When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”
But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.
The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”
“Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “so be quiet.”
Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, Elisha; the Lord has sent me to Jericho.”
And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.
The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”
“Yes, I know,” he replied, “so be quiet.”
Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.”
And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them walked on.
Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two. (2 Kings 2:1-12 NIV)
Heaven is for real! At least, that’s what the book says. Can you remember hearing about the book and movie with that title: “Heaven Is for Real!”? It’s sold over eleven million copies since 2010. It’s the story of a four-year-old boy named Colton Burpo who had a near-death experience. When he recovered, he told his dad—a pastor—about how he saw Jesus in heaven, along with a number of relatives he had never met on earth. The conclusion is this: “You can believe heaven is real, because Colton saw it.” Finally, there’s hard proof for the doubters. Heaven is for real!
Or is it? There’s another young boy who claimed he visited heaven—Alex Malarkey. He became famous for his own book—The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven—which sold over a million copies of its own. Alex’s story was similar to Colton’s. He had a near-death experience when he was 6-years old, and he told his parents about how he visited heaven. Except, years later, Alex admitted that his father had made the whole story up. None of it was true. I bet you can imagine the reaction: “I guess heaven isn’t real after all!” Colton still claims that his story is true. Alex’s isn’t. So whom can you believe? How can you know? Maybe you can’t be so sure after all!
The fact is, there have been so many recent books claiming near-death visits to heaven that there’s a whole genre of literature called “heavenly tourism.” And the fact that people are buying these books by the millions proves one thing: We all want it to be true! We want to be able to believe these stories. We want to believe that there is something more than this life. That our purpose in life is bigger than what we see. That we can still have hope in the face of death. That when we die, it’s not the end. We want to be absolutely, 100% sure that heaven is for real!
Brothers and sisters, you can be! Because your faith doesn’t depend on a child’s story or another person’s experience or a blockbuster movie, no matter how convincing, or unconvincing, they might be. Your faith depends on the Word of our God who does not lie. And God tells you today without a shadow of a doubt that heaven is for real! Just look at Elijah. Remember him? There are two great prophets in the Old Testament with similar names—Elijah and Elisha. Our sermons over the next month will focus on Elijah’s life, starting at the end. God wants to use Elijah’s true story to convince you that heaven is real in a way that Colton and Alex’s stories never could.
Usually when you read about someone’s death, the story begins, “The day started out just like any other day.” Except that wasn’t the case for Elijah. Somehow God had told both Elijah and Elisha that it was Elijah’s final day. On his last day, God wanted Elijah to visit each of the companies of the prophets—or seminaries—that he had started. So the two of them walked from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan River. At each place, Elijah told Elisha that he didn’t have to keep following—the end was near. But Elisha refused to leave him. And at each place the other prophets asked Elisha if he knew the end was near, and he told them to be silent.
It was an unusual day. And that was just the start! When they came to the Jordan River, Elijah rolled up his prophet’s cloak, slapped the water with it, and the river divided, just like Moses had parted the Red Sea. But that wasn’t anything yet! “As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.” It was Elijah’s last day on earth, but Elijah didn’t die! He went straight to heaven in a whirlwind. Can you imagine that? Suddenly, he was gone!
Why would God do that? At first, it might seem like God did this for Elijah—a special gift at the end of his faithful ministry. But think about this: For Elijah it really didn’t make any difference. If he had just died that day, where would he have ended up? In heaven! Either way, by death or by a whirlwind, Elijah was going to end up in heaven that day. So why did God do it like this? For Elisha, for you, and for me. God wants you to be absolutely sure that heaven is for real! So God didn’t give us just another near-death experience. He did what only God can do. He gave Elijah a no-death experience. If heaven doesn’t exist, where did Elijah go? Heaven is for real!
Lately, I’ve heard some people complain that maybe Christians talk too much about heaven. I don’t think that’s possible. Because when you read the Bible—from the Old Testament like our lesson today to the New—the promise of eternal life in heaven is God’s greatest promise to us. You can’t understand God’s purpose for your life, unless you understand that the goal of your life is heaven. You can’t understand God’s love for you, unless you believe what’s waiting for you in heaven. You can’t face death with hope, unless you know that heaven is for real! Life only makes sense if heaven is for real. Today God proved it by taking Elijah straight to heaven.
