Dr. Roy Beaman Preaches about Heaven

Enjoy this sermon from the Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary archives circa 1988. Dr. Roy Beaman (1904-1996) was a great scholar with a working knowledge of 29 languages. He traveled extensively with his passion for biblical archaeology. Dr. Beaman was my Systematic Theology professor as an MDIV student at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1980s.

Roy Beaman-Heaven

I don’t know how you could have chosen a subject that I like more than that of heaven. On May 17, 1935, just a few minutes before 6 o’clock, my mother breathed her last breath. About two weeks later, I lived in Paducah, Kentucky then.

Father lived five miles west of Murray where most of us trapped children were born. I went down there for some reason, I don’t know. He said, I want you to sleep with me tonight.

Well, I didn’t want to do it because he would be sleeping there and I’d be sleeping in the very place where mother had breathed her last breath. Soon after we got in bed, father said, where is mother? They’d lived together 48 years plus. I said, father, I think the best passage is Philippians 1.23. Paul said, having a desire to depart and be with Christ.

Brother, whatever you say about heaven, I’ll be with the Lord Jesus Christ who rolled away my sin burden back there in 1918. Well, after a few minutes, he asked another question. He said, is mother happy? Does she know what’s going on? I use two or three scriptures, but I pin my remarks to Revelation 14.13 and I’ll get that in the morning message.

About they rest from their toils or labors and their works to follow them. Now let’s start with the Old Testament and I could take all of my time on it. But I want to call your attention to Enoch in Genesis 5.24. He walked with God and he was not, for God took him.

My friend, if you’re going in God’s direction, as somebody said that the Lord and Enoch were walking together and God said to him, we’re closer to my house than are to yours. You just come home with me. I don’t know whether you’ve ever read Hebrews 11.5. Enoch, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him.

For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. And then the second one I want to talk about is Jacob. Jacob, that crooked rascal if there ever was one.

But when by stealth he stole the birthright from Esau, his mother knew that he must not stay there that night because Esau was angry. And on his journey, and I’ve been mighty close to the area where I think this occurred, that Jacob stopped, that’s in the 28th chapter of Genesis, and the 12th verse says that there was a ladder that reached all the way from earth to heaven and that the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Why ascending before descending? Ascending, going up, taking man’s need, and coming down, bringing God’s supply.

But in John 1.51, Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that hereafter you shall see heaven open, in an open state, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Who is the ladder to heaven? The Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t get to heaven by your own climbings, by your own efforts.

The angels of God take our need up to him and bring his grace down to us. That’s the picture there in the 28th chapter of Genesis, and as Jesus applied it in John 1.51. Let me talk with you about the death of Jacob. That’s in the 49th chapter of Genesis and the 33rd verse.

Joseph was there. Jacob had just pronounced blessings upon all 12 of his children. Beautiful poetry that he gave.

And then it says that he fell asleep and was gathered to his people. I don’t know how many times the Old Testament says, Gathered to one’s people are gathered to one’s fathers. What does that mean? It means that they are over there.

It means that Jacob went. And it means that they recognized one another. I used to be asked when I was a young preacher, Will we recognize one another in heaven? Let me make it personal.

My mother and father will be there, and I will know them as my mother and father in this life. But there will not be a little Beeman group over here and a little Winstead group over here and other groups. In heaven, we’ll all be one family, red and yellow, black and white, rich, poor, young, old, and all the rest.

And my relation to my mother and daddy over there will not be what it was back in the home, except insofar as they magnified Jesus. I like the way the black man, John Jasper, put it. He preached on heaven.

And he said, When I get to heaven, if my mother or my father one is standing there and wants to speak to me, I’m going to say, Mother, you stand aside until I talk with Jesus and worship him for a while. And brother, I like the way that black preacher put it, that Jesus ought to be the center of heaven for us in every sense of the word. Let me come to Job.

I date Job in the period of Jacob. In Job 14, 14, If a man die, shall he live again? I preached at funerals and on other occasions from that. But the one that I like from Job so much is Job 19, 25, 6, and 7. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the earth.

In other words, he knew Jesus’ redeeming power. He knew his second coming. And he said, Though my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh, that is, he’d be resurrected, in my flesh shall I see him whom I shall see for myself and not another.

In other words, Job said, I’ll see my Redeemer on my own, a personal acquaintance with him. I decided not to talk much about Moses’ death and Elijah’s. I’ll tell you why, because people say, Well, I’m not a Moses and I’m not an Elijah.

And they didn’t go through the pains of death. But listen, they stood with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration there in the 17th chapter of Matthew, so we know that they went home to be with the Lord. My friend, let me come to 2 Samuel 12, 23.

David had committed a terrible sin in taking Bathsheba. He even had Bathsheba’s husband put in the front of the battle. When I have seen the old wall over on the east side of the Jordan, there’s a man or a man, they call it, there’s an old wall there that goes back many centuries before Jesus.

