Steve Conover: Welcome to The Friends of Israel today. If you're not familiar with our program or you've missed an episode, you can visit us at foiradio.org. That's foiradio.org. I'm Steve Conover. And with me is our host and teacher Chris Katulka.

Chris Katulka: Steve, today we're going to be talking about our Friends of Israel blog, where we're producing weekly content, and we have a full array of topics like archeology, Bible, and theology, current affairs that are happening in Israel, events that are happening with the Friends of Israel, all these amazing things that you can read about at our FOI blog, you can go to foi.org/blog to see all the great content that we have available for you. But today we're going to talk specifically to Cameron Joyner. He's the assistant director of program ministries with Friends of Israel, and he wrote our most popular blog. Tens of thousands of people have logged on to read his article, which is titled “Will We Recognize Our Loved Ones in Heaven?”

It's going to be a great program. But first in the news, last week, we reported that nearly 100 Ukrainian Jewish orphans ages four to 18 were traveling to Romania in anticipation of immigrating to Israel. Well, we're happy to announce that all the children made it safely across the Ukrainian border and boarded a flight to Tel Aviv where they were met by prime minister, Naftali Bennett himself. Well here's my take, as I mentioned last week, the orphanage in Ukraine was having a difficult time getting passports and parental permission to leave the country. But God answered all those prayers. And today the Jewish orphans are now citizens of the state of Israel, the home of the Jewish people. You know, I pray that they will find a new life in Israel that is stable and gives them hope and that God will protect them on this new journey, this new way of life that they have in Israel.

Chris Katulka: Hey everybody, listen, when I Google, “Will I recognize my loved ones in heaven?” Do you know what appears at the top of the search list? It's a Friends of Israel blog. That's right. It's one of our most popular blogs ever written, and we have a lot of them, but the one that has been read tens of thousands of times is the blog entry, “Will we recognize our loved ones in heaven?” by my good friend and colleague and brother in the Lord, Cameron Joyner. Cameron, thanks so much for being with us today.

Cameron Joyner: Hey Chris, thanks for having me on.

Chris Katulka: Well listen everybody I'm here in New Jersey. Cameron is calling in from Atlanta, Georgia. Cameron is the assistant director of program ministries with The Friends of Israel. So he gets to help oversee all the fun programs that we do on the field to connect people with Friends of Israel in ways they can get involved in their Jewish community. But today I've asked Cameron to come on to talk about the popularity of this blog. So Cameron, I'm going to throw it to you. Why do you think this blog was so popular and I guess the follow up is... What do you think it says about where people are today biblically when they think about heaven?

Cameron Joyner: I think that this can be answered in one statement, even though the article itself deals with this a little bit like biblical illiteracy and stuff like that. I think that it just amounts to the fact that people in general want to know what to expect after death. And we as Christians, we're susceptible to that as well, even though we know that we're going to escape hell and eternal punishment and separation from God, we still ask those same questions as well. So it's like, okay, what next? And I don't think that we're getting answers through the halls of the churches, for instance. I think I talked about that some in the article and instead, sadly, I think we're getting answers from these sensational pseudo-Christian books and movies that either lack or distort the biblical data that's been given to us. To put it mildly, popular culture has people who identify as Christians believing that heaven consists of hanging out in the clouds and being dressed like angels and things like that and nevermind the details that Scripture has to offer.

And there are a lot of them. I mean, we teach on these things all the time at Friends of Israel, you know this. Things like the fact that paradise itself, when we're absent from the body, is probably more like an Eden like state than it is hanging out in the clouds. And definitely after the rapture where we're given a glorified resurrected body, that changes things as well so there is another detail to add to it. And then the fact that heaven is a kingdom that's going to be brought to a renewed planet earth. And then 1000 years after that there's a new heaven and a new earth, what we call the eternal state. I just think there's so many facets to consider peripheral to our topic today when thinking biblically about God's plan for his saints in the future, we simply wouldn't be able to be exhaustive here.

Chris Katulka: Yeah, and you know the Bible's not exhaustive about heaven and about the memories that we'll have, and about these... We value a lot of things in our life here today. The people we love, the purpose that God has given to us, the gifts that God has given to us, these things that we value, our children, our grandchildren. And so you almost want, is heaven just something where you arrive one day and you don't remember anything anymore? It's a completely different frame of mind? Well, we have to dig into the scriptures, but again, we don't have a completely clear picture. And I think that's why people were gravitating to your blog like you said, because they wanted some answers to these questions. And so, I noticed your approach to this subject was kind of peppered with a sense of humility, Cameron, towards varying opinions about the topic and toward the topic of recognizing our loved ones in heaven. As you write you believe we will recognize our loved ones. That's what you say, but what do other people believe about the subject?

