"Who art in heaven..."

       Where is heaven? An altogether familiar word to hundreds of millions, the term conjures visions of streets paved with gold, "heavenly mansions," spirit beings playing on harps. Then there are the dozens of jokes about "St. Peter and the pearly gates." Heaven is supposed to be the place where all our deceased loved ones, the "good" people, are.

        She has a heavenly body—we had a heavenly time—it was a heavenly dish; we use the term in everyday conversation, and in slang. Many use heaven in supposedly mild forms of profanity, in spite of the fact that Jesus Christ said we are to "Swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne: nor by the earth, for it is God's footstool" (Matthew 5:34-35).

        All religions speak of some other-worldly paradise, whether it be a beautiful oasis, an island in the sky, or some utopian place of eternal bliss and happiness. Clearly, the Bible identifies "heaven" as the place of God's throne. Yet, the word "place" is hardly applicable to our finite minds, for we are dealing with a spiritual realm of which we know only very little.

        Most of us think of heaven as "up" there, somewhere. But "up" is a relative term, conveying the exact opposite meaning to Australians and Americans. The word "out" would be more correct. Out from our round sphere called earth in the midst of a solar system revolving about our orange dwarf star we call the sun.

        Is the place of God's heaven further away from earth than our own galaxy we call the Milky Way? Astronomers estimate there are two hundred billion, billion stars in our own galaxy, many of them larger than our sun. They tell us there are perhaps millions, or billions, of other galaxies.

        To the layman, the most introductory study into the vastness of our universe is mind-boggling, incomprehensible. Yet, the God to Whom we pray is the Creator of all things, abides in heaven somewhere, and calls all those billions of stars and planets by name! Astronomers know where countless stars are. But where is heaven? No powerful telescopes, no space probes have captured the image of heaven on film, or transmitted it to earth stations on computer-enhanced images.

        "I believe that Someone, in the great somewhere..." goes a line in the improperly named song, "I Believe." (It should be called, "I Guess.") The great "somewhere"? Is that where heaven is? Doesn't the concept of heaven sound vastly far off, perhaps light years away further than the other side of a black hole in the universe, when you stop to think about it?

        When we were growing up, we were taught relative proportion. Remember the pictures and words about how far, how big, how long, how short, how tall? We studied pictures of mice and elephants together, of man and the great blue whale. We compared ants and the Statue of Liberty, an ocean liner and a loco motive, a bicycle and a 747. When Jesus gave us His outline for prayer, He said we should pray to our Father who is "in heaven. " He did not say this to confuse us, but rather to give us a sense of comparison, of proportion.

        It is good for us to realize that we are on this good, green earth; that it is a round orb, endlessly making its annual journey about our sun; making its daily revolutions, the moon faithfully completing each monthly trip around our earth right on time. It is good for us to contemplate the vastness of our universe as a testimony to the work of the hands of God; a glittering, awesome, incomprehensible, mind boggling proof of His creation—His limitless power. The solar system and the universe give us a sense of proportion! Ever stand next to the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park? This forest giant dwarfs puny man—It contains enough wood to construct forty five room houses; was probably a little sprig of a tree just after the flood of Noah!

        As the story goes, a lady aboard a 747 commented to her fellow passenger, "Oh, look at all those people down there—they look like ants!" To which her companion replied, "They are ants, my dear, we haven't taken off yet. " A flight in an airplane can give us a sense of proportion; we see huge buildings, whole cities, as but specks on the landscape. An ocean journey, especially if one encounters a storm, can quickly reduce us to our appropriate size. Prayer is like that. Jesus intended us to pray to our Father "who is in heaven," as a reminder of proportion; of how GREAT is God, and how puny, how small, insignificant and temporal, is man.

        However, most of us quickly lose this sense of proportion once outside astronomy class. Oh, we know, intellectually, that we live on a round earth. We know there are other human beings about 8,000 miles from us, straight through the planet. But we are not, in a daily sense, truly conscious of the fact. We speak of the sun "going down" or "coming up," not of the earth rolling away from the sun, or rolling toward it. We awaken in the mornings utterly unaware we have just completed an 8,000 mile trip; that we are now about 8,000 miles distant from the place we were, relative to the stars, when we went to sleep.

