“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
Some of the bestselling books recently have been on the topic of heaven and the experience of dying and going to heaven.
I am not in a position to say whether these people have or have not gone to heaven. I don’t know whether they made up these stories, whether they may be intentionally lying about it, or whether they indeed had some time in the next dimension. All I can do is take what has been written and compare it to what I read in the Bible.
Not long ago, someone told me that she knew what Jesus looked like, because she read about it in a book about heaven by someone who claimed to have seen Jesus Christ and then described him. I told her that I would not base it on that.
In fact, I was only a few pages into one such book when I found something that was inconsistent with Scripture. I thought, Wait a second. I am not going to build my faith on what this person says. I am building my faith on what God says in His Word.
The Bible actually has a lot of things to say about heaven. Here are a few of them:
- People in heaven are aware of the fact that loved ones are not saved (see Luke 16:19–31).
- When people believe in Jesus on Earth, it is public knowledge in heaven (see Luke 15:7).
- People in heaven may know about the passing of time and place of events on Earth (see Revelation 6:10).
My belief is that everything I need to know about heaven is found in the pages of the Bible. I don’t have to go beyond that.
