is heaven is for real for real. We don't make a habit here at Grace Church of talking about every movie that comes out or teaching lessons on movies on a regular basis, but this is obviously one that is popular, for one, and then also is related to the Bible and theology, and even to the subject that Pastor Phil's been teaching about this quarter, and that is angels and demons, because angels are an important part of this story and the movie. So that's why when I suggested this topic to Pastor Phil, he said, yeah, that'd be a great one, go for it. Let me just ask, how many of you have seen the movie? Raise your hand, okay. How many of you have read the book? Okay, so a few, and then some of you have done both. I've done both as well. I have read the book. I went and saw the movie. I'm going to show you a clip here, all right? And I want to get your reaction to the clip. Now, I do not want a full review of the book or the movie and your thoughts on the entire issue. The reason we're focusing on the clip is so that even if you haven't seen the book, read the book or seen the movie, you could still consider what's being said and even comment if you want to do that. So let me get this ready here. I've been here. I don't think we've been here before, pal. You had a grandpa named Pop, right? That's right. He's very nice. You saw my grandfather? Where did you see him? In heaven. I think the book has been powerful because of the perspective. It's coming from a child. I think people understand that the purest and best witness you're ever going to get as a kid, they're not contaminated with adult think. They don't know why things happen or how things happen, but they just say, this is what I saw. In heaven, this little girl came up to me and she wouldn't stop hugging me. What was her name? She didn't have a name. You guys didn't name her. Things like miscarries, what we went through, is kind of a silent hurt, and no one knows what to say or how to talk about it. Some people think pastors have all the answers, and this one doesn't. Many times, searching for the answer, God, what does it say in the Bible that a miscarried kid, what happens? And here's this four-year-old that comes in with this pieces, like in a puzzle. He brought them together, and now I can see this picture much more clearly about heaven than I ever could before. It just makes sense. It's beautiful. Yeah? It's all the colors, all the colors of the rainbow in heaven, except for one. But I never dreamed that three some odd years later, my son would meet my daughter. He would come back and share about her with us and my wife. I never even thought God would do that to heal my hurt. God only allows good things, but because there's evil in this world, bad things happen. But at the same time, God takes evil and he can turn it into good. We're in trouble here. He's much worse. Will you call some friends and pray for him? I think my favorite thing about the movie is how they portray small-town life, and how small-town works, and how everyone knows everyone's business, and how everyone works together and sometimes against each other, but you don't get away from anybody in a small town. Reverend Berkeley. Todd. Todd. Some of the hospital staff have said, off the record, that your son was not expected to survive. Used the word miracle. Do you believe he was in heaven? If he didn't die, how could he see heaven? I don't know, but he did. The thing I'm most excited about is I think this movie is going to force people to ask themselves a question or two. We put off some of the most important questions until we're faced with mortality. This movie, I think, is going to cause people to ask the question, do you really believe what you say you do? All right, so any brief thoughts about the clip itself? Anything that was said there that stood out to you that you wanna comment? And by the way, we can disagree here, okay? We're gonna look to the scriptures in just a moment, but it's okay to disagree as well. She said there's something about the Bible doesn't answer that question, and so they're looking to the three-year-old boy to answer that question. That was the comment. Okay, all right. Gary was saying that there's only one time in scripture that Jesus is recorded as being amazed at someone who expresses in a positive way, and that is at the faith of the centurion. So Jesus was amazed at his faith, and so Gary said, I don't need a three-year-old to validate my faith or to prove that to me, in essence, was what he was saying. All right, so here's the summary of the story. A three-year-old, now you say, wait a minute, I thought he was four. Well, he was three when he had the surgery, he was four, he had turned four when he started to talk to his parents in a way that surprise them. So three or four. Three-year-old Colton Burpo from Nebraska, his family lives in Nebraska, underwent emergency appendectomy surgery. He began telling his parents, Todd and Sonia, that he went to heaven and came back during the surgery. They are skeptical at first, but according to them, he said things about heaven and about family members that he couldn't or shouldn't have otherwise known. So It's not so much that he says he went to heaven. They just believe him, but there's certain things that supposedly prove that this happened For example, and this is on your sheet. I apologize. The font is somewhat small. I know it's a little dark in here, but It's more of a resource that you can take back with you so you can listen There's a few blanks to fill in along the way if you want to do that. There's not very many and a lot of it will be up on the screen as well. We're down one screen over here tonight, one projector, but he tells them a number of things about what heaven is like that according to his father, a three-year-old who can't even read shouldn't know, all right? And then he says he met a girl who was his sister, and you saw a little bit of that in the clip, his sister that his mother Sonia had miscarried. Todd and Sonia said they'd never told Colton that Sonia had had a miscarriage or that Colton had another sister other than the one that was alive. And then he said he saw his grandpa Dennis who had died before Colton