visions

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?!

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

Rick Joyner – "Encountering Heaven"… Or not.

Posted on September 13, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

On September 7, 2014, in his Prophetic Ministry 101 speech, Rick Joyner shared about when he had a bad case of food poisoning (or flu) and …

…was caught up in to heaven for eight hours. … I say prophetic, but I don’t know if it was just prophetic experience or if I was really there, but it seemed real. I saw things that I believe really are part of the heavenly realm. But this one was many times better than I’d ever experienced before. At the end of the whole dream – and this was an 8-hour, earth-time dream – I know because it started at midnight. I laid down at midnight, went right to sleep, went right into this dream, woke up several times during the night astonished, just trying to understand everything I’d just seen and heard. I’d then I’d fall back to sleep and go right back into the same place. Over and over. … I’d had that experience one time before, just one time, where I woke up, went back the same place in the dream, but this time it happened over and over. It was just awesome.

At the end of the dream, I ended up on Main Street down here. [pointing]. Our Main Street. And I’m standing there, I’m in heaven and I’m on Main Street, and the Lord said ‘You’ve got to bring this here.’ We’re going to have heaven on earth. Right here!

Joyner goes into ‘explaining’ that Jacob’s ladder dream meant that the angels ascending and descending means that the angels are “bringing back to the earth evidence of heaven’s reality.”

In the video synopsis, we read, “In this week’s Featured Video, Rick Joyner shares about a recent experience in heaven.”

The phrasing, ‘recent visit’ made me think of the frequent hotel points you can rack up for a free gift if you travel to a place enough times. “Purchase 9 drinks, get the 10th free!” Like, on this ‘recent trip’, Joyner could redeem his points for either a ride on Jesus’ rainbow horse Colton Burpo said Jesus owns, or enjoy a light lunch with John the Baptist.

A few things, in seriousness.

1. Joyner’s “recent trip to heaven”. How sacrilegious, impious, and irreverent to even describe the gift of seeing the heavenly realms in such a flippant way. Of course Mr Joyner did not go to heaven, but he thought he did, and to describe it in such a way demeans the realm our King Jesus presides over. Paul was too humble to even speak of his trip for 14 years, only did so when pressed, and then it was in the third person. Paul would never flippantly say something like, “Oh yah, this time I went up there I saw…”

2. The false visionaries like Mr Joyner try to legitimize their false experience by using biblical language to describe what happened. When Joyner says “What I saw and heard” is reminiscent of the bible’s command from God to “Write what you see and hear” as in Revelation 1:19, Deuteronomy 27:8, Jeremiah 36:2. Of course Joyner’s description of whether it was a prophetic experience or whether he was really there is reminiscent of Paul’s description (which he was too awed to even ascribe to himself in the first person) of 2 Corinthians 12:3. That is one way the false prophets attempt to make their false teaching sound biblical, by using biblical language. But you can think it through, and you remember that Paul was too awed to even tell it, but Joyner is eager not only to tell it right away but to piggyback his ‘awesome’ heaven trip with his explosive flu. Also if you think it through, knowing that if Jesus is bringing people up to heaven and giving a command, then it is new revelation and equal in authority to what is already written.

So when you tell this to someone and they say “But they use the bible!” you can say of course they do. Satan did even with Jesus when satan tempted Him. If they didn’t use the bible, it’s easier to see they’re false. So….they use the bible and biblical language. Like when Beth Moore said she saw Jesus in the heavenly realms and He purportedly said to her, “And boy you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it.” Who talks like that? No one, except the Old Testament prophets, so the false ones inflate their puffed up visions with puffed up language.

3. Obsessing over irrelevant details as if to legitimize it. Example: “It was an 8-hour dream.” As if that matters. How long was the Jacob’s Ladder dream? How long was Paul’s dream in the third heaven? How long was John’s vision on Patmos? How long was Daniel’s dream? John simply said “After this…” and began recording the next vision.

Jacob awoke from his ladder dream, “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17).

Jacob praised God and built and altar, he didn’t spend time repeating how long the dream was, as if these details have the power to cement false visions into reality.

