My Thoughts on Heavenly Tourism

DISCLAIMER:  I am in no way attempting to belittle or refute the work of God in the following narrative. I am simply looking to compare to a man's experience to scripture. I also do not condemn this man for his book, nor do I condemn those who place stock in it. I just ask that you read all the way through. 

John Piper says it so much more eloquently than I could, "If books go beyond scripture, I doubt their claims."

I am extremely inquisitive. More like a fact checker on most occasions. I gained the nickname 'Mr. Google' from my friends in college for how quick I was to check things that I heard. It is important to note Here, I do not believe everything I read online! Ha! 

This is a subject that has been heavy on my heart for sometime and particularly this week leading up to the guest speaker at church. 

Sunday morning, I heard the testimony of a man who was in a wreck in 1989. He was pronounced dead at the scene and after an hour and a half breathed another breath.  The power of prayer oozes from this story because of a pastor who stopped and prayed over Don Piper and how many around the world prayed for this pastor who was in this horrific accident.  There's no intellectual explanation for his reviving other than that God, Himself allowed Him to live again.  I fully believe Don Piper's story is life changing and the miracle of his healing can bring others to the realization that they need Jesus.  

There's just a piece of the story I can't overlook.  

It's a story that has become what many put into the category of "heavenly tourism."  There are many books and stories of those who have seen Heaven.  Each experience is different.  

In Don's book, he highlights his heavenly experience over two chapters.  He spends one chapter discussing his interactions in Heaven and then the music of Heaven.  

As far as the way Don described Heaven during his testimony, he is right along with scripture. The description of the gate of pearl and there being no sun or moon. The twelve gates of heaven and so on. All this is found in John's account of Heaven in Revelation.  More on John later.  I do take issue with the fact that he claims his loved ones met him at the gates of heaven.  I take issue with this first, because of the fact that our main purpose in Heaven will be to worship our Savior and our God and we will have amazing ways of doing that. We will have fellowship other believers, but our main purpose will be relishing in the glory of the Lord!

I feel as though we have placed the meeting of our loved ones in Heaven above the entrance into the presence of God.  So much so, that many people today are so focused on seeing their loved ones that they forget what we will be in heaven for.  

The Bible speaks to our being caught up with Jesus one day and have reunion with other believers.  Paul speaks of this in 1 Thessalonians.  So we do know that we will meet up with our loved ones, but scripture does not mention any sort of waiting at the gates for us.  

It's hard for me to believe that Heaven is a "carrot on a stick" to motivate me to work for God.  The glory of God is my main purpose in life as a Christ-follower.  When I speak to people about Jesus, I'm not attempting to get them "fire insurance."  I pray that when I have kids and they come to the stage of their life where they accept Christ into their life and enter into a relationship with Him, that they are not just doing it to stay out of Hell.  While that is a great thing to do, to look forward to our heavenly reward, that is not our primary purpose.

Also, Don mentions the music of heaven.  Again, while the majority of his claims align with scripture, there is one misstep. In his book, Don mentions that in Heaven he heard no mention of the sacrifice of Jesus in the songs and worship of the citizens of Heaven.  We are informed in Revelation chapter 5 of the singing of the phrase, "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain..."  So if there is no singing of the sacrifice of Christ, why does the Bible mention it.

Now following the service this morning, I managed to find a PDF version of the book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, and quickly read through the book.  The majority of the book centers on his recovery and his opportunity to use this car accident and subsequent miracle of God.  I am thankful that the majority of the book is centered there, but the fact that he uses the heaven experience so much as part of his speaking, keeps me stumbling.  

The firm fact that no one in the Bible had been to Heaven and given an account.  Lazarus died and was raised. However, he never gives account of his experience.   There were Biblical accounts of visions of Heaven, the most vivid picture is painted by John in Revelation.  

The Bible addresses the issue of whether or not people have seen heaven and come back.