was born. This would actually be his great-grandpa Dennis. When Todd showed Colton pictures of grandpa Dennis, or great-grandpa Dennis as an old man, Colton kept saying, that's not him, that's not him. It was only when Todd showed Colton a picture of him as a younger man, a picture that Colton had never even seen before, that Colton said, that's him. So the implication being he saw him in heaven as a young man and even though he'd never seen any pictures of him before, he recognized him at that point. So that's the story. This book was written in 2010. The incident happened in 2004, I believe, and so it was about six years after the incident, the surgery that the book was written and then the movie four years later here in 2014. I do want to point out some positives from my perspective and that is it's a very positive portrayal of family. husband and wife who love each other, there's challenges, even an argument, but they're portrayed in a very positive light. Faith, the church, there's several scenes in a church building, even pastors are portrayed positively, and that's a real surprise, because Christians and pastors are not often portrayed very positively in a movie, so I do want to acknowledge that fact and say that that was a good thing to see in the movie. Now, here's the challenging thing. As you know, anybody who's read a book and then seen a movie, there's sometimes differences. So some of the things apply to one and not the other, sometimes to both. In the book, there's a gospel Maybe not as clear as I would like it to be, but the gospel is in the book. For example, in the book, Colton, the boy, attends a funeral that his dad officiates and points to the man in the casket and asks, did the man have Jesus in his heart? He then insists he had to have Jesus in his heart. He had to know Jesus or he can't get into heaven. And then Todd writes in the book, Colton was asking me whether the man who had died was a Christian who had accepted Christ as his Savior. But the interesting thing is in the movie, almost all of that is absent. There's no gospel at all, really. Jesus is mentioned one time outside of the times when Colton says he saw Jesus, and the cross is mentioned once, but the gospel is not at all really in the movie. And you say, well, that's not the author's fault because, you know, sometimes things are, well, He obviously approves of the movie because he's promoting it. He went to the premiere of the movie, so it's not like he stood up and says, I'm not going to be a part of this because it's something other than what I would want. And I think that, and we'll come back to this at the end, perhaps this might be a good conversation starter with unsaved acquaintances rather than the first words out of your lips if this topic is brought up being to just bash it. You know, maybe it's the way to to continue a conversation with someone who's interested, and we'll circle back around that at the end here. But how should we evaluate this movie and this book, and any book and movie really for that matter, okay? How should we do it? Should we go by how it makes us feel? the impressions that we got from it, the fact that it tells a good story, that the movie is well done, and it is well done, and powerful, moving. Is that how we should evaluate it? Should we say, well, he is a pastor, right? He's gotta be telling the truth if he's a pastor, or should we say, well, how could we doubt a three-year-old boy? And by the way, in the movie, he's very cute. He's quite a cute little guy. So are those the things by which we should evaluate a book, a movie? I would suggest another way to evaluate, and that is the same way the Bereans did in Acts 17, 11, a verse that's probably familiar to you. These Bereans, people who lived in the city of Berea, were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica and that they received the word of Paul and what he said with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. So here's this man, Paul, who's telling them some things and they say, well, we want to compare that with scripture and we want to see if what you are saying compares favorably with scripture. And so that's the basis by which we're going to evaluate this tonight. As Chris Larson, who's the president of Ligonier Ministries in Florida says, experience does not validate scripture. Scripture validates experience. Do you understand that? Do you agree with that? This is key. All right. And our grace church doctrinal statement says the following we believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be in the the inspired Word of God the final authority for faith and life inerrant in the original writings infallible and God breathes. So whatever we say we believe or how we should live our lives Is it my opinion? Is it Pastor Phil's opinion? Is it your opinion? Is it some doctrinal statement, however helpful it may be? Is it some church body? Is it the Supreme Court of the United States? What is the final authority? And it is Scripture. Yes, we may differ on what Scripture says, but we have to at least agree that Scripture is the authority, the final authority. That was the principle, one of the principles of the Reformation, sola scriptura, scripture alone. That doesn't mean it's the only book we ever read and we don't look to anything else, but it's the ultimate or final authority in all matters of faith and practice. So let's do that tonight, all right? Let's look at some things and evaluate some of the things that Colton says that he saw in heaven. And by the way, he didn't die, okay? There was no evidence that he had any kind of heartbeat, stopped beating, anything like that. So it was something that during the surgery, he says he floated and could look down and see his body. and went to heaven and experienced a lot of things in a short period of time. But what I'm gonna do here is assign some scripture passages to rows, okay? And the people in that row, if you just look up that verse, and then I'll come back and ask if you have any thoughts based on that verse on the question at hand. If it doesn't make sense to you and you don't understand what you're reading, that's okay. You do not have to speak up. That's fine. But let me do this here. So I'm just going to Assign this row, Isaiah six, one through four. All right. Revelation five, 11 and 12. And these are on your sheet there. I'm kind of just going from one to the other. Revelation seven, 11 and 12 in this row here. Genesis three, 24. Ephesians six, 10 through 17. Revelation one, 16. This row here, Revelation 2, 12 and 16. Revelation 19, 15 and 21. Luke 1, verse 19. Ezekiel 10, 18 and 19. Ezekiel 10, 18, 19. 