Lauren Green (Fox News) Interviews Dr. David Jeremiah

Let me tell you something I learned. Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says all things are beautiful and God has created eternity in our heart. I believe that God gives to every person when he creates them a space that belongs to eternity, a place that belongs to God, a place that belongs to heaven.

And what are we chasing? I just read recently a statement by Tom Brady after he had won so many Super Bowls and his statement was is that all there is? You know, if we try to be fulfilled with the things we can find around us in Times Square, we're not going to be fulfilled because that we weren't created to be fulfilled that way.

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 Hello, I'm David Jeremiah and I am seated in a place that I love to come to and I do so almost every year. I'm in New York City, but more than that, I'm in the center of Times Square, a place where over 50 million people visit each year.

This is literally the crossroads of the world. You know, the Bible says that all of us are going to spend somewhere for eternity. I would like to encourage you to consider the option of heaven and during these next moments, we're going to share some things about heaven that you may not know, answer some questions you may have always had, but more than anything else, try to tell you how wonderful this place is that God has prepared for us.

Do you know what he said about it? He said, I has not seen, neither has ear heard the things that God has prepared for those who love him. That's heaven and we're going to talk about it for these next few moments from right here in Times Square. Well, Dr.

Jeremiah, thank you so much for asking me to be a part of this heavenly kind of presentation and we're in the middle of Times Square. This is a crossroads of the world. So much going on in the world and I think it's an appropriate time, I would think, to talk about heaven.

Amen. Why do you think it's so important? Well, you know, everybody uh starts out thinking they're going to have all of their wishes and joys experienced in this world and then disappointment sets in. And the reason for that, Lauren, is that God never created us to be satisfied with this world.

He created us to ultimately be satisfied with his presence and the Bible says in the presence of the Lord is joy forevermore. And what we all have in our heart as an eternity hole that can only be filled with heaven and till we figure that out, we kind of run around chasing ourselves.

You know, why is it really so important to be talking about heaven in a time like today? I think this space especially is a good for that because this is somebody once told me the creative center of the world. I don't know if that's true, but there's so much noise here and there's so much activity here and everybody seems to be on a race to get somewhere and do something and the Bible is so clear about that heaven is the place where we find peace and God is is holding that out for us and the realization that one day we're going to be with him and all of this crazy running around is going to be over.

Yeah, you know, one of the things that, you know, obviously we're in the middle of Times Square and we hear the sirens around us and there's a lot of there's a lot of brokenness and I think the sirens remind us there's a lot of brokenness in this world, but one of the things that I remember when I first came to New York almost 30 years ago, was that people were really they didn't want to be religious.

I don't want to be religious, I want to be spiritual. Exactly. >> How do you How do you respond to someone who says, "Hey, you know what? I decide what's right and wrong for myself. I want to be I want to be spiritual, but I don't want to be associated with an institutional religion."

Well, isn't it interesting to try to be spiritual without God? I mean, they're okay with being spiritual, just keep God out of it and that is an oxymoron because God is the source of spirituality and if you want to know what it means to have a life that's filled with joy and peace and the presence of whatever it is they're looking for, you're going to find it in God.

He's the source. You know, what are some of the misconceptions about heaven because there are so many people that have ideas about heaven. You know, people talk about like heaven on earth or, you know, oh heavens, you know, but what are some of the greatest misconceptions about heaven? >> my favorite statements I read when I was working on this book was a guy said, "What do I want to go to heaven for?

I've not even been to Hawaii." So, I think that's where they are. I think people feel like uh heaven is someplace where you go and you don't do anything, you just sort of maybe float around on a cloud and strum a harp, but the Bible doesn't teach that at all.

The Bible teaches heaven is a place of exciting activity and serving God and worshipping and all of the things that bring meaning to your life here on steroids there. Yeah. Yeah. What about people who have really no biblical background? They live pretty much a secular life. You know, what about them?

How do you talk about heaven with someone like that? >> Well, let me tell you something I learned. Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says all things are beautiful and God has created eternity in our heart. I believe that God gives to every person when he creates them a space that belongs to eternity, a place that belongs to God, a place that belongs to heaven.

And what are we chasing? I just read recently a statement by Tom Brady after he had won so many Super Bowls and his statement was is that all there is? You know, if we try to be fulfilled with the things we can find around us in Times Square, we're not going to be fulfilled because that we weren't created to be fulfilled that way.

One of the things, you know, I'm I know a little bit off topic because we're talking about heaven, but in order to really understand heaven, do you also have to believe in a hell? Absolutely because actually there's more about hell in the Bible than there is about heaven.

