How To Know You Are Going to Heaven
Have you ever watched the TV program 60 Minutes? How about playing "Let's Pretend"?
Visualize a scene taking place at the end of a church worship service. The journalistic reporters, including Scott Pelley, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, and Anderson Cooper, pull up and begin interviewing people.
Then, they go to other nearby churches of different denominations. Each reporter asks everyone the same question: "Do you know for sure you are going to heaven when you leave this world?" These interviewers could probably get responses in three answers.
One response would be indignation: "How dare you ask me such a personal, private question about my religion. After all, who can know that kind of answer? Anyone who claims to know what happens to him after he dies is simply arrogant and presumptuous."
A second type of response would be uncertainty. Many would say, "I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in an afterlife. I believe in heaven." Yet tragically, most of these folks would have no assurance that they would go to heaven when they die. They would answer, "Well, I wish I could know. I'm trying to be a good Christian. I hope I'll go to heaven."
The third response to the 60 Minutes reporters' question about heaven would be inner confidence. These people would reply: "Well, I know I don't deserve it, but I believe that I will go to heaven because I've placed my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord."
How about you? If Scott Pelley, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, or Anderson Cooper were to ask you, "Do you have a strong assurance where you will spend eternity?" How would you answer their question?
During the summer months, many people take vacations. I've never met a vacationer who doesn't know where they're going to spend their time. Yet sadly, many Christians don't have a secure belief in where they will spend eternity.
The cause of this "spiritual uncertainty" is that some believers have an incorrect understanding of the Bible's teachings regarding how we receive God's forgiveness, how we receive the gift of eternal life, and the sole basis on which we go to heaven.
Interestingly, note what the Bible says about assurance of a permanent relationship with God:
We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which He has given about His Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart.
Anyone who does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:9-13)
When asked, "Do you know for sure that you're going to heaven when you leave this world?" the average person replies,
"I hope so. I'm trying to live up to the Ten Commandments and do my best to follow Jesus' teachings. I guess I'll go to heaven. Maybe. I hope."
These comments describe what a person does to earn heaven. This is a flat contradiction of the Bible's clear teachings, that none of us can earn or deserve eternal life as a reward for what we do. Eternal life with God in heaven is a free gif.
The Bible explains:
The wages of sin are death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:23)
Scripture states:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not because of any works you do, lest any person should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Think about your two favorite gifts last Christmas. Did you do anything to earn them? No. They were given to you because someone loved you. That's the way it is with the gift of God's love, forgiveness, and eternal life.
That's why the Bible instructs that the only way to heaven is by putting our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Rescuer.
The New Testament declares:
Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; instead, through the law, we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. (Romans 3:20-22)
Does the Bible teach that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that whoever was loving enough, active enough in church, and prayed frequently, would go to heaven?
NO! It teaches:
God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
We live in a world of gray uncertainties. Yet, about the gift of eternal life, the Scriptures are filled with certainties. Listen to some of these assurances characterized in the New Testament by the word "know":
- I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1John 5:13)
- We know we have passed from death to life.(1 John 3:14)
- We know: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
- We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
- We know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:8)
- We know that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.(Romans 8:38,39)
History is replete with men and women who have had a firm conviction that when they took their last breath, they would enter into the presence of Christ in heaven and be with Him forever.
Job, in the midst of all his sufferings, was able to say:
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. (Job 19:25)
Paul, the Apostle, was able to affirm through all of his persecutions and afflictions:
I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. (2 Timothy 1:12)
John Wesley and his brother Charles founded the Methodist church. John attended Oxford University to pursue a career in the ministry. After graduating, he was ordained as a clergyman. Yet, he didn't become a Christian until after he'd served as a missionary. Somehow, he hadn't been converted, and obviously, he hadn't received the assurance of his permanent relationship with Christ until after he'd had three confrontations with a group of Moravian Christians.
Wesley's first Moravian confrontation was after he'd sailed from London to America (Georgia) to bring the gospel (as he understood it) to the Indians and others. There, he ran into a man named Spangenburg, a Moravian Christian.
In one of their quiet discussions, Spangenburg asked Wesley, "John, does the Holy Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God? Do you know Jesus Christ?" Wesley said, "I think I do." Spangenburg then asked, "Do you know that He has died for your sins?" Wesley answered, "I hope that He died for me. I know that He is the Savior of the world, and I hope that He is my Savior."
After a short term as a missionary in America, John Wesley recorded in his diary that he was "haunted" by an inner emptiness following his conversations with Spangenburg.
As Wesley returned to England, his ship was caught in a terrifying storm. The masts were nearly ripped off. The sails were shredded. All aboard felt they were sinking. Wesley panicked. But three Moravian Christians were hanging on for dear life while singing praises to God.
Wesley couldn't figure this out, and He recorded his interactions with them in his diary, "How can you sing when this very night you are going to die?" They declared to him, "If this ship goes down, we go up to be with the Lord!" Wesley wrote, "What have they done that I have not done? I came to convert the heathen, but who shall convert me?"
So, Wesley returned to England, wondering about his relationship with God. One day, he went to a small Moravian worship service. The pastor preached the simple gospel message. John came home that night and penned in his diary:
About a quarter of an hour before nine, when the pastor was describing the change God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I trusted in Christ and Christ alone for my salvation. And assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and had saved me from the law of sin and death.
This was how Wesley Wesley came to know that he was going to heaven. Do you know you're going to heaven?