3a. Another detail this false diviner Joyner obsessed over was the ‘wonder’ of waking up so many times and then falling back into the vision and being ‘right back there’. If God is going to lift you into the third heaven, as He really did to Paul, are you really going to marvel at the lesser minutiae of His ability to wake you and then drowse you and bring you back up? More to the point, don’t you think God has the power to keep you in the sleeping vision state until He has finished showing you what He wants to show you? I bet Joyner woke up ‘over and over’ because he had to pee.

4. Joyner said it felt real. Just because it feels real, it isn’t. Satan performs lying signs and wonders, it is not hard for an angel to appear to a person in a dream. In Matthew 2:13 an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to flee with baby Jesus and Mary to Egypt. The unholy angels have lost none of their power, including entering your dreams like that holy angel did with Joseph, they just use it for evil. The unholy ones have the power to enter your dreams – obviously, because Joyner had a false one. I mean, it is up to Rick Joyner to bring heaven to earth? Or earth to heaven? And it was not clear in the speech which he meant.

Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:32)

Why teach through the filter of a dream that was filtered through a sinful brain and out a sinful tongue, when one can simply teach from the unadulterated word of God? That is what Peter meant when he said we have a more sure word (2 Peter 1:19). Peter was ranking Scripture over experience.

It should be obvious that Rick Joyner is a false teacher, a false prophet, and a wolf. These descriptions of encounters with Jesus, via visions, and dreams, like Kim Walker Smith music born from fresh encounters with Jesus in heaven, and audible devotions and romantic “Presences” a la Sarah Young, and mind-pictures and visitations and visions like Beth Moore’s, and books and books and books written about people’s ‘recent trip to heaven’ (or hell)… it is a scourge! A plague of falsity. False visions are so commonplace nowadays that it is not enough to have only one, you must have many and join the frequent heaven flier club.

The people claiming these divine experiences make a fatal mistake: they forgot that satan’s ministers masquerade as righteous angels (2 Corinthians 11:15) and that the white light, or the friendly voice, or the romantic warmth is easily counterfeited by powerful angels out to lie, kill and destroy.

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. (Colossians 2:18-19).

Did you catch that? People going on about their false visions are puffed up and are not even Christians (not attached to the Head).

If you have NOT encountered heaven in some kind of ecstatic vision or dream, be grateful.

If you HAVE encountered someone who says they have gone to heaven, be wary.

If you have been saved by the grace of our resurrected Jesus, be ready!

Religious deception in the church is a marker of His soon return. (Matthew 24:3–5, 11, 24; Mark 13:5–6; Luke 21:7–8).

We will all see His heaven soon enough, together. And that is good enough for me.

asceticism, essenes, gnosticism, hermits, mysticism, visions

Swiss town’s resident hermit resigns. Problem? Too many people stopping by

Posted on June 19, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

And now for something completely different. This is not, I repeat, NOT, an article from The Onion.

In Switzerland, City Seeks a Hermit Who Also Likes People

Switzerland’s “Katholisches Kirchenblatt,” a Catholic weekly, recently carried an unusual job ad: “Are you an idealistic, religious person who enjoys meeting people?” The ad was placed by the small Alpine city of Solothurn. But Solothurn isn’t looking for a new social worker or priest. It is searching for a hermit.

The town’s hermitage, built into the rock face of a striking gorge, has been empty since March, when its resident hermit, and the first woman to hold the post since 1442, resigned after five years.

Her complaint: People. The constant stream of tourists to the hermitage and neighboring chapel was just too much to handle, according to the city. This time around, Solothurn has updated the job description. “Along with acting as caretaker and sacristan, responsibilities include interaction with the many visitors,” the ad warns potential applicants.

“There’s a bit of a discrepancy between the job title of hermit and the fact he or she has to deal with throngs of visitors,” says Sergio Wyniger, the head of Solothurn’s city council. So far, the city has received 119 applications and expects to make a decision by next week.

The Hermitage of St. Verena, near the small Swiss city of Solothurn,
is searching for a new hermit.

Some thoughts:
–The Catholics still have actual hermits??
–since 1442??
–The Catholics turned a lifestyle into a job description?
–‘Hermit wanted: must like people’. Hmmm, HERMIT…

All kidding aside, and believe me, I’m restraining myself right now, in the false religion of Catholicism, hermits actually have a long history. That history not only exists through to today, but is increasing in popularity. Even as recently as last year, Catholics were putting out the call for hermits. In the Swiss town mentioned above, 120 people applied for the job of “hermit”.

