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The Boy Who Did Not Go to Heaven Recently a boy who claimed to have gone to heaven after a car accident recanted his story. But was his reversal necessary to know his story was not true?
In 2010 a book titled The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven was published telling the story of Alex Malarkey. Alex was involved in a terrible car accident in 2004 when he was 6 years old. Alex survived the accident but was in a coma for two months and ultimately was left paralyzed. What was unique about his story was that when he awoke from the coma, he made the claim that he had temporarily died and ascended to heaven.Alex described angels escorting him to heaven where he met and spoke with Jesus Christ and God the Father. He also claimed to have seen hell, describing it as a “hole in heaven.” Alex’s father, Kevin Malarkey, took Alex’s story and authored the aforementioned book, which became a New York Times best seller.There was just one problem.Alex Malarkey, now 16 years old, made news this past week by admitting that he made up the whole story—every word.Here Alex’s statement:“I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to” (“The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” Recants Story, Rebukes Christian Retailers”). The book about Alex is part of a popular book genre referred to as “heavenly tourism.” If you search Amazon or Christian Book Distributors, you will see dozens of books containing stories about individuals claiming to have gone to heaven after death, only to be resuscitated and returned to earth. There are hundreds of websites and YouTube videos that contain these stories—often called “near-death experiences.”But, just like in Alex’s case, there’s one major problem.None of them are real.These stories are either totally made up (as Alex Malarkey’s was) or are possibly the result of surges of brain activity that often occur as the brain is dying. Read this interesting article that explains this phenomenon: “Near-Death Experiences Are ‘Electrical Surge in Dying Brain.’”Three reasons “near-death experiences” are false
We don’t need those who claim to have these experiences to openly recant, like Alex did, in order to know these stories are false. Common sense and the Bible give us the answers. Let’s look at three reasons these claims are, and always will be, false.1. Not everyone who has a near-death experience makes these claims.Because of the advances in medical technology in the last 50 years, doctors have been able to save many people who were technically dead. In fact, you probably know someone whose heart and breathing stopped, yet who was resuscitated and lived. I do.The fact is that the majority of people who experience this do not claim to have these visions and experiences. It is actually a small minority who make these claims. And honestly, these claims are usually made to draw attention and (in many cases) to make money. People know that human beings are fascinated with the afterlife and will listen to these stories.But think: If human beings have an immortal soul that continues to live after our body dies—why doesn’t every person who legally dies experience something? Does it make sense that some live on after death, but others don’t?2. Jesus Christ explicitly stated that these claims are false.This is ultimately the reason we don’t have to wait for someone to retract his or her story to know whether these stories are true or false. It doesn’t matter what anyone says—the Word of God should be our source of truth (John 17:17).Jesus Christ made one statement that should totally end questions or discussion on these experiences:“No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).Can any statement be clearer? There is only one Man who has ever ascended to heaven (the place of God’s throne) after death—and that was Jesus Christ Himself. For more insight into what the Bible says about going to heaven, read “Do We Go to Heaven When We Die?”3. The Bible doesn’t support such near-death experiences.The Bible contains many accounts of people dying and being brought back to life. Some of the people who died in the Bible were dead for much longer than a few seconds or minutes. But none of these experiences include one word about these people leaving a heavenly state of consciousness to be brought back to physical life.Read through one of the most famous resurrection accounts in the Bible—the resurrection of Jesus Christ’s personal friend Lazarus in John 11. Lazarus became very ill and died while Jesus was miles away. When Jesus referred to Lazarus’ death, He said, “Lazarus sleeps” (verse 11). In fact, many other scriptures use the terminology ofsleep to describe death (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14; Job 3:13).Lazarus was dead for four days before Jesus arrived (John 11:17, 39). The account describes Jesus Christ miraculously resurrecting Lazarus. What is missing from the whole account is anything about Lazarus’ soul being snatched from heaven and brought back to physical life.Read some of the other accounts of physical resurrections in the Bible and you will see no claims of white lights, angels or heaven: 1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 4; Luke 7 and 8; Matthew 28; Acts 9; Acts 20.Much more to the storyThe above points were all we had room for in this short blog. But there is much more to the story! The Bible reveals many details about what happens after a person dies. We have prepared a detailed booklet that explains this topic thoroughly.As well as providing many more scriptures that support the above points, you will learn:
- The origin of the belief that the soul is immortal and lives on after death.
