new earth is going to be look like now it doesn't make sense to think of the present heaven that way because the present heaven isn't down on earth what we're told is that god will take the new jerusalem which is presently in heaven and bring it down to be capital city of the new earth and that's where we will live forever interesting uh some people think of of heaven as uh like you said a place where we're disembodied spirits and the whole place is kind of this whispery vapory like place um but you really talk about this like it's a a real physical place with streets of gold and precious stones and things like that um what what verses in the bible would you point to that would really help us to understand the nature of the place called heaven well i think you start with what jesus said about his resurrection body and the knowledge that ours will be like his and what he did and he ate and drank and he said i'm not a ghost i have flesh and bums so that's a signal to us that's what our resurrection body is going to be like okay so then when we go to revelation 21 and 22 and then old testament passages we know to be new earth passages because they are quoted and applied to the new earth in revelation 20 uh 1 and 22 such as isaiah 60 we we look at those and they are very uh human uh earthly not not worldly in some negative sense earthly god created the earth you know and god created the earth to be a paradise and god didn't lose the battle against satan uh he he he made human beings to rule the earth to his glory and we think oh well yeah but that all failed that plan failed so god had to come up with plan b no jesus went to the cross so that plan a could be fulfilled in his plan that forever we would to his glory rule the earth uh and and and do the things that people actually do worship together talk together walk together relate together uh probably sit around you know campfires and and do all the kinds of things that human beings actually do just simply read revelation 21 and 22 and you'll see how earthly this place is it talks about the nations of the earth they're really nations it talks about rivers and it talks about all these different physical earthly things some people argue that the current earth will be completely destroyed and and by that i'm picturing like the death star you know completely destroyed and then god literally creates a new earth where we live forever others see the new heavens and the new earth more as a whole new world under the new covenant order with a new ruler jesus who dethroned the devil he's now seated on the throne in heaven and the earth is under new management i.e the new covenant order rather than the old covenant order but i think you're arguing that god creates a new earth by resurrecting the current earth not destroying death star style and recreating a new one what scriptures can we go read that you think help us to understand the proper perspective well first of all ii peter 3 is a passage that people normally quote to say well look the old earth is going to be destroyed i mean it's going to be annihilated and i say yes now think about what happens to our bodies after we die and we've been dead for 100 years or a thousand years those bodies are destroyed right exactly that's what uh decomposition is it's the destruction okay so now in the resurrection do we say oh yeah but they can't be ours our old bodies because our old bodies have been destroyed no it had been destroyed but that's no problem to god dna molecules he can reassemble anything uh he wants to and he can do the same to the earth so to me the the the guide for our thinking about the new earth is the same as for our thinking about our new bodies we know what our new bodies will be they will be the same old bodies made nuke that's why jesus uh body was no longer in the tomb after the resurrection because it was his old body made new right so if his if it was like well his old i mean our old bodies are never going to come back god's just going to make new bodies no because then his body would have been in the tomb our body shall be raised and likewise the earth itself in that passage in second peter 3 where it says therefore we are looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth not a non-heavens and a known earth a new heavens and a new earth it wouldn't be called new earth if it's not an earth our bodies wouldn't be called new bodies if they weren't real but you talk about the best is yet to come how does that view affect the way that we live today well it it helps us to realize that if we missed out on something here and now in this world it doesn't mean that we will never be able to have uh that experience again if adam and eve had never fallen uh would they have built buildings uh would they have built ships would have they have gone snorkeling would they uh have sports uh would they play catch well sure they would have unless you can somehow demonstrate that those are inherently evil things no those are human things we are god's image bearers that's why we do those things and that's why i think we should expect to do them on the new earth with bodies that are better than they've ever been the bible talks about us storing up treasures in heaven if that's true where do the treasures get stored in that context from matthew 6 has to do with giving money investing in god's kingdom laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth but taking treasures on earth and doing what a.w tosher said uh what he called the transmutation of wealth that we take it from this wealth in this world to make it wealth in the world to come so what form that's going to take we don't exactly know but we know that it's a reward and some people say that the real form that it's going to take is going to be um the the position of responsibility uh on the newer man randy this has been a fantastic discussion thanks so much for joining us today

Channel: Kirk Cameron on TBN

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Id: gRizNyX1cMc

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2022