Welcome to Eden to Eden

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
(Are you a floater or a sinker?)

It is very difficult for most people to imagine a perfect life, in a perfect place …like Heaven! Rock & Roll music’s legendary singer and songwriter, John Lennon, tried to get people to imagine a place where there was “no Heaven”. In the popular song that he wrote called, “Imagine”. He even tried to suggest that it would be “easy, if you try” to imagine that there would be no Heaven.

He must have been having a very bad day when he wrote that song. I cannot imagine imagining that there would not be a place called Heaven. I cannot imagine why anyone in his or her right mind would even try to imagine that there was no Heaven. Who would want to try to imagine there was no Heaven?

While it seems like an absurd impossibility to even begin to try to imagine that there is no Heaven, it is not an easy thing for most people to imagine what the real Heaven is like …you understand, the place where God lives, where Jesus returned to after he left Earth, where the Angels live!

While it may be difficult to imagine what Heaven is really like, one thing is an established fact of reality, you do not have to imagine whether there is a place called Heaven. All you have to do is believe it. “It’s easy if you try!” Why is it easy if you try? Because over 140 eyewitnesses personally saw Jesus float up into the clouds to leave Earth…and Jesus had said that his destination was Heaven, you understand, the place where God lives. 140 eyewitnesses are still more than enough people to offer proof beyond a reasonable doubt in any court of law. We know there is a place called Heaven because that is where Jesus went, and people saw him leave Earth to go there.

Acts 1:9-10 [After Jesus spoke to his disciples], he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee ,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into Heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into Heaven.”

While it may be easy to imagine a place called Heaven, it is not actually so easy to imagine what it will be like for us once we get there; however, we are given a few very solid clues about it. The verse below describes it as being a time when we will not remember the former things about this Earth. It is apparent that it is talking about the bad things, the hurts, the pains, the frustrations, and all that bad stuff.

Isaiah 65:17 Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

The next verse describes it as a place we can be looking forward to living, and it is a place where only righteous people will live. So, that is a good thing. Nobody who hates you will be there. You see, righteous people do not hate other people. Therefore, bad people and hateful people will not be there…not even one person who hates you (or me)!

2 Peter 3:13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

When you get there, if you are crying about something, you understand, maybe you have some issue you are still dealing with after you get there and you just feel like crying, Jesus himself will wipe away your tears. However, it seem like we will get past that soon enough, because it says that there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, and no more pain. Therefore, all of our problems will be solved. Apparently, we will not accidentally stub our toes or get burned or get sick or step on a sharp rock…with no mosquitoes or thorns or animals that bite…none of that stuff…just all good stuff…like roses with no thorns! With all friends and no enemies! No one will ever betray you ever again.

Revelation 21:1-4 I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City , the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

If the evolutionists and atheists are correct (they are not)… but if we want to take a wild and absurd leap of faith and imagine only for the sack of a hypothetical (and absurd) point of view that there is no God or Heaven, then life on Earth is absolutely meaningless to the most significant definition of the word “meaningless”.

If there is no God, and no other life other than the mere few years we are allotted here on Earth, then these few years are meaningless and insignificant. Our lives are but a puff of wind.

Therefore, we know one thing for certain. Every human born either has died or will die. Pharaoh died, and he has nothing. Caesar died, and his empire is gone, his wealth is gone…and he has nothing. When Bill Gates dies, he too will have nothing. He will go to the same place as Pharaoh, as Caesar, or as you and me.

The first lie ever told to a human being was when Satan lied to Eve in the Garden of Eden at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He told her that if she sinned, she would not die, but she would become like God…meaning that she would live forever and never die.

Satan has been tricking people into believing that when you die, you really do not die ever since.

In spite of Satan’s first lie, there is but one person in all of earth history that died once, and rose back from the dead just as he said he would. That person is Jesus Christ. Now, if you think there was ever a time a human history when people were so foolish and gullible they would easily believe it if someone told them, “Hey, we saw this dude that they just killed, and he’s come back to life!” …and actually respond by saying, “Oh, cool!” …you understand, with no skepticism or doubt, you are only kidding yourself.

It is hard enough to get 2 or 3 people to keep a secret that involves fraud or deceit. In the case of Jesus, over 140 people were eyewitnesses to his resurrection from the dead. They saw him with their own two eyes. In fact, they saw him go up and float into Heaven.

Jesus died, rose from the dead, and after 40 days, he floated up and off this planet to return to Heaven from where he came.