        We know astronomy has debunked the superstitions of the dark ages about a flat earth, that our daily weather satellites bring back incredibly detailed pictures of our entire planet, with the cloud formations clearly seen. Still, most of us live as if blissfully unaware of our temporal place on a planet that has been likened to but one grain of sand in all the seashores of earth in comparison to the number of celestial bodies in the Milky Way.

        When we pray, Christ wants us to get our minds on God, on heaven—away from this earth with its mundane concerns. He wants us to project our thoughts out through space to the very place of God's throne.

        The Bible reveals there are three heavens. The first is identified as the mantle of air that cloaks the earth; our atmosphere.

        The very first verse in the Bible says, "In the beginning, God [Hebrew: Elohim] created the heaven and the earth. " The Hebrew word for "heaven" is shameh (pronounced shaw-meh'), meaning I to be lofty," as the sky, or "aloft." It means the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as the higher part of our universe where the astral bodies revolve, and is also used to refer to the place of God's throne.

        The word has three different usages which are clear only from the context.

        Notice a couple of examples: "And God called the firmament heaven" (Genesis 1:8). The Hebrew word "firmament" is raqiya which means "an expanse. " The Bible says, "And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years..." (Genesis 1:14). Obviously, the word shameh, translated "heaven," is not here referring to the place of God's throne, but at once to our earth's atmosphere and to space—the physical universe.

        Notice the usage of the word in relationship to our atmosphere: "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven [shameh] were opened" (Genesis 7:11). There are many other examples. Genesis 8:3 speaks of the rain from heaven being restrained.

        Most of the places in the Old Testament where the word heaven is used, it is shameh, and refers primarily to this earth's atmosphere, or to our solar neighborhood. When Elijah was "taken up into heaven," for example, he was transported into the sky, carried out of sight—not taken to the place of God's throne.

        This is obvious, in the light of Jesus' positive statement, "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3:13). Also, speaking of Elijah, Paul wrote, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises" (Hebrews 11:13).

        Not understanding the three usages of the Hebrew word for heaven, many have assumed Elijah was taken to the place of God's throne; instead, he was transported to some other place on earth, there to live out his days in peace. The Bible says he died "in faith, not having received the promises."

        Three different meanings are possible from the Hebrew shameh. The first is our atmosphere, the air surrounding our earth where the birds fly, clouds form, and aircraft navigate. Air is matter, of course, composed of various gases, and is very much a part of our earth. The second is our solar neighborhood and outer space. The third usage is the heaven of God's throne.

        In order to determine which is meant, one must discern by the context. Notice: "Then hear thou in heaven [Hebrew: shameh] thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest ... hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place... " (I Kings 8:39-43). So prayed Solomon at the dedication of the temple. He obviously refers to God's throne, yet uses the identical Hebrew word for heaven which was used in connection with rain falling, or the heaven where the stars are, which is shameh.

        Notice what Paul wrote: "...I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man ... how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter... " (II Corinthians 12:1-4).

        The language Paul heard may well have been the "new language" God will give the entire earth at the establishment of His Kingdom. He says, "For then I will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Eternal, to serve Him with one consent" (Zephaniah 3:9). The words were "unspeakable" in a beatific, holy sense.

        In vision, Paul said he was given a glimpse of heaven itself. He called it paradise, said the language was unknown to him. He calls this paradise, this place of God's throne, "the third heaven." Paul was obviously acquainted with the other usages of the word shameh, or he would not have specified "the third heaven" when speaking of the heaven of God's throne.

        Our heavenly Father is a Spirit Being. Jesus said, "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24).

        God exists in another dimension from ours—the spirit world. The method of communication with God our Father, who is Spirit, must therefore be spiritual, not physical. Radio and television are physical. One could dial in any frequency known to man on powerful transmitters and never be heard of God. He is available only on spiritual wavelengths; He is instantly available when we meet those spiritual criteria. Addressing Him as our Father; acknowledging that He is in heaven—envisioning heaven; seeing, as clearly as we can, God's surroundings, His majesty, His greatness; this is what Jesus intended.

