heaven is for real

90 minutes in heaven, burpo, discernment, heaven is for real, heaven tourism, visions

"Heaven is for Real" is Unreal. What near death experiences tell us, and what they don’t tell us

Posted on March 23, 2023March 23, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

At the Library book sale last week, I saw several of these heaven tourism books kicking around, still. Heaven Tourism is a phrase coined (I think) by evangelist Justin Peters, to indicate a book written by a person who allegedly was given a personal tour of heaven through a vision or even a personal, bodily visit, while still alive, guided by an angel or even by Jesus.

In 2010 a book was released called “Heaven is for Real“. A Wikipedia page describes the plot thus:
“The book documents the report of a near-death experience by Burpo’s then-four-year-old son, Colton. The book tells how the boy began saying he had visited heaven.”

And at the end of the page it says, “See Also”:
23 Minutes in Hell
90 Minutes in Heaven
The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven
Proof of Heaven

The book was immediately optioned to be made into a movie, which was released in April 2014.

Heaven Is for Real
“A small-town father must find the courage and conviction to share his son’s extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world.”

I used the word ‘immediately’ because the book was a runaway bestseller. It spent eight weeks at No. 1 in 2011. It was on the NY Times bestseller list for a total of 138 weeks, spurred on by the movie release.

This is incredible to me. That people in the first place would seek any information about God’s dwelling apart from God’s word is amazingly undiscerning. And to be attracted to such information from a four-year-old-boy is just beyond comprehension.

I kind of understand. I feel the attraction to wanting to see peeks of the other side. As Christians, we resist such thoughts and desires, because they aren’t profitable. When I was an unsaved person, though, I was intrigued by near-death experiences (NDEs).

Besides near-death experiences, there are now post-death experiences. Science and medicine has advanced to the point currently where doctors can put a person to death for a period of time in order to operate or repair a body, and then bring them back to life in controlled circumstances.

I wasn’t saved until I was 43 years old. That is a lot of years as a teen and an adult to ponder the mysteries of the other side. And ponder I did. There is a certain logic to Christianity that the unsaved mind suppresses. (Romans 1:18). Intuitively it seemed that evolution would not have gone to all the trouble to evolve us bodily AND in addition, give us a mind, a conscience, and self-awareness- and then we die off after only 40, 50, 70 years and then…poof, nada? Obliteration? It didn’t seem likely. What was the point of life, then? But the ‘Jesus thing’ as I termed it, made less sense.

Secondly, it seemed that every culture in the world since recorded time and history began has celebrated or worshiped a deity or deities. I often wondered, why are we all wired to worship? And which deity is the right one? There must be something to religion, if every culture from north to south, east to west, has worshiped someone or something. But my mind rejected Jesus as the answer.

Third, I always wondered why so many people reported having a near death experience, and why those experiences seemed so similar.

It was more than reasonable that religion was real, my pagan brain decided, the other side was real, that heaven was real.

Then I became a Christian by God’s grace and the drawing of the Holy Spirit, (Ephesians 2:8, John 6:44). I learned through the bible that heaven IS real. I read what it looks like. I read who will go there. I read about worship there. All about heaven, it’s in the Bible. How great and glorious God is to provide us this glimpse.

Four men went to heaven in visions and three came back authorized to tell about it. (Paul said he heard things he was forbidden to tell. 2 Corinthians 12:2. John also was told not to tell of one of the things he’d heard, the Seven Thunders, Revelation 10:1-7). Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John went to heaven in visions and were shown wonderful things. How glorious the Lord is to give us these peeks that are now recorded in His word! We can trust them.

It is not likely that Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John were the only men for thousands of years but then ALSO Colton Burpo, Don Piper, Beth Moore, Jesse DuPlantis, Bill Wiese and others all strolled around heaven, or in Wiese’s case, hell).

And if you think about it, ONLY FOUR men were given visions of heaven. Job, who was called righteous by God, wasn’t escorted around heaven on a personal tour. King David, a man after God’s own heart, wasn’t given an individual advance visit. John the Baptist, whom Jesus said no other man born of woman had risen greater than, wasn’t given an opportunity to stroll around and take in the sights.

