Seeing the Heavens Opened: The Meaning of Being Born Again in Christ (DCLC 1984)

He looks back, and I think the Father says within the Son, “John has done well.” John has done well. He has done what he’s supposed to do. He’s given you your first followers. Then the Lord smiles real broadly and says, “Come find out.” And two young men are gleeful. They’re so excited. They’re going to get to find out where he lives. They’re going to spend some time asking him a lot of dumb single brother questions. But I really believe, I really believe that the Lord is just as excited, at last fully equipped.

Now, the story is a little complicated. One of them is Andrew, correct? And He gets who? Yeah, I think He gets Simon, doesn’t he? Probably. Okay. And what’s the other brother’s name? Andrew probably. Is it Andrew? Anyhow, at some point Andrew gets in on this, and Andrew goes, and now who does He get? Philip, Phillip, Phillip gets in on this, and then Phillip talks to…and we’re going to stop right there.

Okay, come with me to a hill, a valley, richly laden with vineyards. A young man, kind of sagging in the middle, walks along the ledge, sits down under a tree. He’s got a heavy heart. He’s lonely, confused. He’s scared, and he’s needy, and he’s feeling his sins. It’s all there. Whatever the human heart is capable of in anguish, he’s got it. He slumps down, and he buries his hand in his face, and he cries, and he looks up to the sky, and he says, “God, if you’re there, please come find me. I know you dwell somewhere up in that heaven, in the heavens, but I need You. If you can hear me, hear me, and come to meet my needs. Show me something. Please, God.

And that prayer reaches heavenly places and curves, without ever having left heavenly places, is heard and brought into the Father, and somewhere Jesus Christ, in utter and full and total fellowship with His Father and completely in heaven as He is on earth with His Father, hears the prayer. He hears the prayer. His Father hears the prayer. Therefore, the Son hears the prayer.

Nathaniel, I found the Messiah. Go soak your head. He’s really the Messiah. Don’t give me that stuff. Don’t talk to me about God up in the heavens. The Messiah. Nathaniel, you come on. All right, you’re all crazy…he goes toward the Lord. The Lord looks at Him. He says, “Hello, Nathaniel.” How’d you know Me? “I knew you under the fig tree.” And he crumbles to his knees. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Well, now that’s great, isn’t it? You haven’t heard nothing yet. All listen, listen to His answer. The Father says to the Son, “Such a little thing as this, my, such a small thing.” And the Son, so rich in the Father, said, “Yes, Father, such a small thing, compared to that which will be.”

For a moment they travel back in time, and they stand on the slope of the hill where they were once before. There’s another man sleeping with his head on a rock, and he’s tossing back and forth, and he’s having a dream, and his dream is…angels…there in an open door, and angels are climbing down a ladder right down to that stone. And they’re climbing back up and going back into heaven. The young man wakes up from his dream and says, he looks at that stone, one stone, and he remembers in his dream a ladder rested on it. He looks up into the skies, and he remembers seeing the angels come up and down that ladder. And he looks at that stone, and he says, “That is the house of God.”

Now, you listen, and you listen good. The Lord said to Nathaniel, “If you’re impressed with the fact that I heard your prayer under a fig tree when you cried out to Me and I heard you in heavenly places and I heard you on earth at the same time, the Father in my bosom. If you think that’s impressive, Nathaniel, you are going to see the heavens open. You are going to see the heavenlies. And you are going to see the messengers climbing down Me. I am going to reach in your spirit, and I’m going to reach to the door, and I’ll keep the door open, and you’re going to see the angels mount Me, and you’re going to see them come bringing the heavenlies to you. And you’re going to see them take you to the heavenlies. They’re going to do it, only it will be done through Me and in Me and by Me. You, Nathaniel, are going to see the door to heaven opened.”

Listen, you earthbound anemic creatures. Don’t you ever think Philip looked up at him and said, “Yay, Lord, I know I will someday die and see the heavens open. One day after I’m dead, I’m going to see the angels transported on you up and down.” Don’t you ever think he said that because he didn’t. And that’s not what he was talking about.

When I first read this passage as a young Christian, I thought the angels would descend out of heaven and rest on the Lord and shoot back up again. I did not see him and understand him as the one who breaches the gulf between earth and heaven and allows commerce. That he is the one who opens the door and keeps it open for me. There is no record in the New Testament of Philip having seen the heavenly realm. It isn’t necessary. It was a thing that was commonplace to them. You may not see it with your eyes, but you can see it with your spirit. And the commerce of fellowship between heavenly places and your spirit is an established reality. It is an experience in which you can enter even on this earth. Yay. Even now. Don’t say amen to me like you already knew that. That’s news to most of you.

You can see heaven; the heavens open. Nathaniel, you’re impressed that I could hear your prayer under the fig tree. You will see angels, messengers coming out of an open door in heaven, ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. You will see. And I know what Nathaniel said. He said, “I’ll see. I will see…the heavens open.”

As the Son glorifies the Father, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son. And it can’t go on forever. It’s got to stop somewhere. The Son glorifies the Father. The Spirit glorifies the Son. Who glorifies the Holy Spirit? The Pentecostal…(laughter) No one glorifies the Holy Spirit. It is His activity to glorify the Son. We lay hold of the Holy Spirit as we see the Son glorifying the Father and the Father fellowshipping with the Son. I don’t want to oversell anything to any of you, but I hope the day comes when you see the Father and the Son fellowshipping with one another. I really do.

Tonight you have said you believe. You believe. I hope you get two seconds of that sight. It’s all it takes. It’ll ruin you. It’ll just ruin you. I’m not talking about an out-of-the-body experience. I’m talking about something that you and I have a right to, within our spirits. A glimpse of heavenly places. Just as the Father indwelt the Son and fellowshipped with Him and the Son walked in the fellowship of the Father, so the Son in heavenly places nonetheless indwells you and fellowships with you and with the Father. And the fellowship that the Father has with the Son, and the fellowship the Son has with the Father, we declare unto you. For that which we have had with the Father and the Son declare we unto you. Have you ever heard that verse? It was a reality, an experiential reality.