Angelic Conflict part 326: Current work of Christ – Joh 14:3.Title: Angelic Conflict part 326: Current work of Christ – Joh 14:3.
10. Christ s now preparing a place. Every believer has a permanent dwelling place, custom made by the eternal Carpenter.
In the upper room, Christ told His disciples:
Joh 14:1 "Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.
Joh 14:2 "In My Father's [Father is used 53 times in Joh 13-17] house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
Joh 14:3 "And if I go and prepare a place for you [eternal carpenter], I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Here again, His present work would be meaningless unless it was supported by a literal resurrection from the dead.
One person defined a home as the place where you are treated the best and complain the most.
Sometimes people have a hard time making a home. Whether it be a broken family or an overly dysfunctional family or extreme poverty or physical or mental illness there are some who cannot call any place home. Sometimes there is great division in the family and no love and so, even though there may be a house, it is not a home. A home is a place of comfort. It is a place where a person can relax and completely be himself. It is extremely familiar and comfortable. Once someone can call a place home the size, shape, ornamentation, location, etc. do not matter. It is where he calls home, pure and simple.
Sometimes people have a home and then are uprooted. For some reason they have to move. Maybe it's a military family, maybe there was a new job, maybe the person got married, maybe the person started a church, maybe an extreme weather event demolished the home. Maybe they feel like the last stanza of a poem written by Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. [Robert Frost]
Yet, even in a different environment, it is only a matter of time before they can make it a new home.
A home is a wonderful place to return to after a long day's work.
Peace and rest at length have come All the day's long toil is past, And each heart is whispering, "Home, Home at last." [Thomas Hood]
But we all know, some a lot more than others, that a home takes work, especially if one built it himself. A homeowner has many things to do in terms of repair, upkeep, yard work, and of course, cleaning. Even a renter has a portion of this if it is to remain a comfortable home.
The home where happiness securely dwells Was never wrought by charms or magic or spells A mother made it beautiful, but knew No magic save what toiling hands can do. Arthur Wallace Peach [English professor Norwich University]
Yet some never had the toiling hands of a devoted mother.
Yet every believer has the toiling hands of the Savior and can know with certainty that he has a beautiful home in heaven.
Many believers are uncertain about their heavenly home. They believe that they can lose their salvation or that they have to work for it so the home in heaven is not a guarantee, so instead of comfort they have doubt and fear.
Satan desires to make us feel homeless. He attempts division, loneliness feelings, financial hardship, alienation, persecution, etc.
The Jewish custom in marriage directly matches this work along with His future work that we will see.
At the time Christ was on earth there were three major aspects to this: 1) A marriage contract was consummated by parents of the bride and the bridegroom, and the parents of the bridegroom would pay a dowry to the parents of the bride. This was the legal marriage and would require a divorce to break the union.
2) The second step, which usually occurred a year later or at another suitable time, featured the bridegroom accompanied by his male friends going to the house of the bride at midnight with a torch parade through the streets. The bride would know he was coming as she heard the procession and would therefore be ready with her maidens and would join the procession and go back to the home of the bridegroom.
3) The third phase of the wedding was a marriage supper that might go on for days as illustrated in the wedding at Cana in Joh 2:1-12.
Our Lord is doing the same thing. The legal phase of the marriage is consummated on earth when an individual believer believes in Christ as his Savior. He has been bought with the blood of Christ and now belongs to Christ in betrothal. And when the RF is completed and each dwelling place is finished He will return for His bride and this is the second phase of the marriage of the Lamb. Christ comes to claim His bride and to take her to the Father's house. At our arrival to the Father's house the wedding feast can commence, which might take several days to complete and this has led some to believe that our feast will be seven years, coinciding with the time of the Tribulation.
Talk about a move, this is the biggest move you'll ever have, but you won't need a UHaul, Christ, just like with the home, is going to do all the work.
An important aspect of the present work of Christ stemming from His resurrection is that Christ is anticipating future rapture and resurrection of the church and is preparing a place for His bride in heaven.
1Co 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
1Co 15:53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Co 15:54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory.
1Co 15:55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
A false teaching had spread throughout the Thessalonian church after Paul had left that there was no resurrection and that the dead missed out on the glory of the returning Christ. This was a long held view of the Sadducees, the group made up of the priests. This false doctrine, therefore, was likely spread by the Judiazers who would counter Paul's work after he left a city. It also happened in Corinth.
Heb 9:28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
Satan would lead us to believe that if there is a heaven that in some way we are going to miss it, just like we miss out on other things in life.
I may believe that I missed out on a great romantic relationship, or a career, or some blessing that I have desired and usually we point to past mistakes and admit that they might have been the cause and that I have missed the boat entirely. This may actually be true or it may be a pity party, but, for the believer, the home in heaven and the trip to heaven are both guarantees since they depend on the integrity of Christ and not upon us.
1Co 15:12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
1Th 4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.
1Th 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
1Th 4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.
1Th 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
1Th 4:17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
1Th 4:18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
You can think of this home when you have to weed or mow the lawn or do laundry or fix a part of your earthly home. But then don't despise the one that you have now, for it is a gift from the grace of God and when we become thankful for our logistical grace blessings we have a capacity for them and for more.
Deu 6:10 "Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build,
Deu 6:11 and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied,
Deu 6:12 then watch yourself, lest you forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
11. His universal lordship over all creation, the earth, and the heavens.
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