fallen off our radar screens. How can we set our hearts on
Heaven when we have an impoverished theology of Heaven? How can we expect our children to be excited about Heaven—or to stay
excited about it when they grow up? Why do we talk so little about Heaven? And why is the little we have to say so vague and
lifeless?
WHERE DO WE GET OUR
MISCONCEPTIONS?
I believe there's one central explanation for why so many of God's children have such a vague, negative, and uninspired view
of Heaven: the work of Satan.
Jesus said of the devil, "When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44).
Some of Satan's favorite lies are about Heaven. Revelation 13:6 tells us the satanic beast "opened his mouth to blaspheme
God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven." Our enemy slanders three things: God's
person, God's people, and God's place—namely, Heaven.†
After being forcibly evicted from Heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15), the devil became bitter not only toward God, but toward mankind
and toward Heaven itself, the place that was no longer his. It must be maddening for him that we're now entitled to the home
he was kicked out of. What better way for the devil and his demons to attack us than to whisper lies about the very place
on which God tells us to set our hearts and minds?
Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn't exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly
existence. If we believe that lie, we'll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we'll set our minds on this life and not the
next, and we won't be motivated to share our faith. Why should we share the "good news" that people can spend eternity in
a boring, ghostly place that even we're not looking forward to?
In The Country of the Blind, H. G. Wells writes of a tribe in a remote valley deep in a towering mountain range. During a terrible epidemic, all the villagers
lose their sight. Eventually, entire generations grow up having no awareness of sight or the world they're unable to see.
Because of their handicap, they do not know their true condition, nor can they understand what their world looks like. They
cannot imagine what realms might lie beyond their valley.
Spiritually speaking, we live in the Country of the Blind. The disease of sin has blinded us to God and Heaven, which are
real yet unseen. Fortunately, Jesus has come to our valley from Heaven to tell us about his father, the world beyond, and
the world to come. If we listen to him—which will require a concerted effort not to listen to the lies of the devil—we will
neverbe the same. Nor will we ever want to be.
Satan hates the New Heaven and the New Earth as much as a deposed dictator hates the new nation and new government that replaces
his. Satan cannot stop Christ's redemptive work, but he can keep us from seeing the breadth and depth of redemption that extends
to the earth and beyond. He cannot keep Christ from defeating him, but he can persuade us that Christ's victory is only partial,
that God will abandon his original plan for mankind and the earth.
Because Satan hates us, he's determined to rob us of the joy we'd have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent
world to come.
RESISTING NATURALISM'S SPELL
C. S. Lewis depicts another source of our misconceptions about Heaven: naturalism, the belief that the world can be understood
in scientific terms, without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.
In The Silver Chair, Puddleglum, Jill, and Eustace are captured in a sunless underground world by an evil witch who calls herself the queen of
the underworld. The witch claims that her prisoners' memories of the overworld, Narnia, are but figments of their imagination.
She laughs condescendingly at their child's game of "pretending" that there's a world above and a great ruler of that world.
When they
Heaven when we have an impoverished theology of Heaven? How can we expect our children to be excited about Heaven—or to stay
excited about it when they grow up? Why do we talk so little about Heaven? And why is the little we have to say so vague and
lifeless?
WHERE DO WE GET OUR
MISCONCEPTIONS?
I believe there's one central explanation for why so many of God's children have such a vague, negative, and uninspired view
of Heaven: the work of Satan.
Jesus said of the devil, "When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44).
Some of Satan's favorite lies are about Heaven. Revelation 13:6 tells us the satanic beast "opened his mouth to blaspheme
God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven." Our enemy slanders three things: God's
person, God's people, and God's place—namely, Heaven.†
After being forcibly evicted from Heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15), the devil became bitter not only toward God, but toward mankind
and toward Heaven itself, the place that was no longer his. It must be maddening for him that we're now entitled to the home
he was kicked out of. What better way for the devil and his demons to attack us than to whisper lies about the very place
on which God tells us to set our hearts and minds?
Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn't exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly
existence. If we believe that lie, we'll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we'll set our minds on this life and not the
next, and we won't be motivated to share our faith. Why should we share the "good news" that people can spend eternity in
a boring, ghostly place that even we're not looking forward to?
In The Country of the Blind, H. G. Wells writes of a tribe in a remote valley deep in a towering mountain range. During a terrible epidemic, all the villagers
lose their sight. Eventually, entire generations grow up having no awareness of sight or the world they're unable to see.
Because of their handicap, they do not know their true condition, nor can they understand what their world looks like. They
cannot imagine what realms might lie beyond their valley.
Spiritually speaking, we live in the Country of the Blind. The disease of sin has blinded us to God and Heaven, which are
real yet unseen. Fortunately, Jesus has come to our valley from Heaven to tell us about his father, the world beyond, and
the world to come. If we listen to him—which will require a concerted effort not to listen to the lies of the devil—we will
neverbe the same. Nor will we ever want to be.
Satan hates the New Heaven and the New Earth as much as a deposed dictator hates the new nation and new government that replaces
his. Satan cannot stop Christ's redemptive work, but he can keep us from seeing the breadth and depth of redemption that extends
to the earth and beyond. He cannot keep Christ from defeating him, but he can persuade us that Christ's victory is only partial,
that God will abandon his original plan for mankind and the earth.
Because Satan hates us, he's determined to rob us of the joy we'd have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent
world to come.
RESISTING NATURALISM'S SPELL
C. S. Lewis depicts another source of our misconceptions about Heaven: naturalism, the belief that the world can be understood
in scientific terms, without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.
In The Silver Chair, Puddleglum, Jill, and Eustace are captured in a sunless underground world by an evil witch who calls herself the queen of
the underworld. The witch claims that her prisoners' memories of the overworld, Narnia, are but figments of their imagination.
She laughs condescendingly at their child's game of "pretending" that there's a world above and a great ruler of that world.
When they
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