And Jesus said more about hell than he said about heaven. Uh hell's not a happy thought, not a wonderful thing to talk about, but uh the formula is very clear. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.

You decide to go up some other way, you're not going to make it." And the alternative to that is a place of punishment. In that sense, because heaven looks almost too good to be true. Is it too good to be true? Is it just this sort of idea, some place of perfection that we can sort of dream about, but we really can never get there?

Well, here's an illustration that helps me understand that. One of the problems people have with heaven is that the Bible says that in heaven we'll be like the angels, neither marrying nor giving in marriage and people say, "Well, my greatest joy in this life has been marriage. How am I going to ever enjoy heaven if I'm not going to be married to the person I've been married to?"

Yeah. And then I like to say to them, if you say that, it's only because you underestimate God because God wants to provide a joy so overwhelmingly beautiful and wonderful and ecstatic to you in heaven that compared to that, what you know in marriage is not measurable and I don't understand that and I don't know how to comprehend that except I believe that.

And when we get to heaven, we'll know the joy of fellowship and and union and and connection with people, but our relationship with the Lord Jesus is going to be so awesome that everything else will pale in its presence. Is heaven an actual place or is it a state of mind?

Well, I'll answer that with a scripture. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions and I go to prepare this place for you that where I am, there you might be also." Heaven is never ever pictured in the Bible as a state of mind or a feeling or the best you can do here.

Heaven is always a place and God is preparing that place for us. How do you talk about heaven in the midst of a lot of pain and suffering? Is heaven your consolation prize to pain and suffering or what what how do you describe that? >> that's a really hard question, Lauren, I'm not going to underestimate the difficulty of it, but let me tell you this.

Heaven is a place where our pains are mitigated, where they're gone. And for many people who are watching us, listening to us, there is pain that is related to heaven because the Bible teaches that children who are not of the age of accountability, they all go to heaven.

That's very clear and there's a whole chapter in this book about that. What about the children? My favorite story there is about David who uh committed that sin with Bathsheba and killed her her husband and and Nathan came and said, "David, you're going to pay for this and one of the ways you're going to pay for it is the child that you uh and Bathsheba have is going to die."

And the Bible says David fasted and prayed, wouldn't eat, cried out to God he would change his mind and then that they came and told him 7 days later the child had died and David got up and went and got dressed, uh changed his clothes, came out and they said, "What's the deal?"

And he said, "I cannot bring that child back to me, but I shall go to my child." And David said in that in that setting, he knew in his heart that one day he would be with that child that was lost because of that sin. That brings so much comfort to so many people.

I just recently lost my oldest sister. She passed away. And you know, years ago I lost my brother. Both parents are are gone. Will I see those people in heaven? Absolutely, you will. And the Bible says you will recognize them. When Jesus came back from the grave, they saw him and they knew he was the same Jesus they knew before he died, before he was buried.

The Bible tells us that when we go to heaven, we're going to be given bodies like the resurrection body of Jesus. So, if you want to know what that's going to be like, study how Jesus functioned during the 40 days after his resurrection before he went back to heaven.

He ate, people touched him, he was incarnate, he was not a spirit. And that's the way we will be. We will have these incredible bodies and I like to fantasize a little bit about how how we're going to move about, you know? Somebody asked me the other day, are we going to fly?

I said, that's way better than that. Uh Jesus one day walked into a room without going through the door and stood in the room with his apostles and the Bible said the doors being shut, Jesus was in their midst. If we're going to have bodies like Jesus, we'll be able to do that.

The excitement of that to me is overwhelming. You talk about heaven being a physical place. Is it in another universe or is it here? Well, the Bible says it's going to be here. It's going to be here on the new heaven and new earth. And the city, the holy city, is going to descend down from the third heaven.

And uh it will be an it'll be an amazing. I mean, the description of heaven in Revelation in in the end of the book of Revelation is so amazing, it's almost hard to believe. How do we get there? How do we How do we know that we get there?

Well, the Bible tells us very clearly. I mentioned this earlier. And these are the words of Jesus. These are not my words. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. Jesus didn't say I'm one of the ways.

He didn't say I'll show you the way. He said, I am the way. If you come to Jesus and you receive him as your savior and ask for forgiveness of your sin, you punch your ticket to heaven and you make your reservation here. And only those who do that can go to heaven.

You don't get a chance to stand at the end of your life and say, I wish I had done it. I'm going to do it now. You You only get a chance to do that during the time of your own life. In a place like New York, in the secular world that we live in, when you say, when Christians repeat those words of Jesus, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me, that's a very hard truth for people who want to believe that all religions are equal.

