Also, we see here that we will rest without boredom. Some people wonder and ask me from time to time, “Since you don’t work, how do you keep from becoming bored?” [This is implying that preachers don’t work.] But, it is true that when we have time on our hands, we have a tendency to be bored. In heaven, we will not rest from all work, but we will rest from all want. We will not have want—we will serve and worship tirelessly and we will rest from all want. That is the rest that we will enjoy in heaven. No, we will not rest from work, but we will rest from want.

The entire book of Revelation points us toward our heavenly home. It assures us that, in the end, we win. The good guys are victorious. But, in a number of places, and in this place specifically [verses 13-17], it gives us these wonderful views of what heaven is going to be like. Even in our age of ease, in our age of convenience, in our age of really NOT wanting anything—even in our age, I trust that we can see through our “eye of faith” and through these images that the Holy Spirit has provided for us just how wonderful heaven will be.

I heard a good way of looking at this. I spoke with the pulpit minister at the Netherwood congregation [Netherwood church of Christ, Albuquerque, New Mexico] the other day. He has done some work in Russia in the past and plans to continue doing that. Many of us met Jim Miller and Dave Board [from Lifeline of Hope—International Orphan Aid & Adoption, working in Russia], who were with us Sunday night. They stayed through yesterday, by the way. We had some good visits with them. Anyway, David Nester [pulpit minister at the Netherwood church of Christ] and Jim Miller were talking about some of their experiences in Russia and that sort of thing.

One of the things that I have a hard time comprehending is that here in this country, we have a lot of people who really don’t care much about God or spiritual things. But I think it’s fairly rare when you run into someone who does not have any concept at all about God, or about Jesus Christ, or about spiritual things.

David was saying that when he first went to Russia, he was meeting with young people on the street—perhaps some of these two million orphans who are still on the street over there. There is something like 2.5 million orphans who are IN orphanages, but there’s still another two million orphans who roam the streets. David said he would run into a group of children—young people—and he would try to communicate with them; then he would pray with them. He would do this through a translator. He’d say, “Let’s pray,” and he would put his head down and pray. He said that about the third or fourth time that he did that, the translator said, “You’re putting your head down too soon. Keep your head up and keep your eyes open and see what happens.”

So, the next time, David did that. As he began to pray, the translator told him, “These children have no clue about what you’re doing. They’ve never heard of prayer; they have no understanding; they have no concept of prayer whatsoever.” Well, that was a valuable lesson for David.

David said that an exercise that he would use, and apparently still does use, is to give children [the Russian orphans on the street] a piece of paper and some markers or crayons—something that most of them have never seen or experienced. As he was trying to teach them about the Bible, about God, about Jesus, and so on, he would tell them, “Now you draw a picture of the most beautiful thing that you can imagine—a city, a farm, the countryside—whatever you can come up with in your mind. You just make it as beautiful as you can.”

He gave the children 20 or 30 minutes. These children, even though they’re very deprived, are apparently very, very creative, most of them. David said you wouldn’t believe some of the pictures that they could draw, and the detail. Then David would tell them, “This is the most beautiful thing that you can imagine, but there is a place that is so much more beautiful than this that you can’t imagine.” That was David’s way of getting them to develop some kind of a concept about heaven.

Well, I thought about that. We experience a lot of beautiful things, a lot of wonderful things, in this life. But the most beautiful, the most wonderful thing that we’ve ever seen, that we’ve ever experienced, will pale in comparison to what we will experience in heaven. We will be awe-struck! Let’s think about that.

Revelation 7:15-17: “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He Who sits on the throne will dwell among them. 16 They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb Who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”