Modern-Day Hermits: Answering the Call to Solitude, Prayer

While we might think of hermits as relics of the Church’s medieval past, today there are many who devote their lives entirely to solitary prayer.

There are Catholic hermits in the US. There are male and female hermits. There are even hermits who are not affiliated with a religious order. Hermits are consecrated by taking certain vows and following certain rules.

In the article above, a US hermit named Maria, who raised her kids and now wants to answer the call to hermit life, explains the rise in recent Catholic hermitism.

“Maria, who lives on the Gulf Coast, thinks the increase in hermits may also be a sign of the times. “The call was answered in the early Church when there was heresy and persecution,” she said. “The world had become so wicked; people could not exist in it anymore.” “

That is the point, the world IS wicked. Christ came to provide the Light of the way to heaven, and imputed His righteousness to Christians, who by the power of the indwelling Spirit by His grace and love for people, we transcend the mundanity and wickedness of the world and point the way to Christ.

In living the life of a hermit, Brother Martin said he imitates Christ. “In the hermitic life one retreats from the world, much like Christ did when he went off for 40 days in the desert to pray or when he went to lonely places to pray,” he said.

Catholics see no discrepancy between the life of a hermit and the mandate to evangelize. Brother Martin mentioned above explains that a hermit’s call is to evangelize the souls of others in the form of intercessory prayer in private and in solitude-

Although Maria is discerning whether she has a call to the hermitic life, she, like Brother Martin, sticks to a strict schedule called an horarium. Some of her daily activities include prayer, daily Mass, lectio divina, meditations, study, physical exercise, household chores, and gardening. “It’s a very intensely busy life,” she said. “But it is all centered in silence and solitude, so you grow to the point where you can hear and discern God’s word.”

Catholic solitary ascetic life-styles are not just expressed in hermit-living. Anchorites and anchoresses were common in medieval times. Wikipedia explains the anchorite’s lifestyle:

Wikimedia commons

Anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress) “one who has retired from the world”, from the verb anachōreō, signifying “to withdraw”, “to retire”) denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life. Whilst anchorites are frequently considered to be a type of religious hermit, unlike hermits they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting instead for permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches. Also unlike hermits, anchorites were subject to a religious rite of consecration that closely resembled the funeral rite, following which – ideologically, at least, they would be considered dead to the world, a type of living saint.

Of course, most of us are familiar with the notion of Catholic cloistered monks and nuns. In fact, the Catholic Church has codified the different forms of ‘Christian’ living, or as they call it, ‘The Consecrated life.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states

From the very beginning of the Church there were men and women who set out to follow Christ with greater liberty, and to imitate him more closely, by practising the evangelical counsels. They led lives dedicated to God, each in his own way. Many of them, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, became hermits or founded religious families. These the Church, by virtue of her authority, gladly accepted and approved. [emphasis mine]

Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts. To do righteousness and justice Is desired by the LORD more than sacrifice... (Proverbs 21:2-3)

Some of the different consecrated lifestyles approved by the Catholic church are, consecrated virgins, consecrated widows, hermits, anchorites, or new forms of consecrated life not yet invented. The United States Lutheran church recognizes the hermit lifestyle, but they call those who choose to separate from the world “solitaries”.

What does the bible say?
Of course the bible does not in any way endorse separating from the world. Jesus did not pray that the Father take us out of the world, not at all.

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:15). We may not leave the world until we die or are raptured. Until then, as Jesus prayed, for the sakes of those who would believe in Jesus, we remain so the world will believe God sent Jesus. (John 17:20-21)

Loner Sects have always existed, though.

Non-religions hermit Valerio Ricetti lived in a cave
in New South Wales, Australia.
The site is now on the State Heritage Register. Source

Essenes, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, were a faction group who believed the Pharisees and Sadducees had corrupted the Temple (the Essenes were not wrong on this point) and split apart from the other two Jewish groups to live a celibate, monastic life in the desert. (They were wrong on this point, though).

GotQuestions explains who the Essenes were, The Essenes were a Jewish mystical sect somewhat resembling the Pharisees. They lived lives of ritual purity and separation. They originated about 100 B.C., and disappeared from history after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The Essenes are not directly mentioned in Scripture, although some believe they may be referred to in Matthew 19:11, 12 and in Colossians 2:8, 18, and 23. Interest in the Essenes was renewed with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were likely recorded and stored by the Essenes.

