HEAVEN-HOPPING TELEVANGELISTS - Jackie Alnor

Claims made by the more 'spiritual' among us of taking trips to heaven so that they can come back and tell us how spiritual they are is nothing new. Even though Sid Roth’s guests look like loonies, spinning their sensational yarns, Christians still fall for it.

So I felt it would be a good idea, as a reminder, to share a portion of my late husband’s book, Heaven Can’t Wait (@1996, by William Alnor), as a reminder to Christians to test all things by Scripture. We do not need anyone telling us about their unbiblical experiences, when we have God’s Word to assure us that Jesus has prepared a place for us. That’s all we need.

A MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Consider the following snapshots from the world of contemporary Christianity:

• Charismatic leader Roberts Liardon says he had an extraordinary experience.One afternoon in 1974 when he was eight years old he was caught up into heaven where he met Jesus face to face. Liardon of Laguna Hills, California, described Jesus Christ in his book I Saw Heaven as "about six feet tall, with sandy-brown hair, not real short and not too long." Jesus escorted him through the gates of heaven where he saw golden streets, dazzling looking flowers, plenty of mansions, trees that "swayed back and forth, dancing and praising as we passed," and a "knee-deep...crystal clear" River of Life.Upon walking to the river, "do you know the first thing Jesus did to me?" Liardon asks."He dunked me!I got back up and splashed Him, and we had a water fight.We splashed each other and laughed."

• Prominent inner healing teacher John Sandford of Elijah House ministries declared himself to be a prophet in his January 1991 newsletter.And in his new role he has exciting ideas -- like wresting with demons. "Last night I wrestled against demonic beings from 3:00 A.M. until just before dawn," boasted inner healing teacher John Sandford in his 1991 newsletter."And the names the Lord gave me were Samyasa and particularly Azaziel!Have they already been released?Or did I only wrestle with apparitions such as appeared 800 years ago?" It wasn't the first time Sandford claims to have been in a wrestling match with beings from the other side.In his book, Transformation of the Inner Man, which has gone on to become popular in some Christian circles, he wrote that he wrestled with a dead woman -- Agnes Sanford, the pantheistic originator of inner healing movement. "Agnes came through my front door (without bothering to open it) and tackled me. WE wrestled all over my living room floor (Gen. 32:24-32).... She then went out the door beckoning me to follow, and went through the night to a tall tower...from floor to floor turning on lights.Ever since then the Lord has been turning on lights in my `tower of knowledge'"

• Benny Hinn, the best-selling author and pastor of the Orlando Christian Center bragged on the Trinity Broadcasting Network's Feb. 11, 1992 Praise the Lord program that he frequently wakes up in the middle of the night to "literally see forms of angels" appear in his bedroom in different shapes. One night he saw a man in his bedroom who was "wrapped in fire," he said. Then a blond-haired entity came into his room and whisked him away by the hand, showing him a multitude of people being shoved into a valley of "liquid fire," he told TBN founders Paul and Jan Crouch, who were amazed by Hinn's vision.

• Evangelist Oral Roberts claims that the devil himself walked into his bedroom in February 1987 and almost choked him to death. "I felt those hands on my throat and he was choking the life out of me," Roberts said in an appearance on his son's television program,Richard Roberts Live."I yelled to my wife, `Honey, come!'" Evelyn Roberts responded by rushing to his room, laid hands on him and "rebuked the devil and commanded the devil to get out" of his room," Roberts declared."I began to breathe and came out of my bed strong."

But as we might guess, many of the claims made in the name of experience -- even Christian claims -- today are not biblical or even truthful.

Take the just mentioned Oral Roberts story about the devil in his room. It was one of the outlandish stories Roberts spun in 1987 during the media hubbub over his "give me $8 million or I die" fundraising appeals. But considering Roberts' history, the fundraising scheme or his fight with the devil was not unusual. More than a decade before Roberts announced that he spoke to a 900-foot-tall image of Jesus, who commanded him to build a 60-story City of Faith Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma where Jesus said a cure for cancer would be found!

Today, however, it is obvious that God had not spoken. The financially strapped Roberts empire was forced to quietly sell off the complex several years ago -- without finding a cure for cancer.

Visions of the Demonic

But in the circles Roberts has thrived in -- a camp within the Christian church often associated with the Pentecostal and charismatic movements -- alleged visions of the spirit realm and glimpses of the supernatural are popular, with all sorts of teachers parlaying these and other subjective experiences into messages eagerly devoured by their followers.

