ANNOUNCER: Heaven, or, the eternal state, what is it going to be like? How will we be occupied? What abilities to travel will we have? Will we be able to see the universe? Using some sanctified imagination today, let’s talk about it. And thank you, friend, for being here. This is Grace in Focus. We are a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. We invite you there to find out more about us. We have a free online seminary where you can earn an MDiv degree. We have a magazine that comes out six times per year. It’s also called Grace in Focus. It is free as well. And right now we’re inviting you to our national annual conference, coming up May the 18th through the 21st. Our theme will be “Believe in Jesus For Life. And the theme for kids in our VBS will be Crowns and Rewards. Find out more, get all the details at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we have a question from Doug. I like this question. I like all of our questions. But he says, you mentioned something on the December 5th podcast that caught his attention when you referenced an old book. I don’t remember what year. I’ve read the book, but it’s been a number of years. 

BOB: The Omega Reunion? 

KEN: The Omega Reunion by Frank Carmichael. 

BOB: I think if I had to guess it was around 90, early 90s. 

KEN: Very early 90s. Yeah. And for those of you who don’t know, The Omega Reunion was written by Frank Carmichael. And it is a fictional book that talks about like 150,000 years into, 

BOB: No, it’s 50,000 years after the Millennium. 

KEN: It’s in the eternal state. 

BOB: Right. It’s on the new earth. Except there are people who have populated untold numbers of planets and they have spaceships. And Jesus is having a banquet or a conference in the New Jerusalem. And people are flying in from planets all over the universe. 

KEN: And it is for the babies who were killed at Bethlehem, when He was born. 

BOB: What is, the conference? 

KEN: What the banquet is for, the babies, to honor them. I think there’s a phrase in it says something like, you died for Me and I died for you or something like that. You know, you died when I was born and then I died for you to make eternal life. Whatever.

BOB: What I remember is this, I think it was a husband and wife coming in and their spaceship gets caught up in a traffic jam. Even though these are people who are in the kingdom and sinless, yet they’re a little bit annoyed by the delay, right?

KEN: Right. Well, the book, as you could tell as we’re talking about, obviously a fictional account, but it is also an attempt to explain or what would we say, draw a picture of what it might be like in the eternal state, where people are traveling. This woman, by the way, who’s traveling is a reporter. 

BOB: Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t a couple. It was a woman. Right. And by the way, he has a footnote, Frank Carmichael, and I know Frank, he’s a good guy. He was very good friends with Art Farstad. Right. He cites in a footnote, a Patterson, who in 1898 wrote a book called The Greater Life and Works of Jesus [Ed. note: The title of book is The Greater Life and Work of Christ].

KEN: Alexander Patterson. 

BOB: Is that right? And Patterson argued that on the new earth, there will be children born. And this will go on forever. Part of it was, you know, in the Hallelujah chorus, and Isaiah 9, it says, “As to the increase of His government, there shall be no end.” And also the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was they would have descendants like the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore. Well, they say there are hundreds of billions, or trillions of stars. Israel today has like 30 million. 

KEN: And how many grains of sand are there on that? 

BOB: Trillions. So as a result, that promise has not yet been fulfilled. And a lot of people say, well, that’s hyperbole. Right. It means there’s going to be a big number, and 30 million is a big number. But it’s real clear that on the millennial earth and the new earth, that Israel is going to be the dominant country. And it’s going to probably have the largest population of any country on earth. So we’ve not seen anything yet in terms of the size and scope of Israel. 

KEN: It’s been a while since I read that book, because that book was written in the late 1800s, if I remember right. And part of his argument as well is that God is going to restore His original purpose for creation. And His original purpose for creation and Adam and Eve before they fell was that they would be fruitful and multiply. 

BOB: And fill the earth. 

KEN: And fill the earth. 

BOB: We haven’t done that yet. All right. Let me throw one other thing out. I heard an ETS paper once, Evangelical Theological Society. And the guy was speculating, how come we have billions or trillions of stars and billions or trillions of planets? Why all that redundancy? All we need is one planet and one star. We don’t need billions. They say that there are billions of planets that could sustain human life. Why all those planets? Well, this guy said it’s because God loves beauty. It’s all there because God loves beauty. 

Well, I think, and Patterson thought—by the way, Philippe Sterling is written on this. Bob Bryant has written on this. Bob Bryant has spoken on this in our conference. I believe Philippe has. That the reason for all these planets is because eventually we will populate them. 

KEN: And Adam and Eve would have, if they hadn’t have sinned. 

BOB: If they hadn’t have sinned. And by the way, before they sinned, evidently there wouldn’t have been things like asteroids. There wouldn’t have been things like comets that were going to get in the way. There wouldn’t have been things like planets that were dying and stars that were dying and things like that. It would have been a perfect universe and probably every single planet, not just in the universe, but in our solar system, would be inhabitable. We wouldn’t have to say, we’re going to go and terraform Mars so that we can live on Mars. Every galaxy would have had at least one inhabitable planet where we could breathe the oxygen, et cetera. I think that is the idea of what God intended. 