1 Corinthians 15, 35 to 41. Revelation 19.11 right here. Matthew 3.16. If you didn't bring a Bible with you tonight, that's quite all right. Acts 2.3. John 3.8. John 14.16. And then I'm gonna add verse 17 to that. It's not on your sheet, but John 14.16.17. Acts 1.8. This row here, Acts 2.1-4. Romans 8.9. Ephesians 1, 13, and then I guess the last two rows here, Revelation 7, 9 through 12. Because here's the thing, the Bible does have a few things to say about heaven, so we wanna ask the question, do the things that Colton says he saw in heaven match up with what the Bible says heaven is like? All right, so I'll ask, I'll introduce the topic, and then I'll ask the row in question if there's anything in those verses that would I mean, obviously there should be, because I wouldn't have put them there, but what would you say in those verses addresses the issue at hand? All right, the first thing is that Colton said, Jesus had the angels sing to him because he was scared. And this is mentioned at least three times in the book that the angels sang to him. All right, so anything from Isaiah six that would relate to that? Okay, so what were the angels doing again? Okay, all right, how about Revelation 5, 11, and 12? Do you see anything there about what angels are doing? You're all by yourself in that row, that's not really fair to you, is it? I'll read that verse so everybody can hear it. Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000, and thousands of thousands sang with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. So what are these angels doing again? Exactly, Revelation 7, 11, and 12. Maybe not the only ones, and I should mention this. You may have heard this before, and I'm not going to be dogmatic about this. It never actually says in the Bible that angels sing. And you say, wait a minute, Revelation 5 verses 12 and 13 says that they do. Well, the word sang there is actually the word to speak. There is a word for singing in Greek and that's not the word, it's speaking or saying. In Luke chapter two, when the angels appeared to the shepherds, it says they said glory to God in the highest and on earth peace. I know that goes against Christmas carols. so sorry about that it's God's people actually are the ones who sing in heaven and yes it does talk about the four living creatures singing and those could be angels so I'm not gonna be dogmatic on that particular point whether angels actually sing or not it won't shock me if I get to heaven and angels are singing but What would I assume that they would be singing about or to? God. All right. So again, that's pretty important. Angels in heaven are always pictured praising God, not men. That's nowhere in the Bible. All right, next topic. Colton says the angels carry swords in heaven, actual swords, so they can keep Satan out of heaven, and Colton was disappointed because Jesus wouldn't let him have a sword. So Genesis 3, 24, what does that verse have to say about that? Yeah, so it's not wrong to say that angels can carry swords, all right? But where were they when this is happening? And who were they bearing the sword against? Yes, human beings, right? Okay, Ephesians 6, you may just have to kind of summarize that, but what do those verses tell us about this idea of swords? Yeah, the sword is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now, is that, what kind of sword is that then? Is it a literal, physical, real sword? No, it's a spiritual weapon because who are we fighting in this case? Spiritual forces, spiritual, the enemy, Satan and his principalities and powers. So remember, Colton said the angels carry swords so they can keep Satan out of heaven, right? How about Revelation 116? And who is the he here? Yes, so Jesus has a sword coming out of his mouth. Revelation 2, 12 and 16 is very similar, right? Mentions a sword coming out of the mouth. Yeah, so it's a similar concept, similar idea there. And it's Christ again. How about Revelation 19, 15 and 21? Yeah. This is at the Battle of Armageddon, and he destroys all his enemies. And so this is a word picture that just by his very word, Jesus destroys his enemies. It's not talking about a literal sword hanging out of his mouth that chops people. It's the fact that he can speak and destroy, just like he can speak and create the entire universe. So putting all that together, Angels can bear swords, certainly, but the only time that we see them doing a physical sword is on earth with people. Whenever we talk about any kind of spiritual warfare, there is a sword, but it's of a spiritual nature. And Satan does have access to heaven. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, and he does have access to heaven at this time only with God's permission and limited You know, it's interesting since you mentioned that popular depictions of Satan have him where? In hell, that's the only place Satan is not He's more likely he's in heaven than he's in hell. So again, that just tells you that we can't always look to culture to tell us. Okay, Luke 119, anything there that I should introduce the next topic? Okay, so Colton gets to heaven and he sees God on the throne. He sees Jesus on God's right hand, sitting on a throne on God's right side. And then his dad says, well, who's on his left? And he says, the angel Gabriel sits at God's left hand. So what does Luke 119 say about the angel Gabriel? Yeah, standing, standing in the presence of God. Do you understand the idea of sitting versus standing when we're talking about royalty? If you were going before an all powerful, almighty king, would you just sit down next to him? Because there's a sense at which you're sharing, he's allowing you to share some authority of some kind by sitting you next to him. So, there's a difference between the angel Gabriel standing in God's presence ready to do his bidding and sitting down next to him. I think that's, you say that's just a minor detail, but I think it's an important one. Okay, now let's move on to the next one. Colton says that everybody's got wings in heaven, and he means people, and everybody has a light above their heads like angels. In fact, one of the angels who sang to him was Grandpa Dennis. So he saw Grandpa Dennis in heaven and sang to him, but he also calls him an angel. So Isaiah 6.2, what does that have to say about wings? What did I give you? Oh, I gave you, because we already had Isaiah. Isaiah says that there were seraphs who had wings in the throne room of God. Did you have Ezekiel? Okay. What does that say about angels or? Yeah, so the angels in Isaiah and Ezekiel and elsewhere in scripture have wings. Now, this next passage is a little bit more challenging, all right? 