“No One Goes to Heaven and Comes Back!”

Yes, heaven is for “real,” but this little boy and all the other charlatans who say they went to heaven and came back are mislead and confused or they are liars.

The danger of giving any serious attention to such books as, “Heaven is for Real,” “To Heaven and Back,” “Waking Up in Heaven,” “90 Minutes in Heaven,” etc., etc., is that they are based upon human experience and/or imagination, bad and/or false doctrine, collusion and/or coercion, for reasons of self-aggrandizement, personal profit, being total confused and ignorant of the Scriptures, or they are purposefully misleading people away from the truth of God’s Word.

Question: “Who has gone up to heaven and come down?” -Proverbs 30:4

Answer:  “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man.”  -John 3:13

Why is that?  Because, “it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”  -Hebrews 9:27

In Luke 16:19-26, Jesus tells us those who are acceptable to God (being made righteous or granted forgiveness through Christ), i.e., believers or Christians, go to be with God at death, where as, those who are not acceptable to God, unforgiven (unbelievers, those who reject Christ) go to hell.

And no one gets to go to heaven and then come back.  When you die, you either go to be with the Lord or you go to hell… period!

A couple of things to think about:

1. Not one person in the Scriptures who came back from death ever gave an account of what they had experienced.
2. There were four men in the Scriptures who had prophetic visions of heaven, and none of them had a near death experience: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, John.

Isaiah’s response to heaven was (Isaiah 6:5), “Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined ! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips ; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.’”

Ezekiel’s response was (Ezekiel 1:28), “As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.” (Ezekiel 2:1-2), “Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!’ As He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet ; and I heard Him speaking to me.”

Paul’s response, after being caught up in the Spirit into in heaven was that he (2Corinthians 12:4), “heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.”

John’s response (Revelation 1: 17-19), “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid ; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. ‘Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.’”

God gave prophetic visions to these four men, and we have those accounts recorded in the Word of God, the Bible, authored by God, validated by God.

The so-called experiences of those who say they have ventured, or traveled, or been taken up, to or into heaven, and have supposedly come back, having had conversations with Jesus, Abraham, Moses, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, even the Devil, are a combination of malignant fabrications from some very overactive imaginations and dream lives, or electro-chemical manifestations in the brain, and/or the purposeful and convoluted misleadings of deceptive humans.

John 12:26, “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.”

2Corinthians 5:7-8, “We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

Philippians 1:20-25, “now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith.”

God’s revealed Word is sovereign, not someone’s “experience.”  God’s Word tells us clearly (Proverbs 30:4; John 3:13), that no one has gone into heaven except the One who came from heaven, and no one has seen God, only God the Son (John 1:1-4, 14, 18), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”

No one dies, goes to heaven and comes back; the Scriptures declare that once you die you either go to be with God in heaven (also called Paradise, the Third Heaven, and in the OT called Abraham’s side) or you go to hell, to await Judgement (Luke 16:19-26; Hebrews 9:27), “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’” “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”

God’s Word clearly tells us that God has spoken and revealed everything He is going to reveal to us and there are no more revelations or teachings that are not found in His Word that are from Him, and therefore, anyone saying they have a new revelation or teaching should automatically be suspect, for they are denying the authority of God’s Word and are in fact going against the very teachings and revelations of God.

Hebrews 1:1-2, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.”

Revelation 22: 18-I9, “Warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Pastor Michael Hale, April 29, 2014