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BOB: Coming back, though, to the question. 

KEN: Doug’s question is twofold. Number one, is there any plans to reprint The Omega Reunion. And who printed it first? 

BOB: I believe The Omega Reunion was printed by Zane Hodge’s ministry, Redencion Viva. 

KEN: Right. And so he says now that Zane has gone to be with the Lord who has the printing right and has anybody thought about reprinting. And by the way, every now and then I get asked about this. Is there a copy of it around? Well, I’m not sure, but I think we have the copyrights because we bought the copyrights to all the things which Kerugma and Redencion Viva and Zane Hodges had. And so I believe we own the copyright to that. As an answer to Doug’s question, no, we don’t plan to republish it at this time, but that could change. 

KEN: I’m kind of curious. What does that involve? 

BOB: Well, first of all, we don’t have an electronic copy of it. So we would have to scan it in and then clean up the scan. But secondly, we would need to get Frank Carmichael’s permission, which I believe Frank has already given me permission. I think I contacted him several years ago and he said, sure, I’d love to see it back in print. But that would be another thing, I ‘d just want to, right before we went to consider going to that effort, I want to make sure he still is okay with us republishing it. 

KEN: Okay, the next question is, are you aware of anyone and we’ve kind of mentioned a little bit about Alexander Patterson and maybe Bob Bryant and some others who’ve talked about this and Philippe has anybody else either fiction like Carmichael’s book or nonfiction who have looked at what the life on the new earth will be like. And obviously this is talking from a dispensational, because a lot of people in Christendom think that the new earth is just going to be a floating around in the clouds. So he’s talking about has anybody written anything that would go into detail just off the top of my head, I think, for example, John Claeys’ book on Revelation. I mean, there’s going to be things in it, but that’s not the purpose of that commentary. 

BOB: And by the way, we just are coming out with Bible studies, both a student guide and a teacher guide, both for Revelation that John Claeys is doing and for you, for Hebrews. So we’re going to have a study guide and a teacher’s guide and both of those should probably be ready for the conference in May. In fact, the Revelation study guide and teacher guides should be ready by March 1. So people should be able to order it when the next magazine comes out. 

KEN: But my point is that, for example, in John’s commentary on Revelation, if you look in Revelation 21 and 22, 

BOB: He’ll give you some ideas. 

KEN: Yeah, they’ll give you some ideas and some suggestions and what it’s going to be like. And some things that it says in there. 

BOB: Okay. Now I’ve done some blogs about what the eternal state will be like. And I believe I did a YouTube video on what, I’m not sure, but I think I have, on what the eternal state will be like. And what I suggest is that we’re going to be doing a lot of the kinds of things we do now. Like we’re going to work. We’re going to have jobs that we do. If we’re rulers, one of our primary responsibilities is going to be to rule over a city or a county or a state or a country or eventually a planet, if the kingdom does go out like I think it will. And they’ll be our main job. 

But it doesn’t mean we’re not going to have other things we do. You may be a ruler, but you may also have a gift at painting or you may have a gift at singing or you may have a gift at writing. And so you may do something else. And in my view, the greatest paintings have not yet been painted. The greatest sculptures have not yet been sculpted. The greatest plays have not yet been written. And the greatest performances of plays have not yet been given. The greatest songs have not been written. I expect that things are going to be glorious and I expect we’re going to have engineers that design spaceships and that design new kinds of vehicles. You know, the kinds of things that science fiction speculates about. 

I mean, I remember when I was a boy, Dick Tracy, how to watch. He could talk on his watch. Well, we thought that was funny, but never going to happen. 

KEN: Well, you know, Maxwell Smart could talk on his shoes. 

BOB: Yeah, I don’t have a watch I can talk on, but lots of people, do you have one you can talk on? 

KEN: I know a lot of people do, but I don’t. I’m an old, fuddy-duddy. 

BOB: You’re right. Me too. 

KEN: The point that Bob is making here, Doug, is that I don’t know if we would say we have an actual book, but we do have that material out there that addresses some of this stuff. And as Bob mentioned, Bob Bryant has spoken at our conference and has Philippe has spoken on our conference at this, maybe in a breakout session? I can’t remember it. 

BOB: I think he has, yeah, in a breakout he did, and he wrote a journal article on it.

KEN: Right, so there are things out there that do address some of these things, and some of it admittedly is speculative. Well, a lot of it is speculation, but the bottom line is the eternal state is going to be so much better than we can even imagine. And it’s sad that so many within Christendom just see it as this boring place where we’re in a choir just singing forever. 

BOB: We’re all harpists. 

KEN: Right, so look up some stuff on the GES website, Doug. 

BOB: Maybe we’ll write something on it, and maybe we’ll even re-release The Omega Reunion. We’ll see. Good idea, Doug. 

KEN: Well, thanks for the question, and remember everyone, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: when is the judgment of the sheep and the goats? Is it close to the start of the millennial kingdom? Before or after? Please join us, and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.