The point is this: There is only one man who ever came back from death, namely Jesus Christ. There has never been a credible story of it happening either before or since he was witnessed by credible witnesses as having come back from the dead.

Therefore, the question would be this: “Do you want to live forever or not?” It is not a touch question. IF you do not want to live forever, do not worry, because you will not live forever. Nobody ever does…and nobody ever will…that is to say, except Jesus Christ.

If your answer is, “yes” you would like to live forever, the answer is grim…because you do not have so much as a small chance of it. You are just like everyone else, and we all die. There is not a magic button you can push to bypass death and to make yourself live for all eternity.

So, if you would like to live forever, it makes sense to find out from the only one person who has ever come back from the dead how he did that and whether he can do the same thing for us too, right?

It is not like there is a whole bunch of options… you understand, there is just that one single option. If you want to live forever, ask someone who is doing it. That would be Jesus Christ. Okay, remember the 140 eyewitnesses who saw him alive? Does it matter that it happened 2000 years ago or that you were not one of the eyewitnesses? IF you do not think that it is hard to convince 140 people to lie about seeing a dead man resurrected back to life, go out and try to convince 10 people that you saw a person raised back to life after he was publicly executed to see if you could do it.

The truth of the matter is this: Jesus said that he was going to come back again. He also said that when he comes back again, he is going to bring us up to go back with him to where he was planning to go, okay. That would be Heaven.

There are two important Bible verses to address this fact of reality.

The first is found in John 14:3:

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.

The second is this one found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

(Consider yourself comforted!)

What do these two Bible verses say? They say that Jesus is going away, but then coming back. They say that when he comes back, he is coming to get some people (call ‘in Christ’). They say that dead people will go with him and living people will go together with the dead who had been raised (meaning that they are no longer dead).

Now, stop right here and get a picture of this in your mind. Jesus is in the sky and bunches of people are floating up through the air toward him. Those people were recently on the ground (or in the ground), but now they are not. They are living and floating up. Remember, this is not rocket science! I mean… they do not have jet-packs on their backs or rockets. They are floating up.

Have you tried floating up through the sky lately? It is not nearly as easy as it sounds.

Consider another verse as well. It is found in 1 Corinthians 15:54, it says:

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Imagine that! Now we have dead people who are not dead, but living. They were dead and mortal, but now they are living and immortal. They had cancer, but now they do not have it anymore. They died in a fire… but now they are just fine. They had Arthritis or MS and could not walk or run…but now they can. If you do not get the significance of that, try a little harder.

Moreover, it is not just the dead who are immortal. It is also people who were alive in mortal bodies, but now they are immortal as well. You could call this a true extreme makeover!

So again, stop and imagine this for a moment…real people floating up to meet Jesus in the sky. All of their conflicts have been solved.

Now…let us say that you and I were in a group of 10 people watching and waiting while Jesus got closer and closer. Let us say that the 10 of us saw 10 dead people raised back to life with immortal bodies and float up into the sky to meet Jesus. Then as we were all watching, the other 8 people were changed in the twinkling of an eye, and they, too, floated up to meet Jesus in the air. And that left you and me standing there watching it.

Let us assume that we felt pretty badly about being left out…and we wanted to join the others really badly. So, we look at each other wondering what to do next. And, I ask you if you saw how they did that… and you say to me that you were hoping that I saw it. And you ask me if they jumped…and I say, “I don’t know, let’s try it!” So… we grab hands (thinking the double effort will help)… and we jump as high as we can. Wow! We start floating up…up and away! Higher and higher! Six inches! Ten inches! …and still going! Fourteen inches…and climbing…and we think we have made it! However, suddenly we drop back down to Earth. And you ask me, “What else can we try?” And I tell you that I was just about to ask you the same question! So frantically, we start running, and jumping, and hollering aloud to Jesus to please take us with him too. But, nothing happens. We can see that we are not floating up like the others …and neither of us ever took a class on how to float. Do you catch the point? Human being cannot float!

What is the difference between those who float up on that day and those who do not float up on that day? I mean, other than the fact the ones who float up will become immortal and live forever… and the ones who do not float up will die. Why do some float and others sink back down to earth? It is ultimately the most important question of our lifetime. That moment will involve every single man, woman, and child that has ever lived on good ole’ planet Earth. At that moment in time, nothing else will matter.

Whatever it is that makes us not be able to float right now today, is the same thing that is going to make us not be able to float on that day as well. Unless you are certain you will figure out how to float on your own before that day comes, you had better find out before then how the floaters float and why the sinkers sink.

