The Bible is a book framed in dynamic contrasts between what mankind has sown and reaped upon itself since the beginning of time and what a loving Creator desires to offer His creation forever.

In the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, we can mistakenly confuse the identities of these two very different worlds if we fail to maintain a clear focus as to what is temporary versus that which is truly permanent.

Getting sidetracked through mistaken identity is nothing new. In fact, it's been around a long time. In the last century, an American tourist paid a visit to a renowned Polish rabbi, Hofetz Chaim. He was astonished to see that the rabbi's lodging was only a simple room filled with books, plus a cot and table.

The tourist asked, "Rabbi, where is your furniture? Rabbi Chaim responded, "Where is yours?" The puzzled American asked, "Mine? But I'm only a visitor here. I'm only passing through." The rabbi responded, "So am I."

The humble rabbi in his unique manner clearly had an eye towards the future beyond this world of man's cluttered past and mired present. There is no mistake about it—there is such a wonderful future ahead, so awesome in revealed content, that it should become so real to us that everything else, when said and done, is baggage—just stuff—not the destination.

The bookends of God's revelation

God designed startling contrasts in the Scriptures to anchor our spiritual moorings that are just as blunt as the rabbi's reply to the tourist. This contrast is fully developed in the history of man as recorded from its origins in Genesis through the prophecies of God in the book of Revelation.

Genesis literally means "beginnings" and Revelation or "the Apocalypse," as it is in the Greek, signifies an unfolding or revealing. These two pivotal books might be called the bookends of God's revelation to man as to what He is creating at both physical and spiritual levels, in the present as well as the future. We might call them the alpha and the omega of what the Creator wants His human creation to grasp.

At times, it is hard enough to wrap our minds (much less our hearts) around a topic as large as the future that God has said can be ours. The apostle Paul stated, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9, New Living Translation).

And yet I believe that God gives us enough hints along the way to encourage us to maintain our identity as a "tourist, simply passing through" in the here and now.

Let's contrast the record of Genesis with the prophecies of Revelation that allow us to peek into those preparations mentioned by Paul.

Just think—no more sun!

In Genesis 1:14-16, it's recorded that the sun was created. But what a contrast is prophesied in Revelation 21:23, which says "the city [New Jerusalem] had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light."

Just imagine, no more sun! What a startling contrast! The greatest object in man's world is snuffed out!

Consider for a moment the fact that in our world the sun is everything. It equates to 98 percent of the mass of our solar system. One hundred nine earths would be required to stretch across the frame of its disc. This ball of fire could engulf 1.3 million earths within its mass. The temperature at its core is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. The gravity at its core is 340 billion times earth's air pressure at sea level. With all this mass and energy, nuclear reactions are generating 5 million tons of pure energy per second (www.solarviews.com).

Is it any wonder the sun has been a major source of man's adoration? But God has other plans. The Creator is going to displace the creation and establish Himself as the sole center of life and light.

You and I can have a head start today to imbibe of the true energy source of the universe. When you think about it, even the mighty sun fits into the category of the rabbi's furniture or lack of it. It leaves us with the continuing question that demands an answer from us. Are we focused on "the stuff" or the destination? Yes, even the sun is "stuff" according to God's Word!

Imagine—no more Satan

Again in Genesis, we find the serpent (Satan) victorious for the moment as he gets Adam and Eve to succumb to his temptations (Genesis 3:1-6.) And yes, God prophesied in Genesis 3:15 that the serpent would be momentarily victorious as he would "bruise His heel," speaking of the woman's Seed (Christ). Revelation prophesies that Satan will no longer deceive the world. He is defeated! The prophecies of Revelation 20:1-4, which portray Satan's defeat, culminate in the triumph of verse 10 that declares, "The devil who deceives them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone..."

Imagine no more Satan. What a contrast from Genesis where we find him "on a roll." Understanding the contrast between Genesis and Revelation should elevate us to a walk of faith toward a future of hope in which prophecy plainly states God wins and Satan loses. And if God wins, we win!