How do you confront that? >> I like to tell them this story. When almighty God wanted to create physical life, he said it's going to take two elements, the sperm and the egg, and only those two things can create life. Very restrictive, very exclusive. He said, when I want to create spiritual life, only two things, the Holy Spirit and the word of God.

If you want to become a spiritual person, you shouldn't be surprised that God is just as exclusive as he is in the physical world. And it's not really exclusive, it's available to anyone. There's nobody left out. If anybody wants to come, they can. And Jesus certainly lays out the invitation for anyone who will come to him and he's not willing that any should perish, but he's made it our own personal choice.

And if we don't choose, uh we end up in the place we don't want to be. This is really about the justice of God. I mean, the justice is saying that I have provided a way that's just It's true. >> and equitable. And it's narrow, but it's open to everybody.

Right. It is true. It is narrow. And people ask me all the time, will heaven be big enough? And I say, well, you probably have an exaggerated idea of how many people are going there. I'm not sure, but the Bible is very clear about how you get to heaven.

And if there's one thing I want to make sure everybody knows, in fact, I'm not doing this interview so that people can be smarter about heaven. I want to take them to heaven. I want to go to heaven and take as many people with me as I can.

I don't want anybody to miss heaven. I don't want anybody that's watching us to miss heaven. And I want to say to you in the simplest terms, you can go to heaven. And you can you can make sure you go to heaven right now by simply asking Christ to come into your life.

I would love to give people an idea about how they tap into the heaven. How can they know that there is a heaven in the midst of their lives? I believe that most people automatically know. I think everybody automatically has this empty place and they know something's not right.

Something's missing. And if they follow through on that, if they take that where it leads them, they will realize that it's because God has something special for them and he's waiting for them to receive it. One of the things that a lot of people talk about and they talk negatively about, especially about Christians, is this idea that they're all working for heaven, but they don't do any work on earth.

They don't work to So heavenly minded, no earthly good. >> minded that they they can't do any earthly good. Well, I think that's kind of a stereotype because, Lauren, the people I know that are going to heaven, that love God, are the hardest working people I've ever met in my life.

Just take this crew that's here this weekend doing this thing. These people have worked through the heat, they worked all night, they've they've done everything they know how to do to make sure that we present this message in the best possible way. I really don't know any Christians who just say, hey, I'm going to heaven now, I can live like hell all the rest of my life.

A person who does that betrays the sincerity of their motive in their in their in their decision. Because the Bible says when you accept Christ, he puts his spirit in you. And when his spirit in you, you can't do that stuff. Somebody once told me that when you become a Christian, you get a little wheel in here that goes around and when you do something uh wrong, it it pricks you and makes you realize the Holy Spirit is convicting you of something you shouldn't do.

One of the great gifts of being a Christian is you get the Holy Spirit and he helps you not to live the life that you once lived before Christ came. Well, that's interesting, too, because a lot of people are trying to earn their way to heaven. Absolutely. >> they're trying to earn their It's like, you know, I got to be good or else they won't go to heaven.

How do people get That's Well, explain why that's not the right thinking. You know, that is the message of every religion except Christianity, which isn't a religion, it's a relationship. Mhm. Religion is an attempt on the part of man to reach up to God. What a full-hearted endeavor that is.

He's perfect, he's never sinned, he never does wrong, and he and he requires that same standard from us. If indeed we try to reach him by the way of works, nobody can do it. So, he sent his son, Jesus Christ, here who himself was perfect so that he could take that test for us.

He took it on the cross. He passed the test 100% and he now gives us the score if we put our trust in him. He's the one who has promised us that if we trust him, we won't have to live that way the rest of our lives. >> Well, this is the gospel.

This is the gospel message, which is the good news. I remember once a person says, you know, the gospel's good news, not good advice. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things though, and this is this is very funny though, people's interpretation of what heaven would be as almost boring, really.

I mean, you know, harps and in clouds where we've got little wings and we're just kind of being really good little angels up in heaven someplace. In Huckleberry Finn, the story is about this old woman who's trying to to get Tom Sawyer's buddy ready to go to heaven.

Mhm. He wants nothing to do with it because it sounds really boring to him. And I tell people we're not going to be bored in heaven for a number of reasons. God is not boring, Jesus is not boring, and when you get there, you won't be boring either because you're going to be changed to be like Christ.

Heaven's going to be the most exciting place we've ever been in our life. We can't imagine it. The Bible says in the presence of God is is joy forevermore. I like to think about that in light of some of the pain that I see people going through here today.

