A popular movie with the same title has captured the imagination of many Christians. Pastor Clark examines the true biblical reasons to believe that heaven is a real place!

<p>A popular movie with the same title has captured the imagination of many Christians. Pastor Clark examines the true biblical reasons to believe that heaven is a real place!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

Heaven Is For Real

I'm sure that many of you have heard of the movie, Heaven is for Real.

I haven't watched the movie, it's just a little clip from the trailer.

But many people are watching this movie and enjoying it and feeling that it has a message, an important message that heaven is for real.

Now I want to make some things very clear as I begin our discussion today about heaven is for real.

First of all, I understand that this movie is based upon good intentions and good motives.

I can assume that the people who wrote the book, the father of Colton who had a near-death experience and came back seeing or telling of what he had seen in heaven, The Father is a pastor, and I'm sure the intentions are very good.

I mean, after all, their intention is to let people know that heaven is a real place.

We would agree that heaven is a real place.

We would agree that this movie is attempting to show that there is a God in heaven, that in fact heaven is for real.

And those are all very, very good things that we should be happy to stand beside our Christian brothers and sisters who have watched this movie and agree with them on.

But today I want to talk with you about some of the concerns about this movie.

You see, this movie, as the story goes, the little clip you saw, Colton is describing how he saw in heaven his little sister who had died, miscarried, in his mother's tummy.

Colton came from this near-death experience and began telling stories about his grandfather who he never knew, impossible details that were shared.

And the problem with this story is the conclusions not not just the conclusions that are drawn as these conclusions but the evidence that is based upon these conclusions are based upon notice this next little clip he's making a difference haven't we already had a glimpse of something the first cry of a baby courage of a next little clip.

Because of the story of Colton, because of these impossible details, and because of the good things that were happening as a result of this story unfolding in the Nebraska plains, these people began to believe that heaven is for real.

Now the problem I have, the concern I have with that is the basis for which they are believing that heaven is for real.

I agree and I think you agree that heaven is real, right?

I believe that heaven is a very real place, but I don't believe that we ought to be basing our belief in heaven on the fact that some little boy has a story to tell.

That's the concern that I have as I read about and as I hear about this movie.

The concern I have with this movie is that the basis of belief is that this person had this near-death experience.

And of course we know that there are teachings in the Bible that have to do with the state of the dead, right?

And as far as I know, this movie does not appeal in any way to the fact that the Bible has something to say about heaven.

It doesn't appeal To the fact that the Bible has something to say about heaven, it doesn't appeal to the fact that the Bible has promises about what heaven will be like.

It simply appeals to this story of something that happened.

Now my concern with that is that I believe we have a world in which there is a deceiver, amen, a deceiver in which that deceiver creates situations that we cannot always trust.

Even we cannot always completely trust our own impressions, our own senses.

I'm hoping that this topic that we share together today will be able to help us understand how we can be forewarned and prepared for the times that are ahead.

I would invite you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Peter, our Scripture for today, and we are going to look at our text that we read today, that context once again.

We're going to come back to this because I believe it's very, very important.

We're going to come back to this idea that the Word of God is to be a foundation of our understanding.

But I want you to see what Peter is saying here when he talks about this.

We understand verse 19, talking about the more sure word of prophecy, but in verse 16 he says, "'But we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

For He received from God the Father honor and glory when God the Father, when such a voice came to Him from the excellent glory.

This is my beloved Son, He says, in whom I am well pleased.

And we heard this voice which came from the mountain, which came from heaven when we were with him on the mountain.'" And so here Peter is saying, look, this isn't just something we heard through the grapevine.

This isn't just something that we had someone told us, maybe we read about in a book, maybe we saw it in a film.

When you watch a movie, I watch people sometimes when they're watching something, and it's always really amazing to me, you know, when the hero or the heroine dies in a movie, and you see these people just start crying and crying.

And the amazing thing is it's not even a true story.

And it's why we need to be careful what we place in front of our minds.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, and so forth, that's the principle for what we should place before our minds, right?

So a movie is very powerful, but imagine how much more powerful is a personal experience, a personal experience.

Can you imagine if you were there with them in the mountain?

If You were there and getting a few nods of sleep off, and all of a sudden there's a bright light and there's Moses and there's Elijah speaking with your Savior at the Mount of Transfiguration.

And not only Moses and Elijah there, but also the voice of God which came from heaven saying, "'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'" Can you imagine if you heard that with your own ears, you saw it with your own eyes?

But Peter isn't just saying, looks, and you can trust our word.

Notice what he goes on and he says in the next verse, and So we have the prophetic word confirmed.

In the King James Version, it says, we have also a more sure word of prophecy.

I want you to understand what Peter is trying to say.

Peter is trying to say, look guys, we saw it with our own senses.

We were there, We heard it, we heard the voice from heaven thundering and God's voice speaking.

We heard it, we know it's true, but we have an even more dependable, even more dependable source of truth and instruction, And that's the prophetic Word, the confirmed prophetic Word, the Word of God.

You see, my friends, our own senses could be deceived.

Matthew chapter 24, and we're going to read verse 24.

You should always know where it's found in the Bible because, well, you know Matthew 24 is on the last days, and this is verse 24.

And right here in the center of Matthew 24 is a description of the deception, the strength of the deception that will be in the last days.

We'll start reading in verse 23 for the context.

This is what it says, "'Then if anyone says to you, "'Look, here is the Christ, ' or, "'There, do not believe it.

For false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect." you see what's going to happen?

False Christs and false prophets will rise to deceive, even if possible, the very elect.

Do you think Christians are going to be deceived by someone coming and saying, I'm the Antichrist?

Do you think that's going to deceive any Christians?

Do you think Christians are going to be deceived by someone saying, come follow me, I'm a high priest of Satan?

You must understand, friends, that the deceptions of the last days are inherently, innately from within the Christian church.

When we study the book of Revelation, it becomes very painfully clear That from within Christianity, this battle takes place between the true worship and the counterfeit worship.

And it's not just in the book of Revelation.

He says, after my time, grievous wolves will come in from among you.

Not from outside, from among you, not sparing the flock.

He says that false teachers will arise from within teaching false doctrines.

This is the prediction that the Apostle Paul says would take place in the last days.

And so, my friends, if you look at these predictions, we have to conclude that the deceptions are going to be very, very difficult to discern, except we compare them with the Word of God.

Not with our own ideas, not with the way we were raised, not with our own culture and our background and upbringing.

The concerns that I have is that this movie teaches us, contrary to all that I just said, it teaches us to depend not on the Word of God as our determinant between right and wrong, but on our own experience, on what we see, on what we feel, perhaps what we are going to hear in these last days.

In the movie, there is no appeal to Scripture, and we find that it is even contrary to Scripture.

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Heaven Is For Real

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