1 Corinthians 15, 35 to 41, and I won't have you read it all, but the question that Paul was answering is, what will our new bodies be like in heaven, or what will our resurrected bodies be like? Will they be completely different than anything we've ever experienced or known? Or what will they be like? So what can you kind of help us understand what his answer is to that question? It's a difficult passage. Yeah, and what Paul does is he says our bodies will be similar. But they'll be incorruptible. OK, so they'll be of the same kind. They'll just be perfect. So what would that tell us about our heavenly bodies in contrast to what Colton saw? What's that? We won't have wings. And you say, well, how do you know that for sure? Well, there is someone who did have a glorified body on earth, Jesus, and he didn't have wings, did he? So again, there's a contrast in scripture. Angelic beings are noted because they do have wings. That's part of what makes them so unique when they're seen. Yes, they can take the form of a man. and do in the Old Testament at times, and it doesn't say anything that they had wings at that time, but that's what sets them apart from human beings. Our incorruptible glorified bodies will be similar to these bodies, only perfected. We do not turn into angels when we get to heaven, all right? Next one, Jesus has a rainbow-colored horse. This is what Colton said, Jesus had a horse, and it was every color of the rainbow, Revelation 1911. And where is that? What's going on when he's on that horse? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. At the end of the Tribulation, he's returning, the Battle of Armageddon. Yeah. Now, could Jesus have a rainbow-colored horse? I mean, is that possible for Him to make one? Certainly. Absolutely. But there's no evidence in Scripture. And the only time it does mention a horse in connection with Jesus, it's a white one. And we're following Him, by the way, on our horses for battles. And that's where the sword proceeds out of His mouth. So Colton talked about God, he talked about Jesus, and his dad said, well, what about the Holy Spirit? And he said, hmm, it's kind of hard to describe, he's kind of blue. That was his description, that was as much as he could offer up about the Holy Spirit. So let's see what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and how it's pictured in scripture, Matthew 3, 16. Yeah, a dove. Uh-huh. And there's other verses that say that same thing. Acts chapter 2 verse 3. Yeah, like fire. And then John 3 verse 8. How is the Holy Spirit pictured there? Yeah, there's kind of a comparison. It's not necessarily saying the Holy Spirit is wind, although the word spirit is the same word for wind and breath in both the Old and New Testaments. But that's not to say that the Holy Spirit is simply wind. It's just a comparison. So the point is, and the Holy Spirit is also compared to clothing, to a seal, to oil in the Bible. So the Holy Spirit's compared to a number of things, but never blue, never kind of blue. Next, Colton says that when he was in heaven, Jesus was shooting down power to his daddy when he was preaching, and that power is the Holy Spirit. So if you could, I guess, picture some sort of lightning bolt or something to give him strength when he was preaching, and he specifically says that that power that Jesus was shooting down is the Holy Spirit. So John 14, 16, and 17, what do they say about the Holy Spirit, wherever I left off here? Yeah. So where is the Holy Spirit in us? Yeah. And he won't leave you. Jesus was leaving and he says, I'm going to send someone who's not going to leave you. He'll be with you and he'll live in inside of you. You don't need to have him shot down from heaven. Um, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Acts chapter one, verse eight. Yeah, so at that time, the Holy Spirit had not yet come and Jesus is saying he will come, okay? And then Acts chapter two, verses one through four, what happened in that case? Yeah, so the Holy Spirit now comes, this is the day of Pentecost, and so the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised does indeed come, but the, well, let's go to the last one here, John 3, verse 8, what do you see there? No, I'm sorry, Romans 8, verse 9, my eyes went back up a block there. What does it say about the Spirit in Romans 8, verse 9? Yeah, so the Holy Spirit, if you are a Christian, lives within you. If you don't have the Spirit at any given moment, you're not a Christian. And it's not like the Holy Spirit comes and goes, it's just saying he's either in or he's not. Ephesians 1.13, what does that say about the Holy Spirit? Yeah, seals us. It's God's guarantee that we're gonna be taken to heaven. So all that to say that the Holy Spirit has already been shot down from heaven, so to speak, and permanently indwells each believer. It's not something that happens. Now, does God use the Holy Spirit to energize us and empower us? Absolutely, absolutely he does. But I wouldn't say it's in that sense. And here's something that Let me go ahead and read this little passage for you if I could here. This is page 152, 153, towards the very end of the book. In fact, it's in the epilogue. And the epilogue has a lot of questions that people have raised and so on. And he says, a lot of our Catholic friends