Joy's Eternal Increase

My friend, Allen Smith, sent me this amazing message by Sam Storms, called, "Joy's Eternal Increase." It was given at a conference on Jonathan Edwards and this message is about Edward's biblically-shaped thinking on Heaven. You simply need to listen to it. I've listened to this sermon three times now and it continually causes me to hunger for Heaven.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Christians need to recover a sense of where we are going, or more accurately, where the Biblical Story is headed: the New Heavens and New Earth. This must fill our horizons and thrill our imaginations. [That's one of the reasons I recently read to our kids Randy Alcorn's book, Heaven for Kids. This is basically a condensed version of his book, Heaven.]

Storm's message makes the last chapter of his book, One Thing. I have recently acquired a copy of it. I'm sure the rest of the book is good, but this chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

He says, "The essence of heaven is the vision of God and the eternal increase of joy in Him." And, "Heaven is characterized by the increase of joy. Heaven is not simply about the reality or experience of joy, but its eternal increase. The blessedness of the beauty of heaven is progressive, incremental, and incessantly expansive."

"They will see His face" (Rev. 22:4)