Gloomy, stark, uncomfortable.  Sometimes crowded. But almost always somber.  Time dragged on.  Minutes seemed like hours.  On top of the discomfort of the chairs and the dreariness of décor was piled the anxiety and uncertainty about what awaited me beyond the waiting room.

Dr. Remey’s office was painted in the dark earth tones of the early Seventies.  Even the pictures of circus animals on the walls were dark and foreboding.  It was not a place that sparked my childhood joy.  Especially since it would inevitably lead to a pasty, wooden tongue depressor and a shot in my arm.  

Few relish the thought of spending time in the waiting room.  And so, when we consider what theologians call the Intermediate State, the place where the souls of the dead await the return of Christ and the Resurrection, we must guard against thinking upon that existence as we think of the gloom of a waiting room.  For the believer in Christ death, awaiting the resurrection is not a shady, dreary half existence as the ancient Greeks believed.  Nor is it soul-sleep, annihilation, reincarnation or a second merit-based probationary period of purgatory.

While scripture speaks more fully of eternal life in the renovated New Heavens and Earth which follows the Resurrection and the Judgement, it does give us sufficient clarity about the present heaven to give us courage to face death and long for the life that immediately follows our death as we await the Resurrection. 

The present heaven is no mere waiting room for free-range souls, it is a place of conscious life, of perfect holiness and happiness, fellowship with Christ and with all those who have gone before and of restful, productive life.

Yet despite the sweetness of life in the present heaven, it is not our final home.  For the believer, the return of Christ and the resurrection and judgement ushers in even more glorious life in Immanuel’s land.  And so, the present heaven is still a place of longing and unwavering faith.  As the Westminster Confession describes it,

The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies;

Paul, writing to encourage the Corinthians, gives us some important insights into the blessings of the present heaven.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens…  So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. – 2 Corinthians 5:1, 8-9

What is the intermediate state, or the present heaven and hell?  Where are they?  What will believers and unbelievers experience?  When does this intermediate state end?  While Scripture does not answer all our questions, it does address these.

Join us as we examine 2 Corinthians 5:1-9 and what the Bible teaches about life immediately after death as we await the return of Christ and the resurrection. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

Advances in medicine have given us many life sustaining treatments.  Many of the diseases and conditions that meant certain death a century ago are now routinely treated and imminently recoverable.  But along with these developments have also come ethical complications.  We now have medical technology that can sustain heartbeats and breath, when a patient might otherwise have died.  The sick and their families often must make hard decisions about advanced directives and “do not resuscitate orders.”  Or whether to seek live saving curative care versus comfort care.

With these capabilities have come questions about what it means to be dead.  It used to be straightforward.  If your heart stopped beating and you stopped breathing for two minutes, you were declared dead.  But with the ability to continue these artificially, health care providers have looked for other definitions such as the “cessation of all vital functions of the body including the heartbeat, brain activity (including the brain stem), and breathing.” 

But apart from the medical definition, man has always had deeper questions and concerns about death.  Man is quite aware of his soulfulness and recognizes instinctively that to be human is to exist in a unity of body and soul.  We can observe the physical dimensions of death in our earthly bodies, but is physical death the end of my existence?  If not, what is after death?  Can I prepare for death?  If so how?  Will I face annihilation or reincarnation?  How can I know what it will mean to be dead? 

Those who have experienced “near death experiences” speak of light and peace.  Ancient civilizations speculated on various ideas of the afterlife.  Atheists and materialists hold to a void of nothingness after death. And different Christian denominations hold a variety of views about what we experience after death.   But only the Bible gives us clarity about what death is and what it is not, what we will be and what we will experience.  And most importantly how we can prepare for what God has already prepared for believers.

Over the next few weeks, we will be considering what the Bible says about Heaven.  This discussion necessarily starts with what the Bible says about death.  Our catechisms note that Scripture teaches that death is not the end of life, but the beginning of unending life.

Q. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection.– Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q 37

Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die? A. Our death is not a payment for our sins (Ps. 49:7), but only a dying to sins and an entering into eternal life (John 5:24; Phil. 1:21–23; 1 Thess. 5:9–10).-Heidelberg Catechism Q 42.

Eternal life, heaven, is the sweet promise for the believer in Jesus Christ. It sustains us in affliction.  Comforts us in grief.  Assures us as years fly by.  As our hymn declares,

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.

But what will that fair and happy land be like?  Join us as we begin our survey of what Scripture teaches about heaven with an examination of death, what it is, what it is not, what we will experience and what we will be. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

No Psalm is quoted more in the NT than Psalm 110. Jesus challenged scribes with it to reveal his identity. With it the author of Hebrews proves the supremacy of Jesus. And the Spirit uses it to clarify the person and work of Christ for believers today.

