Justin Peters: Trips to Heaven – Echo Zoe Ministries

Justin Peters 2

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment – Hebrews 9:27 (ESV)

Over the last few years, there have been several books, movies, and other accounts of people visiting both Heaven and Hell. The three most memorable being Colton Burpo, a (then) four-year-old boy who supposedly visited Heaven; Don Piper, supposedly killed instantly in a car accident, and visited Heaven for 90 minutes before being revived; and Bill Wiese, who claims to have been dead for 23 minutes, visiting Hell during that time.

Justin Peters, of Justin Peters Ministries, travels the US and overseas to give seminars on the Word-Faith movement, and other discernment topics, joins Echo Zoe Radio this month to discuss these stories, and compare them to Scripture and each other to demonstrate their falsehood.

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Outline of the Discussion

Three well-known stories came out in the last few years of people claiming to have visited Heaven and Hell. Colton Burpo was a four year old boy when he claims to have visited Heaven. Don Piper also claims to have visited Heaven while supposedly clinically dead following a car accident, and Bill Wiese claimed to have been to Hell during his 23 minutes of being pronounced clinically dead.
Colton Burpo, the son of a pastor from a small town in Nebraska, was hospitalized for an illness when he was four years old, and claims to have gone to Heaven while in surgery.
Justin met a lady who was an administrator at the hospital were Colton was admitted, and states that he was sick, but never close to death.
Colton claimed to have met several people while in Heaven, including his great-grandfather “Pop”, and his sister, who died in a miscarriage.
The information communicated in Colton's story, as well as all of the other stories of trips to Heaven and/or Hell, is not found in Scripture. In Colton's case, he claims that the Holy Spirit was blue.
Claiming to have knowledge about God, Heaven, Hell, salvation, or anything else that one should expect to find in the Bible but can't is an attack on the sufficiency and authority of the Bible.
Much of what is described in Colton's experience in Heaven is in direct contradiction to Scripture, so we can know for certain that he did NOT visit Heaven. That leaves us with a few other possibilities: either Colton had a very vivid dream (which was nothing more than a dream), Colton's story is completely made-up, or it was a false vision given to him by the kingdom of darkness.
There are three cases of people seeing Heaven in the New Testament: Steven saw Heaven just before he was stoned to death, John saw Heaven as he was given the Revelation, and Paul was “caught up to the third Heaven.” Paul heard words that were “inexpressible” that Man was not permitted to speak.
“The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” was a similar story that came out about the same time as Colton Burpo's story of a boy named Alex Malarkey, who also supposedly visited Heaven. Subsequently, however, Malarkey and his mother came out publicly and admitted that the entire story was fabricated by his father.
On April 8th, 2014, Colton told Megyn Kelley on Fox News that his memory of Heaven was “very vivid.” Just three weeks later on the 29th, he told TBN that he couldn't remember much about Heaven.
Colton seemed to be taken off-guard by a question that Sean Hannity asked on his TV show.
Colton stated that God didn't allow him to remember things that Jesus taught him in Heaven. This seems to pit the Father against the Son, as though Jesus is off doing things He shouldn't be doing.
Don Piper is a Baptist, not known for Charismatic experiences. He was in an auto accident that supposedly killed him instantly. 90 minutes later, a pastor came upon the accident and felt that God wanted him to pray for Piper, who immediately came-to when this pastor prayed. During that 90 minutes, Piper claims to have visited Heaven, or at least the outskirts of Heaven, and met deceased friends and relatives. He claimed in his book that he did not see God during his experience. Seven years later, he claimed that he looked up to the top of the highest hill and saw the brightest light, which was the Lord Almighty, high and lifted up.
Burpo claimed that people in Heaven have wings. Piper claimed that people in Heaven do not have wings, demonstrating that the various stories not only contradict Scripture, they contradict each other.
Bill Wiese (rhymes with geese) claimed that he died and Jesus personally took him to Hell.
Wiese's account of Hell is graphic and terrifying.
None of the stories discussed contained the Gospel.
The most important lesson to come out of these experiences is that Scripture is enough. We don't need these extra-biblical experiences.