These include many alleged trips to heaven (and sometimes hell) by charismatic and Pentecostal leaders (including those in the Word-Faith camp). Their stories are told in first-person accounts on Christian radio and television, on audio and video teaching tapes, and especially in books and newsletters. Perhaps not so coincidentally this Christian fascination with alleged heavenly visits seems to be increasing at the same pace as the public's fascination with glimpses of the other side via Near Death Experiences (NDEs).

Some of these written accounts have gone on to become Christian best-sellers, mirroring the secular successes of Betty Eadie's Embraced by the Light and Dannion Brinkley's Saved by the Light. It is finally at the point where many internationally-known charismatic leaders have claimed to have been to heaven and back -- and most of these alleged experiences were not NDEs.

Is it Opportunism?

Some of it is no doubt opportunism at its worst. Disgraced television evangelist/faith healer Peter Popoff, who was exposed on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in May 1986 for having a miniature radio receiver in his ear while his wife was transmitting details to him about audience members' ailments, has been back on TV in recent years. His repertoire includes his new book 7 Hours in Heaven! in which he boasts that he was whisked up to heaven and was shown his future lavish mansion and was personally commissioned by Jesus Christ to prepare the Earth for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Popoff, speaking at a crusade in Philadelphia, claims to have the ability to dispatch angels at his whim for a gift of $40.

What is a Near Death Experience?

Although this book discusses what has come to be known as Near Death Experiences (NDEs), a large portion of it will deal with the increasing mystical fascination with the next world circulating through the church today. These otherworldly stories are related to NDEs, but they aren't the same thing.

These "I went to heaven and hell" experiences are different than NDEs because those who claim to have experienced them are not necessarily near death when they happened. They are usually more mystical and are often more detailed than the typical NDE. Sometimes those who claim to have been to the other side were not sure if they were actually there or if they were shown a vision.

Second, these experiences are Christian-based and they seem to be closely related to an emphasis on signs and wonders instead of relying of God's Word that is sweeping through the charismatic and Pentecostal movements.

NDEs became popular following the publication of Dr. Raymond Moody's book, Life after Life in 1976. In a typical NDE a hospital patient who is near death (or who has temporarily stopped breathing, or who has experienced a severe heart attack or trauma that has caused the heart to stop beating) often testifies to finding himself hovering above his body, then propelling through a dark tunnel toward a bright light on the other side. Moody's book identifies up to 15 stages people can go through related to NDEs.

NDEs are not necessarily Christian-based; NDEs don't necessarily reflect a worldview that includes the Godhead (represented by the Holy Trinity) on one side and the devil and his hoards on the other, as is often the case in these "I went to heaven (and sometimes hell)" stories.

In recent years I have examined many of the most popular "I went to heaven" stories circulating through the church. As a result of my inquiry I am throwing up a bright red flag of caution over believing any of the current heaven or hell visitation stories. We cannot trust them. The stories are confusing at times partly due to their mystical natures. But they are usually contradictory on significant details. Out of all the stories I've examined there were no perfect matches. In other words one man's picture of heaven did not correlate with the pictures given to us by any of the others. .

Other serious objections include: their portraits of heaven and hell do not seem to correlate with the biblical record on these two domains; the stories are unverifiable and mystical -- there's no way to put any of them to the test; and, many of the stories seem to serve the purpose of the story-teller in establishing his or her credentials as being especially anointed or favored by Christ over others. And they use these tales to validate in many cases claims that they have apostolic-type ministries.

For example Roberts Liardon claims that during his childhood visit, he was ordained! "`Roberts, I am calling you to a great work,'" Jesus allegedly told him. "`I am ordaining you to a great work. You will have to run like no one else and preach like no one else. You will have to be different from everyone else.'"

Most serious of all, perhaps, is that many of the stories are unbiblical in the sense that they are used to promote false doctrine.

Take Roberts Liardon's fanciful tale, for example. Liardon claims that after his water fight with Christ, Jesus walked him to the heavenly throne room of God where he noticed "three storage houses 500 to 600 yards" away. He explains:

“We walked into the first. As Jesus shut the front door behind us, I looked around the interior in shock! On one side of the building were exterior parts of the body. Legs hung from the wall, but the scene looked natural, not grotesque. On the other side of the building were shelves filled with eyes, green ones, brown ones, blue ones, and so forth.

“The building contained all of the parts of the human body that people on earth need, but Christians have not realized these blessings are waiting in heaven. There is no place else in the universe for these parts to go except right here on earth; no one else needs them.

