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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, there are no biblical accounts of near-death experiences. Does that mean God could never and would never allow somebody to have a near-death experience?
I can't say that categorically. I can't put God in a box and say what He will and will not do. But we have to admit the weight of Scripture is against such near-death experiences. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Today's bookstores are filled with sensational stories of people who claim to have crossed the threshold between this life and the next.
Could these shocking tales actually be true or is it all a hoax? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress looks at the Bible's answer to this important question, have some people already visited heaven? Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory.
These days our program is devoted to a singular topic. We're giving our complete attention to a place called heaven. You know, people have concocted some pretty wild images of our eternal home. In fact, a number of folks actually claim to have stepped into heaven already and come back with sensational stories.
When we compare their reports to biblical truth, it's clear that our eternal home bears little resemblance to what they describe. That being said, the biblical version of heaven surpasses our wildest dreams or imagination. I'm convinced that if we spent more time basking in the beauty of heaven, it would transform our lives.
With this in mind, I've written a best-selling book for you. It's titled A Place Called Heaven, 10 Surprising Truths About Your Eternal Home. You begin your day or end your day reflecting on your eternal home. I'm convinced that this reflection on heaven will transform your life.
A copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Now, in addition, I'm going to include a brochure that we've prepared especially for you. It's called What Seven World Religions Teach About Heaven. You can tuck this brochure about heaven. This tool will help you discern the difference between biblical truth about heaven and what other major world religions answer today as we continue our series, A Place Called Heaven.
And the question is simply this. Are there people alive today who have already visited heaven? What is it about an NDE, a near-death experience that is so appealing to people? I think there are two reasons we find these accounts so interesting and we buy books by the millions of people who claim to have had such experiences.
One is our natural curiosity about the unknown. Don Piper's 2004 book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, A True Story of Life and Death, really created a resurgence of interest in NDEs. Now, his book in 2004 was followed by Bill Wiese's account, 23 Minutes in Hell, One Man's Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in a Place of Torment. This book is about the popularity of the 2010 book, Heaven is for Real, a little boy's astounding story of his trip to heaven and back. The book was written by Todd Burpo about his son Colton's experience.
Colton Burpo was four years old when he died during emergency surgery. He came back to life after a three-minute supposed trip to heaven. That book was followed by another book, entitled The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, A True Story. It was written by Kevin and Alex Malarkey.
I like to pronounce it Malarkey. And it turned out to be Malarkey because after writing the book about his experience to heaven after he supposedly died and came back, Alex Malarkey wrote a letter confessing it was all a fraud. And I think it's because of his curiosity about the unknown. The second reason I think these books and accounts are popular is because of our longing for heaven. All of us desire to be in that place called heaven.
But the real question is, where do we look for reliable information? In 1 John 4, 1, the apostle says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. I don't care who claims to have an experience.
I don't care how much of a Christian they are. Every experience has to be tested against the Word of God. And so today, for the few minutes we have left, what I would like to do is to give you seven principles for evaluating near-death experiences. Principle number one, remember, near death is not death. You die in death. You die once, and then the judgment. Hebrews 9, 27 says, each person is destined to die once, and after that comes judgment.
And that leads to a second principle to remember. The Bible is sufficient. All of these books about near-death experiences, even the ones written by Christians, have as the basic underlying presupposition that the Bible is not sufficient to tell a story. That's what we need to know about heaven.
Everything we need to know about our eternal home is contained in this book. Number three, adding to or taking away from the Bible is condemned by God. Whenever we start talking about revelation that comes from a near-death experience, we need to remember the stern words found in Revelation 22, 18 and 19. When we say to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in the book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in the book. That's a pretty harsh warning. Number four, evaluating near-death experiences about your future is found in the book of the Revelation and elsewhere.
Don't add to it. And I'm afraid many of these books, perhaps written by well-intentioned Christians, are coming close, if not crossing the line of violating God's warning. Number four, in evaluating near-death experiences, we need to question the identity of any so-called being of light. Many of these experiences say that they've encountered angels or some undefined manifestation of God. Some say they've even seen Jesus Christ. But whomever they encountered has given them messages that completely contradict the Bible.
So many times, people who've had these experiences say, we saw Jesus or somebody like him saying things like, sin isn't a problem or there is no hell. Or all people are welcomed into heaven. Or every religion is equally true.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is a lie. Hebrews 13, eight says, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus in heaven is not going to contradict what Jesus said while he was on earth.
And Jesus was very clear, the way to heaven is a narrow road and it's a narrow gate and few are those who find it. A spirit explicitly says that in the latter times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons. Well, what about this being of light that told me that everybody is welcome into heaven and that there is no such place as hell and that all religions are the same? What am I to make of that being of light? Remember what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, 14, for even Satan, disguises himself as an angel of light.
