When you die will you know your loved
ones when you get to heaven? Will they know you? Will you recognize them? Will
you be able to hold conversations with them? I want to read you something from
the Gospel of Matthew to listen closely to the language that Matthew uses here.
He says after six days Jesus took with him Peter James and John the brother of
James, and led them up a high mountain themselves by themselves. There he was
transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as
white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah,
talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus "Lord it is good for us to be here. If you
wish, I will put up three shelters - one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."
And while he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from
the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen
to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell face down on the ground,
terrified. Well this is clearly a vision of heaven. When Moses was alive Moses
begged God to show him his glory and God said to put it frankly,
Moses you can't handle my glory. But Moses insisted he wanted to see the
glory of God and so God agreed to show him just the backside of his glory not
the full frontal view of his glory but the backside of his glory. And God passed
by Moses he showed him his glory just the backside of his glory and as he
passed by Moses' face began to light up. In fact, his face became so brilliant
that when he descended from the mountain to be among the Israelites he had to put
a bag over his face because they could not view him in that kind of brilliance.
Well that scene is kind of repeated right here in this story of the
Transfiguration but what's interesting to me is that when Moses and Elijah
appear, Peter, James, and John recognized them. They knew immediately who they were.
I like to say they had no Sunday school pictures of them, they had no artist
artist renderings of them, they just knew because God had revealed to them that
they were in the presence of his glory and as such, they would have instant
knowledge. They would have instant view of what now we know is heaven. Well Peter
recognized this he said it's good for us to be here and in typical Peter fashion
he said I don't want to go anywhere else I want to stay right here
and I'll build three Tabernacles, three tents. I'll build one for you and one for
Moses, one for Elijah. He recognized them. He knew who they were even though
they were separated by hundreds and hundreds of years. You will recognize
your loved ones. You will experience the knowledge of relationships that you've
never even had. I like to tell mothers who have lost children, I like to say
there are children in heaven never met, mothers who have had
miscarriages, mothers who have had miscarriages they never even knew were
miscarriages those children are congregating and waiting for you in
heaven and you will recognize them and they will recognize you because heaven
is a place where time and space and matter no longer are valid tools of
separation. We will not be able to experience the pain and the heartache
that earth brings us but we will experience the eternal glory of God
that's why Peter wanted to stay where he was because he knew he was in the
presence of the glory of God but just as quickly as that vision took place it
suddenly ended and when they came down from the mountain, it is interesting to
note, when they came down from that mountain what immediately confronted
them was a person possessed by demons. They had come back to reality. Earth is a
place of brokenness. Earth is a place of fallenness. Earth is a place of
sinfulness. Heaven is just the opposite. Heaven is where we experience the full
glory of God if Moses experienced only the backside of God's glory and had to
wear a bag over his head what will our glory look like when we are face to face
with the eternal glory of God in this wonderful place he is built for us, a
place where we will know our loved ones our loved ones and will know us and we
will experience the eternal pleasure of God's amazing grace and God's amazing
glory