“Jesus said to me, ‘These are the unclaimed blessings. This building should not be full. It should be emptied. You should come in here with faith and get the needed parts for you, and the people you will come in contact with that day.’

“The unclaimed blessings are there in those storehouses -- all of the parts of the body people might need: hundreds of new eyes, legs, skin, hair, eardrums -- they are all there. All you have to do is go in and get what you need by the arm of faith, because it is there.’”

In making these claims Liardon is subtly using his special heavenly revelations to promote the "name it and claim it" false prosperity doctrines that have ravaged the Christian church like a cancer in these last days.

“You do not have to cry and beg God to make the part you need. Just go get it. The doors to the storehouses are never locked. They are always open for those who need to go in. We should empty those buildings.

“...Because of my visit to heaven, I never had any doubt that Jesus not only wants His people well and whole but that healing is available for any who will receive. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God did not put sickness and disease on people. I saw no sickness and disease in heaven during my visit, only provision for creative miracles.”

Is it possible to be brought to heaven?

Of course it is possible for God's children to be caught up into heaven. God is God. He has the prerogative of doing whatever He wishes. But we need to be wary of leaders who claim an exclusive vision or experience in order to verify their ministries. Christian leaders should point others to Christ and what he has done on the cross instead of to their own personal experiences. Most of these people claiming heavenly visitations seem to have a much different attitude about their alleged experiences than the apostle Paul had when he discussed his trip (whether in the spirit or body) to the "third heaven" in 2 Corinthians 12. In the verses leading up to his account of heaven, Paul was clearly reluctant to discuss his experiences because he thought he would be perceived as "boasting" about it.

On the contrary, many of today's alleged travelers to heaven revel in their alleged experiences, and discuss them before packed halls without reluctance. Christian Media outlets such as Pat Robertson's 700 Club and TBN often give extensive airtime to these tales. And these experiences, at least in a few of the cases , seem to form the central planks of their ministries. In the typical story circulating through the church today one is taken to heaven (and sometimes hell) to consult with Jesus or deceased saints. Besides witnessing incredible sights, most of them claim they were commissioned there or specially anointed for their ministries in heaven, often by Jesus himself.

A Word of Caution.

John MacArthur warns that we need to be wary of any of these mystical stories if their agenda appears to be to promote a "special anointing" of a leader: “Mysticism is still very much alive, still using spiritual intimidation to demean the uninitiated. People today who claim to have had heavenly visions or spellbinding experiences are often simply puffed up with idle notions, using their claims to intimidate others into elevating them. As the apostle Paul wrote the Colossian believers, that kind of mysticism is the product of a prideful and unspiritual mind.”

Visitors to the other side

On the June 30, 1992, 700 Club telecast, a medical doctor identified as Gerald Landrey testified that after he suffered cardiac arrest he found himself instantly in heaven for the "most glorious experience" he ever had. He said that on the other side people welcomed him in a bright place where people were "loving each other like we never loved before." He then said he witnessed an explosion of light and saw Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus, whom he described as having "dark hair" and looking "very Jewish" then promised him that he would be healed of his heart condition and back home within a week -- which he was.

Although Landrey has not become a prominent name for his alleged heavenly trip, some of the biggest names in the charismatic movement claim to have visited heaven. David (Paul) Yonggi Cho of Seoul, Korea, controversial pastor of the largest church in the world (with more than 500,000 members) claims he has been to the other side and back. He said he met a blue-skinned deceased missionary to Korea there who commissioned him to reach his country folk for Christ.

Cho has also stated that one of his assistant pastors at the Yoido Full Gospel Church died and came back to life after three days. During that time period, Cho stated in an interview with Mary Stewart Relfe, he was reunited with his wife in heaven where he saw God and was able to meet various biblical figures including Abraham, Steven, and David.

Kenneth Hagin

Another who claims to have been to heaven and also hell is prominent radio evangelist Kenneth E. Hagin, founder of the RHEMA Bible Training Center in Tulsa Oklahoma. In his book I Believe in Visions, he claims that as a young man in 1933, suffering from a deformed heart and incurable blood disease, his heart stopped beating and his "inner man rushed out of my body ... [and] ... I went down, down, down until the lights of the earth faded away.... And the farther down I went, the hotter and more stifling it became. Finally, far below me, I could see lights flickering on the walls of the caverns of the damned.... I came to the entrance of hell."

Hagin stated that a voice from above, Christ's voice, rescued him from hell during the occasion (as well as two other subsequent times when his heart also stopped beating) as he lay deathly ill.