Join us as Dr. James Brixey leads us to examine Psalm and consider the comfort in the promise of Christ’s coming.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

God’s name is more than just what we call Him. The names of God in Scripture reflect who He is and what He does.  The Biblical names of God reveal His attributes and teach us how we are to praise Him and what we are to expect of Him.  Our confession reminds us that His name is any way in which He makes Himself known to us.

The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that an important way in which we know God is by the name, “Father.” Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman leads us to examine 1 Corinthians 8:1-6 and consider God’s name as the Father.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

What do you do when someone sends you a kind note?  Write back?  Or maybe pay kindness forward by writing someone else?  No doubt you display the thoughtful card or note in some prominent place.  Perhaps, the refrigerator or your desk or the dining room table.   As days and weeks pass those notes continue their work of encouragement.   

But then what?  What do you do with those cards when something new needs their space? We feel guilty throwing them away.  Or putting them away in some forgotten box.  They are too precious, as are the kind souls who sent them, to simply discard.  But we can’t display them forever. 

A wise pastor-mentor offered a novel solution.  He instructed me to create a folder in my filing cabinet labeled, “Mr. Wonderful.”  And whenever a card needed a more permanent place to go, it would go into this file.  He noted that, “as a pastor you will receive plenty of criticism over this thing or that, but on those days when the criticism of ministry hangs heavy, you go to your file and remember the encouragement some kind soul offered you in response to your care for them.  Remember that there was a day when you were ‘Mr. Wonderful.’”   We all have days when we need to remember past encouragements and kindnesses.  Days when we were someone’s Mr. or Ms. Wonderful.

As believers we are called to be encouragers.  While some are gifted encouragers, the Biblical command to encourage others is not limited to just the eloquent or the sensitive.  And our encouragement is not just for those who are struggling.  Sometimes the faithful believer needs a word of encouragement to keep on keeping on.  Paul commanded the church at Thessalonica to  “encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”  Who are you encouraging?  Who are you building up?

The little letter of 3 John contains only 219 words.  By that count it is the shortest book in the New Testament.  It is also the only New Testament epistle addressed to one specific person.  Though, no doubt it was also intended to be shared with the church.  Despite its brevity it is full of encouragement for Gaius, a faithful earlier believer, of whom the New Testament tells us nothing else.  And while there are some particular concerns touched on in the letter regarding the church, the thrust of 3 John is its encouragement to Gaius.

From John’s shortest recorded letter, we glean important ways we can encourage one another.  Not to mention the exhortation for us to take seriously our duty to encourage faithful believers in their walk, their service, and their participation in the life of the church.

Join us as we examine 3 John 1:1-15 and consider John’s example of how we should encourage faithful believers. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

Our cars are listening for our instructions.  And our screens are spying on our preferences.  Our watches count our steps, our heartbeats and even our breaths as we sleep.  Then tell us how we could have done better.  We have other specialized devices that monitor our vitals and alert the world if we take a tumble.  We have doorbells that double as FBI surveillance collection devices.  And many who work at home must install systems that monitor their keystrokes to make sure they are really working.  

Everyone is watching us.  Monitoring us.  Assessing us.  From our online habits to our biometrics, to our movements from place to place the surveillance state is here.  Going ‘off grid’ or ‘under the radar’ is becoming less and less possible. 

But for all the eyes that are watching us, how careful are we to watch ourselves?  Are we watching the metrics that are most important? Are we taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ?  Are we seeking first the kingdom of God and letting everything else get added afterwards?  Are we exercising self-control in our desires?  Are we walking in the truth?

Both as individuals and as churches we are called to be watchful.  Paul warned the Corinthians and us, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”  Peter cautions, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  And John’s caution in 2 John 1:7-8 is every bit is needful today than it was in the first century.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

In John’s first letter to the churches of Asia Minor he wrote to restore confidence and assurance of faith to believers whose assurance had been shaken by false teachers. These anti-Christs scoffed at the authority of the Word of God, rejected the incarnation of Jesus, denied the presence of sin and boasted that their own knowledge and experience was all that was needed to have fellowship with God. 

But beyond merely refuting the deceivers who have brought division to the churches, John writes a second letter to warn the churches to be on their guard to hold fast to God’s Word and to actively refuse aid or comfort or support to false teachers who seek to gain a hearing  among them. 

The short letter of 2 John is a pointed warning to churches to take seriously the call to ‘watch ourselves,’ that we are walking in the truth and rejecting those who reject the faith once for all delivered to the saints.   

Join us as we examine 2 John 1:1-13 and consider the warning that the church must be on guard against false teaching and false teachers. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.