THE BEAUTY OF HEAVEN based on Rev. 21:9-21
By Glenn Pease
Among the world's famous short stories is the one called, The Lost Words Of Love, by the French writer, Mendes. It is the fascinating tale of how an evil spirit sought to ruin man by stealing three words out of his vocabulary. The three words were, I love you. The spirit succeeded in this vicious vocabulary vanishing trick, and the results were tragic. Friends drifted apart, couples broke up, and quarreling and depression spread like a plague. People stopped singing, poets stopped writing, and it appeared that hell on earth would soon be a reality. The story ends happily, however, because the spirit himself falls in love, and the world recovers the lost words of love.
It may sound weird, but it does have a message of profound truth. For if you destroy man's love he is as good as in hell, and without love there can be no heaven. In verse 8, John lists for us those who are excluded from heaven and cast into the lake of fire. They are all products of hatred. They hate God, and do not believe; they hate man and thus they murder; they hate what is pure, and thus they pollute and corrupt the beauty of human love; they hate the truth and thus they are habitual liars. Hatred on earth is the beginning of hell, just as love on earth is the beginning of heaven. Love and hate--heaven and hell, are almost parallel phrases.
The ugliness of hate is what will determine the environment of hell. Earl Panzram murdered 23 people, and was executed in 1930. His last words were, "I wish the whole human race had one neck and I had my hands around it." God will cleanse the new heaven and the new earth of all such hate. The world itself will be cleansed by fire, and all that blots the beauty of God's creation will be eliminated. Love only, will be allowed in heaven, and they result will be beauty beyond our wildest dreams. Love will reign supreme and no evil spirit will be able to rob men...