However, you can be certain that the floaters do not float by flapping their arms or by jumping.

There are also a few other methods that are guaranteed to fail in helping you learn how to float any time soon, and certainly not on that last great day when all the other floaters float away. Let’s look at a few of those methods that will not help you learn how to float:

1.    Reading your Bible. Ouch! Very sorry to report this one so quickly, but I have never yet heard of someone who has read their Bible and learned how to float as a result of it.

2.    Praying! Again …double ouch! However, as of this date, there has never been a report of a man, woman, or child who simply floated up and away because of praying.

3.   Keeping all ten of Ten Commandments. Now, even if you could keep them all perfectly (and you cannot and have not) but even if you could, there is very little chance that by doing so you would learn how to float. Sorry!

4.    Going to church every single week (Sunday if you follow Catholic Tradition or Saturday if you follow the tradition of Jesus)…and once during the week. Once again, there is presently no report of anyone who has learned to float as a result of going to church (on either Sunday or Saturday). In fact, there is no church that offers “floating” lessons.

5.    If you don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t have premarital sex, don’t commit adultery, don’ dance, don’t party, don’t waist time, and don’t goof off (or some might say, ‘Don’t have any fun!’) … you will still not learn how to float. I have met a few people in my life who do not do any of those things…and guess what? Not one of them knows how to float.

It really does not matter what you include in this list or whom you include as an example, simply put – people cannot float. So, if you happen to be the very first person who learns how to float, don’t get your confidence up too high, because there is a big difference between merely learning how to float and knowing how to float to the right place at the right time all the way to Heaven.

You could very easily deduct some very good advice from this lesson on floating. That would be this: If anyone, pastors, teachers, ‘men-of-God’, you understand…IF anyone ever comes up to you and tells you to believe their version of religion (without Biblical Proof that you can read and understand for your own self), ask them one simple question to determine whether it would be worth your time to believe their word. Ask them if they can float! (Note: I cannot float, so do not believe a word I say… find out the truth from the one man, Jesus Christ, who knows how to float. You can read it for yourself in the Holy Bible). If they cannot float, tell them you are looking for someone who knows how to float…because you will need that on the day that Jesus comes.

So then, it only makes sense that since there is just One person who has ever been witnessed as coming back from the dead and floating up to Heaven, if you have any interest in floating with Him off this planet when he comes back and the dead rise and the living are changed and they float up with him to Heaven, then don’t you think it would be a really good idea to set your attention upon the One and only fellow who has ever floated?

Now, the verse we read earlier in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, mentions that on that day, the floaters are going to be “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air. That’s a pretty important thing to notice. You see, the floaters don’t just float up on their own. They are caught…okay, caught first… then taken up! It is obvious that it is not something they do for their own selves. It is something done for them by the Lord Jesus.

When it comes right down to the wire, there is no greater moment in all of human history than that moment. You would have to admit that it would be quite the Breaking-News kind-of-story! I’m pretty sure CNN and FOXnews will be having some sort of technical difficulties on that day, however. But if they were not, you could make a safe bet that they’d be there covering the story about how millions (hopefully billions) of dead people came back to life and how millions (hopefully billions) of living people became immortal…and they all floated up into the sky and met the Lord Jesus in the sky. That would be the news story to beat all other news stories, don’t you think?

On that day, you are either going to be dead or living and either a floater or a sinker. There is not a third option.

Alright, stop the train for a minute…let’s talk…let’s be reasonable about this. At that particular moment in time when the floaters float and the sinkers sink, that moment is the Day of Salvation – The Day of the Lord. That moment is the day that the floaters become immortal (like Jesus). We saw already that it is a day when they are caught…then taken up by the Lord Jesus. Unless you are still convinced that you are going to learn how to float on your own, it seems like the logical thing to do in the meantime would be to be caught by Jesus as soon as possible…sort of as an insurance policy. It seems logical that if he catches you now, you will be caught up at the right time and taken to the right place on the Day of Salvation.

Please consider these verses from the Bible:

John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

John 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Remember, reading your Bible will not teach you how to float. Praying will not teach you how to float either. However, reading your Bible and praying to our Creator and Heavenly Father will put you in direct communication with the One who will catch you…and take you up on that last day…the day that Jesus Christ returns to Earth to take his children with him back to Heaven. If you want to be ‘caught up’ on that day, do you think it would be a good idea to let Him catch you today?