But four year old Colton Burpo was. He and his dad wrote “Heaven is for Real.” In Colton’s version, people had bodies. In the Bible it says people haven’t been given their glorified body yet. That won’t happen until the resurrection. And we’re supposed to believe the boy?

Dr Eben Alexander was given a tour. He wrote “Proof of Heaven.” Dr Alexander, a former surgeon, has been fired from multiple hospitals, is the subject of several malpractice suits, and is charged by doctors with lying in his book about the events leading up to his NDE. Others found discrepancies in his book on other matters. He is a Christ-rejecting pagan who believes in reincarnation. And HE was given a tour of heaven?

What near death experiences don’t tell us is, what heaven is like, because NONE of the people who claim to have gone there, really went there. The details of their trip contradict not only the Bible, but they contradict each other. Any detail, glimpse, peek, or curiosity you have about heaven will not be satisfied in these books or movies. Though they may indeed have had some sort of experience, the details related to heaven are all untrue imaginings brought on by severe bodily stress, mental derangement, or outright lies.

What NDEs do tell us is what we already know from the Bible: the conscious mind continues.

There is no doubt that near death experiences happen. They are consistently reported by millions of people. Eight million people in the US alone have reported having such an experience. And most of them have similar elements. The NDE FAQ page defines those elements this way:

No two NDEs are exactly identical, but within a number of experiences a pattern becomes evident. Researchers have identified the common elements that define near-death experiences. Bruce Greyson argues that the general features of the experience include impressions of being outside one’s physical body, visions of deceased relatives and religious figures, and transcendence of egotic and spatiotemporal boundaries. (source)

There is no doubt that in some of the NDEs, spiritual forces are at play. However, the fact of having a near death experience does not by default make the experience true. There is such a thing as lying demons. (1 Kings 22:19–23). Here is the Stand to Reason blog explaining this very concept in their discussion of “Heaven is For Real“.

“What we can’t conclude from these experiences that appear to be real is that what they heard and learned during these experiences are necessarily true. An experience can be real without the conclusions of the experience being accurate. That happens to us all the time even in this life. We have an experience, but we’re mistaken about what we think about it. It can happen in death, too. After all, once we have evidence for a non-physical world, we have reason to believe from the Bible, which tells us about this world, that there are beings there that deceive us.”

Why would we believers even want to pursue such rabbit trails that lead only to deception?

All that NDEs can tell us is that the conscious mind continues (we already knew that) and people experience things after death (we already knew that too). Anything other than that are fanciful thoughts and images that have no place in biblical mind and a Jesus-loving heart.

Though ‘Christian’ movies that are made with Hollywood production values are rare these days, movies about the afterlife, the soul and angels are common. Interest in the topic of the afterlife among the unsaved (and unfortunately the saved) is what’s real.

In 2004 John Hagee Ministries put together a movie called “Escape From Hell.” In it, a psychiatrist who counsels people who have had near death experiences becomes consumed with learning whether there is an afterlife for real or not. He induces a medical death for himself and calls a friend to come revive him before it is too late. With that, he passes out and begins his tour. The doctrinal errors in this film are too numerous to mention, but a movie reviewer called CBC Pastor wrote this:

When we seek to add error to increase the scare effect, we deny the power of God’s Spirit to work through truth… Movies that stretch the truth to this level only hurt evangelism through those that will laugh themselves right out of our churches and ignore the truth of genuine warning.

That is exactly what these heaven tourism books and movies do. They deny the power of the Spirit to work through truth, and isn’t that how the Spirit promised to work? Through truth? Not through lies.

Here are some credible reviews and essays on heaven tourism. I’ll tell you ahead of time, they are all negative. I am purposely listing these in order to help you or to help you help a family member or friend who insists that these visions and trips to heaven are real. Heaven IS for real. I know this because Jesus told me so, not a little boy, or a disgraced doctor or a well-intentioned pastor or any man in the flesh. As Pastor Tim Challies succinctly said of Heaven is for Real,

“The point of it all is to encourage you that heaven is a real place. Colton went there and his experience now validates its existence“.

Ridiculous in the extreme, isn’t it?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good News: Baptist Press reports LifeWay pulls all heaven tourism books

Posted on March 24, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Quote from Phil Johnson [Exec. Director of: gty.org & works with John MacArthur]:

“Only four authors in all the bible were blessed with visions of heaven and wrote about what they saw: the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the apostles Paul and John. Two other biblical figures—Micaiah and Stephen—got glimpses of heaven, but what they saw is merely mentioned, not described (2 Chronicles 18:18; Acts 7:55).