        We must communicate "in the spirit, " not via the air waves. God is composed of Spirit—he is not flesh and blood, and if we are to reach Him we must do so in a spiritual dimension—prayer!

        Think of some physical analogies. Perhaps we perceive radio and television as mundane, since they are so commonplace. And yet, radio and television waves that travel through space can teach us a great deal about prayer.

        Right now, wherever you are, you are being bombarded by hundreds, perhaps thousands of unheard waves of sound. You have only to turn on a portable transistor radio set to prove it. Your human ear cannot detect these sounds, for they are emitted on frequencies not available to normal human perception. Yet, they are constantly bombarding you, filling the room where you are sitting, the automobile in which you are riding. So it is with spiritual communication.

        Somehow, we are able to project our thoughts through spiritual channels directly to God's throne in heaven, directly to the great mind of God Himself, by being on the right spiritual wavelength.

        Jesus did not use the analogy of radio to help us understand prayer. But if He had, He would probably have shown how each of us is like a powerful transmitter. He might have explained how we can select the right frequency with which to communicate our heartfelt thoughts to God—that conversion, baptism, the broken-hearted humility and contrition God desires in His children is prerequisite to establishing contact, as surely as selecting the correct frequency on a VHF radio.

        Perhaps He might have shown how, when we are truly "in the Spirit"—that is, thinking spiritually, our minds attuned to the things of God, and not the mundane concerns of this life—we can communicate with God as surely as a space satellite can communicate with a ground station.

        It is an apt analogy. The human brain is capable of much, much more than we suppose. Many of us operate at about ten percent of capacity. We all know about strange "psychic" powers, about ESP, and kinetic energy. We have marveled at true accounts of how, during World War U, a wife screamed out in anguish at the precise moment her husband was killed overseas; how twins seem to know when something wrong has occurred even though separated by a continent; how our minds are capable of some kind of little-understood "spiritual" kind of communication.

        Never underestimate the power of our human minds. God says "there is a spirit in man" (job 32:8; Proverbs 20:27; Romans 8:16), and reveals that when He begets us with His Spirit, He gives us a new kind of spiritual power, of spiritual perception. It is not difficult to "tune in" to God. He is instantly able to receive our signals. We have but to worship Him in spirit, ensuring we have followed His required criteria of repentance—then approach Him using the formula Christ gave, and, instantly, He is receiving—He is listening.

        Light travels at the speed of 186,282 miles per second. Without light, we could not live. It is our source of energy from the sun, and light from the sun is the source of the stored energy of the earth—the fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, representing billions of creatures of the distant past whose lives, flora or fauna, depended upon energy from that same sun.

        The visible light we see is but a fraction of the waves of energy with which science is familiar, however. Electromagnetic waves transmit energy in pulses, or waves, up to hundreds of miles long; or in short waves of less than a billionth of an inch.

        A serious study of light—what it is, how it works, how it affects our lives—can give one a perception of how prayer might work. Though He does not say so directly, Jesus' instructions on how we should pray seem to imply that each human mind is like a powerful transmitter, that we have only to tune in to the proper "wavelength"—In this case, a spiritual channel—and we can communicate with Almighty God in heaven. Of course, the properties of electromagnetic waves, from cosmic rays, gamma rays, X rays and ultraviolet rays to long wave radio frequencies are limited by our physical universe and known laws.

        Is spiritual communication so limited? Or is there something beyond the properties of light and energy which belongs in another dimension from ours about which we know little?

        Let's take a look at that quotation from the apostle Paul again, in which he said to the doubting Areopagites, "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needeth any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring' " (Acts 17:24-28).

        Notice Paul said God is "not far from every one of us," that He is immediately available, approachable. When we pray to Him as our Father who is in heaven, we need not be intimidated by the vast distances of' our universe. First, God's heaven may be far closer to earth than we imagine; second, our human minds, together with God's Holy Spirit, may be capable of communicating in an instant, in milliseconds, directly to the mind of God.

        We ask, "What does heaven look like?" Is it really all golden streets, heavenly mansions, and pearly gates? Listen to this description: "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me: which said, 'Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.' and immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

        "And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine [sardonyx] stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.

