Heaven

Intro

Hi church!

Pastor Mike and a bunch of our pastors are at a pastors conference

except for me.

It is kinda hard for me rn to go to a conference

with a grieving familiy of littles, and trying to repair a flooded house.

so you got me today

given the death of my son Hezekiah

it has caused me to study a lot about Heaven and death.

which has largely been the way I have maintained my relationship with God.

So today I will share with you some of things

I have noted when studying what the Word says about death and heaven

the fancy word for it is: hermeneutics

meaning we are going to try to understand what the Bible says about Heaven

we will do this by the most basic practice of studying the Word:

“comparing scriupture with scripture”

whats better then reading a section in the Word?

reading 3 sections of the Word!

There is 3 main sections in the Bible that have to do with Heaven.

From these 3 sections and comparing scripture with scripture we can get a pretty good idea of what the death of a Christian / little one would look like.

There are lots of stories, books, articles, blogs and vlogs of people telling their near death expereince.

many claiming to have seen or been in heaven

and some claiming to have seen or been in hell.

while ill shut this down later

I do think that this does show us that

obviously something happens

A 2017 study by two researchers at the University of Virginia

The researchers administered a questionnaire to 122 people who had NDE

The results suggest that the NDEs were recalled with greater vividness and detail than either real or imagined situations were. In short, the NDEs were remembered as being “realer than real.”

you would think that they would wake up not wanting to die again.

Many come out with no fear of death.

this shows me how real it must feel.

NDEs have been with us at all times in all cultures and in all people, young and old, devout and skeptical

Interestingly, NDEs are no more likely to occur in devout believers than in secular or nonpracticing subjects.

Even science proves that something happens after you die.

there is accounts of people with little or no brain activity and people describe the expereince they had similiar expereinces as other people.

Stephen Died

Acts 7:51–60 NKJV

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Lazarus and the rich man died

Luke 16:19–31 NKJV

“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ”

Paul said that it would be a sin to try to compare heaven

that is why it is hard for me to belive the stroies people have had about heaven