Visions of Heaven
It was not only the immediate future that interested David, but also eternity, and more specifically Heaven. He once remarked, "My interest is in the future because I'm going to spend the rest of my life there." In the early 1980s he extensively researched everything the Bible had to say about Heaven, and supervised the creation of a number of colorful, detailed posters depicting and explaining what it will be like. Family members subsequently distributed these by the tens of millions.
To David, this was not an academic exercise. He recognized that the hope of Heaven was an integral part of the Christian faith, and therefore should be presented as part of the Gospel message to the world. Perhaps if more people were persuaded of its reality, he reasoned, they would accept Christ as their Savior. He explained:
What's the Gospel for? It's about Jesus, but what is Jesus for? To
save us! For what?--or Heaven! So the goal and the ultimate aim of our message is Heaven! That's
our message, --For God so loved the world that He gave His Only begotten Son.--Just so we'll know
His Son? So that :whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life!"--In
Heaven!
And that's what our message is all about: How to get to Heaven!--And to portray and preach about the Heavenly City! Preaching Heaven is preaching Jesus! Because they're never going to get to Heaven without Him! He says, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man cometh unto the Father in Heaven but by Me!" . [1]
I like to talk about Heaven, think about Heaven and read about
Heaven! After all, that's where we're going to spend eternity, so it's a pretty important place
and we ought to be pretty interested, don't you think? It's our eternal Home, the place Jesus has
gone to prepare for us forever, so we certainly ought to be interested in it and want to know
what it's like and what we're going to be like when we get There! [2]
For David, Heaven was not the end of life's road, but just the beginning. He rejected some traditional Christian concepts of the afterlife, which often portray Heaven as a place where nothing ever happens. Heaven was not only full of joy, happiness, and rest from this life's weary toil, David wrote, but also a place where each individual would be busy and challenged.
Heaven is not the end; it's only the beginning! God only knows how
much more we'll have to conquer after we've conquered the Earth and all the souls who have ever
lived on it and all the problems! Who knows what other worlds we may have to conquer, what other
universes we may yet have to learn to rule! My idea of Heaven is not floating around on a cloud
strumming a harp by some gift of God! That would be my idea of death! ... And it doesn't seem to
be God's idea of Heaven either! His universe is full of movement, and He'll never stop!
[3]
Reaffirming his unshakable faith in God's unfailing Love, David discarded notions that God would allow millions of unevangelized souls to spend eternity in Hell.
What kind of a God have we got?--He's a merciful One Who's not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance! . [4]
God is Love. [He's] not a cruel tyrant, not a monster Who is trying
to frighten everyone into Hell, but a God Who is trying to love everyone into Heaven!
[5]
God's going to give everybody a chance--dead or alive, now or
then--to hear the Gospel, to even see and believe and receive Jesus Christ as their Savior! ...
Now wouldn't that fit your picture of a truly just and merciful and all-loving, all-merciful God,
that ... everybody is going to have a clear-cut chance to see and believe and receive and obey
Jesus Christ? Everybody! Dead or alive! [6]
He says specifically, "This is the Light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world!". Everybody is going to have their chance sooner or later! Maybe they
haven't had it yet, but everybody is going to have their chance at "the Light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world" sooner or later. It sounds to me like most people are going
to eventually get saved, or at least reconciled to God. [7]