- The many scriptures that describe death as being a state of total unconsciousness.
- The facts about hell and why it is not “a hole in heaven.”
- The inspiring and encouraging truth of the future resurrection of the dead.
- The exciting future of all of mankind after the resurrection.
Erik Jones is a writer/editor for the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, in the Dallas, Texas, area. He is a licensed history teacher with degrees in education and history. He also studied theology at Foundation Institute in Allen, Texas.
At this time of pressure, almost our biggest enemy is the world and its values. In the end it will be a battle between what this life offers, and the promise of a better life to come.Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
dedicated or earnest we were in that noble sacrifice of our lives. We would still be found unacceptable.[Romans 8:5-8] For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, **nor indeed can be**. So then, those who are in the flesh CANNOT PLEASE GOD.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
shape, of its mould. Conformity is mutual agreement.
These are not the same. God doesn’t force us into a pre-shaped God-mould. Instead He sends the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and minds and attitudes about what we see and hear and do.
and enjoyment of possessions, achievements, praise, comfort and all that this life offers. As well as that, our allegiances shift away from humanity to God.
Up to three million people marched in the largest protest France has ever seen, including more than 40 world leaders. The rally honored the 17 victims of Islamic terror. “Today, Paris is the capital of the world,” said French President Francois Hollande. “Our entire country will rise up toward something better.”
The attack against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has gotten the world’s attention, but I’m very skeptical that something meaningful will result from the tragedy. Common sense should tell us that there is something deeply wrong with the Muslim faith, and yet every effort is being made to shift blame away from the followers of the Koran.
Islamists have such monopoly on terror. Every time there is breaking news about gunfire or an explosion in a public setting, you naturally know the perpetrator is at least one Muslim. Over the years, the number of attacks reach into the thousands.
Some of the major incidents are 9/11, the Madrid bombings in 2004, London in 2005, the Kenyan mall, the Fort Hood shooting, Benghazi, the ISIS massacre in Northern Iraq and Syria, Canada’s parliament, the Australia cafe attack, and Boko Haram who recently killed an entire village.
We seem to be at a point where the denial of these terror events has caused us to depart from the fundamentals of reality. When former Gov. Howard Dean was asked for comment about the Charlie Hebdo attack, he immediately dismissed the idea that Islam should be to blame for the attack.
“I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists,” Dean said on MSNBC’sMorning Joe. “They’re about as Muslim as I am.” He also said he does not believe ISIS is an “Islamic cult” and thinks it would be unwise to “accord [the gunmen] any religious respect.”
The liberal media has made a game out of finding new words to describe the attackers. If you watch a newscast, you’ll hear: Radical, militant, extremist, adherent, sympathizer, terrorist, and lone wolf. They are all inadequate synonyms for the more appropriate word: Muslim. I’ll say it again: Muslim.
I was scanning the news, and I ran across a CNN article titled, “After Paris attacks, 7 questions being asked about Islam.” I knew right away that the CNN would give Islam a free pass. Sure enough, CNN provided the question and then asked Islamic representatives to fill in the answers.
The pro-Muslim bias at CNN is evident when one reporter let a “longtime, Muslim-American source” make this kind of statement without being challenged: “Muslims cannot get a break. Every day there must be an event to suggest Islam is inherently violent. Such acts destroy years of goodwill and work about Islam.”
The claim is made that Islam is a peaceful religion, but propaganda cannot change a lie into the truth. Islam easily rivals Soviet-style Communism in oppression. According to a study on persecution by Open Doors USA’s World Watch List, nine of the ten countries with the worst records for persecution of Christians have populations that are dominated by Muslims.
The peaceful part only comes after they’ve killed all the infidels or forced them to leave the country.
In the light of these latest terror attacks, Saudi Arabia didn’t even have the good sense to delay the flogging of blogger, Raif Badawi. He was convicted of insulting Islam by simply creating a website that promoted freedom of speech. Since Saudi Arabia does not tolerate any type of political dissent, calls from the international community to postpone Badawi’s punishment fell on deaf ears.
There would be far less bloodshed if our leaders read and understood the Bible. In Genesis, we are told that there is a spiritual conflict between Abraham’s two sons. Isaac would be the son of the promise and Ishmael would be cursed as a “wild ass” of a man with his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him (Genesis 16:12).
