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Three years ago I had an assignment that took me entirely around the world—first to Japan, then Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, on to Europe, and finally to New York and home. During this trip I did my best to carry out my task effectively. But in the back of my mind there was always a lurking longing for home and for loved ones and friends. I was anxious to get back to the place where I belong, where there is always a loving welcome, where I am comfortable and at peace.

Has the Church lost its sense of home, so to speak—of man's ultimate destiny? Have Christians forfeited their rightful anticipation of heaven? Are we so concerned about making this world a "better place to live in" that we forget the Bible's admonition, "Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come" (Heb. 13:14)? Do we think that the Son of God came into this world primarily to reconcile man to man, rather than to redeem man from his sins and make him fit for heaven?

The activities of many suggest that our world is permanent, and that man's tenancy is permanent. But that is not so. We live in a world dominated by sin and dying of it, and the Christian's witness is not primarily about what is seen and temporary but about what is not seen and eternal.

"Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly use," we've heard. Perhaps so. But there certainly are many others who are so anxious to be where the action is that they overlook the place where the greatest "action" of history took place—the cross of Jesus Christ.

Why shouldn't the Christian think of and look forward to heaven? The earth and our bodies are temporary; heaven is home. Christ makes it plain that his primary objective in coming into this world was to "save" and to give "eternal life." It is one of the strange vagaries of our day that talk about salvation, heaven, and eternal life is, generally speaking, passé. Could it be that Satan has blinded the eyes of the world to the transience of this present life and to the fact of a life after death to be lived somewhere, eternally?

Jesus said his Father is in heaven. He said that no man can come to the Father but by faith in him. He repeatedly spoke of eternal life and the necessity of being prepared for it. He made it plain that sin separates us from God, now and for eternity. He affirmed that the transition from a perishing state to the possession of everlasting life takes place when men believe in him as the Son of God and Savior from sin.

Why, or why, is so little said about this from our pulpits today?

I have had the pleasure of visiting many places in this world. There are some to which I would love to return—Palestine, for instance. But there is no place in this world comparable to the heaven described in the Bible: "Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him" (1 Cor. 2:9, NEB).

This is not "pie in the sky," as some derisively say. It is a glorious hope, the hope and destiny of every Christian. Why are we so often silent about such a future?

Jesus tells us that there are many "mansions," "rooms," "dwelling places," in heaven. No matter how one interprets the word, the fact is that our Lord is even now preparing a dwelling place for those who are his own, and that it will be our permanent address.

In an editorial republished in the March 18 [1968] issue of U. S. News and World Report, editor David Lawrence emphasizes "The Illusion of Permanence:" "The North Atlantic Treaty is temporary. The United Nations is temporary. Peace itself is temporary. … Basically, there is only one permanence we can all accept. It is the permanence of a God-governed world. For the power of God is alone permanent. Obedience to his laws is the road to a lasting solution of man's problems."

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47