Cameron Joyner: Well, in opposition to what we believe generally, there are those that believe we just simply won't recognize our loved ones in heaven, but there are different reasons as to why they oppose the view. There may be more than three reasons that move people to disagree, but the main three reasons that I have encountered through the blog amount to this: We could call it the “no sorrow argument,” the “no marriage argument,” and then a third one would be the “glory to God alone argument.” I want to talk about the first two first, because they're more clearly rooted in Scripture. To be honest, I found them to be less off putting as well when we compare it to the issue of God's glory as that third argument. But these arguments are sometimes connected. I do want to say that. They aren't totally exclusive to each other and they do have overlap sometimes, but the no sorrow argument basically states that we won't know our loved ones in heaven because God promised no more pain, no more tears.

And that “the former things would pass away” in Revelation 21:4. Those who cite this as a reason usually cannot see it being possible to be reunited with loved ones without remembering the pain in tears of their former life. And in response to that, I mean, I believe this, just as you and I are able to overcome grief in this life, how much more will we be able to do so in the presence of the Lord, in a glorified body that no longer bears the curse of sin. I mean, not only are there events in my life that I've gotten over in terms of grief, there are events that I simply choose not to meditate on anymore. God helps us move on. And if he has the power to remember our sins no more without forgetting us, he can certainly give us the power to no longer remember our pain either without forgetting everyone else in the process. I don't think that a divine memory wipe has to be the immediate solution to this problem.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. I liked it that you called it that. I liked that you called it “a divine memory wipe.” Like all of a sudden we get to heaven and God erases all of the experiences that we've had or the way of life that we…it’s just like when you reset your computer, that's not what God, it seems, intended to take place.

Cameron Joyner: Right. And also I think that the no marriage argument kind of, there's a passage that cited for that. And what you're saying sort of gets answered in Jesus' response. It's really interesting. The objection I've gotten to this issue of whether or not we'll recognize our loved ones in heaven, the objection I've got comes from Matthew 22 and Mark 12 where the Sadducees. The story of the Sadducees come to Jesus and they don't believe in the resurrection from the dead. And so they challenge Jesus with this question about the woman who has seven husbands, one dying after another, and who's going to be her permanent husband in the resurrection. Right? And he responds that they won't marry in the afterlife, basically, that they'll be like the angels. And I deal with this in this article, but I just want to reiterate that just because the marriage covenant ends, the text nowhere states that our identities will be lost.

That's a leap that I don't think we're permitted to take. And furthermore, I think it's interesting that the very passage being cited for the no marriage argument is a passage where Jesus shuts down the argument by essentially asserting that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive. “God is the God of the living,” he says, “not the God of the dead.” And he's sort of implying that the patriarchs are alive and that he is their God even now. What sense does it make for him to assert that God is the God of their fathers if no one will recognize the fathers. Which kind of reminds me of another passage in Matthew 8:11, where, I mentioned that in the article too, where Jesus said that “they'll come to recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” So there's a personal identity there in those three that isn't lost even after death.

Chris Katulka: Cameron, we only have a few moments left in this segment, but I wanted you to get into this a little bit, because I noticed in the blog, you tackle the issue of what you were mentioning earlier, the idea of robbing God of his glory. That by recognizing your loved one, you rob God of his glory. And you asked the question in the blog, “does retaining personal recognizable identity somehow rob God of his glory?” Why would someone say God's glory is diminished if we recognize our loved ones in heaven?

Cameron Joyner: Basically the way that it was framed for me, whenever this objection was given to me in a discussion we were having is the person said, and this person is a friend. I'm not knocking where he was coming from at all. He may have even changed his view, but he basically said, “When I die, I should be so consumed with meeting God that I do not need the distraction of being excited to see my family again.” And when I heard that, I thought, wow, this is really sad. And it's sad not just because of the implications that come with the reality you'll never see this person again as you know them.