Hagin has also stated that during a tent revival meeting in Rockwall, Texas in 1950, Jesus appeared to him standing in the air near the top of the tent. "Come up hither," Jesus allegedly commanded him in King James English, Hagin wrote. Hagin then claims he sailed through the air with Christ "until we came to a beautiful city....we beheld it at close range as one might go up on a mountain and look down on a city in the valley. Its beauty was beyond words!"

He wrote that:

“[Jesus said] people selfishly say they are ready for heaven. They talk about their mansions and the glories of heaven while many around them live in darkness and hopelessness. Jesus said I should share my hope with them and invite them to come to heaven with me.

“Then Jesus turned to me and said, "Now let us go down to hell."... We came back out of heaven, and when we got to earth we didn't stop, but kept going. “We went down to hell, and as we went into that place I saw what appeared to be human beings wrapped in flames. I said, "Lord, this looks just like it did when I died and came to this place on April 23, 1933.... Jesus told me, ‘Warn men and women about this place.’”

Hagin also claims that during a trip to heaven, Jesus commissioned him to a special ministry and personally gave him a special anointing to heal the sick.

Morris Cerullo

Well-known Pentecostal evangelist Morris Cerullo, like Hagin, claims to have been caught up into heaven during a service. Cerullo, who has been in the news recently in connection with his failed bid to take over Jim and Tammy Bakker's Heritage USA, says the incident was a "vision" that later evolved into his "spirit lift[ing] from this earth and was taken right into the heavens." There he saw a 6-foot tall "manifestation of the Godhead that didn't look human at all:

"I am not going to tell you that I saw Jesus with long brown hair, a beautiful beard and [a] nice long white robe. (I would not discredit anyone who has seen a vision like that, for another's vision could have been just as real as mine.) Directly in front of that great mass of people, the height of an average man, about six feet tall and two feet wide, there appeared a great flaming ball of brightness and glory; it had no physical human features about it at all! There were no eyes, there were no ears, no nose, no mouth, no hands and no legs, but just a great flaming ball of brightness and glory."

He called the entity "the Presence of God, for this light was not just the glory of Jesus but it was the glory of the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The entity then showed him the fires of hell in which "were multitudes of lost souls," and it spoke these words to him in King James English: "My son, arise, shine, for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Thou shalt not be afraid for thou shall not stand in thine own strength, neither shall you stand in thine own place but you shall stand in the place I have made for thee and My strength shall uphold and guard thee."

Jesse Duplantis

Prominent piano playing evangelist Jesse Duplantis who has often appeared with Kenneth Copeland at his crusades, claims that while in his hotel room in August 1988 in Magnolia, N.Y. he was "sucked through" the ceiling at a "phenomenal rate of speed" and he found himself in a vehicle that looked like a cross between a ski lift and cable car that was guided by a "blond-headed angel." "You have an appointment with the great God Jehovah," he said the angel told him. The vehicle took him to heaven, which was really another "planet," he said.

While there he saw Peter, James and John, and met Jonah, Paul, and Abraham and David acted as his tour guide, showing him his lavish super mansion. "ABC Prime Time would get mad as a hornet if they saw my house, " Duplantis quipped. He also claims he saw animals and plenty of children who were toting harps. He was then taken to Jesus (who instructed him to go tell people on earth that he's coming back), and to Jehovah in the throne room of heaven.

Thinking of Things Above

Complicating this discussion is the fact that there's nothing wrong with Christians dwelling on the afterlife. God's Word tells us that we are to be oriented toward heaven and the eternal rather than on worldly things. We are to live as "aliens and strangers in the world (I Peter 2:11)" because "our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20)." It is healthy, then, for Christians to contemplate our future home in heaven instead of on this planet. Jesus comforted his disciples by assuring them that he was preparing a place for them in heaven (John 14:1-4). But that kind of attention is only healthy when we trust the promises of God, not the visions of someone who asserts things on his own authority. Jeremiah 5:30-31 states: "A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophecy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end? (NIV)" No legitimate spiritual purpose is served when the afterlife scripturally promised to believers is described in terms drawn from legend, myth, and superstition.

But there is something wrong with these experiences when they contradict what God's revealed word says about heaven and hell. In Jesse Duplantis' fanciful story he implied the doctrine of the preexistence of souls, which is unbiblical, and he separated the Holy Trinity, even denying the omnipresence of God by claiming that the Holy Spirit is only on earth -- and not also in heaven with God the Father and God the Son. He also erred from the truth by claiming that God needs love from people, when the fact is that God needs nothing.