We need to very, very carefully evaluate any being of light who contradicts the clear teaching of God's word. And that leads to a fifth principle, which perhaps you've never heard before, and that is beware of the occult. Beware of the occult. Beware of the occult. Beware of the occult. Are they able to engage in clairvoyance, which is the ability to see something in the past, present, or future by other than natural means?
Are they able to engage in telepathy, that is the sending or receiving of messages from another person just simply through your thoughts? Both of those things are part of demonic activity, the Bible says. In an article about NDEs found in the Atlantic Magazine, Diane Kecoren, the president of the International Association of Near-Death Studies, said that many people don't realize that they've even had an NDE until they piece it together after they notice the effects, effects including a strange influence on electrical equipment. At one conference of NDEers, Kecoren recounted that the hotel's computer system went down.
Quote, you put 400 experiencers of NDEs, near-death experiencers in a hotel together, something's going to happen. Now, whether the computer system actually crashed because of the psychic experiences of these NDEers, I don't know, but if it did crash, if they possessed some psychic power that caused a computer system to crash, that power didn't come from God. It was power from the kingdom of darkness, and that is why it is very important to understand that there's a relationship between NDEs and the occult, and both the Old and the New Testaments says we are to run from any experience that is occultish in nature. Number six, when evaluating NDEs, remember Jesus' death and resurrection are central to any true revelation from God. Jesus' death and resurrection are central to any revelation from God. You know, some people believe that the apostle Paul, before he became an apostle, when he was on the road to Damascus, that he had an NDE, a near-death experience.
Listen to the words of Acts 9, verses three to six. And it came about that as Saul journeyed, he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, but rise and enter the city, and it shall be told to you what you must do. Did Paul have a near-death experience? There are four reasons that I know this is not a near-death experience. First of all, Paul was very much alive when this happened. He was nowhere close to death. Secondly, the light that blinded Paul was a real light. He was literally blinded. This wasn't a metaphysical light.
It was a real light that blinded him and left him blind for many days. Thirdly, in telling this experience to King Agrippa, Paul never mentioned anything remotely close to a near-death experience. But finally, and most importantly, the Jesus who appeared to Paul in this experience was nothing like the Jesus of near-death experiences today. The real Jesus who appeared to Paul said, Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go and preach to the nations that there is salvation in no one else other than Jesus Christ.
God called him to a ministry of exclusivity, to preaching Jesus and Jesus alone as the way of salvation. You don't hear that from most NDEers today as well. And even if they are Christians, when most people who have claimed a near-death experience talk about it, their focus is almost always on their own experience rather than on Jesus Christ, his death for our sins and his resurrection from the dead and his exclusive offer of salvation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when evaluating NDEs, remember, the Bible doesn't record any near-death experiences. There is no such thing as a near-death experience in the Bible.
Now, I've given on your outline a list. It's not exhaustive, but it includes many instances in which God did raise people who had actually died from the dead. Elijah did so with the widow of Zarephath's son. Elisha did so with the Shunammite woman's son. You have Jesus and Jairus' daughter, Peter and Tabitha, Paul and Eutychus, and on and on and on it goes. Yes, God did raise people from the dead and they had to die again, but never once did these people who were raised from the dead come back with a message of what they had seen on the other side.
Let's look at a couple of these experiences in detail. For example, the example of Lazarus. Lazarus died. He was dead for four days until the Lord stood in front of the sepulcher and said, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus came stumbling out of that sepulcher, the unbound him. He was grateful for what God had done, but not once did he tell the assembled crowd what he had seen during those four days that he was dead.
Or look at the example of Jesus. When Jesus was on the cross, he didn't have a near-death experience. He didn't go through some tunnel of light.
There was none of that. Jesus died. And on the third day, he arose from the dead.
That stone was moved away. He was miraculously resurrected. He had a new body, a resurrection body. He spent 40 days on the earth in that new body talking to his disciples, but never once.
Never once did he give any indication of what he saw on the other side. Perhaps the closest illustration of the Bible of what some claim to be a near-death experience is the martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. We read an excerpt of that from Acts chapter 7. Turn over there for a moment to Acts chapter 7, verses 54 through 56.
Now when they, that is the Jewish officials, the Sanhedrin, heard Stephen's speech condemning them, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen gazed intently into heaven, and he saw the glory of God. And Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Isn't that a near-death experience?