GotQuestions continues with an explanation of why John The Baptist, though thought by some to be an Essene, wasn’t. The main reason is that John lived in the desert but was at the same time a very public figure, and had disciples and followers. Solitary living apart from the world is not in view here, since it is not what Jesus wants of us.

This is because we are to interact with the world while maintaining a Kingdom perspective. After all, the lost are in the world, and it is they to whom we are called as Christ’s Ambassadors to share the Good News. (Matthew 28:16-20). Living a private and solitary life denies the Christ who told us to go into the world among men. It also denies us the opportunity to edify one another, (1 Thessalonians 5:11), to bear one another’s burdens, (Galatians 6:2), to pray together, to break bread together. (Acts 1:14). Removing one’s self from the world into a cloistered (enclosed) or solitary life also denies the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us strong and resist temptation while we are faced with daily pressures. Resisting these temptations and living a life in His glory is an important way to show His glory to the lost world.

We are to be IN the world but not of the world. (John 17:14-15). The world is ruled by satan, and whether one is in the middle of Times Square in NYC or alone in a desert cave in Australia, one is still in the domain ruled by satan. Removing one’s self only tells the world that you are relying on your own self to live a life pleasing unto God. A hermetic life, a ‘consecrated’ life; or a cloistered life, is just all about you, and not about Jesus. Sin will still get you. Read this anecdote from a sermon of John MacArthur’s:

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

Oscar Wilde, once told a story. It wasn’t true, he just made it up but I [think] it illustrates the point. He said:

The devil was crossing the Libyan desert and on his way across he met a whole pile of his demons who were really working hard on an old hermit. Now this hermit was a saint. He had been, you know, set aside by the church and held had taken his vows and he was a very holy hermit. And so he‘s out there in the middle of the Libyan desert, you know.

He said, “No” to everything in the world and he had taken his cross and he had gone to the desert.

And so, these demons were out there really trying to get him to stumble … really trying to tempt this old hermit. And they were going at it full bore. And Satan came along.

And Wilde says this: “Steadfastly, the sainted man resisted their suggestions.” They weren’t successful, they couldn’t get him to fall into sin. “Finally, after watching their failure in disgust, the Devil whispered to the demons, ‘What you’re doing is too crude, permit me one moment.’ And then the devil whispered to the holy man, ‘Your brother has just been made the bishop of Alexandria.”‘

And Wilde says: “A scowl of malignant jealousy crossed his face. ‘That,’ said the Devil, ‘is the sort of thing I recommend.”‘

Get the point? They can’t get us in some places, they’ll get us someplace else

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

The Dangers of the ascetic, solitary life

Living alone or within a very small group is dangerous, as well. Mysticism runs heavily through the cloistered life, as we saw from the description above of the Oregonian hermits’ daily schedule. It included contemplative prayer accompanied by Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina (“Sacred Reading”) is a mystical, Gnostic practice whereupon the seeker seeks not to understand the revealed word, and not to ponder the attributes of the God who revealed it, but to experience it in a two-way conversation with God. It is an example of a spiritually sounding exercise that is devoid of the power of God. (2 Timothy 3:5).

Most of the world’s false religions, cults, and sects were started by one or two disaffected persons usually having had received a vision. The Essenes were disaffected Jewish mystics who retired to the desert alone. Famously, Muhammad was living alone in a cave when supposedly the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him and revealed the Quran.

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:16)

Founder of Mormonism Joseph Smith said that when he was younger he participated in religious folk magic. One night alone upon a hillside in prayer he received the first vision that led him to found the cult of the Latter Day Saints.

Wikipedia:

“According to the account Smith told in 1838, he went to the woods to pray about which church to join but fell into the grip of an evil power that nearly overcame him. At the last moment, he was rescued by two shining “personages” (implied to be Jesus and God the Father) who hovered above him. One of the beings told Smith not to join any existing churches because all taught incorrect doctrines.”

From the article I quoted above, we read the hermit Maria saying,

“In the ’70s, I became very ill, and on many occasions, the Blessed Mother actually came to me in various ways, and brought me comfort,” said Maria.

