"I just know I am going to heaven when I die." she said. I couldn’t help myself when I responded, "Can you prove that you go to heaven from the bible?" She looked at me blankly and so I continued, "I challenge you to find where it says in the bible that you actually go to heaven." When I asked her a few days later if she had taken up my challenge she said no. "I am totally sure I am going to heaven…it is my firm belief…and no one can convince me otherwise." I suppose it’s because most of us heard that we go to heaven from family and friends or by attending Sunday school as a child. It becomes part of our ideology. But, for the most part, we have not studied the Bible to know what it has to say on the subject. I was shocked when I finally began to see for myself what it did say. Surprisingly, my friend never asked me what I thought. Isn’t it strange she didn’t want to know the answer?

When I thought about this—if she had asked me to prove in scripture that we don’t go to heaven, how would I have gone about it? It is not quite as simple a task as I thought. For when you look up the word "heaven" (691times) in the bible and if you take the verse out of context it sounds like heaven might be our destiny. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:1-3 "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling."(NKJV throughout) This verse means that when our bodies die, we have something to look forward to…a spiritual body which is reserved for us until the return of Jesus Christ. (Read 1Corinthians15:20-54)

Another verse says: Paul said he preferred to be with Christ but admitted the church members needed him more. Paul understood the process. He knew in his next conscious thought he would be with Christ…but he also understood that would be on the earth at a future time. (Philippians 1:23-24) (1Thessalonians 4:16-17) Another scripture is when Christ died he told the thief he would be in paradise with Him so it sounds convincing if you haven’t read other scriptures on the subject. The comma is in the wrong place (Luke 23:43)… it should read "verily I say unto you today, you shall be with me in paradise." It does not say when the thief will receive eternal life, just that he will receive it. I am sure there are many scriptures we could twist to fit our beliefs. So how do we explain that heaven is not where we are going? Where do you start? First we need to know that to find out about any subject in the bible we need to look up every single scripture on that subject.

We are given clues throughout God’s Word, a little here, a little there about the truth of our destiny and I will point to but a very few.

Job was interested in an afterlife when he said "If a man die, shall he live again, all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. You shall call, and I will answer you" (Job 14:14-15). So Job knew there was a time lapse after death…and it was God’s decision when Job would rise up again.

Solomon also touched on the subject in Ecclesiastes 9:5. "For the living know that they will die…" But…" says Solomon "…the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten."

In Acts2:34 it says "For David did not ascend into the heavens…" In Acts 2:29 "David…is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day." David was a man after God’s own heart and he has not gone to heaven. David knew his destination was not heaven for he wrote: "the meek will inherit the earth" (Psalm 37:9).

John 3:13 makes it even clearer, "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." We read in the faith chapter about all of God’s faithful servants and it clearly says in the last verse of Hebrews 11 they have not received the promises. They were promised eternal life, so what happened?

Daniel talks of a time when "those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life…" read Daniel (12:1-3). We all enjoy sleeping. So death is like being asleep. We are not aware of the passage of time. So we lay down in death and the next second of our consciousness we awake. And all the faithful will do just that…they are waiting for God to resurrect them.

"But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope" (Read 1Thessalonians 4:13-18). "Behold I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). So when does that trumpet sound?

There is a time frame when the dead are raised, which are clearly seen in the plan of God. You can read in Matthew 22 where Jesus tells the Sadducees there is a resurrection of the dead.

"Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation" (John 5:28). [Read verses 24-30] It does not say we are going to heaven.

Martha has a conversation with Jesus that gives us another clue as to when this rising from the dead will be: speaking of her brother she says "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." (John 11: 24)

Of course, most people are not aware of God’s master plan for salvation. Many believe the Old Testament is done away where it explains the harvest festivals of the Lord. "God designed the harvest season around His Holy Days to send an inescapable message to mankind; a message about a great spiritual harvest that was to unfold in an organized way. The first harvest was about Jesus Christ the Messiah, the first sample of the first crop and barley. The shadows reflected His predetermined sacrifice (Passover) and His sinless life (Unleavened Bread) and His resurrection into spiritual life from the physical one He willingly took on (by way of example for us) and subsequent installment into office as high priest and king of kings. (Jim Petersen Three Celebrations) Jesus was the "sheaf of first fruits" (Leviticus 23); the first to be resurrected. (John 3:13) Following are imperfect humans: "they shall be baken with leaven; they are the first fruits unto the Lord". The last harvest season is the grand finale of the harvesting of the rest of mankind – a time, yet future – covered in a prophetic manner in the book of Revelation.

The Old Testament in Leviticus 23 tells us "Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land."

In Matthew 24 Jesus tells of the end of this age as we know it. "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matthew 24:30-31). So now we know we will be raised up when Christ Returns.

And what of those who have never heard of Jesus? Are they lost forever? Read Ezekiel 37. It describes a physical resurrection that gives them an opportunity to learn about Jesus and an opportunity for eternal life.