No, for several reasons. First of all, Stephen's vision of heaven took place before he was stoned. If you look down at that passage, you'll see they hadn't picked up the rocks yet. He was standing there before he was close to death. That's when the vision occurred. Secondly, the vision that he received was very general in nature and not unlike the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel that they saw of heaven as well. But third, and most importantly, Stephen actually died, and he hasn't been back since then to tell us what is on the other side. Look at verses 59 and 60. They went on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And having said this, he fell asleep. That's not a near-death experience.
That is a death experience. Finally, what about the apostle Paul? Some say he had a near-death experience.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 2, he said, I know a man in Christ. He was talking about himself. But he was too humble. He didn't want to make himself the focus of this.
He didn't want to have publishers knocking on his door asking him to write a book about this experience. He said, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body, I don't know, or out of the body, I don't know, God knows, but such a man was caught up into the third heaven. Remember, we said last time, the third heaven is where God is right now. God's abode the third heaven. Paul said, I had an experience in which I was caught up into the presence of God.
I don't know if it was an actual bodily experience, my whole body was caught up, or a metaphysical experience, but I was caught up to meet the Lord. But if you read that account, God said to him, do not utter what you have seen here. Paul was instructed not to say a word about his experience.
Now think about that. Paul wrote more than half of the New Testament. Paul was the greatest theologian who's ever lived. Wouldn't he be the one you would think God would choose to give a credible account of what he saw in heaven if God wanted us to know the exact details of what's in heaven? God said to Paul, don't you utter a word. Why did he say that? Why was he prohibited? Why was John prohibited from telling everything he saw?
I think there may be two reasons for that. First of all, maybe God knows any human words can only diminish the glory of heaven. Human words are incapable of describing what really awaits us in heaven. That's why, for example, we're told not to make any images of God. You know why that's one of the commandments, not to make graven images? Because images, anything we make, anything we draw, anything we sculpt, it can't capture the glory of God. It diminishes the glory of God. I think that's why we're not supposed to talk about, and Paul wasn't supposed to talk about what he saw in heaven. It could only diminish the reality of heaven. But secondly, I think God kept Paul from talking about heaven because God knows if we really knew what awaited us in heaven right now, we couldn't concentrate on our present responsibilities. If we really knew what God has in store for us, but God has a work for us to do here for the few years before he allows us to experience the reward he has for us. For whatever reason, Paul was told not to write these things down.
What does all this mean? What it means is there are no biblical accounts of near-death experiences. Does that mean God could never and would never allow somebody to have a near-death experience?
I can't say that categorically. I can't put God in a box and say what he will and will not do. But we have to admit the weight of scripture is against such near-death experiences. Everything you need to know about your eternal home is contained right in this book.
The Bible is sufficient. And in the weeks ahead, we're going to discover some surprising and stirring truths about that place God is preparing for you right now. It's that place called heaven. We're just getting started in this exciting series called A Place Called Heaven.
And if you want to share these messages with a friend or listen at your own pace, in a moment David will explain how you can receive the entire teaching series on CD and DVD. But first, let me draw your attention to the book I've written just for you. It's titled A Place Called Heaven, Ten Surprising Truths About Your Eternal Home.
Let's be real. We don't spend a lot of time contemplating that place God is preparing for us. Our minds are like magnets that are drawn to a metal.
Our minds are consumed with solving problems that can't be solved. Well, my book is designed to guide you in a wonderful journey, filling your mind with the glories of heaven. Ask for my bestselling book, A Place Called Heaven, when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. Remember, in addition to my book, I'll also include the helpful brochure I mentioned at the beginning of today's program.
It's called What Seven World Religions Teach About Heaven. As we close today's program, let me reinforce that your generous gifts are truly making a difference. Pathway to Victory has expanded into new cities all across the world through television, radio, podcasting, and the internet, reaching more people than ever before. And we've been able to do so because of our faithful Pathway partners and because of the generous gifts from friends like you. God is using your gifts to pierce the darkness with the light of His Word.
David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'll say thanks by sending you a copy of the bestselling book from Dr. Jeffress, A Place Called Heaven. Plus, you'll receive the helpful brochure, What Seven World Religions Teach About Heaven. Just give us a call at 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. And when you give $75 or more, you'll also receive the complete A Place Called Heaven teaching series on CD and DVD along with a copy of Encouragement from A Place Called Heaven.
Now this beautiful book is the perfect gift for anyone going through some stressful time, struggling maybe with chronic illness or grieving the loss of a loved one. To request the complete package of resources, simply call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could write to us if you'd like, PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
That's PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us again next time when Dr. Jeffress answers the question, Do Christians automatically go to heaven when they die? That's Friday here on Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise sets sail from Rome May 5th through 16th, 2025. Join me on this trip of a lifetime. I'll be teaching from God's Word and you'll have plenty of time to take in the beauty of Greece.
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