As pastor John MacArthur points out, all of these were prophetic visions, not near-death experiences. Not one person raised from the dead in the old & new testaments ever recorded for us what he or she experienced in heaven. That includes Lazarus, who spent four days in the grave. Paul was caught up into heaven in an experience so vivid he said he didn’t know whether he went there bodily or not, but he saw things that are unlawful to utter, so he gave no details. He covered the whole incident in just three verses (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).

All three biblical writers who saw heaven and described their visions give comparatively sparse details, but they agree perfectly (Isaiah 6:1-4; Ezekiel 1 and 10; Revelation 4-6). They don’t agree with the Burpo-Malarkey vision of heaven. Both their intonation and the details they highlight are markedly different. The biblical authors are all fixated on God’s glory, which defines and illuminates everything there. They are overwhelmed, chagrined, petrified, and put to silence by the sheer majesty of God’s holiness. Notably missing from all the biblical accounts are the frivolous features and juvenile attractions that seem to dominate every account of heaven currently on the bestseller lists.”

Thankfully and gratefully and finally, Baptist Press reports today,

LifeWay pulls ‘heaven visitation resources’

LifeWay Christian Resources has stopped selling all “experiential testimonies about heaven” following consideration of a 2014 Southern Baptist Convention resolution on “the sufficiency of Scripture regarding the afterlife.”

…

Though LifeWay “was not mentioned in the SBC resolution affirming the sufficiency of biblical revelation and affirming the truth about heaven and hell,” King told BP in an interview, “the resolution was approved overwhelmingly and was considered during our process.”

The resolution, adopted by messengers to the SBC annual meeting in June, warned Christians not to allow “the numerous books and movies purporting to explain or describe the afterlife experience” to “become their source and basis for an understanding of the afterlife.”

The resolution did not list specific book or movie titles, but it seemed to describe works like “90 Minutes in Heaven,” “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” by Kevin and Alex Malarkey and “Heaven Is for Real” by Todd Burpo along with its companion movie released last year by Sony Pictures.

The resolution affirmed “the sufficiency of biblical revelation over subjective experiential explanations to guide one’s understanding of the truth about heaven and hell.”

…

In January, LifeWay announced it would stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” after coauthor Alex Malarkey admitted that he lied about having a vision of heaven as a 6-year-old. See related BP story. At the time, King said LifeWay was “committed to becoming even more proactive in the next few months in evaluating the resources we carry.”

end excerpts

Now if we can just get them to pull Beth Moore…

——————————–

Have you been to heaven lately? Also, ‘Heaven is for Real’ Dad Says Critics are ‘Pharisees’

Posted on May 3, 2014 by elizabethprata

Many people seem to be having a trip to heaven and a personal tour of the place, even meeting John the Baptist, “he’s nice” and meeting up with relatives and chatting with angels. A few of the prophets and apostles in the bible saw heaven. Let’s compare their reactions to the experiences the modern day heaven tourists are having.

Colton Burpo says he went to heaven in his book Heaven Is For Real. Colton was three at the time of a medical emergency in which he did not die, but while on the operating table, he went to heaven anyway. He told his story to his pastor-father over the course of several years, and Heaven is For Real was born. Asked about Jesus, Colton described ‘him”. Jesus has markers. [marks on feet and hands]. And brown hair and hair on his face. I was sitting on Jesus’ lap. I got to pet His rainbow horse. I was scared so Jesus had the angels sing to me.”

Now let’s look at Apostle John’s trip to heaven.

“Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” (Revelation 1:12-17)

Strong’s Greek, 3498 dead; literally, “what lacks life”; dead; (figuratively) not able to respond to impulses, or perform functions. So when John saw Jesus he fell as if dead, meaning unconscious and unable to perform functions. But Colton tottled around petting rainbow horses.

Kim Walker Smith of the band Jesus Culture says she saw Jesus in a vision, and had many other visions too.

