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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

The Glorious Kingdom

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Did you know about 5, 000 stars can be seen with the naked eye?

Yet with a small telescope you can see hundreds of thousands of stars.

The largest telescopes on Earth reveal millions of galaxies packed with stars, whereas the Hubble Space Telescope might be able to see over a billion galaxies.

Keep in mind, it's estimated that each of these galaxies contain over 200 billion stars, and it's now believed over 2 trillion galaxies exist in the universe.

Looking at the sky on a clear night, all the stars we see are in the Milky Way galaxy, a fiery spiral of stars over 100, 000 light years across.

Such awesome statistics give us a small concept of the greatness of God, and it stirs within us a yearning for space travel.

But did you know the Bible teaches that the redeemed will have this opportunity?

Join me today as we look at some fascinating Bible facts about the incredible future God has planned for his people.

And of course that is a wonderful subject, something that you find referenced in the Bible over 500 times.

Some of the best material is found in the books of prophecy, namely the book of Revelation and also Daniel, Ezekiel, talks about this kingdom that God has prepared.

Our presentation tonight is dealing with the subject of the glorious kingdom.

You know it's interesting that it seems like in North America, if you can believe the polls, that the number of people who believe in God is going down, but you still have about 75 percent of people in North America believe in heaven, whereas you only have about 23 percent that believe in hell.

And of the people that believe in heaven, 90% believe they're going there.

Well, I believe the Bible teaches it is a real place.

As I mentioned, it's referenced in the Bible over 500 times.

Let's find out what the scriptures say about this subject and how it relates to Bible prophecy.

First question, what did Jesus promise his people?

He said, in my Father's house are many mansions, and I go to prepare a place for you." So 1 thing we learn about heaven, and the word mansion here is dwelling place.

Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a dwelling place for you.

A lot of misconceptions about what heaven is and we're going to find out what the Bible says about that He says he's prepared a mansion.

So you ever enjoy watching some of those programs about the the homes of the rich You know, the most expensive home in the world is in Mumbai, India.

I printed these off because I thought I might forget.

1 of the wealthiest people in the world owns this house.

It's called the Antella, and it was built by a multi-billionaire, he's worth about 45 billion dollars, Mukesh Ambami, and it sells us that it's 550 feet high with 4 million square feet of interior space.

First 6 stories will be dedicated to parking lots.

186 parking places to pamper all the imported cars.

600 workers in this house and if the traffic is bad, which it is in Mumbai, he can land on the helicopter pad on the roof.

Of course, it's got the pool, it's got the palatial rooms, 20 floors of palatial rooms, and a silver staircase.

And if the guests get hot, which it gets very hot in that part of the country, there's a room that produces artificial snow to cool everyone off.

So you go into the blizzard room, or whatever they call it there.

And yeah, they've got a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea, and this house costs approximately or just under $2 billion a home.

You know, the sad thing is you spend all that money on a home, and you're going to still get old and die.

Mansions that we might build here, they're not going to last.

You're just going to leave it to somebody else.

Jesus is preparing a place for us that will last forever.

What do we know about the place Jesus is preparing?

Isaiah 65 verse 17 says, Behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth.

I think most of us understand why we need a new earth.

The Bible tells us this earth is waxing old like a garment.

You need to understand that when you find the word heaven in the Bible, there's 3 different ways it describes heaven.

Now, some of you have heard of seventh heaven person says I was in seventh heaven There's no seventh heaven the Apostle Paul tells us in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 says that Referring to himself.

He says I knew a man that was caught up to the third heaven heard words that you're not even allowed to speak.

And it's a real place, the dwelling place of God.

The first time you find the word heaven, or what the Bible calls the first heaven, is the atmosphere around the earth where the clouds float and the birds fly.

And when the Bible says the rain comes down from heaven, it's talking about the envelope of air around the earth.

When God separated the waters above the earth from the waters below the earth in Genesis, it's talking about the atmosphere.

When Captain Kirk, about a couple weeks ago, went to space.

He had to escape the atmosphere around the Earth, get out of its gravitational pull.

So that first envelope is the first heaven.

The second heaven is when you talk about the stars that God made in space, in the cosmos, in the universe.

The third heaven is referring to the dwelling place of God, paradise.

And so this is when Paul says, I was caught up to the third heaven.

It's talking about there is an actual place where God dwells.

Now, when I first read this and I thought, God's going to take us to a city, that didn't really float my boat because I've always wanted to run to the country.

I've been in most of the major cities in the world.

I'm born in Los Angeles, grew up in New York City, lived with my mother for a while in England, lived in Boston, in Miami, been to Singapore, and you name it, all over the world.

Mumbai and Moscow, and Karen and I have traveled all over the world, and I just don't like cities.

Karen and I went up in the country where We were the only people probably in 10 miles.

It was really nice to get out there in God's nature.

But the reason that cities have a problem in this world is because in this world, you get people and people sin.

And where you got a lot of people you got a lot of sin and There's crime and there's evil and there's selfishness and fighting and murder and all these problems.

That's why cities are so bad here But in heaven, you're not going to have those problems So when people get together there, it's going to be beautiful, pure, rejoicing, no evil, no problems, no sin, no filth, no dirt.

And some people, when you say, picture heaven, You know what they see?

They see little chubby naked babies with wings sitting on clouds playing harps or shooting cupids arrows.

You got all these medieval pictures of people and say, yeah, I'm going to die and I'm going to go be a fat naked baby in heaven and and The media almost makes it sound like hell is more interesting Trust me.

It's not I hope to inspire you first with a place where we want to think about Which is going to heaven?

Blessed are the meek they will inherit the earth now wait a second pastor Doug Here it says the meek will inherit the earth.

It's because he's making a new heaven and a new earth.

We're going to spend time with the Lord in these mansions he's prepared, and He is going to bring the new Jerusalem down from God.

You read this in Revelation 21, out of heaven to the earth.

What more do we know about the holy city that God is preparing?

It says the city is laid out as a square.

This is like we had tape measures they would measure with a reed back then.

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The Glorious Kingdom

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