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HEAVEN

A Study of the Book by Randy Alcorn

SESSION TWOHEAVEN UNDER ATTACK

HEAVEN IS A IMPORTANT• It is important to see our goal.– Florence Chadwick’s 1952 Catalina swim…• Her mother told her how close she was.• All she could see was the fog.

• Heaven is a wonderful motivator.– Driving to Texas

• We long to be reunited with our God and Savior, in our native land.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living

in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what

shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;

Philippians 1:21-23

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We

live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at

home with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8

OPERATION FORTITUDE• WWII Deception Prior to Normandy– Used inflatable rubber tanks, plywood

artillery, controlled leaks of bogus information, wireless traffic, duped German agents, and entourages for non-existent generals.

–Why?

• Satan’s Operation Fortitude:–Make the people in danger feel safe, and

distract the safe people from being any good.

HEAVEN SLANDERED• Why are these objectives so important to

Satan in the first place?

• How do we know this is what he’s up to?

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a

murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for

he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8:44

He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.

Revelation 13:6

How you have fallen from heaven,

O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise

my throne above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost

heights of the sacred mountain.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like

the Most High."

But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.

Isaiah 14:12-15

THE ATTACK PLAN• Okay, there’s means and motive.

• By what methods would Satan go about executing his plan?

• Evidence is usually gathered at the crime scene to reconstruct the method.– Let’s watch…

CHRISTIAN BLINDERS• The lost are only part A of the operation.

How are part B (=believers) impacted?

• Believe it or not, some scriptures are used to prematurely shut down our contemplation of Heaven.

1 Corinthians 2:9

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen,

no ear has heard, no mind has conceived

what God has prepared for those who love him“

— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

1 Corinthians 2:10

Deuteronomy 29:29(a)

The secret things belong to the LORD our God,

but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever,

that we may follow all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:29(b)

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the

body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—

whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to

paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not

permitted to tell.

2 Corinthians 12:2-4

COMBINED INTERPRETATION• Paul witnessed (heard) things in Heaven

he was forbidden to tell.– This does not impute to all other sources and

accounts, which God CHOSE to reveal to us!

• John (Revelation)• Isaiah• Ezekiel

HEAVENLY MINDED• Stigma of being “so heavenly minded

that you’re of no earthly good.”

• Worry instead of being “so earthly minded that you no good for heaven or earth.”

• C.S. Lewis:– “Aim at heaven, and you will get earth

‘thrown in,’ aim at earth and you will get neither.”

CHALLENGE• How has Heaven been attacked in your

experience?

• What does the enemy hope to achieve through these attacks?

• How would a heavenly perspective change your view on virtually everything you’re struggling with right now?