First off, in Proverbs, there's a question posed:

  "Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son? Surely you know! (Proverbs 30:4 NIV)"

Then, Jesus gives the answer in the Gospel of John:

    "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. (John 3:13 NIV)"

Also, Paul, addresses this same issue.

"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. (2 Corinthians 12:2-4 NIV)"

So here's my thought process on this whole situation.

I don't doubt for one second the miracle that God performed when Don Piper awoke from death on the Trinity Bridge outside Huntsville.  My issue lies with his trip to heaven. My issue also lies with the young man who's experience is told in Heaven is for Real.  I do not hold any stock in any of these books which do not align with the word of God.  To quote John MacArthur, " For anyone who truly believes the Biblical record, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that these modern testimonies with their relentless self-focus and the relatively scant attention they pay to the Glory of God are simply untrue." 

There were four visions of Heaven in the Bible.  Notice, that I said visions.  God revealed the nature of heaven to four men: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, and John.  Each man's account is not very detailed, but the man focus of each account is not personal, it is the Glory of God which fills Heaven.  That's where I struggle with the accounts of the "heavenly tourists," none of the narratives that I have researched spend more than a little time on the Glory of God and the centerpiece of Heaven, Jesus!  

In conclusion, to my brothers and sisters, take the evangelistic material you choose to read and check it against scripture.  Take what speakers and evangelists say and check it against scripture. Heck, check the things I've said against scripture, I urge you! If any of it doesn't line up with scripture, take it lightly. Your ultimate weapon is the sword of truth, USE IT! 

Feel free to comment or message me! 

Hosea and Gomer

Hosea is one of those hidden gems in the Bible.  It is an interesting book and such a great story.  It gives a great picture of love and forgiveness and what God has available for us.

The story starts off with God telling Hosea to marry a prostitute. Now, straight out of the gate, I'm thinking "DO WHAT?!?"  But the beauty of this will be at the end of the story.  Hosea follows God's command and goes and marries Gomer.  

Gomer bore three children. All were named to display the attitude of the Lord towards Israel at this time.  However, in the end of Chapter 1, we see that God's intention is forgiveness.  Although He calls Israel "Lo-Ammi" (not my people), in the next breath, He says that they'll be called "children of the living God." So here we see the end of the story. But the beauty is the story doesn't just end there with a spoiler-alert.

God goes on to describe the punishment that awaits Israel. Particularly not being considered God's people and all the empty pursuits they will chase after that apart from God, will not bring them any satisfaction.  But then, He promises to "allure her" and to "speak tenderly to her" and that he will turn trouble in to hope (Hosea 2:15 mentions the Valley of Achor and Achor means trouble).  God can take anything we are going through and use if for His glory and our good!

God then commands Hosea to go and reconcile with his wife, who has gone back into prostitution.

THIS IS THE BEAUTY OF THIS STORY!!!!

Gomer is an adulteress.  Hosea still goes in and finds her.  In a sermon on this topic, Judah Smith points out what this must have been like for Hosea.  Imagine where he has to go to find her.  Who he has to encounter.  What his eyes have to see.  So he goes in and buys Gomer.  For lack of a better comparison, Gomer is already his wife, he essentially already has possession of her.  He still goes and gives fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and lethek of barley for her.  He takes her back home!  Just as Jesus did for us.  This happened years before Jesus came and did this for the entire human race, but it is such a vivid picture of what was to come!  Hosea tells Gomer that she will not be a prostitute any longer and that she can not be with any man.  God expects the same of us, to be completely devoted to Him and Him alone!

To finish out the book, the history of the relationship of Israel and God is explained.  The future is also seen.  If there is repentance, there will be healing and blessing.  God will come through if we only repent of our sins.

We are essentially prostituting ourselves out to our sinful desires.  It is an extreme way to see it, but it is exactly what we do.  We sell our souls (which belong to God) to sin, work, drugs, sex, sports, money, and so much more.  The great thing is, in the midst of our wallowing in the things of the world, God has come through all of it and found us.  He paid a price for us even though we were His to begin with!

God loves you and He's paid for you.  He's waiting for you to be faithful to Him!