So why do Christians gobble up books on near-death visits to heaven? It’s because the devil places into our hearts a never-ending need for more proof. A never-ending skepticism about everything God says. A desire to see it to believe it. Here’s an example. A man once came to me and said, “Pastor, I want to show you my greatest possession.” And he held up an old, grainy, black and white picture. He said, “This is a picture of Mount Ararat, and that little black spot is Noah’s ark. This picture proves the Bible is true. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” The truth is, that black spot could have been a hockey puck or a gorilla or a million other things. The sad fact is that the source of that man’s faith was an old picture, not God’s Word. The devil loves that!
In the movie, “Heaven Is for Real,” the father of Colton Burpo—the boy who visited heaven—is a pastor. At the end, he preaches a powerful sermon to his church in which he says something like this, “It hurts to admit it, but I myself was never really sure. I wasn’t convinced there is a heaven. I stood up here and preached, but I didn’t believe it myself. But now I do! Because Colton saw heaven, now I’m sure!” I don’t think he meant to say it, but what was he implying? When God said it in the Bible, we can’t be sure. But when Colton saw it, now we know for sure!
Watch out! The Bible is very clear that we are saved by faith in Jesus, and the Bible is very clear about where faith in Jesus comes from: “Faith comes from hearing the message” (Romans 10:17). Faith comes from hearing God’s Word. Not from dreams. Not from life experiences. Not from voices in your head. We live in some ironic times. People are more willing to believe a four-year-old’s story than God’s Word. The devil is happy to have people believe that heaven is for real, just as long as they don’t believe in Jesus and his Word. Because if we don’t have faith in Jesus, if our faith is in dreams or in other people or in us, we won’t make it to heaven at all.
But God wants you there! He wants you to be certain that heaven is real. And that certainty can’t come from anyone’s experiences. Certainly comes from God’s promises to you in his Word. So God took Elijah straight to heaven. And he did more! Fast-forward 800 years to Transfiguration Day. Jesus was about to die for our sins. His disciples were about to see their friend go through the greatest suffering the world has ever known. But before he died on the cross, Jesus wanted to prove to them and us that it was all going to be worth it. So he took Peter, James, and John on a mountain, and he showed them his glory. Why? So that they could know that heaven is for real!
And did you catch who was with Jesus on Transfiguration Day? Our man—Elijah! It’s not really all that surprising. If Jesus was going to appear with someone from heaven, the guy who went straight to heaven without dying would be a logical choice. But the surprise was who else was there—Moses. Because do you know how Moses’ life ended? He died! There on Transfiguration Day you had Elijah—the man who never died—and Moses—a man who did die—and what was the difference between the two? Nothing! Both were enjoying exactly the same joy in heaven. They both ended up in the same place. How could God be any clearer? Heaven is for real!
But that doesn’t mean it’s ever easy to say goodbye. In fact, just look at Elisha in our lesson. He knew that Elijah—his friend and teacher—was going to go straight to heaven, but that didn’t make it easy for him to see him go. When the other prophets kept asking him, “Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today,” he replied, “Yes, I know, but do not speak of it.” For him, it was sad news. In fact, do you know what Elisha did right after Elijah was taken up to heaven? He tore his robes, because he was sad! He wasn’t sad for his friend—he was sad to have to say goodbye. Even Christians are sad to watch someone go. Death is sad!
But that’s when this “heaven is for real” stuff really hits home. That’s why you need to know what God tells you today! There was once a father who lost one of his dear children to sickness. At the funeral, a friend asked him how he was coping with the terrible pain. In the midst of his tears, the father smiled and said again and again, “One made it home. One made it home…” I don’t like saying it, but you are going to see death again soon. And there is only thing that can bring real comfort in the face of death. Not someone’s experience. God’s promise to you in Jesus. Heaven is for real! And it’s for you and for every other person who has faith in Jesus.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). I’m going to say that again, because I need it: “We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
When Alex Malarkey admitted that his story about heaven was made up, he gave this advice: “They should read the Bible. That is enough.” Yes it is! As you watch Jesus suffer and die for your sins this Lent, as you face your own cross each day, remember chariots of fire. Dazzling white clothes. Elijah lives. Moses lives. Jesus lives. So will you. Because heaven is for real. “What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Heaven is for real. And it’s for you.
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