When I was a boy of 12 I would sneak off to take a walk back into the woods behind the farmhouse. I craved solitude, and being alone with the silent noise of the woods. My parents were argumentative with each other and with my older sisters, creating a stressful home environment that I was always seeking to escape. I saw my parents trying to commit suicide in the middle of the dining room floor when I was eleven years old. I saw my dad walk out of the house many times with a shotgun, vowing that he wasn’t coming back home. I heard my mom say many times that she was going to the river and throw herself in, or find a hole and bury herself. Needless to say there was a lot of strife in the house on Basil Road, causing this introverted young boy to seek peace and quiet. The woods became my heaven. I have often told others that heaven will be where we are free to express all the desires of our hearts without any obstructions. I truly believe that all the latent talents lying in each of us will explode into awesome expressions once we are free of this mortal body and dwelling in the Presence of the true Creative Master. The restoration of my sight and hearing will just be the gate of my spirit being thrown wide open.
Mercifully no one ever took their life or hurt anyone, and all of us found forgiveness and healing with a personal experience with the Lord Jesus Christ in my senior year of high school. You can read about some of these experiences in My Spiritual Journey pages tab on my home page.
Heaven means different things to different people. If you stopped ten people on the street and asked them what they thought of when they heard the word heaven, you would probably receive ten different answers, with some similarities. Most of us, outside those with Near Death Experiences, have never seen heaven; so we try to describe it from our earthly experiences. Those with NDEs also have trouble describing it because they have to use worldly words to illustrate unworldly realms that lie outside of our earthly bodies of flesh. Even Paul heard words while in the third heaven that he could not express with his Greek and Hebrew vocabulary. Heaven becomes different things to different people, just like the woods became my place of solitude, peace and quiet without arguments and strife, allowing my spirit to recoup and heal my scarred soul.
When Moses was given the plans to build the Tabernacle, he was informed that it was patterned after the true tabernacle in heaven. (Hebrews 8:5) The Tabernacle in the wilderness gives us a picture of what the Tabernacle in Heaven will be like.
God is Holy, all knowing, all powerful, and everywhere present, or Omniscience, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent. God is a Spirit and dwells in a light that no man can approach. Paul says we live in Him, move in Him, and have our being in Him. David says there is no place where we can flee to get away from God. Darkness is as the light and night is as the day with Him. God knows our rising up and our lying down, as well as our goings and comings, along with every thought and intention of our hearts. We are naked before Him with nothing to hide our transgressions from His Holiness.
God told Moses to build a place of meeting where a Holy God could meet with unholy man, by means of Atonement. This meeting took place once a year and became known as the Day of Atonement. Atonement can be written At-One-Ment, or where man and God became reconciled to each other by means of the shed blood of an innocent lamb. Jesus Christ was the final fulfillment of this Atonement, by dying for our sins on the cross as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. His Blood has cleansed the hearts of billions of people as well as the very heavens themselves.
When Lucifer rebelled against the authority of God by slandering God’s Word and character, he turned evil and manipulated a third of the angels to believe his deceptions. God cast them out of heaven, but their rebellion had tainted heaven, so that Eliphas in Job 15:14-15 says, “What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in His holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight;” Job 25:5 says, “Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in His eyes;”
The Blood of Jesus cleanses the very heavens themselves, washing away the stain left by Satan’s rebellion. Hebrews 9:23-24, “Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”
Moses instructed the children of Israel to sprinkle blood of a lamb upon the doorposts of their homes, so that when the death angel came he would pass over their homes without harm to the firstborn children. The hymn says “When I see the Blood, I will pass over you.” There is power in the blood because it is the life of man. Israel was not to eat meat with the blood. The blood was to be drained before eating the meat. The blood is sacred to God. The blood was not applied to the threshold, but to the doorposts. The blood is not to be trampled under foot but to walk under with the head bowed in humility. The blood is precious in God’s sight because it took the innocent blood of animals to atone for man’s sin and it took the innocent Blood of Christ to cleanse the heavens from the devil’s rebellion and to wash away the sins of those who believe in His Son.
The High Priest on the Day of Atonement took the blood of the lamb and walked into the Holy of Holies behind the veil and sprinkled that blood on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, while the Cherubims watched. God’s Holy Spirit came down as wrath on the sins of the nation of Israel, but when it touched the Mercy Seat with the blood, the wrath turned to Mercy and the sins of the people were forgiven for another year. Jesus Christ became our High Priest as well as our Lamb, turning away the Father’s wrath from us and allowing His Mercy to cover our sins not for a year but for all eternity. As Moses had to apply the blood to the mercy seat, and the nation of Israel had to apply it to their doorposts, so we have to apply Christ’s Blood to our hearts by confession of our sins and acknowledgement of our our need of His saving grace.