have asked whether Colton saw Mary, the mother of Jesus. The answer to that is also yes. He saw Mary kneeling before the throne of God and another time standing beside Jesus. She still loves him like a mom, Colton said. Revelation 7, 9 through 12 gives us another picture of heaven or a picture of heaven as we've seen already. And who is seen there in that picture? Yeah. And what are they doing and where are they located? Yeah, standing before him, falling on their faces before him. There is no word in all of scripture of Mary standing beside Jesus in heaven. The only ones standing around the throne are angels. And they're standing in the sense of praising him and almost like his personal bodyguards. Now God doesn't need bodyguards, but angels serve him. And so the cherubim guard his holiness, just like on the Ark of the Covenant. All right, the picture there of that. So why do you think, I mean, do you think this is significant that when Catholic friends happen to ask about if Colton saw Mary that the answer was the yes, he was sometimes standing besides Jesus? How would that be of interest to Catholics? Absolutely. Yeah, there are two roles, one in particular, and that is she is the mediatrix. That means the mediator. So yes, they pray to saints, but they also pray ultimately to Mary, who will talk to Jesus and put in a good word because, you know, he's her son. There's also, this is not maybe official Catholic dogma, but often believed and taught that Mary is the co-redemptrix. She's the co-redeemer. It was, Jesus couldn't do it on his own, so Mary had to help him. And so that picture, again, it's a significant picture of that standing beside him as opposed to worshiping him as everyone else is pictured in heaven. You say, wow, Greg, that is really picky, okay? Does the Bible say Jesus doesn't have a rainbow-colored horse? No, it doesn't say that. But could you agree that if we put this together, it seems that there are some discrepancies between what Colton says he saw in heaven and what the Bible says about heaven I Would I would I would say so and so we really have to ask ourselves What do we do with that? Because if there is truly if there are truly differences Then somebody's wrong All right, that's okay. So let's let's move on there into the point that Mike brought up and it is a valid one What should we think about trips to heaven in general because this is not the first book? That's come along like this. In fact coincidentally this is Happened several times to people recently very recently It's just interesting that that's happened quite a bit recently to people so Let's look at a couple verses up here on the screen, Proverbs. 30 verse four says, who has ascended into heaven or descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name and what is his son's name, if you know? And of course, the answer to those questions is supposed to be only God himself. John 3.13, Jesus himself says, no one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the son of man who is in heaven. So that would be a pretty clear statement. And you say, well, yes, but what about those who had visions of heaven? And keep in mind, it does not say that Colton saw heaven or had a vision of heaven. Let me read you what's on the cover of the book. The little boy's astounding story of his trip to heaven and back. So he went to heaven, he didn't just see heaven. Yes, there are people in scripture, Micaiah, that's kind of an obscure one in the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 18, 18. Isaiah, we read that, Isaiah 6 saw, the Lord high and lifted up. Ezekiel had visions of heaven. Stephen, when he was stoned as he was about to die, saw the heavens opened. Paul was transported in some sense, in some way, and John saw visions of heaven. And I do quote a couple times here from John MacArthur, and there's some resources listed on the back page. But he mentions that all of these were prophetic, visions, not near-death experiences, okay? No one, not one person, raised from the dead in the Old or New Testaments ever recorded for us what he or she experienced in heaven, including Lazarus, who spent four days in the grave, and we're gonna come back to another Lazarus in a few minutes. So you understand that? And there is one key difference between the visions of heaven recorded in this particular book and the ones I've just mentioned, what is the difference as far as where they're recorded? scripture yes in scripture we have to believe that there's something unique about scripture and that is it is inspired so those visions and revelations were given by god we have to believe that if we if we don't believe that we don't believe the bible is inspired and so there's something unique about those if we are saying that this also happened to this boy then we're saying okay is this also god revealed and should it be recorded as scripture uh... but again the differences are prophetic visions, not near-death experiences. And then, here's another thing to consider. These visions of heaven, in this book and other books like it, differ markedly, I'm sorry, let me back up. The visions of heaven recorded in scripture differ markedly from contemporary trips to heaven and back. These accounts, including Heaven is for Real, seem to offer a very man-centered, or in this case, child-centered view of heaven. Do you understand what I mean by that? Let me read an extended quote from you. And John MacArthur points out that it's very interesting that surveys show that belief in God is declining and belief in hell is declining, but belief in heaven is increasing, according to surveys. More people believe in heaven than 30, 40 years ago. But what kind of heaven do they believe in? They believe in a heaven that's very similar to the kind of heaven that pleases them. He says, we live in a narcissistic culture and it shows in these accounts of people who claim they've been to heaven. They sound as if they viewed paradise in a mirror, keeping themselves in the foreground. They say comparatively little about God or his glory, but the glory of God is what the Bible says fills, illuminates, and defines heaven. Instead, these authors of these stories seemed obsessed with details