Heaven on Earth

As my family and I were worshipping at church yesterday, one of the songs we sang had the refrain, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty." This really had a big impact on me yesterday, and that impact has flowed over into this morning, and so I'd like to share some significant insights I've had with you.

In Isaiah 6, we find the account of Isaiah's experience of being exposed to the Lord seated upon the throne in his fully glory. Isaiah 6:1-3 says:

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.'"

What an incredible sight it must have been. The full brilliance of God's glory! And orbiting the throne of God were countless angels, calling to one another, from one side of the throne to another: "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty!" (You'll notice that you cannot be exposed to God's presence without gaining a new revelation of His character and nature).

In Hebrew, the word that the seraphim (or "burning ones") are calling out to one another is kadosh, which is translated as "holy", and means "separated, set apart, removed from all that is sinful"). The angelic anthem is, "Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh"! Here are the actual words from the Hebrew Bible...

This last couple of days, I've been repeating the same refrain in my worship before the Lord: "Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh." And as I've been worshipping the Lord, I've had such a sense of longing to experience him in greater depth. In fact, I've felt somewhat "homesick for heaven." I found myself longing again for the time when I will enter into the throneroom of God's full glory and behold his beauty in all its splendour. But then I was reminded that I don't need to wait for heaven to experience heaven! The coming of Jesus was all about heaven coming down to the earth, and my experience in Christ has been designed to be, quite literally, "heaven on earth"!

If you look back at Isaiah 6:1-3 , you'll see that heaven always has an impact upon the earth. When Isaiah "saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted," he also noticed that "the train of his robe filled the temple." The glory he was witnessing in heaven had an overflow effect upon the earth, resulting in that glory also filling God's temple upon the earth. This is even borne out by the declaration of the seraphim: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."

Later, in verse 4, we find Isaiah continuing to witness this overflow effect. Isaiah 6:4 says:

"At the sound of [the seraphim's] voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke."

How can you have a revelation of God's glory and it not shake your world? The more we are exposed to God's holy presence, the more our "doorposts and thresholds" will tremble.

My longing to experience God in all his glory is not new. David expressed the same longing in Psalm 27:4:

"One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple."

David also desired to "gaze upon the beauty of the LORD", but he wasn't waiting until he got to heaven to experience this. The answer to David's longing was to "dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life...and to seek him in his temple." In other words, David knew it was possible to taste heaven right now, each and every time he entered into the presence of the Lord in worship and prayer.

In the future, when the Lord Jesus returns, a declaration will go out from God's throne. Revelation 21:3-4 says:

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'"

The result of God making his dwelling upon the earth will be the eradication of every symptom of sin, sickness and death. Yet even though this speaks prophetically of the time when God's kingdom is fully expressed upon the earth, at the time when Jesus "has put all his enemies under his feet" and when the last enemy (death) is destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26-27), this is a state which we can experience personally in Christ right now. For through Jesus, God's dwelling has already been made in our hearts. God's kingdom has already arrived in our lives. Heaven has already come to earth in our personal experience. And for this reason, we can also experience God's forgiveness, comfort and healing - right now! For even today, for me, "the old order of things has passed away" in terms of my personal relationship with the Lord (note 2 Corinthians 5:17).

This has special relevance for me at this time. There is nothing like a diagnosis of cancer to bring your own mortality into stark relief. You suddenly realise just how close eternity is. It's not something I can put off for years and years. At any moment, the click of a finger, I can be gone.

But even though I long for eternity, and to see the face of God, I don't need to wait until I die to experience this. Today, I can have the kadosh encounter with God!

In closing, I want to share with you a poem I wrote a couple of years ago. In this poem, I've tried to capture my own longing, the desire to "gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple." It is my own personal version of the Isaiah 6:1-4 experience:

THE THRONE

Within a sun of incadescent light
A rainbow prism of unrivaled awe
Sublime in splendor, fearful in its sight
A Throne established in the mists of yore
Reflecting on a sea of blazing glass
In mirrored pair, one glory seen twofold
The brilliance of the Face that none surpass
That gleams the eyes of those that do behold

The myriads who press around that Throne
A roiling sea of human hearts ablaze
All raise their voice in single blended tone
And crown Him with the thunder of their praise
Yet found amid the rapturous acclaim
A tune sets ringing heaven's rolling spheres
One voice amid the throng sings its refrain
And captivates the heart of Him who hears

You angels who approach the blazing coals
And dance the gyring circuit 'round the Throne
Shield not from me the Lover of my soul
But wed my song to echo with your own
Oh that my heart were winged and took its flight
Toward that burning flame, a moth enthralled
Drawn ever to the fire of intense light
Yet not consumed by glory's searing scald

Ready to take the step toward experiencing this for yourself?
Then read "I Can Only Imagine".