There were three sections to the tabernacle; 1-the Outer Court, 2-the Holy Place, and 3-the Holy of Holies.
The Outer Court was where man brought his daily sacrifice for his sins to be offered by the priest upon the altar. The priest then would collect some of the blood and sprinkle the altar. The Outer Court also contained the Laver of Water where the priests were required to wash their hands lest they die while being inside the Holy Place. These are types of New Testament Repentance and Water Baptism. When we repent, Christ our High Priest applies the Blood to our hearts; and when we are baptized, we are buried with Him to rise to walk in newness of life. The Blood of Christ makes us at-one with our Father. The wrath of God toward our rebellion and sins is turned into mercy and forgiveness. We owe our very soul to Christ.
The Holy Place contained the Golden Candlestick, the Table of Shewbread, and the Altar of Incense. There was a veil that separated the Holy Place from the Outer Court and also another veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. The priests ministered daily in the Outer Court and the Holy Place, but only the High Priest was able to enter the Holy of Holies; and only once per year on the Day of Atonement.
The bread had to be renewed continually on the table and represents our daily and weekly nourishment from reading God’s Word and then hearing the Word of God preached at church. The Candlestick had to be trimmed each evening and each morning to be kept burning continually and represents the Holy Spirit needing renewed in our lives on a daily basis in prayer and worship. David says that he prayed before his God three times a day, as his heart panted after God the way a deer pants after a running water brook. The Altar of Incense also was a twice-a-day ritual. The wafting of the sweet smelling incense filled the Holy Place and permeated into the Holy of Holies, representing our worship and prayers ascending up before the very throne of God.
John got to see inside the true tabernacle of heaven and saw that the prayers of saints became the incense upon the Altar. Revelation 8:3 says, “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.”
David confirms this with his words in Psalm 141:2 “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!”
This shows us that Moses’ Tabernacle in the Wilderness was indeed a picture of the True Tabernacle in Heaven just as Yahweh told Moses. John saw the same layout in his vision as he beheld angels with bowls full of incense that were the prayers of the saints. Each time we pray and praise our God, it becomes as a sweet smelling sacrifice to Him on the altar of heaven. He directs His angels to collect those prayers and praises and will utilize their power in the judgment upon the evil of this world.
In Psalm 56:8 David says, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Jesus says that we are of more value than the sparrows and He knows when one of them falls, and that all the hairs of our head are numbered, therefore we have no need to worry about what each day brings, if we keep ourselves submitted to His protection.
The woods became my heaven, my place of peace and serenity without strife and contention. Later, after I met the Lord, meditation and prayer replaced the woods as I learned to enter into the rest that God has secured for us through the Blood of Christ. I still enjoy my alone time without any background noise, just allowing my soul and spirit to soak up the silence of God’s creation; and every once in awhile He shows up with a visitation of His Presence, just to let me know that He is still there and aware of all that I am facing. He gives silent strength that cannot be found in anything that this world has to offer, yet man spends his energy filling his mind with knowledge and the trivia of this life, missing the very One who gave the life in the first place. David in Psalm 19:1-6 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” God’s glory is still plainly displayed in the beauty of nature and the heavens all around us, leaving us without excuse to give Him the glory and praise that he deserves. (Romans 1:19-20)
Heaven is above us, for Paul said he was ‘caught up’ to the third heaven, and thus he also attests that there are three heavens. The first heaven is the atmosphere around us. The second heaven is the stars and galaxies above us and the third heaven is where God and His angels dwell and where believers will go when they die. All those with Near Death Experiences (NDE) describe this third heaven as one of light, beauty, peace, and contentment, without awareness of time or of anything but being present in the moment. They all say their senses are heightened to be able to see colors and hear sounds as never before in the earthly body. I look forward to perfect sight and hearing, since I wear glasses and have 80% hearing loss in one ear and 40% loss in the other. This will truly be heaven, even before I see Jesus face to face…
I have seen Jesus in two different visions and know without a doubt that He is real. Without having seen heaven myself, but having seen Jesus twice and experienced the visitation of His Spirit many times, I am sure that I will find a nice patch of woods up there where I can linger for as long as I desire.
What do you desire from heaven?
Pingback: Heaven Is Being Naked Before God Without Condemnation | Insightful Old Man