And I like to imagine that this is where the husband of Bathsheba was, and David instructed the men that when the enemy was throwing stones, that they would all drop back so that he’d be killed for sure. But anyway, the baby came. It got very sick.

David prayed, prayed that God would spare the child. But then he heard them whispering, and he asked them, is the baby alive or is it dead? And they said, it’s dead. And so he got up, washed himself, and dressed.

And they thought that was strange. He said, no, so long as the child was alive, I was praying that he might live. And then in 2 Samuel 12, 23, he cannot come back to me.

Nobody comes from the other life back to this life. This idea that you or somebody had somebody visit you from the dead, no, no, that’s not Bible. But David said, I shall go to him.

My friend, this is the strongest passage in all the Bible about the salvation of babies. I don’t know what year it was. I think it was 1923.

This couple in our home church, Sinking Spring, an old country church, started back in 1831. This young couple, their baby died. And so they wanted me to come and preach the funeral.

Ms. H. Boyce Taylor said to me as I was getting ready to leave the Bible school where I was a student, she said, Roy, be sure you bring something that will comfort that mother. The baby was about a month of age. My little brother, just younger than I, died on the third day.

My older sister’s baby mother said that it breathed. The little girl breathed twice or three times. She wasn’t sure.

She knew she breathed twice. But listen, and then let me include all the rest. My old pastor that baptized me and that presided when I was ordained to the ministry, his oldest son was an idiot, not a moron.

I’ve talked with him. His dad had talked with him. If his dad told him to go get a stick of wood, he’d bring it in, and his dad would say, put it on the fire.

He just didn’t have any mind. And he was about six or three or four when he died. But, my friend, that Castleberry man of six or three or four, my little brother of three days, or my little niece of three breaths, this teaches that every baby and every idiot, every child that has not come to the age of accountability, will go straight to heaven.

If there are any of you that are troubled about this, after the message is over, you come aside, and I’ll read some other scriptures and talk with you about it. Let me come to the Book of Psalms. I thought once, Kirby, about preaching on heaven in the Book of Psalms.

In that first psalm, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. Come down to the fifth verse. The ungodly shall not stand in judgment, will not stand up, because when their sins are put out there before them, they’ll fall down in defeat, in conviction.

And then the second half, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. Friend, you sang this morning about the congregation over there. I’ll say a lot more about it from other verses.

But in the 16th chapter of Psalms, one of the interesting sayings that I want to leave with your heart, if there were no other passages at the end of the 16th psalm, if there were no other passages in the Bible, then the psalms would have a clear picture. Psalm 16, verse 11, Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy.

And that’s one of the passages I quoted to my father that night, that mother is at rest and in joy over there. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

Brother, I don’t even know how to make that plainer. In thy presence are pleasures forevermore. Look at the 15th verse of the next chapter, the 17th chapter and the 15th verse.

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I’ve seen glimpses of God’s grace, and sometimes I say that I’ve seen his face. But it’s not a full glimpse like it’ll be over there.

I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake. My nephew, his wife called him at about 3 in the morning.

He didn’t answer. She touched him. He felt cold.

She jumped out of the bed, called an ambulance, but he had already been dead an hour or two. My friend, I don’t know any better way to go home if you’re saved than just to wake up on the other side. Look at it again.

I shall be satisfied when I wake with thy lightness. I’ll talk with you more about the resurrection when I get to the New Testament. I ran across a scripture a while ago that I had marked here, but I didn’t bring it in.

In the 11th chapter of Hebrews, from which I quoted about Enoch, let me read you about Abraham from the 10th verse. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. The cities that you and I build, the cities that we read about in the ancient times, I’ve seen Ur of the Chaldees, the ruins of it.

I’ve seen Nineveh. I’ve seen Babylon. I’ve seen many of the city ruins in Egypt.

I’ve seen Tyre and Sidon. But friend, Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, whose maker is God, and it won’t wear away and won’t be conquered by the enemy. Let me come back to the Psalms.

How many of you have quoted to yourself the 23rd Psalm? Let me give you surely the fifth and sixth verses. If I had time, I’d like to quote all of it. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall, that is, after the days of my life, dwell not in the sheepfold.

He’d been talking about the sheepfold, but he changes away from the sheepfold, too, and I shall dwell in the house of Jehovah forever. My friend, if my daddy could come back, and my wife and I, in her weakness, and I in my age, she’s weaker than I, though nearly seven years younger, if we could just move in the house with my dad and see him in his day of strength, oh, my friend, I don’t know what it will bring to your mind, and I shall dwell in the house of Jehovah forever. Oh, brother, I’m going home someday.

And it may be that that boy over in Arkansas has it right that Jesus is coming tonight or tomorrow or Tuesday. I’ve been looking for him since one of my students broke, and I’ve been saying it may not wait till Sunday or Monday or Tuesday. And, friend, when I read most of his 88 reasons, intellectually, I’m not expecting him tonight nor tomorrow nor the next day.