In Genesis, we sadly note that sin entered the world through the decisive actions of the first man and woman. Yet the prophetic book of Revelation guarantees that God is preparing for us a world where sin is banished.

Imagine no more sin. God invites us into the future through the comforting words of Revelation 21:27: "But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."

Imagine no more sin. Can we picture a world in which there are no more painful headlines due to the results of murder, lies, theft, deceit or any result of self-seeking? No more heartache! No more bad news. Yes, the contrast is heart-sweeping. The revelation of God proclaims no more sin. What a riveting contrast from such a mournful start.

"Come!"

In Genesis we find humanity hiding, on the run and ultimately cut off from God. We all know the story, in which God goes searching for the sin-filled couple hiding in the bushes as they cringe, naked as jaybirds (Genesis 3:8-10).

Before they know it, they are banished from the Garden of Eden. "He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24). No doubt about it—man is on "the outs" in this "book of beginnings."

But what a contrast awaits his progeny in the prophetic utterances of Revelation 22:17—one of the sweetest four letter words in the Bible—"And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!' And let him who hears say, ‘Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely."

What a reversal of movement. What a contrast of direction. God's creation, no longer on the outside looking in, but on the inside looking at the Tree of Life.

One of the most inviting words that our mouths ever form is "come." It's what we tell an infant, as he is about to take his first, wobbly step on his own into the embrace of our extended arms of assurance.

Just imagine as the Creator bids humanity as a whole to come for the very first time without the hindrance of Satan's wavelength to trip them up. Contrast? I think so!

Paradise restored

In Genesis 3:17, we find God proclaiming, "Cursed is the ground for your sake..." The original Hebrew word for curse literally means, "to make bitter." So, for 6,000 years of recorded human history, humanity has toiled on a foundation inherently soured by its own actions. But Revelation 22:3 reveals a time in which "there shall be no more curse."

The prophecies of your Bible indicate a remarkable reversal of environment for those who in the future will seek God. Genesis leaves us with a picture of paradise being rejected and man forcefully removed from its environs.

Revelation provides, once again, the powerful contrast. Paradise is restored with the connective elements of water and trees as first mentioned in Genesis, but now magnified in Revelation 22:1-3: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

In Genesis, paradise is lost. In Revelation it is restored, once and forever. Contrast? Yes, contrast!

Only a beginning, the rest is eternity

Yet the contrasts between "the Alpha and the Omega" of God's revelation to humanity only begin to touch on something we call "eternity." Yes, it will be an entirely new experience for mortal man to taste immortality with the eternal godhead.

How does one even begin to measure eternity? You can't. I can't. It's a brain-stretcher. Or should I say "brain-snapper"? Even so, I've heard "the indescribable or immeasurable" defined in different ways. This is one of my favorites to share. Eternity is the length of time it would take a sparrow to take one speck of dirt at a time, fly it to the sun, until it had moved the entire mass of the earth. After he had done this back and forth a dozen times, eternity would have just begun.

But you might be saying, "I don't even like the single minute that I'm occupying right now!" Yes, this is a world of fading light, Satan's presence, sin's influence, curses that are often multigenerational in nature, people running away from responsibility, tears, sorrow and, yes, death.

But again, the contrasting assurance of a Heavenly Father who loves is to simply say "Hold on—it's worth it!"

Imagine, no, believe in a world of no more sun, no more Satan, no more sin, no more hiding, no more curse, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more death, because we "know" God and He loves us! This is all about worthwhile eternity. So keep that sparrow coming!

Sometimes it's humanly easy to get lost along the way and to forget what is only temporary, and what is eternal in scope. That's when we need to remember God's promise in Isaiah 30:21 that there will be a voice, a voice that guides our "heart steps" by saying, "This is the way, walk in it."

It comes in many venues and through many people, if only we will hear. Now it comes to you through the humble rabbi's response of "So am I," when he affirmed before his traveling guest that, he, too, was only a visitor here and simply passing through.

May we also echo the knowing refrain of "So am I."