If This Isn't Heaven, I Don't Know What Is

Biblical Reasons Why We Should
And Practical Suggestions on How We Can
Create Heaven on Earth

You're in a very old and very dark warehouse. There are no windows. Suddenly you feel an earthquake. You instinctively look for a door as the shaking continues, but can't see anything. When a beam drops a few feet from you, you realize this old warehouse was built before earthquake standards, and you must find a door.

In the corner of your eye you see light, and turn to see a door opening to the outside.

This book is that door.

You hesitate to go through this door because you had been told that the old and dark warehouse that is now crumbling around you was a luxury resort hotel. The hotel and adjoining vacation park were created by a famous theologian, and you invested your life savings in a business venture you were assured would not only pay unheard of dividends, but would also help bring the Gospel to millions.

Going through this door means "getting out." It means admitting you got in a bad investment, one that will be a pile of rubble when the shaking stops, and you'll have to start over. You'll have nothing to show for all the work you've done up to now. You'd like to think this is just a temporary set back for your investment, but everything inside you is saying "Admit you were wrong and get out fast!"

Psychologically, this will be the toughest door you've ever gone through. But the light outside this dark and crumbling warehouse is a world of life and opportunities. I'm not saying you'll never be able to retire, but outside that door are some exciting things for you and your fellow investors.

This book is about the religion in which you've invested your whole life up until now. It argues that you made a bad investment. Millions of other investors have made the same bad decision. It is hoped that this book will encourage you all to take your life's savings out of this bad investment and put yourself in a new position.

You were told that you were investing in "heaven," but you were misled. I'm not saying you can't invest in heaven, far from it. But you've invested in a sham version of heaven.

You were told that you were investing in "the Second Coming," but you were misled. I'm not saying that Jesus and the Apostles lied or were mistaken when they said "Jesus is coming again," far from it. But you've invested in a fraudulent version of the Second Coming.

This book is designed to serve as an introduction to a number of projected volumes on the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision of the Prophet Micah. By exposing on your investment in heaven and the Second Coming, it is hoped you'll see the risk and dangers of your portfolio, and read the rest of this series, investing more prudently.

There are two very controversial things about our approach to this prophecy: timing and content.

Timing: Most Christians believe Micah is speaking about a day that will not come to pass until after the Second Coming of Christ. We disagree.

Micah says the days when we will "beat swords into plowshares" and live safely under our Vine & Fig Tree will begin in "the last days." We believe this speaks of the last days of the Old Covenant. A substantial number of Bible-believing Christians don't believe their Bibles on this point. Although the writers of the New Testament continuously and repeatedly said they were in "the last days" of the Old Covenant, many Christians believe that we are in the last days today, 2,000 years after the Apostles said that they were in "the last days." Investments have been made based on the forcast that we are in the last days of the entire planet earth. Micah's vision of a "Vine & Fig Tree" world has also been called "the millennium" or "the New Heavens and the New Earth." We believe the New Heavens and New Earth were inaugurated by Jesus at His First Advent. We are not waiting for a Second Coming for wonderful things to happen. Wonderful things have already happened, and there's more in store.

 

Content: This same huge group of Christians who believe we must wait for a Second Coming to see the promises of Micah and other prophets, also believe that God, speaking through those prophets, was teaching us to wait for a Kingdom rather work for a Kingdom. We disagree. They want us to wait for a Kingdom that would be imposed by a kind of military force, top-down, held in place by the physical coercion of a glorified police state, rather than work for a Kingdom that grows out of a Christ-like response to evil and suffering. We completely disagree. 

When enthusiastic followers of Christ tried to make Him a king, He fled (John 6:15). From cover to cover, the Bible teaches that we can only enter the Kingdom through:

•  tribulation (Acts 14:22; Revelation 1:9)         •  diligence (2 Peter 1:10-11)         •  re-birth (John 3:5)         •  poverty (Mark 10:24-25)         •  self-denial (Matthew 16:24)         •  forgiving enemies (Matthew 6:10-15; 18:21-23)         •  works of mercy toward the thirsty, the hungry, the homeless, and the incarcerated (Matthew 25:31ff.)         •  disarmament (John 18:36; Zechariah 9:9-10)

Most Christians are looking for an entirely different kind of Kingdom:         •  one handed to them on a silver platter;         •  one which has no requirements, only entitlements;         •  one which promises self-gratification, not service of others;         •  one which conquers evil with physical coercion rather than spiritual conversion;         •  an eternally static Kingdom, not one that grows.