Is there such a thing as heaven?

Professor Hawking has hit the news again stating that heaven is a place for people that are afraid of the dark.   Well is there a heaven?  Is there life after death? The question is not just one raised by professor Hawking but is raised when we are faced with finality and terminus, it dawns on us that there is going to be an end  that "one day I will not be here!" There is also  a deeper feeling that death is a cruel interruption and is far from normal.  The tears and the grief experienced at a funeral tells us that this is alien and should not be. 

The Bible shows that death is a foreign thing to God's original plan for humanity, and only came along as a result of sin-disobedience to Gods orders (more about sin and its meaning in future blogs) Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3:4,.Romans 6:23.  People are designed to live forever.

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is written by a teacher who had great wealth.  He had so much wealth that he had time to study human life.  He gathered plants, precious metals, jewellery, animals to observe them he studied human wisdom from all over the world Ecclesiastes 1:13. He indulged himself in whatever took his fancy.  He was the original self imposed "lab rat".  His words were so sort after that royal visitors like the Queen of Sheba travelled to listen to him 1 Kings 10:1-13  The teacher is Solomon. He was one of the wisest men that ever lived and when he spoke it was worth its weight in gold..

Two women who lived in the same house came to him one day disputing that a baby boy was theirs.  Without the ability to detect blood types and carry out DNA testing, Solomon sorted out the problem by giving orders to cut the child in half so that half may be given to each woman.  The real mother balled and begged that the child be given to the other woman, whilst the impostor agreed that the child should be divided. Solomon moved by his acute sense of human nature gave the child to the woman who begged for his life to be spared. 1 Kings 3:16-28

When considering humanity he said "God has set eternity in the heart of men" Ecclesiastes 3:11.  So woven into the DNA of every human being there is a sense of eternal continuity.  From the Jungles of  Papua New Guinea to Silicon Valley,  instinctively we know that death is not the end.  We know we were built to live forever!

Consider the humble Pigeon, if you take that bird from it's home in Birmingham, UK to the United States of America (USA) in a covered cage and release it, the bird will circle the skies to get its bearing but once that is done, it will head towards home, starvation and exhaustion permitting it will arrive in the UK.  Birds do not teach it to each other, neither is it scientifically verified how this is done by birds who do not speak.  Science says it may be  because the bird has an inbuilt detector of the earths magnetic fields.  Whilst heaven, its location and direction cannot be discovered by science it cannot be falsified or dismissed by the god of science either.  Professor Hawking assertions about heaven are flying in the face of the Bible and the witness of the human soul,  far from running away from the dark, our thirst for heaven is hard wired into our cells and no amount of blue sky thinking can erase that eternal hope.


New Testament Church of God (Handsworth)
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