“Anyways, (pause) so, irresistible, I go to Jesus, I fall in His arms. And as I’m laying in His arms, I’m still feeling kind of afraid to really even look at Him. All the sudden this thought comes into my mind, and I know this is not my thought. I would never, ever, ever in a million, trillion years think this; and I think, “I need to ask Him two questions.” I need to ask Him, “How much do You love me; and what were You thinking when You created me?” And as this thought comes into my mind, I’m thinking, “No way! I am not asking those questions.”

Oh but she did. She was kind of afraid but quickly overcame her fear to ask the LORD OF THE UNIVERSE about herself.

Isaiah was afraid too. Let’s see his reaction to being with God.

“And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:4-5)

John fell down. Isaiah fell down. Colton sat in the throne. Kim sat in the throne.

“When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, and it called, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face.” (Daniel 8:15-17)

Daniel fell down.

Let’s see how Jesse Duplantis’ heaven tour went.

In his hotel room on August 1988 Duplantis “felt a suction as if I was being pulled up out of the room” … zooming along at a phenomenal rate of speed, being carried in something like a cable car. It was a chariot without a horse.” A blond-headed angel is with him in the cable car. Duplantis asks, “Where are we going?” He smiled and said, “You have an appointment with the Lord God Jehovah”… (His name is YHWH, a real angel would know better and call God by His real name, says Justin Peters).

Duplantis continues, “Jesus was taller than I thought He would be. I would guess Him to be from five feet eleven inches to six feet one inch. I thought at first His hair was white; but when He turned His head, I caught a glance and saw that it was light brown. When He looked at me, the glory of God was emanating from Him. I said, “Jesus!” He said simply, “Do you like this place?” I said, “Yes, Sir”.

Do you like this place? Oh my.

In the recounting of the vision Duplantis says he had, he did fall down at the feet of Jesus, but not as though dead. He noticed the holes in His feet and when he stood up, he noticed Jesus’ height. That’s a lot of noticing, when all the other men, including even Peter in the boat with Jesus, shrank back or fell down. Some simply fainted.

In addition, “Jesus” told Duplantis that he’d learn a lot there, yet scripture alone is the place where we receive our teaching. God said the canon is closed and not to add to the word of the bible. (Revelation 22:18). Finally, “Jesus” told Duplantis that he was supposed to tell the world that He is coming.

I said, “They know that.”
“No, they don’t know that. I brought you here so that you would go tell them I’m coming. Do you hear Me? I’m coming. Go tell them.”

So we have a new ‘go and tell’ given directly to Jesse Duplantis by Jesus. Because nobody knows Jesus is coming. Oh, my.

Though Jesse Duplantis was taught new things, and then told to go and tell, Paul said it is unlawful to tell.

“and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.” (2 Corinthians 12:4).

If a contradiction exists between a man’s experience and the bible’s truth, which will you believe?

In one more comparison, here’s Ezekiel’s experience, and then Don Piper’s.

“In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. … Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” (Ezekiel 1:1, 28)

Don Piper: “As the crowd rushed toward me, I didn’t see Jesus, but I did see the people I had known. As they surged toward me, I knew instantly that all of them had died during my lifetime. Their presence seemed absolutely natural. They rushed toward me, and every person was smiling, shouting, and praising God. … Although no one said so, intuitively I knew they were my celestial welcoming committee. It was as if they had all gathered just outside heaven’s gate, waiting for me. … “More and more people reached for me and called me by name. I felt overwhelmed by the number of people who had come to welcome me to heaven. There were so many of them, and I had never imagined anyone being as happy as they all were…. I spotted two teachers who had loved me and often talked to me about Jesus Christ. … Everyone continually embraced me, touched me, spoke to me, laughed and praised God.” pp 22 & 24

me me me me me me me me me me me me me = # times we read me or my in those few sentences. Ezekiel spoke of the glory of the Lord.

“But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8)

Quite a different use of the word me there, with Peter pleading for Jesus to remove Himself from sinful ‘me’.

On the Mount of Transfiguration, when Peter saw Jesus in His glory, his first impulse was to build a tent of worship. He said as much to Jesus, then,

“He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.” (Matthew 17:5-6)

The disciples were terrified in the presence of the LORD. Yet Kim Smith lounged in Jesus’ lap and asked Him of ‘me’.

Here are several short blog essays to help you discern that trips to heaven are not real. They ones by John MacArthur are aptly titled. Several in the list are by Tim Challies & another is by Justin Peters.

