Beware “testimonies” of heaven from outside of Scripture

heavenThe fad of “Heaven is for Real” is starting to pass, but there is always more effort by the devil to distract people away from God’s Word and onto their own fancies.  FoxNews magazine reported recently that a neurosurgeon had a heavenly experience when he died and came back to life to tell us about it.  Here is the story.

I am always leery and on edge of experiential arguments in our present day “spiritual” world.  How does a person deal with all of the stories (coming from folks as simple as children to as complex as neurosurgeons) as they are reported?  The same way as you should deal with anything relating to the things of God – check it against the Word of God.  There are some good things to look for and compare, and then there are some good questions to ask… (very similar to figuring out a good sermon, thank you Issues Etc.).

Does the story glorify the Triune God, especially the salvation earned by Jesus Christ for sinners?  Is it about Christ?

In the story who is running the verbs?  Which verbs are being used?  Do these line up with Scripture about the topic?

In the neurosurgeon’s efforts to describe heaven he says some things:

“I knew I had to come back because there was another soul depending on me. It was that love from my son that really forced me to crawl my way back.”

How does that line up with Scripture?  Here is another whopper:

“I’ve come to know absolutely the existence of an all-loving and powerful God — that our souls are eternal,” Dr. Alexander said.  “I go to church all the time, but I have also come to realize strongly that there is no one right religion. All aspects of religion have everything to do with the rich, deep, eternal reality,” he explained.  “Anything about religion that says they are the only one is just doomed dysfunctional human thinking. It’s all about showing compassion and forgiveness in our lives and giving our faith and belief to the source of all creation.”

Here is an immediate red flag that what this man experienced was not from God, because his testimony does not line up with sacred Scripture.  This is an apostle of the false gospel of pluralism and in the end the same old demonic religion of works.  While I am glad the doctor has been restored his physical life, I pray that he would come to the knowledge of the Triune God, and receive the free forgiveness of his sins (even these ones) which has already been earned for him by Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the end, if you want to learn about heaven – go and read your Bible – it is infinitely more trustworthy than any experience and testimony of sinful human beings.

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