“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.” (Revelation 4:1-3, NASB)

Have you ever heard of people claiming they have been to heaven and back to tell about it? Do you wonder whether they are telling the truth or if what they have experienced is real? There are many false teachers out there, and we must be careful whether they are real or imagined. There are many false dreams, visions, and imaginations out there, and we must be careful whether they are of God or of the devil. Well, the book of Revelation is a true story about a man who actually went to heaven, experienced what it was like, told about the future, and returned to earth to write about it. Verses 1-3 say,

“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.’ Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.”

There have been many claims of people experiencing what heaven is like, but they pale compared to what John saw, experienced, and recorded in this book. Therefore, since John’s vision of heaven recorded in the Bible is extensive and accurate, we must test and judge every vision about heaven and future things in the light of it. The logic behind it is that God does not contradict Himself! If He is genuinely going to reveal things to people today, it will be consistent with what He has shown in the book of Revelation. Chapter four begins to talk about John’s vision of the future.

The outline of Revelation can be easily seen according to Revelation 1:19: “Write therefore the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall take place after these things.” First, the “things that you have seen” refer to past things in chapter one. Second, the “things which are” refer to the present things (John’s present) in chapters two and three. They deal with the messages to the seven existing churches of John’s day. Third, the “things which shall take place after these things” refer to the future things in chapters four to twenty-two. In fact, the exact phrase “after these things” is repeated twice at the beginning of chapter four to indicate that what we are going to read from this point on is about the future things.

It begins by saying that John saw a “door standing open in heaven.” In other words, God literally opened a door to heaven and showed John what it was like on the other side. On the other side, the first thing that John saw was a “throne standing in heaven” and the “One sitting on the throne.” This is obviously the throne of God, with God Himself sitting upon it. One of the first tests is to see whether they saw God on His throne in their claims about going to heaven and back to tell about it. As you continue to read the writings of John, may the words, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things,” become God’s invitation to you, too, to see what heaven is like. Take careful note of what God is like, what heaven is like, and what is going to happen in the future, so that you can intelligently judge people’s claims to have been to heaven and back by someone who has actually been to heaven and back.

• What do you think of John’s vision of heaven, God, and His throne?
• Have you heard of people claiming to have gone to heaven, and how does that compare to John’s vision?