He twisted more scriptures in one little tiny book than any book I’ve ever read. But, my friend, you ought to be looking for Jesus. He may come before I finish this sermon.

He may not come for a thousand years. I’ll tell you why I’m not intellectually expecting him for ten years. What I heard this past week, that 22 years ago, China estimated that there were 5 million professing Christians.

And now they’re estimating that though many of them have been put to death, and the men that went with Dr. Gray to China, Dr. Gray and they told of the stories of persecution, mistreatment, a man whose hands were tied together for 23 months. And yet he just praised the Lord. They estimate now they’re from 40 to 50 million professing Christians in China’s one billion people.

My friend, if things go on as they’ve gone in the last 22 years, there’ll be 75 to 100 million believers in China in the next 10 years. And I’d like to think maybe the Lord’s going to wait until those are saved. I don’t know.

But, my friend, whenever you and I go to be with him, whether he comes, as I said, before I finish this sermon, before you get to your home, it’s all in his hands. And let us be happy and take it as he puts it. In the 73rd Psalm, beginning at the 25th verse, one of the most instructive passages that I’ve found in all my Bible across the years, David said that he had problems, but when he went into the Lord’s house, now, let’s read, out of that comes verse 25, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

I love my wife, I love my daughter, I love my granddaughter and my two grandsons. I love my father and mother. They’re memories, they’re gone.

I still have one brother and three sisters alive out of a family of 12. But, my friend, Jesus Christ is the dearest one that’s ever entered my life. He’s done more for me.

What did he say? Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart fail. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Oh, my friend, going home for David was a triumph, after saying a thing like that. But I think the sweetest verse in all the Psalms is Psalm 116, verse 15. If you’ve never marked it, mark it.

I preach many funerals from it. Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of his saints. Why? Because they’ll be taken out of the trials down here, they’ll be taken over there where they can have fuller fellowship with the one who redeemed them from their sins.

And I tell you, when I preach, the last time I used this, this old preacher was 69 years of age. And I knew that the people wanted me to bring comfort. And there were four of us that did some talking at the funeral.

So they only gave me about 11 or 12 minutes. Precious in the sight of Jehovah. My friend, I was glad when my mother went home because she’d suffered for many days.

I was glad when my daddy went home in 1938 at 72 years of age. He’d been in a coma for about 40 hours and didn’t know anything was going on. And I was not unhappy when I got the news he was dead.

I was unhappy he was in the coma. But if he was going to be in the coma, I was glad for him to go on to be in the Lord’s presence. Oh, I’d like to talk 30 minutes and preach from this verse.

Precious in the eyes of Jehovah. Why don’t you and I try to look when death comes in our families to someone that’s saved, why don’t we try to look at it from God’s view? Precious in the sight of the Redeemer Jehovah God is the death of his saints. Well, this one I’ve used at funerals, Proverbs 4, 18.

I don’t know whether Brother Winston has it or not. The path of the just or the path of the righteous is as a shining light. That’s grand.

But I stopped intensely. The path of the righteous is as a shining light. And then it says that shineth more and more.

And I like that, but I’m not through yet. I’ve heard people say I’m going down toward the sunset. I’m not.

At 84 and 8 months, I’m going toward the noonday brightness when I go home to be with the Lord. Then we’ll read the whole verse. The path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

That’s the noonday brightness. Brother, I’m not going to go home in a haze. I’m not going to go home in a mist when Jesus calls me the light of his joy and his presence.

I don’t know how many angels he’ll send to take me home. You remember that the beggar there in Luke 16 in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It doesn’t say that demons took the rich man down to hell where he was in torment.

But it does say that angels took the beggar up to Abraham’s bosom. That gives the same lesson I mentioned before. Rest.

Not worry, not fret, not trouble, but rest. A man stood at my front door about six or seven years ago. We’ve been living there now 10 1⁄2 years.

He was well-dressed, about 60 years of age. A young man with him, not so well-dressed, just about 30 or 35. And they began telling me about their Jehovah Witness story and that we’d just fall asleep and be unconscious and then that God would wake up some and that the home of the redeemed would be here on this earth without its being re-beautified.

I’m going to talk with you about it in a little bit. So I said to him, But sir, the Bible says that the rich man was tormented in the flame and that the beggar was in Abraham’s bosom of rest. And the young man said, Oh, that’s a parable.

I said, Amen, it’s a parable. I would like to add that it’s a historical parable that opens up the future. But I said to those two men, What does the parable teach? And I answered it.

I said it teaches that the man that goes out of this life without Jesus Christ, that he’s tormented down in the flame and that the man that goes because he knows Jesus, that he’s in rest over there. The old man said, We came to talk to you, and you’re trying to teach us. I said, Sir, will you answer one little simple question? I said, Whose house, whose front door is this? They turned and walked away, and it was good riddance.

Somebody said, Didn’t you invite them into your house? No, sir. The Bible says that I’m partakers of their evil. You read it over in John, 2 John.

Beaman’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, by Roy Oliver Beaman