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Glimpses of Heaven

I wonder if heaven looks sorta like this.

by Mark Moring

If you've ever flown, you know how amazing the clouds look from 35,000 feet. You're actually looking down on them for a change, and it's quite a sight—almost like you're looking at things from God's perspective. Well, maybe that's a stretch, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, there I was, thinking about heaven.

And then a special news report came on the airplane's TV. They showed scenes of a house in California, surrounded by police. They were bringing out bodies, 39 in all. A mass suicide. The corpses were all dressed in black, right down to their Nike sneakers.

Eventually, we learned that they were members of a cult called "Heaven's Gate." They followed a guy with the nickname "Do," a guy who taught his "flock" to put aside earthly desires and prepare for heaven instead.

Somehow, "Do" had convinced his people that they could catch a ride to heaven on the tail of the Hale-Bopp Comet, which was passing relatively close to our planet at that time.

So, they all literally packed their bags, dressed for the trip, ate a last, lethal "meal" of poison-laced pudding followed by vodka, laid down and died, ready for their journey to what they called "the next level."

Weirdos, I thought. How could they be so stupid?

But when I thought about it some more, I realized they really weren't so different from me. Or you. Or most of us.

We all share something in common:

We all long for heaven.

We all look forward to the day when there will be no more pain—just joy and peace forever.

That's what the Heaven's Gate people wanted. They just were looking for it in the wrong place.

Heaven Is . … Heaven's a place of eternal happiness and worship—total communion with God. I think it's like an eternal party—all the food you can eat, everyone worshiping God, no sadness or sorrow. And the only way to get there is to accept Jesus Christ and make him Lord of your life. —Rudy

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

OK, we all memorized John 3:16 at Vacation Bible School, and we've heard it a zillion times since.

But look at that verse again, especially the last two words: Eternal life.

Wow. Believe in Jesus. Live forever. In heaven.

What do we know about this place called heaven, anyway?

Is it, as "reported" in one of the supermarket tabloids, "a shimmering city floating eerily in the blackness of space"? Is it, as that same article suggested, "a radiant object three billion light years away, close to what scientists believe is the edge of the universe"? (Those same "scientists" calculated that it takes "3 million years for a human soul to reach heaven" and that "no one from Earth has arrived there yet!")

Heaven Is . … Heaven is a perfect place. There's no sin, there's no crying. Everything's perfect there. I think of being with the angels, praising God, worshiping him and fellowshiping with other Christians. —Stephanie

Fortunately, we don't have to rely on the Weekly World News for our "heavenly information." The Bible tells us a few things about heaven. Like:

• We all long for heaven (Philippians 3:20).
• We must believe in Jesus to get there (John 3:16).
• We each have a "heavenly home" waiting for us, prepared by Jesus himself (John 14:2).
• We will go to heaven as soon as we die (Luke 23:43).
• We will get new bodies when we go to heaven (2 Corinthians 5:1-4).
• We will see God face to face in heaven (1 John 3:2).
• We will not sin in heaven (Revelation 21:27).
• We will experience no more death, no more pain, no more sadness, no more tears (Revelation 21:4).
  
  

And of course, countless stories and poems and songs and hymns have been written about the place.

I especially like the way C.S. Lewis describes heaven in The Last Battle, the seventh and final book in The Chronicles of Narnia.

At the end of the story, the great lion Aslan introduces the main characters to the new Narnia, which is much more real than the old, which was quite a fantastic place itself. Lewis writes:

The new Narnia … was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if you ever get there, you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried:

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. … Come further up, come further in!"

He shook his mane and sprang forward into a gallop—a Unicorn's gallop which, in our world, would have carried him out of sight in a few moments. But now a most strange thing happened. Everyone else began to run, and they found, to their astonishment, that they could keep up with him. … The air flew in their faces as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. … Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or tired or out of breath.

As I gazed out the window of that plane at the clouds—and the earth beneath them—I saw, at best, the "old Narnia." A stunning view indeed, but hardly heaven. Heaven will be infinitely better.

And then I thought of my dad, who died a couple of years ago after a horrendous battle with cancer.

I thought about how Dad's body had slowly, steadily wasted away over the course of many months. I thought of his pain, his agony, his tormented moans in the middle of the night.

And, in the face of those awful memories, I smiled. Because I knew where Dad was now—in God's presence, for all eternity. With a brand-new body, in a place where no one gets "hot or tired or out of breath."

God says that when we get to heaven, he will "wipe every tear from [our] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. … I am making everything new!" (Revelation 21:4-5).

And then God pauses before giving the ultimate punch line:

"Write this down," he says, and you can almost hear the excitement in his voice, "for these words are trustworthy and true."

I certainly believe these words. And I'll cling to them for the rest of my life, till the day I, too, can exclaim, "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here."

What About Hell? by Carla Barnhill

Hell. What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you read that word? Fire? Dancing devils with pointy horns and pitchforks? Last week's big science test? Whatever you think of when you think of hell, one thing's for sure—you don't want any part of it. While the Bible mentions hell in several places, it never really goes into detail about the place. We read about the eternal fire (Mark 9:43-47, James 3:6, Revelation 20:14), the torment (Luke 16:23), and the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42, Luke 13:28), but we don't get a vivid picture of hell like we do of heaven (Revelation 21). Still, the Bible makes it clear that what hell looks like is less important that what hell feels like. And it doesn't feel good. Jesus tells a story of two men, Lazarus and a rich man who refused to help the dying Lazarus. When the men die, Lazarus ends up in heaven, the rich man in hell. And the rich man is, obviously, miserable. He begs for help. But Abraham, who is standing with Lazarus in heaven, reminds the rich man that the fire and misery of hell is nothing compared to the real suffering the rich man must endure—eternal separation from God. Abraham says, "'Besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us'" (Luke 16:26). Separated from God—forever. That's hell. It doesn't matter if there's fire, or pointy-horned demons. What matters is that to live in hell is to live apart from the loving, saving God who created us. Imagine the worst case of homesickness, loneliness or loss you can think of, then magnify it a zillion times. That's hell. But don't think for a minute this separation is what God wants. It hurts him even more than it hurts us. God created us because he wants nothing more than to be in a relationship with us. He longs for us to be with him in heaven. He's as excited about our salvation as we are. So if hell is eternal separation from God, and God loves us so much, why is hell even an option? The truth is, no one really knows the answer to that question. Theologians have debated for centuries and come up with a few explanations. One view is that there has to be a flip-side to salvation. We can't understand God's mercy unless we understand God's wrath. We need to realize there's an alternative to heaven. Another explanation is that God is so holy he cannot be in the presence of unholiness; it just can't happen. It's like darkness existing where there is light; completely impossible. So there has to be a place for people who don't accept God's gift of salvation. That place is hell. Even though we may never really understand why there's a hell, one thing's for sure: It's not a place you want to be, ever. And God loves us enough to give us a way to stay far away from an eternity in hell. When we accept Christ as our Savior, we choose a life that allows us to be best friends with our awesome Creator—a creator who wants us to spend eternity at his side. We choose heaven.

Copyright © 1998 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail clmag@CampusLife.net March/April 1998. Page 34

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