But first of all, if we're expected to have a higher love for God, amongst our recognizable family in this life as Matthew 10 and Luke 14 would explain, then the challenge will be a million times easier with a sinless glorified body. And then second of all, Scripture says otherwise. I mean, look at how Lazarus was with Abraham, his forefather, after his death, in the passage from Luke chapter 16. So not only is it sad, it's not even Scriptural.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. You know, my mind goes to Eden and whenever I think of heaven, one of the greatest pictures of heaven to me is Eden the way God created and intended the world to function from the very beginning when he called all of his creation “good.” And it's a real picture of heaven. I think I might have said this on the radio program before in Hebrew, the word for heaven is Gan Eden, which is the garden of Eden. And so God created Eve for Adam so that they could have a, not just be consumed, of course we're going to glorify God. That's everything that we should be doing, but he also created us so that we could fellowship with one another.

So yeah, I agree with you. I don't think it robs God of his glory, but he also created us so that we could have one another and worship him together. So hey listen everybody, we're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back with Cameron Joyner and we're talking about his blog right now, “Will We Recognize Our Loved Ones in Heaven?” I want to encourage you to go to foiradio.org. If you want to read this blog, we'll have it posted for you. I'm thankful that Cameron's with us. Be sure to stick around. We've got more to talk about,

Chris Katulka: You know, as I talk with Cameron about his blog article, “Will we recognize our loved ones in heaven?” The thing that I can't get my mind off of is the fact that people are longing for hope. That they are curious about what God is going to do. And they are hopeful in what God will do. They're looking for comfort. And that's exactly what we want to help provide for you. Our former executive director, Dr. Elwood McQuaid wrote a book There is Hope. Christians are encompassed by a plethora of spiritual teaching and many such teachers take authority for themselves and teach doctrine that can mislead or even discomfort their listeners. Well, Elwood McQuaid writes this book to provide hope in the certainty of God's plan for the church and for end times. Discover the truth about the tribulation, the antichrist, and why there's no reason to fear them.

You're invited to come rest in the simple truths of the Lord's Word and the peace it provides knowing that God is in control of the future. Steve, can you tell our listeners how they can get their hands on a copy of Elwood McQuaid's book There is Hope.

Steve Conover: Yes Chris, to learn more or to purchase There is Hope by Elwood McQuad, our listeners can visit us at foiradio.org. That's foiradio.org. I know for me that Elwood’s words are always an encouragement and There is Hope is an especially encouraging read. Again, to find out more or to purchase visit foiradio.org, that's foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: Welcome back everybody. I'm with Cameron Joyner, who is the assistant director of program ministries with the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry in Atlanta, Georgia. And we're talking about his most popular blog that he wrote, that's on the Friends of Israel blog. The title is “Will we Recognize our Loved Ones in Heaven?'' And we've been talking about some of the theological components to this idea, the biblical components to it. You know Cameron, I loved that you tapped into Matthew chapter 17. I love that you tapped into the Mount of Transfiguration because it's a passage that I love where Jesus reveals himself, his glory to three disciples. And standing next to Jesus was Moses and Elijah. And clearly number one, the disciples knew who were standing next to Jesus and Elijah and Moses didn't seem lost. It's not like they got, as you called it a “divine memory wipe,” they seemed like they knew exactly what was going on. They were having a conversation with Jesus. Can you talk a little bit about this for a moment and the importance of this passage?

Cameron Joyner: I would've thought that a passage like this would kind of settle the issue. If you just take this account and the plain sense reading of the text, which is what we highly advocate at The Friends of Israel, take the literal grammatical historical translation or interpretation of the passage. If you take it at its plain sense value, I don't know how we could conclude anything different. The disciples clearly knew Elijah and Moses. There's even maybe some indication that Peter was at risk of doing what my friend might have feared, glorifying Moses and Elijah alongside Jesus.

And I think the Father kind of speaks from heaven, “listen to Jesus over everyone else.” But they still recognized who was standing there and Moses died. Elijah was taken up, but Moses was clearly recognizable after death. But there are still people, well-meaning people who, if you read the comments of the article, they still disagree. These are brothers and sisters that I still care about, but I would lovingly have to remain in disagreement with the view that you won't recognize these people precisely because of passages like Matthew 17.

Chris Katulka: And you would think with Moses, I mean, here's a guy and Elijah, here are two guys that probably had a lot of pain from leading the Israelites or speaking to the Israelites to turn to God or leading them through the wilderness. There's a lot of emotional pain. A lot of you read it in the text and here is Moses standing with Jesus and Elijah standing with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. And it's not like they are drumming up all these old emotions of, oh, not these people again, no, it's God redeemed the moment. That's the whole point of this. He redeems it. And it's not like they're lost Moses and Elijah, aren't lost. They're right where they should be. They know who they're talking to. They recognize. And I think that's a really important thing to think about when we think about whether or not we're going to recognize our loved ones as well in heaven.