Michael Faraday, a renowned scientist with twenty doctoral degrees and the inventor of electromagnetism, was surrounded by friends as he lay dying. One was an agnostic who said, "Sir Michael, do you have any speculations about life after death?" Faraday turned his head and said,
Speculations? Man, I have no speculations! I rest on certainties! I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day.
William Shakespeare, renowned over the centuries as one of the finest writers in the English language, included a statement in his will about his beliefs, ensuring that after his death, all his relatives and friends would be aware of his faith.
Here's what he penned in confident assurance:
I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through only the merits of Jesus Christ, my Savior, to be made partaker of life everlasting.
The Bible encourages every Christian to:
Make every effort to confirm your calling and election. (2 Peter 1:10)
Are you sure that you are going to heaven?
Perhaps you're asking, "How do I become certain that I will go to heaven when I die?"
Like a little child who believes everything their father says, we need to trust what God says in the Bible at face value. We must cling to it as our only assurance, like a drowning man grasps a life preserver.
To have confidence in your permanent relationship with Christ, it's essential to understand the biblical facts concerning your relationship with Him.
Fact #1 - Heaven is a real, geographical place. As Christians, heaven is our real, eternal home. Heaven is not a state of mind or a condition.
We are told in Genesis 1:1:
God created the heavens and the earth.
Psalm 23:6 states:
I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Jesus himself pledged in John 14:1-3:
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Fact #2 - Jesus Christ died to make eternal life in heaven a possession for all who put their faith in Him.
Jesus said in John 5:24:
Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
That's why 1 John 5:11 asserts:
God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Fact #3 - You either have Jesus Christ as your Savior or you do not. A woman cannot be halfway pregnant. She is either pregnant or she is not. You cannot be halfway in the army. You're either in the army or you're not. You cannot be "almost" an American citizen. You either are or you're not.
Likewise, you cannot have half of Jesus or one-third of Him. He cannot be halfway in your life. Look at John 5:12:
He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
It's an "either/or", black or white answer. Is Christ your Savior, or not?
Fact #4 - If you've sincerely come to Christ, He's personally promised that He will not reject you. Jesus promised in John 3:36:
He who believes in the Son has eternal life.
He also said in John 6:37:
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Fact #5 - Once you have come to Christ, He will never let you go. You may backslide and fall far away from Him. But in John 10:28, Jesus pronounced:
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.
Fact #6 - God desires His children to know they're permanent recipients of His love, forgiveness, and heaven. That's why 1 John 5:13 states:
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you might know you have eternal life.
I believe God put this in writing so we won't be tossed about and swayed by the insecurity of our changing feelings and circumstances.
Rev. Dr. Karl Barth is arguably the most influential theologian of the 20th century. Barth wrote over 40 books on the Bible. ," He had been through the war in Germany, had dealt with the Nazi influence, and had helped many endure severe suffering. Years ago, Barth was speaking at various places in America, and The New York Times wanted to print a special article about him and his beliefs.
A Times reporter asked Barth,
Dr. Barth, we recognize your intelligence and the breadth of your writing. Out of all you've studied, taught, preached, and experienced, "can you summarize your faith in an hour or so?"
Barth replied, simply,
This is the summary of all I've written about and believe: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!
How did Barth know Jesus loved him? Because he felt like it? Because he tried hard to be a good Christian? No. He knew Jesus loved him because the Bible told him so!
How can you know Jesus loves you? That He's forgiven you? That He's given you the gift of eternity in your heavenly home?
Because you feel religious? You may not feel that way tomorrow!
Because you're trying hard to live a Christian-type life? But realistically, there will be times when you won't try hard.
The only way you can KNOW you have eternal life is by believing what God says in the holy Bible:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)— Period!
It seems to me that everyone who reads this message has a choice to make.
Choice Number One: accept by faith Jesus Christ as your personal Sin-Forgiver and new permanent Life-Manager, your Savior and Lord. Maybe you're saying to yourself, "I don't understand what this is all about. It doesn't make sense. I'm unsure where I stand with God. I've believed in Jesus and God all my life, but I don't know what will happen to me when I die."
You may not be a Christ follower. Perhaps you're an elder, a Deacon, or a member of a church, but like John Wesley, you may not know Jesus Christ personally.
However, if it's your desire to know Christ, then you can say a simple prayer like this:
Dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins. Please come into my life. Help me to be the person You want me to be. I'll try my best to obey and follow you. Thank you for giving me eternal life with You.
Choice Number Two: continue to doubt your relationship with God! You can choose to have questions about your relationship with Him. If you've given your life to Christ and if you still have doubts about your salvation, then look at 1 John 5:10:
Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
Why keep wondering whether or not Christ is in your life?
Didn't Christ not say:
- Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev. 3:20)
- All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. (John 6:37)
- I will never leave nor forsake you. (Heb. 13:5)
- Lo, I am with you always. (Matt. 28:20)
Choice Number Three: you can choose to believe what God says in the Bible about your permanent relationship with Him. Remind yourself regularly of God's written encouragement:
These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)
You can choose to cling to God's words in the Bible. It makes all the difference to believe His promises rather than your feelings or opinions of others.
Hopefully, you can radiate gratitude to God for His love for you, because:
- You have your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life,
- You can echo the words of the writer of the Song of Solomon:
I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine(Song of Solomon 6:3)
- You can sing with blind Fanny Crosby, who wrote the hymn, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
On the Journey with you,
Jim
drjimstout.com