The Only God That Got Up!

Everyone worships something.  People worship statues, ideas, money, animals, activities, and other people.  These things are gods to these people.

Some peoples gods are made up.  Others, were real people who came up with a religion all their own.

 I am here to tell you, I worship and serve the God.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He's the only God.  Out of all the others, He is the only one to come through on His promises.  He's the only one who has died, then been resurrected three days later.  He's the only one to completely raise the dead and heal the sick.  He's the only God who you don't have to jump through hoops for to follow.  All He asks of you is to come to Him.  He's the only GOD!

I think that around this time of year, we focus on the crucifixion and the death of Christ, and then we give a little play to the resurrection, then we move on.  The greatest part of our relationship with Christ and our religion is that He was raised from the dead just like He said He would!

In Matthew 16, Jesus predicts all the happenings of what we have come to call Passion Week.  The 21st verse in Matthew 16 talks about how Jesus told His disciples that He would go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the chief priests and elders and then that He would die and be raised on the third day.

In John, Jesus uses symbolism, but tell the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days."  They did not understand that He was talking about His own body.  They would soon destroy Him and everything about Him, and then He would rise again.

Buddha and Mohammed cannot say that.  Buddhists, Muslims, and any other religion you can think of can go to the tomb of their leader and he's still there!  When you go to the tomb, where they laid Jesus of Nazareth, today, you will see an empty one! He's gone!  He got up!

Sometimes I think, as Christians, we focus so much on the cross and the suffering of Jesus, that we forget to relish in the fact that He didn't stay dead!   When they pierced His side and the blood and water flowed out, it showed that He was dead.  He had taken on every sin that would ever be committed and was nailed to a cross and suffered between two criminals.  Before that, He was beaten to a bloody pulp.  The Romans were not the type to play when it came to disciplining who they thought to be criminals.

The cross wasn't what it is to us.  We put it everywhere.  Many of us wear it on our clothes, as a necklace, or put it on pictures or up in our house.  We've, honestly, dulled the depth and the meaning of the cross.  It was a gruesome death.  Coupled with the way He was beaten and scourged, it was worse than we could ever imagine.  But He did it for us.  He did it for the worst we have within us.  All our sins and everything we have ever done wrong in our lives, He did it for that.

So there I go, leaving the subject of the resurrection to emphasize the cross.

The resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian faith.  Without the resurrection, Jesus would have been just another guy who said some things about doing good and told good stories.  He would have still had a following and I am sure still would have been the foundation of a religion of the world.  The great thing is, there was a resurrection!  We don't have to worry with the could have or would have, we got the is!

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul explains what the resurrection means for our faith.  Adam started off the entire cycle with sin in the Garden of Eden.  The cycle rolled from Adam to Abraham to David and on down the line.  Man had no way out of the cycle of sin but divine intervention.  God sent Jesus to earth to take on the punishment for all that sin, then to defeat death.  With His resurrection, Jesus defeated the death caused to us by our sin problem.

If we accept Christ, our death debt of sin is paid and we receive eternal life.  If it wasn't for Him coming up out of the tomb, then that would all be nothing.  With Jesus' resurrection, He set forth in motion the future resurrection of every Christian who dies.  We will one day come up out of the grave just like Jesus did!

Paul says it like this, "For as in Adam, all men die, so in Christ all will be made alive."  All we have to do is ask to be made alive by Christ.

Paul then goes into a symbol that is a great way to view the resurrection of believers.

When we die, we are put into the ground and we await the second coming of Christ.  At that second coming, will we be raised in the body we were in?  NO!  That body will be all kinds of decomposed and rotten.  Paul puts it in terms of seeds, "What you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, just a seed...The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:36, 42-44)

So there you have it.  We look at that same example with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

Jesus was raised to fulfill a promise of salvation.

His resurrection is the crux of the salvation we receive!

So let me close with a little paraphrase of my own of Matthew 28:6.

"He ain't here! He did what He said He was gonna do!"