Forward-
I am not a writer. I’m just a boring, middle-aged guy who has a fascination with Heaven! I was inspired to write this book after having had a near-death experience while attending my son’s wedding in Southern California. After that, Heaven became as real a place as I could ever imagine. I have always believed in Heaven, but as a child I was taught that Heaven was merely a “spiritual” place. After all, the Bible says God is “spirit,” and that’s where He lives! But that spiritual Heaven is not our permanent home; it’s only temporary. And that’s a good thing, because we are spiritual and physical creatures.
The Bible teaches us that God will remake Earth, and that it will become our new home forever. That’s perfect for us, because we need a physical place to live! While I don’t confess to having all the answers regarding Heaven (and I doubt anyone on Earth does), I do believe that Heaven will one day be a physical place, right here on this very planet! I have studied what the Bible says about the “intermediate Heaven,” and “paradise restored,” or our permanent home here on Earth. Those studies have led me to the only logical conclusion; Earth will become our permanent home, free from sin, where we will live with God, sometime in the near future.
The Bible also teaches us that Heaven is a real, physical place. For example, in Revelation 15:8, the Bible says, “The temple was filled with smoke from God’s glory and power.” The book of Revelation also mentions scrolls in Heaven, elders who have faces sitting on thrones, martyrs who wear clothes and even people with palm branches in their hands. These are all physical attributes describing Heaven.
But we are also told in Acts 7:55, when Stephen is stoned to death that “he gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.” Some Biblical scholars believe that Stephen didn’t just see an illusion, but rather that his eyes were opened to a spiritual dimension of reality, which God has hidden from us in this modern age.
It’s quite possible that this is what happened to me during my near-death experience in 2005. In this book, I tell of a dream I had while very ill in the hospital. But what I have always referred to as a dream could have been much more. If God allowed Stephen to see Heaven, couldn’t He show me as well?
As a child, I used to pray that God would show me Heaven, to give me the proof my simple human mind needed. I’ve always been the type of person who needs physical evidence; I need to take apart a watch and see the gears and springs to figure out how it works!
When Jesus held His hand out to me in my hospital room, He said, “I want to answer your prayer.” He took me by the hand to a mountain top, where I looked at Heaven with Him standing at my side. The wonder and indescribable nature of what I saw was all the proof I needed! I have always wondered where I went that night with Jesus.
That leads me to the premise for this book; a book I told God I would write. What if Heaven were a real, physical place right now – somewhere out there in the vastness of the universe; a universe created by God … couldn’t He have put Heaven somewhere? Wouldn’t he have to?