The most obvious problem with the "I went to heaven" stories is the clear biblical testimony that heaven is a place beyond our ability to describe. According to Paul who was "caught up to the third heaven" it was a place where he "heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell" (2 Cor. 12:2,4 NIV, emphasis mine). Paul, in keeping with Jesus' words about a different type of bodily existence in the future heavenly realm, strongly stated in I Corinthians 15:35-54 that the difference between our earthly and heavenly bodies will be great indeed.

With this in mind, the problems inherent with all the "I went to heaven" stories are: (1.) If Christian leaders today have been caught up to paradise why are they permitted to tell the world about them, when the Apostle Paul wasn't?; (2.) In mentioning his trip Paul stated that what he heard was inexpressible -- he couldn't express it. Why then are the sights and sounds of today's heavenly trips not only expressible by a growing army of charismatic leaders, but they are described in vivid detail, down to the color of heavenly grapes, grass, trees, and mansions -- and even to the color of Christ's hair?

I have deliberately mentioned the perceived hair color of Christ by various visionaries in this article to underscore another point about contradictions among these stories. We've heard about golden locks, brown hair, and dark hair, but none of them have described seeing Jesus the same way the apostle John did when he received his vision on the Isle of Patmos. John also talked about being in heaven (although some scholars argue that it was a vision) and here was only part of his astounding description of Christ: "His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire" (Revelation 1: 14 NIV). When one reads the rest of John's description of Christ the picture becomes almost, as Paul put it, inexpressible.

Additionally, Paul tells us that the experience was so profound that he was given a "thorn in the flesh" (perhaps it was a reoccurring illness; scholars are divided on it) so that he would not become puffed up with pride over it. But today's would-be visionaries don't suffer any maladies from their experiences, and in fact many of them teach that it is God's will for no believer to ever encounter sickness at all -- it displays a lack of faith. I don't know a single case were any of them claim to have received a similar thorn in the flesh.

Heavenly Mansions

Although the "I went to heaven" stories don't match each other in significant ways, one commonality among visionaries' pictures of heaven is that most talk about their seeing large mansions (which often resemble multi-roomed Victorian castle-like structures) being constructed for God's people in heaven. And although this might be justified on the basis of John 14:2 in which Jesus tells his disciples in the King James Version that "in my Father's house are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place for you," a careful reading of the Greek wording in the passage reveals that there was little justification for translators to use the term "mansions," which denotes a worldly picture of a lavish house. According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words the Greek word MONE is primarily a staying, abiding and that it "denotes an abode," but was translated as "mansions" in the verse. The same Greek word was translated as "abode" in verse 23. "There is nothing in the word to indicate separate compartments in heaven; neither does it suggest temporary resting-places on the road," it notes.

Modern translations tend to translate the passage in a manner similar to the NIV: "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."

But that still injects the "compartment" concept that is notably lacking in the original. A clearer paraphrase might be: "In my Father's world there are many places to abide, and to cease (not just rest from) your weary pilgrimage." Clearly, Christ's dominant thought is one of permanence, rootedness and repose in heaven -- not of any material circumstances that might go along with it. Any notion of "Houses," with describable dimensions and furnishings, is completely beside the point. To elaborate something that is irrelevant is diversion by definition.

Last, when considering these stories we need to be aware of the possibility that they may ridicule and demean the real heaven that will someday be our home. Remember that heaven is the dwelling place of God, the creator of the universe. Since we cannot fathom the wonders of our own world, much less determine the size of our own universe, how can we pretend to picture the next world?

We need to exercise discernment when we hear these stories. And we need to put them to the test of both logic and Scripture. If one carefully reads the stories about heaven and the "Jesus" Betty Eadie allegedly saw, it was not the Jesus of the Bible, nor was it the entity that Hagin, Cho, Duplantis, Cerullo, or Liardon saw. And there are serious differences among the accounts of the latter five, although they are all prominent charismatic or Pentecostal leaders. Their heavens were contradictory, although some might argue that they were symbolic visions of the real thing.

We need to be aware of the fact that the scriptures indicate that Satan is the father of lies and a deceiver who has been in business for a long, long time. In I Tim. 4:1 Paul talks about how in "later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." We are told by the Apostle John to "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."

I believe that these "Christs" allegedly being perceived by visionaries both inside the church and in the secular marketplace are not trustworthy in the least, and at worst are extremely dangerous. I believe they have caused some to abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits.