Featured 90 Minutes in Heaven

It's biblical to "die", go to heaven, then come back and miss out on the judgment? I thought Scripture says that it is appointed for man once to die and then the judgment?

I have greater issues with the fact that ALL of these experiences people have end up man centered and not one of them is God centered. I don't think heaven is about us and so when people "come back" describing all of the great things for them (angels singing to them, Jesus pulling up a chair to sit down, friend and family walking around greeting us), it gives me pause.

 

His experience is pretty much common to all religions. I guess you have two things to consider. First, how much stock should you put in the objective cognitive assessment of a patient with such extensive injuries in a critical care unit? That reminds me, one time I had surgery and vividly remember ridding through the skies on a green and yellow turtle (no, not LSD…I was a child and my sister had a big green and yellow turtle). Anyway, I do not understand why so many take as true the accounts of people in such conditions. It is not logical. But second, it is unbiblical. It is based on a contemporarily pagan idea of heaven, ghosts, etc. Not Scripture.

I will add this, however. We cannot question that the man experienced something that he attributed to 90 minutes in heaven (or going to heaven). And this experience may have genuinely changed his life. It is just not what he thought it was.

 

Probably in a hospital.

 

Something not-Heaven.

Lack of oxygen, his own thoughts, a vision even, but not something that denies Gods own revelation. This kind of thing will remain popular, Evan, I believe because our culture wants something more. They want God, but only on their terms. They want Jesus as an addition and not as their "All and all.".

Put it this way. If you and I die at the same time and run into each other on the way to heaven , don't slow me down with conversation because an extra minute in the journey is one less with Jesus. I say this lightly to illustrate, but when I die I am with the Lord. I am not coming back to tell the story. It's already told.

 

Then on the street.

Look at it this way. Piper tells us he looked and saw the gates to heaven. What he described is in the Bible. But when is it in the Bible? Piper presents Heaven as our final place with God, but not here. The Bible speaks of this Heaven as God's future Kingdom here....physical with resurrected people. Either Scripture is correct or Don Piper's assessment is correct. But not both. I guess it's just a matter of who to believe.

 

Oh, I can comment - look around you, brother. People comment in ignorance daily.

Seriously, Evan, I did not read the book but I have read enough of the book and enough from the book to know that the man offers an unbiblical view of Heaven. His comments about the gates of Heaven alone is enough to realize his account does not square with the Bible. So here you must choose who to believe. Now, maybe you could argue that this was not real, but instead was some sort of a vision, or a prophesy of God's future Kingdom. I, personally, do not believe this type of special revelation occurs today as it would be addition to what has already been given fully (I am not charismatic, no offense if you are).

 

I'm confused on your intent here, John. Are you offering Blanchard as evidence that Piper may be legitimately accounting for his experience (as this actually denounces his claim....what he described was the Kingdom to come, not "there" but "here")? Also, it ignores Paul's statement that simply has us in the presence of Jesus when we die.