The witnesses of heaven (2 Cor 12;1-4)

                                    The witnesses of heaven (2 Cor 12;1-4)

 

After we accept God as our lord and savior, we hear many things about heaven, but we don’t quite know a lot about it.

There are many stories about people, who went to heaven, but people keep questioning; does heaven really exist? Is there really a place called heaven? If there is, is it a good place to go?

Here is a story about someone’s experience of heaven.

In April 2010, there was a newspaper article about a boy who died for a brief time and came back to life. When the boy came back to life he said “I went to heaven.”

He died from playing by a pond, and he fell into the pond and drowned. The doctor tried to give him CPR, but he didn’t breathe for 3 hours, so he gave up and said “he is gone.”

All of a sudden his heart starts beating again by itself, and that’s when this miracle had occurred.

After the boy awoke and told everyone that he had gone to heaven, he said he met his grandmother there. The boy said “Grandma told me to go back.”What is very interesting about this is the fact that the boy had never met his Grandmother in real life. She passed away before he was even born. Despite having never met his grandmother, he knew what she looked like from pictures and knew what her name was, so to say that he was lying is hard to believe. This is something that could not just be made up.

Even though this story is hard not to believe I still had my doubts about it. This article really had me thinking. Is this REALLY possible? I’ve heard some stories similar to this one before.

This kind of experience is also known as a near death experience. If you look up “near death experience” online then you will see similar stories to the article from the newspaper. People who experience this all say the following:

1. They know that life after death exists.

2. They feel the soul separating from the body, and feel like they are floating.

3. They experience the feeling of being sucked into nowhere. Sucked into a light, some place dark, or some tunnel.

4. They meet an existence of light or judge.

5. Your whole life memory just sparks through your head in one second. Many people who almost die experience this. They can see things they don’t even remember doing from their past. Most of them are sins.

6. Sometimes some of them see both heaven and hell.

7. Most people who go through near death experiences live totally different lives after they come back to life. They realize that this life isn’t the only life that they have.

They become people who spread love rather than money and power. They get more interest in the afterlife.

On the internet there is a blog called White Fox’s blog. In this blog he tells his story of what he went through.

 “In the summer of 2001 I was sleeping in my living room, and I awoke with a weird feeling. I opened my eyes, but it felt like my eyes became one, and the view was really weird. I looked down and I saw my face. Then, I realized ‘oh my god, my soul is out of my body.’ I felt that my soul was half way out, and it was cold. I was trying to go back but I couldn’t.

I felt like my soul was just going to float and hit the ceiling. I checked the time and I tried so hard to go back into my body. Later I woke up and I was back in my body. I thought to myself that it must be a nightmare...but it wasn’t.

I checked the time when I woke up, and it was the same time as the one in my out of body experience. After I have dreams that seem impossible to me I would always try to check and see if it was real or just a dream.

There is a saying in Korea “if a person from Seoul and person who is not from Seoul fight then, the person who isn’t from Seoul will win for sure.’

People who aren’t from Seoul don’t understand this saying because they don’t know what it’s like there and the mentality is different from people outside of Seoul compared to those from there.

I say this because a lot of people really don’t understand those who go through these near death experiences. Like the saying where it says people from Seoul will automatically win a fight against someone not from there, it’s something people from Seoul just believe. However people who have never set foot in Seoul will have a hard time believing this. Just like those who go through these near death experiences, those of us who have never gone through these experiences will never understand what they went through.

For a long time I was always curious as to why all the countries of the world are separated and each country has its differences, but majority of the world has the same common belief that there is a heaven and hell.

Many people who went through these near death experiences are from different countries and culture, but why are all their experiences similar?

One person’s words after his near death experience were, “I never felt like my life on earth was realistic. The after world felt more like a real world. The world I’m living in must be a dream world then.’

Here is a story about a 4 year old boy named Colton who said he went to heaven.

 

In 2003 there was an article about this 4 year old boy who went to heaven which drew a lot of attention. His dad (Todd) is a pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church.