like how good they felt, how peaceful, how happy, how comforted they were, how they received privileges and accolades, how fun and enlightening their experience was, how many things they think they now understand perfectly that could never be gleaned from scripture alone. In short, they glorify self while barely noticing God's glory. They highlight everything but what's truly important about heaven. It is quite true that heaven is a place of perfect bliss, devoid of all sorrow and sin, full of exultation and enjoyment, a place where grace and peace reign totally unchallenged. Anyone whose destiny is heaven will certainly experience more joy and honor there than the fallen mind is capable of comprehending. But if you actually saw heaven and lived to tell about it, Those things are not what would capture your heart and imagination. You would be preoccupied instead with the majesty and grace of the one whose glory fills the place. So do you see how Colton, when he says he went to heaven, the angels sang to me, and Jesus put me on his lap. Well, Jesus certainly put the little children on his lap and blessed them. So that's not to say he couldn't do that in heaven, but there's nothing of worship of God or of Jesus Christ in the book at all, really. And here's the other thing, these different books, they differ from one another, you know, about the details of heaven. So, which one's right? And then again, you go back to comparing them to scriptures. So, this is not necessarily to deny, whoops, let me back up here. This is not necessarily to deny near-death experiences. It's possible that in this room there's someone here who had some kind of a near-death experience. And that's not to deny that those kinds of things happen. It's simply to question trips to heaven and back. Do you understand the difference? Because there are people who, whether it's a matter of anesthesia or whether it's a matter of the heart being stopped for surgery or something, that have some kind of experience that is very unique. But again, the question is, did they go to heaven and come back? Or did they go to hell and come back? Or was it something like a dream, perhaps, that the mind pulls up during that time. Any questions or thoughts on that? And again, you can disagree if you have a point of disagreement with something here. Well, that's a good question. And this goes on to the next point, because the book is presented, and this is presented as why would God do this? Why would God take this boy to heaven and send him back? And here's the answer. And so the key issue, I think, is one that some of you have already touched on. And there's a couple of blanks here. I think the primary issue is an attack on the sufficiency of scripture. And you have to understand this is not just presented as a cute little story, and it's kind of neat how this boy says that it happened. They draw conclusions from this event very specifically. And so let me point this out to you. And again, I know the print's a little small on the page there, but the authors claim this event strengthened their faith. And so I'm going to do some reading here. I'm going to read fairly quickly. In the book, Todd says he now knows for sure God hears and answers prayer. He says, I had been a Christian since childhood and a pastor for half my life, so I believed God answers prayer before, but now I knew it. How as the nurses wheeled my son away screaming, daddy, daddy, don't let them take me, when I was angry at God because I couldn't go to my son, hold him and comfort him. God's son was holding my son in his lap. So he kind of believed that before, but now he knows for sure. In the book, Todd says, now they are bolder to talk about God. Another way Colton's story has changed us is this, we are bolder. We live in a day and time when people question the existence of God. As a pastor, I was always comfortable talking about my faith, but now in addition, I talk about what's happened to my son. It's the truth and I talk about it, no apologies. So now I'm bolder to talk about the truth. And at the end of the movie, and again, there are some differences between the book and the movie, Pastor Todd preaches a climactic sermon And I put that in quotation marks because in none of his sermons, in the three sermons that are shown, does he use any scripture. But he asks the question, is heaven for real? He asks that, is heaven for real? And he concludes by saying, I believe, while pointing, or at least looking at Colton, I can't remember exactly, but the point, the whole point there, and then that's kind of the climax, everybody comes up and hugs him, and the movie ends at that point. So in other words, he knows, now knows for sure because of what happened to Colton. This event strengthened the faith of others. In the book, Colton's story strengthened their babysitter Allie's faith. Allie had grown up in a Christian home but had entertained the same doubts as so many of us do. For example, how do we know any one religion is different from any other? But Colton's story about his sister strengthened her Christian faith, Allie said. Hearing him describe the girl's face, it wasn't something that a six-year-old boy could just make up, she told us. Now whenever I'm having doubts, I picture Colton's face, tears running down his cheeks as he told me how much he missed his sister. What do you think about that? Yeah. When I have doubts, I picture Colton, Colton Burpo. That's interesting. In the book, The words of Todd's mother serve as the final statement of the book before the epilogue. So the regular portion of the book, these are the final words of the book. And this is Todd's mother speaking, and he says, I think this is an appropriate way to end the book. She says, ever since this happened, I think more about what it might really be like in heaven. I accepted that idea of heaven before, but now I visualize it. Before I'd heard, but now I know that someday I'm going to see. And then, so it's not just their personal faith that was strengthened, this event gave them assurance that a loved one was indeed in heaven. In the book, Todd and his mother, Todd's mother, had always wondered if Todd's grandpa, this is the Grandpa Dennis, was