LESSONS FROM PARADISE

By: Richard Kirkland

(2 Corinthians 12:1-11)

  Introduction:

                        A.        This is a most peculiar passage of Scripture.  It is the only one like it in all of the Bible.  It is peculiar because it is the only passage in all of the Bible where we have a record of anyone ever taking a trip to Paradise and coming back to tell what he could about the trip.

                        1.         We are often interested in having people tell us about unusual trips they have taken.  We want to know details about the trip.  How long were they gone? How was their travel?  Did they see any unusual sights while there?  Did they meet any interesting people?  Did anything unusual happed to them while they were there?

                        2.         Wouldn’t it be something to have someone go to Paradise, into the very presence of God in heaven, and then come back to tell us about the adventure?  Well, no one has every really done that!  But someone did go there and return and make reference to his journey there.

                        a. We do have an account of Jesus saying to one of the thieves who was crucified alongside of Him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).  So we know that Jesus went there when he died and the thief also went there when he died.

                        b. We presume that Lazareth, the friend of Jesus, was there for four days before being resurrected by Jesus (John 11).

                        c. Undoubtedly, this was the same place where the poor beggar Lazarus was in the parable of Luke 16.  There Paradise is called “Abraham’s bosom”, a place of comfort, with a great gulf fixed between there and the place of torment prepared for the unrighteous.  But Lazarus couldn’t, and wouldn’t want if he could, return to the earth to tell about his blessedness.

                        d. Furthermore, we have the assurance from Christ that everyone who dies having been faithful to our Lord will go there.  Jesus said, “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).

3. Here we have Paul giving and unusual account of someone who went to Paradise and returned and is able to teach us some great lessons because of his trip.

                        a. Who was this man?  Probably Paul.

                    1. He doesn’t say so directly, but in the context Paul is talking about the evidence of apostleship.  One of the evidences is the visions and revelations that he had received.  This man who was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years earlier was evidently Paul himself, otherwise what purpose does the story serve at all in this context?

                    2. Furthermore, we know that fourteen years earlier Paul had experienced a severe persecution in Lystra.  There the people stoned Paul and dragged him outside of the city, supposing him to have been dead (Acts 14:19).  Perhaps this was the experience during which Paul was “caught up” to Paradise.

b. Where is this Paradise?

                                                        1.         Paul called it the third heaven.  There are three heavens described in the Bible.  The first, where the birds fly.  The second, where the moon and the sun and the stars are.  The third, where God is.

                                                        2.         The Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7) is Heaven itself (Revelation 22:2).

                                                        3.         What did he see there?  We do not know that he SAW anything, but he did hear something.  He heard, “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”

                                                 c.         Why should this matter to us?  Because someday we hope to go there ourselves.  And from Paul’s account, we know that is possible to go there.

                        B.         There are a number of lessons that we learn by implication from this account.

                                                1.         Implication is a valid method of learning.  Direct statements -- examples -- implication.

                                                2.         What is taught here by implication is also reinforced by the more direct statements of Scripture.

                        C.        From this text we learn these three great lessons:

                        1.         The doctrine or materialism is wrong.

                        2.         The doctrine of spiritualism is also wrong.

                        3.         Heaven is a real place that is waiting for us.

I.          THE DOCTRINE OF MATERIALISM IS WRONG.

                        A.        The doctrine of materialism says that man is wholly mortal, that we are like the old dog Rover, while he lived he lived in clover and when he died he died all over.

                        B.         But Paul said, “Whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know.”  So he implies the possibility of existence apart from the body.

                        C.        The very nature of life itself suggests to us that there ought to be a continuing spiritual existence even after the body has succumbed to death.

                                                1.         Physical life is a very incomplete existence.  We are born knowing nothing.  We spend a lifetime growing and learning.  The just as we are beginning to understand just how much there is to know and how much more we have to learn, we die.  There is a longing for more time and fuller knowledge of all things.

                                                2.         Life is like the story of the little boy who grew up to become an astronomer.  As a child received the children’s verse, “Twinkle, twinkle, ...” He promised himself that someday he would truly know what the stars were all about.  He grew up and went to college and became an astronomer.  He spent his entire life getting to know the universe with the sun and the moon and the stars.  Late in life he sat on his front porch gazing up at the beautiful stars of heaven and said, “Twinkle, twinkle...” He had only begun to comprehend the vastness of the universe.