It is well-known that ascetic and mystical practices that focus on an ascetic interior life, including Lectio Divina and Contemplative Spirituality, actually provides a fertile breeding ground for visions and apparitions. In other words, if you want to gt a vision, live like a hermit according to man-made rules, and eschew solid biblical study for personal experiences, elevate yourself and your thoughts and your life above everyone else’s by showing the world how spiritual you are and go live in a hermitage or a cloister.

Or, if you want to please Jesus, live a life of unremarkable faith, persevering in His statutes, living in the world, resisting sin, and loving your neighbor. And that doesn’t mean the neighbor hermit in the next cave over.

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

"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?!

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

Discernment: are people’s visits to hell actually true?

Posted on February 17, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

So many people these days have had a trip to heaven or hell. Jesse Duplantis, Beth Moore, Colton Burpo, Don Piper, Rick Joyner, Kenneth Hagin, Rebecca Springer, Richard Eby, Dr. Mary C. Neal, Kim Walker Smith of Jesus Culture … the list of people taking a tour of heaven or having had a personal visit from Jesus in another dimension goes on and depressingly on. And hell is not to be left out, either, several people claim to have been personally escorted by Jesus in the underworld as well, such as Victoria Nehale, Mary K. Baker, Bill Wiese.

So what are we to make of all this?

Lies. All lies.

Let’s take a look at the visits to hell. I’ve written several times about the trips to heaven. The bible says that even though you may have had a personal experience, we have a more sure word. Peter wrote that, and he was referring to his own personal visit from Jesus at the Mountain, and having seen the heaven glory and Jesus transfigured. Even Peter says that the word is more sure than a personal experience!

“And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.” (2 Peter 1:19-20).

Peter is saying that the prophetic word, which is the word spoken by the prophets, is sure. Remember Jeremiah 23:16, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.”

Peter is not saying we should not interpret scripture, he is talking about the source of it. In 1 Peter 1:10, Peter wrote, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,”

In other words, the prophets heard the word from the LORD, and they carefully searched out what it meant. The false prophets did not have to search out what it meant because they made it up. Explaining it was just as easy- they made up the explanations. And the word was almost invariably happy, too. See what Jeremiah says,

“They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’” (Jeremiah 23:17).

Sound familiar? I know that it does.

Peter’s credentials were impeccable, being hand chosen by Jesus and endowed with miraculous powers to heal, raise from the dead, and preach! Every single person who came after Peter has credentials which are less stellar, so by default, if he says not to trust his experience, we trust the bible and not our own experience. Otherwise you’re saying, “I trust Jesus Culture’s Kim Walker Smith’s experience of seeing a Gumby Jesus, she seems to be more credible than Peter.”

Laughable, isn’t it? The word is sure!

Now about the people who travel to hell, what of them? Well, those visions and visits are false, too. How do I know? Look at Lazarus.

“The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” (Luke 16:22b-31)

If we are to believe the people who visited hell, then we are to disbelieve the holy word. First, because we would believe that Jesus changed His mind about sending people from hell to tell the story, and secondly that before, while we are told that people would not believe even a dead brother returned to life telling his family, but now they will believe an unknown person telling the world on Youtube.

Wiese says that he encountered Jesus in hell, who told him to tell other people that hell is real. This varies directly with the word. Do we have a more sure word, or do we not have a more sure word?

Some people are totally unbelievable and are obvious charlatans. Others, like Wiese, or Don Piper, for example, are likable and sincere. However, sincerity of their message does not make it true. Only the word is surely true, and if what someone says is against what the bible says, you must disregard the person’s message and not the bible.

However, isn’t that the point of what satan is doing, with all these Charismatic visions and visits? Even though Piper or Wiese’s message may be good, the source is demonic. Look at what Paul did when the fortune-telling slave girl followed him around.

“She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.” (Acts 16:17-18)

What was Paul’s problem? After all, she was saying something that was true. The problem is, her source was from satan, and a divided house cannot stand. Clarke’s Commentary says, “The Gentiles, finding that their own demon bore testimony to the apostles, would naturally consider that the whole was one system; that they had nothing to learn, nothing to correct; and thus the preaching of the apostles must be useless to them.”