I think it’s clear to the vast majority of people that the children of Ishmael are the world’s worst trouble makers, but political correctness stands in the way of corrective action. Because Islam is so clearly satanically driven, I think that beyond this point—we are inevitably headed toward the Tribulation judgment.
“For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short” (Matthew 24:21-22).
--Todd
This Present Madness
Perhaps you will remember a novel by Frank E. Peretti published in 1986 with the title This Present Darkness. The story involved spiritual warfare engaged in by human protagonists, and pitting God’s angels against the demonic minions. It featured prayer and biblical prescription for battle as given in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 12, in particular.
the 1980s were certainly years that brought forth growing spiritual darkness on planet earth, just as has every decade since the Fall in Eden. The issues and events of that decade provided more than plentiful fodder for the fiction conjured from Peretti’s brain. Although the book dealt with and dwelled on spiritual darkness in a fictional way, the actual downward spiral of morality in America and the world during that timeframe more than matched that portrayed by the novelist.
On the geopolitical level, the Soviet Union became increasingly brutal in exerting dictatorship over its East European client-states. Thus, all the while its power was degrading because of the cost of maintaining and trying to further build upon its fanatic militarism. The USSR, being totally sold out to and invested in anti-God evil, suffered the weight created by communism’s ideological gravity, which pulled freedom’s light into itself in much the same way a star in the process of going nova collapses in upon itself. The last years of the decade, geopolitically, indeed imposed a dark presence.
Hatred for Israel grew in the mid-1980s as Islam’s chief terrorist organizations were found to have massive arsenals stockpiled along Lebanon’s southern border. Israel’s avowed enemies within the Arab world obviously planned an all-out assault. The Jewish state’s preemptive military action pushed back for decades the insanity that we are experiencing at present. Not only Islamist hatred, led by a nuclear-ambitious Iran, but anti-Semitism now seems an unstoppable, malignancy spreading globally by the hour.
And this is where the “present darkness,” as Peretti would have it, has become “this present madness,” as is manifestly the case in so many ways.
Satan is the most cunningly evil of all creatures, and brilliant in stratagem, as tracing his footprints while he, like a roaring lion, stalks back and forth, seeking whom he might devour, clearly shows. But, he is also now mad that is, insane— provable by truth found in God’s Word: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind" (Romans 1:28a).
The old serpent, the devil, who is the father of lies and hates any thought of God, has a mind that is totally incapable of seeing things as they really are. His thinking is upside down, and incorrigibly wicked.
Proof that he is mad–insane— is found in the fact that he knows the Creator of all things is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. God cannot lie, and absolutely knows the end from the beginning–in each and every, excruciatingly minute detail. Yet, knowing that God has foretold Satan’s ultimate destiny–that he will burn eternally in the lake of fire—Satan still thinks he will be victorious and escape his fate. That is the supremely arrogant, essence of madness.
This luciferian madness is more infectious than Ebola or any of the most such diseases one could name. Its effects, I contend, are seen most observably by considering, again, the number-one signal of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline. I’m referring to the nation Israel, and to God’s chosen people, the Jews.
Specifically, I’m talking about the Christian church–a broad, evangelical, portion of which has adopted or is in process of adopting the anti-Semitism that is metastasizing throughout the world at present.
Despite God’s plain declaration that those who curse the progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will suffer curses of eternal consequences, a vast number of pastors and their church bodies are taking up the rant of Palestinianism, which holds, basically, that modern Israel has no claim to God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
These church leaders and their regimes that support Israel’s enemies’ right to the land God granted the Jews claim that Israel, in its modern incarnation, is illegitimate and an intruder. In this way they are falling into the same satanic trap into which the people of Hitler’s Germany fell. This is, in my view, madness that is much darker than the darkness Mr. Peretti portrayed in his best-selling novel.
It is madness that is swiftly bringing upon the world what will be the greatest judgment ever experienced by those who defy the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. True believers in the Lord Jesus Christ–who was virgin-born a Jew, ministered and did miracles as a Jew, who died on the cross and resurrected as a Jew for the salvation of all who will believe—should immediately leave any church that harbors this anti-Semitism.
This same Jewish Lord of all lords and King of all kings is coming again to rule and reign on the throne of David. It will be a Jewish throne!
--Terry
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Dear ,