At age 4 Colton had Appendicitis and it turned into peritonitis. He claimed that he met Jesus at that time. His dad asked him “how do you know you met Jesus?’ Colton dropped his toy on the floor and pointed to his hands and feet, and said ‘Jesus has the holes there.” Colton also claimed that he met a great grandfather who died way before Colton was born. Colton said that his great grandfather asked him “Are you Todd’s Son? I’m Todd’s grandfather Pap.” And he played with him in heaven. Pap died when Colton’s dad was 7 years old in a car accident. Colton also met his sister who died by Natural causes. His parents have never mentioned anything about his sister who died to Colton before, but he said he met her in heaven.

Colton said he didn’t wanted to leave heaven, but Jesus told him that “you have to back because of your dad’s prayer.” So Jesus sent him back. Colton’s dad said “I remember just how hard I prayed to God to bring my son back.”

Colton also said “the great thing about heaven is that no one is sick or ill. No one gets bruises. No one wears glasses or is in a wheelchair. Everyone is healthy and young, and no one dies. In heaven everyone lives with God forever!”

According to Revelation 21:3-4 it says ³ And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Yes. Heaven is the place that everyone wants to go.

Is heaven there?

Long ago a former Soviet Union astronaut said that when he went to space God was nowhere to be found. An American astronaut went to space, and he said I believe that the earth is the creation of God. So, it is hard to say that heaven is real or not in a scientific way, and it’s hard to believe the story about those who went to heaven. But, it is  the matter of how the bible says it. If the bible is God’s word that means it’s true.

2. But we have to pay attention in the bible. Surprisingly the bible doesn’t mention many things in detail about heaven. But, according to the gospel it is written that is a Paradise; our father’s home. In Revelation it written that it is a New Jerusalem castle in the sky. The place we have to enter after you pass.

1) When Jesus was nailed on the cross, Jesus said to the thief next to him who realized his sins: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”(Luke 23:43)

Paul also talks about the paradise in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4

It is doubtless^[a] not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: ² I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. ³ And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— ⁴ how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

In Revelation 2:7 Jesus said “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”’

Also, in John 14:1 Jesus said “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.

At last, let’s talk about an elder in Korea named Sangho Kim.

In Korea there is a place called Gobyonglee. It’s located on the Opposite side of Chungchungbukdo Sukri Mountain where he was born.

He was born in a Psychic family. The family lived believing in false idols, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling. He was a married man with 7 children. one day he met a missionary when he had a little too much to drink.

The Missionary told him to believe God, but he said no. After their encounter all he couldn’t get the missionary’s voice out of his head, so he went to see missionary. He asked him to remove this voice inside of his head. The missionary began to pray for him. After he prayed for him he said he didn’t have any voices in his head. He started to believe. Later on he had a dream that his six toes were chopped off and after that diseases started to spread, and his 5 daughters died and left a will that said “God is calling”

His has 2 sons. but one son died too.

He also dreamed that his one son is in heaven too and He visited hell.

After that he said he met Jesus and some angels. He experienced many things and came back, and he also met his 5 daughters in heaven. After he woke up he realized that this was a wakeup call, and he realized that he had to do missionary work such as building churches. He published a book that titled “Even if you are poor. Don’t go to hell.”

Conclusion

The existence of heaven cannot be scientifically proved, because science is something created by human and humans are not perfect. There are many limits.

God created Universal Gravitation when he created earth. Isaac Newton found it out in 1697.

Many scientists thought that earth is the center of universe, and that the sun orbits around the earth. That was wrong knowledge. Italian Giordano Bruno, 1548~1600.2.17 was burned to death, because he told them this truth that earth orbits around not the sun. This is ridiculous.

Recently, there was a question uploaded on the internet asking about the difference between something that is sweet or salty. Which one is more harmful? It’s salt. How much more harmful is it?  Salt is 10 times more harmful than something sweet. It was discovered just a month ago. Human usually get dementia at around age of 85, one out of two. Tobacco and alcohol is bad for dementia, but next worse thing for dementia is salt. So at old age eating slipslop food is good.

Thousands of prophecies and promises are written in the bible and that became true and even today it’s becoming true. In bible it says after you die you will be judged on how you lived your life.

So when we are still alive we have to do God’s work that pleases God, and believe in God.

So, everyone we have to remember what the bible says. Our every action on this earth will effect on how we will be judged when we die, so we have to live to obey God, do more of God’s work, and reflect back on how we are living our lives.