in heaven, seeing as how he only went to church once in a while. They had believed he was in heaven because there was a story of him raising his hand for salvation at a revival meeting, but now they know for sure because Colton saw him there. Well, wouldn't anyone else like that kind of assurance? I don't know why God chose to just give it to this one family. In the movie, Colton is desperate for assurance, similarly, that his grandpa is in heaven and finds that assurance because Colton saw his grandpa in heaven. I wrote this down, you know, I was in the movie theater in the dark trying to scribble notes, so, you know, but I think I got it here. This is a quote, I think God might be trying to reach out to us through Colton, is what he says in the movie. And then, finally, this event allowed them to give assurance to others that their loved ones were indeed in heaven. And this is where there is a big difference between the book and the movie in this particular story. In the book, a woman comes up to Pastor Todd, and she wonders if her unborn child is in heaven. And so, You see the text there and he says, it says, I thought, oh Lord, who am I to answer this question? Colton had said there were many, many children in heaven, but it wasn't like I could go and ask him if he'd seen this woman's particular child. Still, I didn't just want to leave her hanging in her grief either. Just then a little boy of about six or seven came and stood beside the woman clinging to her skirt. An answer came to me, ma'am, do you believe God loves you? I said, she said, yes. Do you believe he loves you as much as he loves me? Yes. Do you believe God loves your son here as much as he loves Colton? Yes. Well, if you believe God loves you as much as he loves me and you believe he loves your son as much as my son, don't you believe he loves your unborn child as much as he loves mine? Suddenly the woman stopped trembling and smiled. I never thought about it that way. So the assurance that he gives her that her unborn child is in heaven is that Colton went to heaven and saw his sister. So you can be assured that your baby's in heaven as well. But in the movie, this story is changed very significantly. And it's not a woman asking Pastor Todd about her unborn child. It's a woman in the church who doesn't know if her 29-year-old son who was killed in the war in Afghanistan or Iraq is in heaven. And so he gives her basically the same answer. But again, the interesting thing there is there's no mention of Jesus or the cross or the gospel. It's, well, do you think God loves your son as much as he loves my son? And that's the assurance that he gives. So, and you'll note it again in the video. I have the quote that we just saw the video at the beginning of the service. So this is what was said. He said, many times searching for answers, and some of you caught this, and where does it say in the Bible that a miscarried kid, you know, what happens? And here's this four-year-old that comes in with these pieces in a puzzle. He brought them together. And now I can see this picture. much more clearly about heaven than I ever could before. It just makes sense. So let's turn, if we would, to a passage of scripture in the Bible, a very key passage, and sorry I didn't keep up there, but Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 31. Pastor Phil will work his way to this passage eventually as he preaches through the book of Luke. So, I will not read this entire passage, but it's probably a familiar story. Jesus tells a story about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. So this is not the same Lazarus who came back from the dead, but this is another man named Lazarus who was a beggar. Rich man had everything he wanted. He would barely share with Lazarus. They both died. The rich man woke up in hell, or, you know, arrived in Hades and Lazarus was carried to Abraham's bosom. By the way, this is kind of a rabbit trail here, but I know the word bosom in our English language refers to a body part it doesn't in scripture it does not refer to a body part it's actually like the word lap okay you go to the doctor and say I broke my lap he's not gonna know what you're talking about it's not an actual body part it's an area that appears when you sit okay bosom is this area like if you're hugging someone okay It's this. So, Abraham's bosom is kind of the place of safety and security for God's people Israel, is what that means. It's a weird phrase that, you know, sometimes people don't really understand what that's talking about. So, verse 24. The rich man is in torments and he sees Abraham afar off and Lazarus, and he says, 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. Is the rich man, has he changed at all from the way he lived in life? No, he still wants Lazarus to serve him. You know, he's not repentant. He just wants some relief. Would you send that beggar to come help me? Abraham said you have already received good things in your life and so on and so forth. And besides this there is a great goal fix so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot nor can those from their past to you verse 27. 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. So, the rich man was burdened for his family members. So, what is it he asked Abraham to do in order to convince them about the truth of the afterlife? What did he ask him to do? Yeah, send someone back from the dead. And what was Abraham's response, verse 29? They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And the rich man says, no, no, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent. And what does Abraham say? If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded the one rise from the dead. I don't know a passage of scripture that could more directly refute this whole idea that now we know if heaven is really real, because a little boy went and came back and told us. The only difference is this is talking about hell instead of heaven, but it's the same idea, because people today don't like to talk about hell, so we really don't want anybody to come back from hell and tell us. We're more amenable to the idea of somebody coming back from heaven and telling us what it's like. But do