        "And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

        "And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts [Greek: zoon—"living creatures"] full of eyes before and behind" (Revelation 4:1-6). These living creatures are mentioned in greater detail in Ezekiel's first and tenth chapter, where the throne of God was seen by God's prophet Ezekiel.

        He wrote, "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month ... as I was among the captives by the river Chebar [Kabour], that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God... " Notice the description of God's throne: "And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself [Hebrew: "flashing continually"] and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

        "Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass.

        "And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.

        "Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

        "As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle…" (Ezekiel 1:1-10).

        One must read this entire chapter for the whole description—for it is fascinating. That there is no doubt it is a description of the throne of God, even though Ezekiel was not allowed to look upon God's face, is evident from the text. He said, "And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above it.

        "And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of His loins even upward, and from the appearance of His loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

        "As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Eternal. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of One that spake" (Ezekiel 1:26-28).

        The Bible identifies the "four living creatures" as cherubim, created angelic beings who are at God's throne, and who apparently accompany Him wherever He goes. The true cherub of the Bible is hardly a tiny naked baby with a bow and arrow, called "Cupid." Rather, cherubim appear as huge creatures, having manlike characteristics, plus the faces of oxen, eagles, and lions.

        These "host of the heaven" were worshipped anciently. They can be seen in form as the Sphinx, guarding the tombs of ancient Pharaohs; as the "Winged Bulls of Bashan, " and the winged bulls guarding the palaces of ancient Babylonian and Assyrian kings (replicas are in the Louvre, and the British museum). God placed a cherub to guard the way to the tree of life after Adam was ejected from Eden, no doubt giving rise to pre-flood tales of monsters guarding fabulous treasures, remnants of which tales are found in Jack and the beanstalk, St. George and the dragon, and other myths wherein a dragon-like creature, breathing fire, guards priceless treasures.

        Apparently, there are dissimilarities between "seraphim" and "cherubim," as will be seen from careful comparisons of Isaiah's sixth chapter with Ezekiel 1 and 10.

        God's throne was also seen in vision by the apostle John, who, on the Isle of Patmos, received the prophecies of the Apocalypse. He says, "And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing' " (Revelation 5:11-12).

        What? No St. Peter standing at the pearly gates; no angels playing on harps? Instead, a throne seen as set upon a translucent "sea of glass," perhaps like quartz, or onyx; a brilliantly-hued, super-bright Personage on the throne. At His right hand, Jesus Christ in His glorified state. Before Him, twenty-four "elders," or wise spiritual counselors. All about Him, countless angels. The picture of God's throne is a stunning, awesome one—replete with multitudes of angelic beings singing in inspiring tones about God's magnificence. When we pray, we should address God our Father in His heavenly setting letting our minds picture, as near as we can, the glorious magnificence of His throne. We should pray directly To Him.

        John prophesied that God's throne will eventually come to be on this earth! He wrote, "And He shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb ... the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; ... for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 22:1-5).

        There are more than five hundred references to heaven in the Bible. By studying descriptions of heaven, the details the Bible gives concerning the throne of God, we may indelibly impress upon our minds the true biblical picture of heaven, replacing the myth, superstition, and vague unrealities of the past. In doing so, we remove one more obstacle to prayer—open up one more important key of access to God.

        The phrase, "Our Father, who art in heaven, " is meant to be much more than mere sanctimonious rote—It is an intelligent address, a method of communication with God. If you were to write to our president, you would probably address your letter, "The President of the United States, The White House, Washington, D.C." Your mind Would envision the stately mansion in which so many of our presidents have lived.

        So it is with addressing your prayers to God. Jesus intended you retain in your mind a vivid picture of the setting in which God lives; that you see Him as if in a blaze of super-bright light, brighter than several suns, surrounded by billions of angels, with the twenty-four elders at His left hand and His right. Of supreme importance, we must realize that the risen Christ is sitting at the Father's right hand, waiting for your prayers, eager to make daily intercession to His Father on your behalf.

        The next time you pray, do so after looking up and reading for yourself several of the graphic descriptions of God's heavenly throne. Pray intelligently, with understanding. When you do, expect answers to your prayers! Claim God's promises boldly, as a trusting child goes to his father in perfect confidence his requests will be answered. Think on all you have learned in these few chapters, and use this knowledge!