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary explains, “Paul being grieved-for the poor victim; grieved to see such power possessed by the enemy of man’s salvation, and grieved to observe the malignant design with which this high testimony was borne to Christ.”

Isn’t the phrase ‘malignant design’ so very wonderful!

Matthew Henry says of the slave-girl, “Satan, though the father of lies, will declare the most important truths, when he can thereby serve his purposes. But much mischief is done to the real servants of Christ, by unholy and false preachers of the gospel, who are confounded with them by careless observers.”

So even though the message at one point or another from one false prophet or another, may be true, satan’s malignant design in using the message will always be dishonoring to Christ. Bill Wiese and Mary K Baker may be sincere, but satan’s design is to usurp the authority of the Word, just as he was trying to do against Paul (who was speaking the true word) in using the slave-girl who was possessed.

Be discerning about these visits to heaven and hell, and of people’s tales of visitations from Jesus in visions. It is not enough that their message borne from experience may seem consistent with the bible, the bible tells us that we have a more sure word in the Prophets. And that is enough, more than enough, for me. I hope it is for you too.
————————–

FMI:

Justin Peters essay “Your Best Afterlife Now: (An examination and critique of claimed visits to heaven and hell”

Tim Challies reviews Heaven Is For Real and 90 Minutes In Heaven.

Pertinent part begins at 41:14–

bible, dreams, prophets, visions

"And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams"

Posted on September 30, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

There is a lot of attention being paid these days to a verse from Joel 2:28 and repeated by Peter in Acts 2:17. It says,

The Day of the LORD
“It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.”

Many people take this to mean that we should accept the dreams and prophecies of everyone these days because these are the latter days and, well, the verse says what it says. But let’s take a close look at several interpretations for better decision-making.

Another interpretation is that it was fulfilled at Pentecost. It was Peter who repeated the prophecy from Joel, and the time was Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus had died and the moment the Holy Spirit came down. But if it was fulfilled at Pentecost, it was fulfilled at Pentecost. However, the verse’s context is the Day of the Lord (judgment), not Pentecost. The full verse is:

It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.

29“Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

30“I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth,
Blood, fire and columns of smoke.

31“The sun will be turned into darkness
And the moon into blood
Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

32“And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD
Will be delivered;
For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
There will be those who escape,
As the LORD has said,
Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

At Pentecost, were there wonders in the sky and on the earth? Blood, fire and columns of smoke? Was the sun turned into darkness? And the moon into blood? No.

Now if we take the context, and the verses above the dreams verse and after the dreams verse point to the Day of the Lord, then let’s look at the Day of the Lord.

Got Questions describes it this way– “The phrase “day of the Lord” usually identifies events that take place at the end of history (Isaiah 7:18-25) and is often closely associated with the phrase “that day.” One key to understanding these phrases is to note that they always identify a span of time during which God personally intervenes in history, directly or indirectly, to accomplish some specific aspect His plan.”

It is not just one Day but a span of time, and we are told that span of judgment time will be either 7 or three and a half years (depending again on your interpretation of the Tribulation period). (Dan 9:27). The Joel verse begins by saying “After this”. After what? The day of the Lord. So the dreaming and prophesying is not during the Tribulation but after: the Millennium period. Further, the prophecy speaks of survivors.

Finally, some people say that the dreaming and prophesying began at Pentecost and continues through the Tribulation, that it encompasses the entire Church Age period. I discount that interpretation because the entire Church Age period has not been the Day of the Lord. Also, it leaves the canon open for all manner of personal experience to be placed alongside the bible. We do have a kind of Charismatic Chaos going on now as a result of so many people deciding that is what the Joel verse means. People say they are prophets and others say that are having dreams and their experience is placed not only alongside but higher than the bible itself. Phil Johnson recounts the chaos that results when this happens: “They speak of Scripture as the “dead letter,” compared to their modern prophecies, which they believe are “fresh and living words” from God. So they have effectively subjugated Scripture to questionable phenomena.”

No, I believe the context of the verse shows us that the dreaming and prophesying will occur after the Tribulation, after the time when the sun was darkened and the pillars of fire came. After the survivors whom the LORD calls. After The Day. Not now.

Besides, why rely on dreams and prophesies of some person as proof of Jesus’s work in the world, when their source cannot be 100% guaranteed? And when the bible as source, CAN?
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