A lot of people on earth right now, they have a lot of talents. A lot of talents, musicians, athletes. Will people be able to enjoy heaven like that? >> Absolutely. You know, I I always say to people, where do you think those people got their talent? Where do you think the people that are so good at these sports got their talent?

God gave that gift to them and they nurtured that gift and it became their life and and their goal, whether they know it or not. And when we get to heaven, there won't be any restrictions, limitations, we'll be able to play our sports and do the things that we do to the fullest with no negative drag on it at all.

You know, why doesn't God just create heaven on earth for us right now? Why doesn't he just snap his fingers and get rid of the pain, get rid of the suffering, get rid of the turmoil, get rid of the war? Why doesn't he just do that? Well, for one thing, God is not accountable to us and he does not live in time.

God created time. He lives in the ever-present now. God has a plan for all of this. And in his wisdom and sovereignty, we submit to that plan. There are some of these things the Bible says the secrets belong to God and I don't know some of the answers to those things.

But what I do know is I trust God and I know that God is up to good for me, for you, and ultimately for those who will trust him. What would you say? I mean, I think there's just so many people who are hurting. And there comes a point where they start to figure out or they start to ask questions about what is the purpose of my life?

Why am I here? Who is God? Does he care? How do you respond to that kind of deep heart question? Well, that's why we're here. That's why we do what we do. Because, you know, I've been a pastor of the church for almost 50 years. And I've seen people in the beginning of my time who wanted nothing to do with God, but through the things that have happened to them in life, maybe it's been the loss of a loved one or a divorce or whatever, they come to Christ.

And then they give their testimony in the baptistery and they say, "I was without God. I didn't want anything to do with God, but then this happened. And when this happened, I realized how desperate I was for help outside of myself." And I think that's what happens. Everybody has their own story.

And the stories often come to this crescendo where they have to make a decision. Turning Point's motto is take the unchanging word of God to the ever-changing world. That's what we try to do. And that means we don't ever change the message, but we change the methods. When we first started, I couldn't have dreamed of doing something like what we're doing right now, but we're doing it because we're trying to reach people in that special place and let them know there is an answer to their problems if they want it.

And besides reading your book, of course, The Promise of Heaven, >> Right. how else can people find about heaven? Where I mean, where what should they read in the Bible to talk about heaven and what >> Well, you know, the the internet is filled with it. If you If you If you click, you know, heaven on the internet, you'll be reading from now until next year.

The Bible tells us if you want to know, you can know. And the reason we don't know is we don't really want to know. If you want to know, you can know. He who wants to know the truth will know it. It's a very, very powerful point. Can you just end with just some of your personal responses and and and just your final thoughts about heaven and what we should be thinking about and encouraging people?

Well, I just want to say to you and everybody who's watching that heaven is a worthy goal. And it is a goal that God has put in your heart to pursue. And until you pursue that goal, you will be flailing around trying to do everything, stuffing everything you can.

And I see people do that. But until they decide, maybe I should just try this, try this God thing, and ask God to take control of my life. If they do that, they will discover there is a reality that goes beyond what you see and feel. It is a spiritual reality, but it is just as much a reality as everything you see.

In fact, more of a reality in many respects. Uh Dr. Jeremiah, I want to thank you so much for being a part of of of of this interview and and allowing me to do this today. Um can you just end with a little prayer? Because I think that people around really need to hear a little prayer.

Can you end with a little prayer? >> to do that. >> thank you. >> we know that you are watching down on us from your heavenly throne and we thank you that we could spend this time talking about you and bragging about your heaven, what you've prepared for those who love you and receive your son, Jesus Christ.

And it's my prayer that those who are looking for answers and seeking hope will take the moment to investigate what the Bible says about Jesus and about heaven. And we Lord, we close with this wonderful promise from John 14 where Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. And if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, then where I am, there you may be also."

Almighty God, we accept your promise and determine to take as many people through that promise lane to heaven as possible. In Jesus' name, amen. >> Amen and amen. Thank you so much. 
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 If you have never taken the step to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can do that today.

If you will allow us, Dr. Jeremiah would like to send you two resources that will help you. The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, which will help you as you begin your relationship with Christ. And the second is our monthly devotional magazine, Turning Point, to give you encouragement and inspiration throughout the year.

These resources are yours completely free when you contact Turning Point today. 
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 Thank you for being with us today. Join Dr. Jeremiah next time for his series, The Promise of Heaven, here on Turning Point. 
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