                                                3.         No medical doctor or scientist can explain the origin of human thought in terms of chemical or biological action within the brain.  Yet we have almost always thought of the brain as being the originator of thought.  The truth is that the brain is not the originator of thought, but simply the transmitter of thought.  In the brain the biological processes take place whereby the expressions of the soul of man can be expressed.  The actual thought takes place within the soul (or spirit) of man.

                                                4.         Death itself suggests that there is something “passing away” of which life really consists.  When a loved one dies, we see their body.  They have the same eyes, but they no longer see, the same ears but they no longer hear.  Something essential to their existence and life is now missing.  James calls it the spirit.  “For as the body without ...” (James 2:26).

                        D.        The Bible teaches directly that the body is just the dwelling place of the spirit.

                        1.         There is both an inward and outward man.

                                                a.         “Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

                                                b.         “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man” (Romans 7:22).

                        2.         The body is just the habitation of the spirit.

                                                a.         Paul declared, “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.  For in this groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.  For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.”  (2 Corinthians 5:1-4).

                                                b.         Peter agreed, saying, “Yes, I think it is right as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you knowing that shortly I must put off this tent just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me” (2 Peter 1:13-14).

                                                c.         Have you ever spent time living in a tent?

II.        THE DOCTRINE OF SPIRITUALISM IS ALSO WRONG.

                        A.        Just as the materialism emphasizes the material body and denies the spirit, the spiritualist overemphasizes the spiritual dimensions of man.  They want to establish contact with the spirit world and send and receive messages from them.

                        B.         Paul indicated that even if one were to go to the spirit world and return, he could not speak of what he had seen or heard there.  Paul heard, “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter”(2 Corinthians 12:3).

                                                1.         Lazareth (we presume) was there, but didn’t reveal one thing about it.  Think what a story that would have been!  Our newspaper headlines and TV news programs would herald the event.  Multitudes would gather to hear about it.  But Lazarus spoke not a word!

                                                2.         Even Jesus, who went there for three days and returned for 40 days, didn’t reveal a think about or relate his experiences while there.

                                                3.         All we can know about Paradise is what God has chosen to reveal to us through the pages of the Holy Scriptures and that is enough!

                        C.        Paul numbered witchcraft (sorcery -- NKJV) as among the works of the flesh that would prevent one from entering heaven (Galatians 5:20-21) and under the law of Moses those who dealt in familiar spirits were to be put to death!

                        D.        Christians have no business involved in spiritualism, astrology, palm readings, voodoo or any other trickery that seeks to involve a person with the spirit world.

III.            HEAVEN IS A REAL PLACE THAT IS WAITING FOR US.

                        A.        Paul was caught up to the third heaven, the Paradise of God.

                        B.         Heaven is a real place.

                                                1.         We can’t find it on a map or see it through the telescope but it is real nevertheless.  Where is it?  I cannot begin to tell you.  It is a spiritual place and not a material place.  When I realize that the nearest star (the Sun) is 93 million miles away and that the light from it traveling 85,000 miles/second takes 8 minutes to reach the earth, I am astounded by the vastness of this universe.  There are stars so far away that the strongest telescope can barely locate them and other that have probably not been discovered.  I am surprised that we cannot believe that heaven is a place even though we have not seen it with our own eyes.

                                                2.         Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1-4).

                        C.        Heaven is a real place with glory beyond expression.

                        1.         The glory of the world beyond, the Paradise of God, is expressible with human words.  What a glorious reality it must be, beyond our fondest expectation or wildest imagination.

                        2.         John was privileged to gain a glimpse of its glory in his vision on the island of Patmos, but could relate its glory to us only in symbols and figures which pertain to this earthly existence.  And even then, it far surpasses anything that we shall ever really know here with its perfect security and peace and happiness, where the street is paved with gold and the water of life and tree of life are freely available to everyone, where there will be no more sickness nor death nor separation, no more loneliness nor sadness nor sorrow.  What a wonderful place!  I want to go there, don’t you!

Conclusion:

                        A.        What a wonderful opportunity we have to prepare ourselves to go there.  Are you ready?