Does Heaven Exist?

 

Just where is Heaven located? Do saved people go there instantly after death and many other questions? Even an issue of Time magazine took up the subject. On its cover page, it showed a man standing out in space on a cloud; he is looking upward, his right hand shading his eyes from the sun so as to get a better look. He is trying to locate heaven. Only three words are on that cover page, "Does Heaven Exist?"

There is only one absolutely credible source for that answer, and that source is God's Word. Why ask mortal man with his life's breath in his nostrils? Why get a dozen varied opinions on the subject? Why waste time and money trying to figure it all out when He who created it has already spoken authoritatively?

Jesus told His disciples just before He went away, "In my Father's, house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also" (John 14:2,3).

Shortly thereafter, He took them out to the Mount of Olives and as He was speaking, gravitation lost its hold, and Jesus suddenly ascended into His Father's house exactly as He had said He was going to do. To comfort them and possibly to reassure them he would fulfill His promise He sent two angels in the form of men clothed in white apparel who told the amazed disciples: "This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Crystal clear -  no room for question or argument - God's eternal Word for all ages. There is a Heaven, Jesus is there at the right hand of the Father today making intercession for us (Col. 3:1) and will be there until He comes again to take His own to be with Him.

The Apostle Paul was permitted to get a glimpse of heaven (II Cor. 12:3,4) but John the Revelator saw a door opened and saw God on His throne and was given a preview of much of what the future holds for our world. He saw heaven in all its beauty, saw it measured, saw in prophetic vision it coming down to earth for the millennial reign. What more proof do we want? I have only touched the surface so far as the scriptural account goes as to the reality of heaven.

The Time article interviewed some clergymen as to what they thought about the existence of Heaven, and I was shocked at their uncertainty. All of them must have quoted the Lord's Prayer many times and does it not begin with the words, "Our Father who are in heaven?" Did they really mean what they were saying or was it just so much babble?

The real shockers came when I read "Letter to the Editor” in Time. One woman wrote and said she thoroughly enjoyed the article, "Does Heaven Exist?" and declared herself "a devout Christian." But, wait, look at what else she had to say, and you'll see if she really is. She declares that she doesn't give much thought to heaven, that her spirituality isn't based, and I quote, "On an anthropomorphic, kick-butt God who will throw generations of children into eternal damnation because some distant forefather ticked him off. Heaven is the flip side of the absolutely barbaric notion of hell that evolved under that kick-butt mind set. Hell is just plain inconsistent with the tradition of mysticism that brought me into the faith in the first place. To me, God is a symbol for something unfathomable, an utter mystery that fills my heart with song." Well, it is not hard to see why she doesn't give much thought to heaven for clearly she has no connections there.

Then there was another letter in which a man wrote congratulating Time for the article but complaining thus: "Nowhere did the story even hint at the millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, and atheists worldwide who, may have had a glimpse of heaven, a near-death experience, and lived to tell about it if we had taken time to listen." He goes on to tell how this crowd just mentioned had for years had a near-death, experience and "encountered the Light (meaning God, of course) which had transformed their lives." A Light that had transformed the lives of atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists? Remember, he is not speaking of the conversion of these people, he is speaking about them in their state of atheism, Hinduism etc., and as such, getting a glimpse of heaven in a near death experience as God shows them what glories await them after death.

Does it not stagger your mind how mixed up, how deceived, how totally wrong so many people are who seem to sincerely think they are Christians? The reason they don't believe in or have doubts about heaven is primarily due to the fact that they have no heaven in their soul. I believe that any born again Christian can feel a connection, feel the pull of that better land. I am like the little boy who was flying his kite. The clouds were lowering and his kite had become hidden in them. A man coming along looked at the boy and wondered what he was doing standing there holding onto a string. "What are you doing son?" asked the man. "I am flying my kite," responded the lad. "But I don't see any kite," the man said. "Neither do I," replied the boy, "But I know it's up there because I can feel the pull on my string." Praise the Lord!

Now, even if there is no heaven and I discover that at death, I am still a winner. I have had a good time believing there is one, my faith in a glorious hereafter has inspired my life far above those who have no hope. I have known the best people on earth and whatever may be the cause of my death cannot be contributed to bad habits, immoral living, or other self inflicted causes for my faith in God, .and my hopes of one day inhabiting the home He has gone to prepare for me has kept me from these things. It has stabilized my very being.

We all know who Sigmund Freud was. Where he spoke in theological matters, he must be totally ignored for he had no concept of God whatever. He died in 1939 but before he did, he wrote a letter to a Christian preacher whom he admired, saying? "You are in the fortunate position of leading people on to what you believe to be God, fortunate at least in the one respect that religious piety stifles neurosis." This was not a case of Freud endorsing God but he did admit at the end that he did not have the full answer to man's problems, that a faith in a Supreme Being could "stifle neurosis," keep such a person from beating a path to the psychiatrists or clinical psychologists office, that such a faith could help a person to a more beneficial status. Hopefully Freud, before he died, did accept an appointment with the greatest psychiatrist that ever lived, the Lord Jesus Christ. If he did, he long since has found that the heaven he didn't think existed, really did.

 

[Printed April 2002; Author – Dr. J. Royce Thomason]