Cameron Joyner: Exactly. And as you said in the Common Thread series, Moses is in the Promise Land now. I mean, how awesome is that, things are totally different.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. God redeems the moment. All right. I got one more question for you. And I was amazed, Cameron, when I was reading through the blog, the blog was really well written. And then I always love reading comments. I'm a sucker for comments. That list of comments is the most comments I've ever seen on any of our Friends of Israel blogs. And I want to read one for you and just kind of get the heart of what you feel when you read this. This one person writes, “this blog lets me know I'm not alone. If it weren't for Jesus, I'd be dead. I lost my husband of 39 years in September, we were married as teenagers. I wake up every day wondering when I'm going to get to go, but God has a plan for all of us to help his kingdom. It is a struggle and I know you feel it too, to find your purpose after they're gone. I don't want to ever remarry, but I am doing my best to find things that God wants me to do under his direction. It's just hard when you're mourning, but I'll pray for all of you as the pain of the season rushes here toward us. I'm just trusting in God that he will help me through.” 

Here is a person I think found comfort Cameron in your blog and they are suffering and they have pain because they have lost a loved one. Can you speak to this comment as we close out our conversation?

Cameron Joyner: Sure. First and foremost, it's hard to read comments like that and not just grieve with them. Especially the holiday season, that being a tough time for people who've lost loved ones they wish they could be with. I mean, you kind of just catch yourself feeling with them, the pain all over again. But I mean, primarily after that, the response we have, and I don't mean to sound holier than thou or anything. I mean, it just causes us to glorify God, because he's used a sinner like me to share some thoughts from his Word that encourages people. It's hard not to feel that after you kind of get over the fact that here's another person who's hurting and I don't believe any of us deserve to be used by God yet. He chooses to use us when he really didn't have to.

That's something that I'm always amazed at, especially working for The Friends of Israel, but also there comes this. I mean, I know the pain of losing a loved one most recently, a grandfather that I was really close to passed. Chris, I know you know the pain of losing a loved one. You and I have talked about your dad, and it's nice to know that we get to play a part in this ministry and offering comfort. That really helps ourselves, but comfort for others that can only come from God's Word, not the article, but what the article is about, which is God in his Word.

And I don't want people to hurt. And since I know they are, I like knowing that the Lord laid something on my heart that helps bring them back to God's text. I love seeing the virtual interaction between believers in the comments. There were times when I even emailed some of them hoping to maybe be able to drive and spend some time with them and it turned out some of these folks were way outside of driving distance, but it was equally refreshing to see others comment on the comments. It was like a virtual grief sharing experience.

Chris Katulka: It was. It was definitely an opportunity for people to share the grief that they're going through, but the hope that we have in Christ too Cameron. Listen right now everybody, if you get a chance go to foiradio.org, and there you'll be able to read Cameron's blog. Cameron, thanks so much for being with us, buddy. We really appreciate it.

Cameron Joyner: Hey, thank you, Chris.

Steve Conover: A special thanks to Cameron Joyner for being our guest today. And a reminder, if you would like to read Cameron's blog, “Will we recognize our loved ones in heaven?” visit foiradio.org. That's foiradio.org. Chris, tell our listeners where we're headed next week.

Chris Katulka: Steve, before we talk about next week, let me just say thank you to all of our listeners who registered and watched our Awaken conference that took place on March 4th and 5th. We had a great response from our radio audience. So thank you so much for being a part of it. And let me just say, maybe you're driving right now or you're listening to the podcast and you're thinking, what is this awaken conference, I'm just hearing about this now. Well, actually you can go to lookup.foi.org and you can watch the conference right now for the next week. You can do that by going to lookup.foi.org.

And you know what we want to do, we want to awaken you to the promise of Christ's return. So again, if you have not had a chance to watch our Awaken conference, go to lookup.foi.org. Now Steve, next week we're actually going to start a two week series on a particular verse from Romans chapter 11. Some people have questions and doubts as to whether or not Israel has a plan and a future that God has a plan for Israel and the Jewish people. Well, I want to show you from Romans chapter 11, a very specific verse that gives us confidence in knowing that God's not done with the Jewish people because of his faithfulness. I'm looking forward to it.

Steve Conover: Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka. Today's program was produced by Tom Gallione. Our theme music was composed and performed by Jeremy Strong. And I'm Steve Conover, executive producer. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. We are a worldwide evangelical ministry, proclaiming biblical truth about Israel and the Messiah while bringing physical and spiritual comfort to the Jewish people.