Sermon by Justin Peters: Spiritual Shipwreck of the Word-Faith Movement

Response to Heaven is For Real, 4 part essays

1. Blog by John MacArthur: Heaven Is Real; Hallucinations Are Not

2. Blog by John MacArthur: Dead Men Tell No Tales

3. Blog by John MacArthur: When Preschoolers Speak Ex Cathedra

4. Blog by John MacArthur: The Idolatry of Experience

Tim Challies Book Review: Heaven is For Real

Tim Challies: I Went to Heaven Books

Tim Challies: What The Bible Says About the Heaven Books

“The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven…not quite” Beth Malarkey’s Poignant Testimony about her son’s NON-trip to heaven, how it is just a lie exploited by others (“The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven”)

‘Heaven is for Real’ Dad Says Critics are ‘Pharisees’

90 minutes in heaven, burpo, discernment, heaven is for real, heaven tourism, visions

"Heaven is for Real" is Unreal. What near death experiences tell us, and what they don’t tell us

Posted on April 17, 2014 by elizabethprata

In 2010 a book was released called “Heaven is for Real“. A wikipedia page describes the plot thus:
“The book documents the report of a near-death experience by Burpo’s then-four-year-old son, Colton. The book tells how the boy began saying he had visited heaven.”

And at the end of the page it says, “See Also”:
23 Minutes in Hell
90 Minutes in Heaven
The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven
Proof of Heaven

The book was immediately optioned to be made into a movie, which is being released this month, April 2014.

Heaven Is for Real
“A small-town father must find the courage and conviction to share his son’s extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world.”

I used the word ‘immediately’ because the book was a runaway bestseller. It spent eight weeks at No. 1 in 2011. It’s been on the NY Times bestseller list for a total of 138 weeks.

But I understand. I understand the attraction to wanting to see peeks of the other side. As Christians, we resist such thoughts and desires, because they aren’t profitable. When I was an unsaved person, though, I was intrigued by near-death experiences (NDEs).

Besides near-death experiences, there are now post-death experiences. Science and medicine has advanced to the point currently where doctors can put a person to death for a long period of time in order to operate or repair a body, and then bring them back to life in controlled circumstances.

I wasn’t saved until I was 43 years old. That is a lot of years as a teen and an adult to ponder the mysteries of the other side. And ponder I did. There is a certain logic to Christianity that the unsaved mind suppresses. (Romans 1:18). Intuitively it seemed that evolution would not have gone to all the trouble to evolve us bodily AND in addition, give us a mind, a conscience, and self-awareness. I wondered, what was the point of living 40, 50, 70 years and then…poof, nada? Obliteration? It didn’t seem likely.

Third, I always wondered why so many people reported having a near death experience, and why those experiences seemed so similar.

It was more than reasonable that religion was real, the other side was real, that heaven was real.

Then I became a Christian by God’s grace and the drawing of the Holy Spirit, (Ephesians 2:8, John 6:44). I learned through the bible that heaven IS real. I read what it looks like. I read who will go there. I read about worship there. All about heaven, it’s in the bible. How great and glorious God is to provide us this glimpse.

But four year old Colton Burpo was. He and his dad wrote “Heaven is for Real.” In Colton’s version, people had bodies. In the bible version, people haven’t been given their glorified body yet. That won’t happen until the rapture. And we’re supposed to believe the boy?

Dr Eben Alexander was given a tour. He wrote “Proof of Heaven.” Dr Alexander, a former surgeon, has been fired from multiple hospitals, is the subject of several malpractice suits, and is charged by doctors with lying in his book about the events leading up to his NDE, and others found discrepancies in his book on other matters. He is a Christ-rejecting pagan who believes in reincarnation. And HE was given a tour of heaven?

What near death experiences don’t tell us is, what heaven is like, because NONE of the people who claim to have gone there, really went there. The details of their trip contradict not only the bible, but they contradict each other. Any detail, glimpse, peek, or curiosity you have about heaven will not be satisfied in these books or movies. Though they may indeed have had some sort of experience, the details related to heaven are all untrue imaginings.

What NDEs do tell us is what we already know from the bible: the conscious mind continues.