you understand the point Jesus is making? And that is, if they don't believe the Bible, they're not going to believe someone who rises from the dead. did all the people who witnessed the other Lazarus come back from the dead believe in Jesus? No, they decided to kill him. This is really messing things up and he's getting really powerful and people are really following him so we better kill Lazarus and Jesus. So This is absolutely crucial that we understand that if we are placing our assurance in the fact that a boy came back from heaven, now we know for sure then something is seriously wrong. And you have alluded, some of you alluded to this already. So let me bring up a quote here. The very idea of God calling a person to heaven and back and then having that person share his experience in order to bolster our faith is the exact opposite of what the Lord desires for us. We have no reason to look to another person's experience of heaven in order to prove that heaven is real or hell is real. The Bible promises blessings on those who do not see and yet believe, as Gary mentioned. Our hope is not to be in the story of a minister or toddler or doctor or anyone else who insists they have been to heaven. Our hope is to be in Jesus Christ as God has graciously revealed him to us in the Bible. Faith is believing that what God says in his word is true and without error. You dishonor God if you choose to believe what the Bible says only when you receive some kind of outside verification. You dishonor God if you need this kind of outside verification. Now those are some strong words and yet I think there's something that we need to consider there. Yeah, and I should mention that this particular is focused primarily on this particular book. There are, you know, I've heard of that situation, and from what I understand in that case, he doesn't make as big a deal about, now I've proved that heaven is really true because I came back. So there are some differences in some of the, you know, again it's near-death experiences may happen, there may be some things that are seen. But the question is, even if we say, OK, I can't convince someone that didn't happen, the question is, what do we do with that information? And what ultimately is our faith? Let me give you some alternatives here, okay? One is that this all actually happened exactly as it's said in the book and he did go to heaven. The other is the boy conjured these things up in his mind and was sincere. It wasn't, you know, just maybe the influence of in the home of scripture and so on that was just soaked in and so on. Another alternative is if it didn't happen, then Where did this stuff come from? I think you gave one possible explanation. There may be another explanation, and that is the Father made it all up. Okay, I mean, so there are only a limited number of options. and you have to choose which one. Now, I don't know which of, I mean, I think there's some that I can exclude, but I don't ultimately know where this came from. But again, so we need, let me conclude here, okay? Now, 2 Corinthians 418 says we should think about the things that are not seen we should think about those and Colossians 1 says we should set our minds on things above not on things on the earth so we should think about heaven but Deuteronomy 29 29 says the secret things belong to the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law God has revealed his word to us, and he has decided not to reveal some things. And so the word of the law and the Bible is what he has revealed to us, and yet there are secret things that we don't know. So there are questions that we have about heaven. We shouldn't take note of this warning at the very end of the Bible. If you add to God's word, there's some serious warnings there. Did God think, you know, I wrote that book, but People still have a lot of questions. It's been 2,000 years now, and maybe I should just do something else to help them understand. I mean, that's kind of what we have to assume if this is true. And I want to come back to something Mike said here, similar to what you said. These kinds of books and movies are a modern form of the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, and that is special enlightenment. true enlightenment that comes from some source beyond scripture. Gnosticism speaks of secret knowledge. They don't deny the scripture, but they say this is what will unlock it. So we really know supernatural enlightenment from mystical experience. That's not to say that Colton Burpo is a Gnostic, okay? It's just that it's similar. And so the limits of our curiosity are thus established by the boundary of biblical revelation. We can ask questions about heaven. And I would recommend to you some other books that I believe are much more scriptural. Not that I necessarily agree with 100% of what they say, but it's based on scripture. Heaven by Randy Alcorn. This is in your notes in the back in the bibliography. One Minute After You Die by Erwin Lutzer is another one. And then John MacArthur updated a book he had written previously and released it recently called The Glory of Heaven or The Glories of Heaven, something like that. So there are good books that we can read and think about what heaven is like. It's good to be curious. It's good to think about that. But we ultimately have to say this is what God has revealed to us and we shouldn't go beyond that. I think the popularity of such books shows how hungry, that's the last blank there, how hungry people are to hear about heaven. And that's a good thing. So, again, this can be an opportunity. I'm not suggesting to you that, again, you bash the movie or the book the first time it comes up in a conversation with someone. Just say, you know, boy, I do have a lot of questions about heaven too. I look to God's Word to tell me about heaven. Would you like to read that with me and find some answers in the Bible about what heaven is like? So it may be an opportunity. Thank you so much for your attention and your participation in this. If you have any questions, you can certainly stick around and ask me afterwards, but I'll go ahead and dismiss you now. So thanks for coming and you have a great rest of the week.