When one of our church’s most precious saints died on Tuesday — after a long battle with cancer —\u00a0I immediately knew where\u00a0her soul is\u00a0— heaven.\u00a0 How did I know?\u00a0 Because of the Word of God and my faith in God’s promises.\u00a0 I didn’t need a book about a 4 year-old boy’s supposed trip to\u00a0the celestial\u00a0realm\u00a0to believe that heaven is a real place.<\/p>\n
Apparently, some people — even a good many Christians — are turning to the best-selling book, “Heaven is for Real:\u00a0 A Little Boy’\u00a0Astounding Story of\u00a0\u00a0His Trip to Heaven and Back\u00a0,”<\/em>\u00a0to bolster their\u00a0belief in\u00a0heaven.\u00a0 However, when a cottage industry — including\u00a0the\u00a0original book, a new book (“Heaven is for Real for Kids”<\/em> out in November 2011), and a DVD-Based Conversation Kit and Guide (also available November 2011) — \u00a0is built upon “the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven,” <\/em>I can’t help but be a little skeptical.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Why be so skeptical, pastor?\u00a0 Why question the experiences of a 4 year-old boy who visited heaven?\u00a0 After all, aren’t all of our experiences true?\u00a0 I mean,\u00a0“Heaven is for Real”<\/em> proclaims that it is based on a “true story.”\u00a0<\/em> Sadly, too many self-professed Christians\u00a0today, including the boy’s father — a pastor himself — allow experience to take precedence even over the written Word of God.\u00a0 And, woe be unto anyone\u00a0who dares to\u00a0question someone else’s experiences.<\/p>\n But, question we must, especially in the light of Scripture.\u00a0 The Bible is clear that heaven is a real place.\u00a0 One can choose to believe in heaven or not, but for Christians, we simply do not need any more evidence — experiential or otherwise — to know that heaven\u00a0and hell\u00a0are real.\u00a0 In fact, the last book of the Bible — Revelation — warns those who would add to Scripture:<\/p>\n “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:\u00a0 if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.”\u00a0 (Revelation 22:18, ESV)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n While some may try to limit this warning to the book of Revelation only, I would argue that God’s warning applies to any who would add to His Word — from Genesis through Revelation.\u00a0 When someone says that he has had a “true” experience in heaven and then proceeds to write a book about it, I’m not sure what loophole he is trying to employ to avoid the plagues?<\/p>\n If this experiential-based Christianity were new, then we might be at a loss as to how to answer those in our post-modern world who allow their experiences to overshadow — and in some cases take precedence over — the Word of God.\u00a0 But, thankfully,\u00a0we have God’s all-sufficient Word to guide us\u00a0 in our queries.<\/p>\n Just the other day, I was talking to someone who relayed how God had spoken to them through a dream.\u00a0 Now, I love dreams and thinking about the significance (if any) and meaning of my dreams, but I am under no illusion that God is speaking to me through my dreams.\u00a0 Could God communicate with me (or anyone else) through dreams?\u00a0 He could because He is God.\u00a0 What are the chances that God communicates through dreams today?\u00a0 Slim to none!<\/p>\n Why can I be so certain that God does not currently communicate this way to people even though He communicated that way to Joseph in the Old Testament and Joseph in the New Testament?\u00a0 Because Scripture tells me that God does not need to communicate with us through dreams anymore:<\/p>\n “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.”\u00a0\u00a0 (Hebrews 1:1-2, ESV)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In fact, God, through His Word, even warns people (primarily false teachers) about relying upon their dreams:<\/p>\n “Yet in like manner these people (false teachers) also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.” (Jude 8, ESV)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a really good argument FOR taking experiences — including dreams and visions — at face value.\u00a0 But, for those who still think that we need extra-Biblical sources\u00a0like “Heaven is for Real”<\/em> or Don Piper’s “90 Minutes in Heaven”<\/em> or “23 Minutes in Hell”<\/em> to convince us of the reality of heaven and hell, one need only look to Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke.<\/p>\n Jesus, who I don’t believe would make up heaven and hell just for illustrative purposes, was teaching primarily about the sufficiency of Scripture for those who had not yet believed.\u00a0 The rich man, now in hell, begged father Abraham to send Lazarus, now in heaven, back to warn the rich man’s brothers about the “place of torment” that he was now in.\u00a0 In sharing this parable or story, Jesus would give us ample evidence for the primacy and importance of Scripture:<\/p>\n “And he (the rich man) said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’\u00a0 He (father Abraham) said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'” (Luke 16:19-31, ESV)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If anyone has any doubt about heaven or needs to be convinced that heaven is for real, he or she does not need to buy “Heaven is for Real.”\u00a0<\/em> Instead, go to THE WORD and hear God speak His Words of promise and encouragement:<\/p>\n “Let not your heart be troubled.\u00a0 Believe in God, believe also in Me.\u00a0 In my Father’s house are many rooms (mansions).\u00a0 If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?\u00a0 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.”\u00a0 (John 14:1-3)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Where is Jesus talking about?\u00a0 A very real place called heaven.\u00a0 I know heaven is real because God’s Word proclaims it as true and promises it to those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 I don’t need the supposed “true” story of a 4 year-old boy to tell me that heaven is real.\u00a0 Do you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When one of our church’s most precious saints died on Tuesday — after a long battle with cancer —\u00a0I immediately knew where\u00a0her soul is\u00a0— heaven.\u00a0 How did I know?\u00a0 Because of the Word of God and my faith in God’s promises.\u00a0 I didn’t need a book about a 4 year-old boy’s supposed trip to\u00a0the celestial\u00a0realm\u00a0to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,35,39],"tags":[1063,1064,1065,144,3370,1098,1099,445,1110,1111,1113,1114,1115,1116,552,1130,1135,1147,1153,810,3392,1162,1163,886,1051],"class_list":["post-2335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-religion","category-theology","tag-4-year-old-boy","tag-abraham","tag-afterlife","tag-bible","tag-christianity","tag-experiences","tag-experiential","tag-god","tag-gospel-of-john","tag-gospel-of-luke","tag-heaven","tag-heaven-is-for-real","tag-heaven-is-for-real-for-kids","tag-hell","tag-jesus-christ","tag-jude","tag-lazarus","tag-moses","tag-near-death-experience","tag-prophets","tag-religion","tag-revelation","tag-rich-man","tag-scripture","tag-word-of-god"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-BF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}