There is no doubt that in some of the NDEs, spiritual forces are at play. However, the fact of having a near death experience does not by default make the experience true. Here is the Stand to Reason blog explaining this very concept in their discussion of “Heaven is For Real“.

Yes, it’s hard to tell. And why would we even want to pursue such rabbit trails that lead only to the Valley of Humiliation and the Cliffs of Insanity? (apologies to John Bunyan and William Goldman)

As far as the movie Heaven is For Real goes, avoid it. Though ‘Christian’ movies that are made with Hollywood production values are rare these days, movies about the afterlife, the soul and angels are common. Interest in the topic of the afterlife among the unsaved (and unfortunately the saved) is what’s real. Look at this small list I gathered in just a short time:

Heaven Can Wait/remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan, Warren Beatty,
A Los Angeles Rams quarterback, accidentally taken away from his body by an over-anxious angel before he was supposed to die, comes back to life in the body of a recently-murdered millionaire. (God messes up, that wacky deity! Hijinks from heaven ensue)

All of Me, Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin
A dying millionaire has her soul transferred into a younger, willing woman. But something goes wrong, and she finds herself in her lawyer’s body – together with the lawyer. (This movie presents God as a mess-up and violates John 10:12).

What Dreams May Come, Robin Williams
After dying in a car crash a man searches the afterlife for his wife. Chris Robin Williams) dies and awakens in Heaven, and learns that his immediate surroundings can be controlled by his imagination. He meets a man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) he recognizes as Albert, his friend and mentor from his medical residency, and the presence from his time as a “ghost” on Earth. Albert will guide and help in this new afterlife. Albert teaches Chris about his existence in Heaven, and how to shape his little corner, and to travel to others’ “dreams”. Meanwhile, Annie is unable to cope with the loss of her husband and decides to commit suicide. Chris, who is initially relieved that her suffering is done, grows angry when he learns that those who commit suicide go to Hell; this is not the result of a judgment made against them, but rather their own tendency to create “nightmare” afterlife worlds based on their pain. Chris is adamant that he will rescue Annie from Hell, despite Albert’s insistence that no one has ever succeeded in doing so. Albert agrees to find Chris a “tracker” to help search for Annie’s soul. (This movie teaches we are little gods and we create heaven and hell ourselves AND that we can re-write the rules of heaven. Additionally there is no marriage in heaven and our focus will be on Jesus, not our earthly wife).

Defending Your Life, Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep
In an afterlife resembling the present-day US, people must prove their worth by showing in court how they have demonstrated courage. (A works related salvation, and one which defendants argue with God, no less. Presenting God as less than the Holy and Righteous Judge).

Wings of Desire, Peter Falk
An angel tires of overseeing human activity and wishes to become human when he falls in love with a mortal. (Presented as a romantic, sensitive story, this one is right out of Genesis 6 with the unholy angels mating with women.)

It’s A Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed. (A person given visions of the future like John of Patmos was??)

Michael, John Travolta, Andie MacDowell
Frank Quinlan and Huey Driscoll, two reporters from a Chicago-based tabloid, along with Dorothy Winters, an ‘angel expert’, are asked to travel to rural Iowa to investigate a claim from an old woman that she shares her house with a real, live archangel named Michael. Upon arrival, they see that her claims are true – but Michael is not what they expected: he smokes, drinks beer, has a very active libido and has a rather colourful vocabulary. In fact, they would never believe it were it not for the two feathery wings protruding from his back. (This is obviously an unholy angel, presented as holy. What a blot on the name of Jesus and His heaven!)

“The point of it all is to encourage you that heaven is a real place. Colton went there and his experience now validates its existence“.

Ridiculous in the extreme, isn’t it?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Follow up to some previously published stories

Posted on March 18, 2012March 26, 2022 by elizabethprata

FOLLOW UP

Let’s check in on some older stories. I can’t believe it has been 4 years since the Norway Seed Vault opened. I remember it vividly because of the event that happened a few days before opening ceremony. I’d done some research on the location, Svalbard, a rocky outcrop far north of Norway. It is a small island, and the furthest place north that is inhabited in the whole world. They specifically chose that place because of the lack of seismicity in that area. So of course a few days before all the dignitaries flew in for the opening, there was a huge earthquake, lol. It was the largest that Norway ever experienced and the largest ever for that area.

