Co-Host: Ok. Jeff has been waiting here in Squaw Valley for a while. He’s listening to us on KARM. Jeff, what is your question tonight?
Caller: Yeah – hey there Doug.
Pastor Doug: Hi how are you doing?
Caller: Oh real good. In the Bible, in the book of Revelation, it talks about the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Pastor Doug: Yes.
Caller: Now, when we’re in Heaven sitting around the table – first of all – I met this Pastor who’s a recovered alcoholic. Thirty years later, he had to walk on the opposite side of the street. He said he was one drink away from the gutter, even after all that time. As long as we’re in these old, sinful bodies, we can overcome sin, but we still have sin in us, as far as sinful appetites that have to daily be overcome.
Pastor Doug: Right.
Caller: So in Heaven when we’re sitting around the table – also there’s that tree of life that has leaves for the healing of the nations – the first part of the question is, we’re sitting around the table, if I get a craving – I say, “This food is good but where’s the turkey? Where’s the coffee pot? Hey I have a craving for a smoke” is Jesus going to point me to the tree of life and say, ‘My child, go eat leaves?’
Pastor Doug: No. Now keep one thing in mind Jeff, when we get to the Kingdom, as we’re sitting at the marriage supper of the Lamb…
Caller: Yes
Pastor Doug: …that’s after the Resurrection and we have received glorified bodies. They’re real, but they are different bodies.
Right now we have sinful bodies that have these desires. This carnal nature that we have now is the result of sin and the fall of Adam. We will have perfect bodies, like the bodies Adam and Eve had before sin, in the Resurrection.
So you’re not going to be craving those carnal things any more. You’ll have no desire for those things.
Caller: What’s the purpose then when it says the leaves are for the healing of the nations? Obviously, there’s some healing that’s going to have to take place in Heaven.
Pastor Doug: Well now let me tell you what I think about that. First of all, you notice it does not say that the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the sick or the healing of disease or the healing of the people. It says, ‘the healing of the nations.’
Now keep something in mind. Before the tower of Babel, the human race was not divided into many different cultures and nations and languages. There was one family. Even though there are Christians all over the world, we are separated by our different cultural upbringings and mores and languages.
As we gather under the tree of life – and incidentally – that tree of life is obviously an enormous piece of vegetation, because the roots of it go under the river of life. It says the tree is on either side of the river, but it’s a singular tree.
Evidently, the tree forms a circle where the branches are growing together above and the roots together beneath, and the river of life running through it. And try and picture for a second a tree that’s a mile across. That thing is mammoth, ok? The City is 375 miles on each wall.
As we, the redeemed, gather under that tree to eat of the fruit of life, all of the nations’ barriers that divided us will be healed.
Caller: Including – well the biggest barrier is language. Everybody will speak the same tongue again?
Pastor Doug: Yeah - exactly! So it’s a poetic way of saying that all the nations’ divisions will be healed that divide us here.
Caller: Ok. I’ve never really thought about that before, when you say ‘nation’ – yeah okay – but we won’t be battling sinful propensities like appetite in Heaven?
Pastor Doug: Nooo! Good questions Jeff.
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