Norway’s biggest quake hits Svalbard archipelago
“An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude — the biggest in Norwegian history — jolted the thinly populated Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic on Wednesday night, the Norsar seismic research institute said on Thursday. No one was hurt by the quake and no damage has been reported in the islands, about 600 miles from the North Pole, reports said. “This is the biggest earthquake on Norwegian territory in history,” the institute said in a statement, adding that the quake occurred at sea, about 6 miles below the surface. … Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other leaders will be in Svalbard next week for the official opening of a seed vault which will store frozen crop seeds from around the world in case crops are wiped out by a future disaster.”

I got such a charge out of that. God showing who is boss of the earth, couldn’t have been clearer to the people who had the hubris to build their own ark. Here is a follow-up article on the seed vault that I thought was pretty interesting. I liked the photos and the artistic renderings in the article. Apparently they have been putting seeds in there all along and it is getting full.

SEED VAULT

After 4 Years, Checking Up on The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
“The other surprise is that we’ve had no bad surprises. When you plan something this complicated you figure something is going to go wrong. During these past four years we’ve had seeds come from all over the world and it’s been a gigantic coordination process to try to get seed boxes from all of these locations, a lot of which are in developing countries—Africa, Asia and Latin America—and to try to get them up to Oslo and then up to Svalbard on roughly the same day, so you don’t have them sitting out on some tarmac in the hot sun. It’s also surprising that we haven’t lost a single box of seeds in transit. It’s a miracle.”

Discernment lesson: books where people are given tours of heaven and hell

Posted on August 23, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

There have been a spate of books lately in which the author shares his or her trip to heaven or hell, as the case may be. The three I’d like to address are the following:

Heaven is for Real, published 2010

23 minutes in Hell, in 2006

90 minutes in Heaven, 2004

The most recent is Todd Burpo’s Heaven is for Real, which was a surprise, phenomenal bestseller. The following article is from NY Times this past March:

“Colton’s father, Todd, has turned the boy’s experience into a 163-page book, “Heaven Is for Real,” which has become a sleeper paperback hit of the winter, dominating best-seller lists and selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Thomas Nelson, the book’s publisher, said it had broken company sales records. The publisher, based in Nashville, began with an initial print run of 40,000 copies. Since the book came out in November, it has gone back to press 22 times, with more than 1.5 million copies in print. On the New York Times best-seller list for paperback nonfiction last Sunday, “Heaven Is for Real” was No. 1. The book remains in the top spot this coming Sunday.”

Why is this, one wonders? The answer, for this company at least is answered later in the NY Times article:

“We all are perhaps desperate to know what is on the other side of the veil after we die,” Vice-President of the Publishing Company) Mr. Baugher said, adding that his initial skepticism about the Burpo family’s story was short-lived.”

We all wonder about the other side. We are intensely curious, I think we all need to be honest about that. When a book comes out that purports to have special information, insider stuff, a sneak peek, people flock to it … as evidenced by the statistics shared by the Nelson Publishing company about the Burpo book.

Don Piper experienced a terrible accident and it was while he was trapped in the car that he said he visited heaven. Although the title says ’90 minutes in heaven’ he never actually visited heaven. He was only ever standing on the outside of the pearly gates. He never entered. Todd Burpo is the father of the boy who said he visited heaven. Colton was just turned four years old when his appendix burst and he lay on the operating table, unconscious and under anesthetic. As Colton recovered from his medical ordeal, over a period of months, he revealed tiny details of his trip to heaven and after 6 or 7 years, his pastor father wrote the book.

BIll Wiese was just sleeping and was inexplicably transported to hell by Jesus. Jesus gave Wiese a tour of the place and sent him back topside 23 minutes later with a message that “I am coming very, very soon.”

I don’t want to diminish anyone’s terrible medical tragedy or be insensitive if anyone has mental problems, demonic dreams, or just plain seeks attention in this bizarre manner. There is no doubt that for Piper and Wiese that whatever they experienced changed their lives. They are constantly sharing their testimony, witnessing, and evangelizing. But was what they experienced from God? Or not? And how should we as Christian readers respond?

My opinion is that what they experienced was not from God. I personally do not believe that Jesus is in the business of giving personal tours of heaven or hell. We do know that Ezekiel, Isaiah, Paul and John saw the heavenly things. But once the bible was completed, I believe that is all that Jesus has to say on the subjects. We read in the bible that we die once and then the judgment. (Hebrews 9:27). I could go point-by-point on the things in these books that are unscriptural, but I want to be more general than that. The title, for example, “Heaven is for Real.” Do we really need a book dictated by a four year old to tell us that heaven is real? The title 90 minutes in Heaven, for example, is disingenuous. He did not enter heaven. The bible says that when we are absent with the body, we are present with the Lord. (2 Cor 5:8). The bible does not say “absent from the body you will hang around the entrance to heaven for 90 minutes only to be turned back without seeing Jesus.”

I am a bible believer. I am a big fan of the bible, besides. It is the revealed word of God, generously given to us from on high, by His grace and intellect. He crafted that Word over 1500 years and the writers went through great pains to put to paper the Spirit-inspired words for future generations to be blessed by. And at that, it may be opened occasionally at a church, IF the pastor actually preaches from a bible and encourages his flock to bring one and open it during the sermon. More usually, the book gets tossed in the back of the car, to become sun-faded and ignored.

But when a four year old awakens from a drug-induced operation, and drops details of his visit to heaven, over a period of months, that his father fills in the details of, people buy the book by the millions. SAD!

The bible tells us all we need to know about heaven, AND hell. The bible. It should be all we need to have hope in the future promise of heaven. His Word is impeccable, solid, and sure. Christian Book reviewer Tim Challies has a good review of these books here. He also addresses the underlying reluctance and guilt we have to reject such books: saying, ‘who are we to dismiss another’s experience?’

Challies said: “If you struggle believing what the Bible says, but learn to find security in the testimony of a toddler, well, I feel sorry for you. And I do not mean this in a condescending way. If God’s Word is not sufficient for you, if the testimony of his Spirit, given to believers, is not enough for you, you will not find any true hope in the unproven tales of a child. This hope may last for a moment, but it will not sustain you, it will not bless you, in those times when hope is waning and times are hard. So reject this book. Do not read it. Do not believe it. And do not feel guilty doing so.”

This reviewer endured a traumatic medical trauma as well but questions the legitimacy of those who have such experiences while under the influence of medications. She wrote in part, “I wasn’t planning to read the book, because I’m skeptical about it, but maybe I should … and maybe I’ll be won over like you were. The reason I should read it is because people are asking whether my experience of almost dying matches any of it. After receiving severe injuries in an accident, I spent about 48 hours hovering between life and death. I have some foggy memories that I could wrap in Heaven language, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so. My body was in a traumatic situation and I was heavily medicated … so why would I trust anything I thought/saw/experienced at that time? While I realize the book brings comfort to the family (and many others) my biggest doubts are with the certainty placed in a 4-year old, especially while in a traumatic situation. (plus, when else do we base major beliefs on what a 4-year old says?) Also all the experiences I’ve heard he had confirmed what the family already believed. What if he had ‘come back’ with new information that would have challenged what they believe or cost them something, such as: if he had said Jesus really does want them to sell everything and give all to the poor?”

What we should feel guilty about is not rejecting another’s extra-biblical revelation of heaven or hell, but of rejecting God’s word in favor of man-made experiences. This is all too common of a problem today, substituting a personal experience for God’s Word. We cannot make a theology out of what we experience. We are sinners and therefore flawed. We see through a glass darkly. But God sees all things perfectly, and He has told us how heaven is and what hell is like.

Pastor Reid Ferguson wrote about Burpo’s book, “So, if you have read the book, and have found your “faith” bolstered by it or your soul encouraged by it, my question to you is – Why? Why not the Bible? Why this story – and not the authoritative one? What does this say about your own attitude toward Scripture? What does it say about your understanding of Scripture? What does it say about your approach to truth – and how it is found, discerned and processed? Why does this strike a chord with you God’s own Word to you does not?”

Good questions. If you would like to read some secular books that are biblically based that illustrate heaven, I recommend Heaven by Randy Alcorn, and also Alcorn’s “We Shall See God: Charles Spurgeon’s Classic Devotional Thoughts on Heaven” which is a compilation of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons on heaven, lightly edited and with an introduction to each sermon by Alcorn.

Be discerning, people, and READ THE BIBLE!
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