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Out of body Experiences - Are they for real?
By Cheryl Schatz
On the February 14th, 2011 edition of Supernatural TV, Sid Roth asks “Is it possible to walk through a door and find yourself in another part of the world? Bruce Allen was taught the secrets of supernatural travel and he says, ‘You can do it too!’” Sid Roth, the TV host of Supernatural TV, is a Messianic Jew who arose out of New Age doctrines but he continues to focus on the supernatural without much discernment.
The focus on the supernatural and paranormal has never before been so up front in the church, with many Christians claiming to have experienced an out-of-body experience. While some claim to have left their body and traveled to Heaven to receive a message to encourage other Christians, others are leaving their bodies to travel around the world accomplishing some kind of spiritual warfare.
Some like Patricia King of Extreme Prophetic teach that any believer can learn how to go to heaven to “encounter the Lord and His angelic majesties”. In her “Glory School” she teaches how to soar into realms of heavenly glory at will Patricia King is just one of the “Prophets” from the Elijah List. The Elijah List is a newsletter sent out to over 100,000 subscribers giving them access to the prophetic writings of such false teachers as: James W. Goll, Bob Jones, Rick Joyner, Cindy Jacobs and Todd Bentley. James Goll appears to be predicting even more supernatural travel and revelations as he writes “Watch for open heavens in 2011”.
What are we to think of the experiences of those who have “traveled” alive to Heaven in an out-of-body experience? Out-of-body Soul Travel is not new. It is found in ancient Egyptian teachings that present the soul as having the ability to hover out-side the physical body. It is also found in ancient Hindu scriptures and in Japanese mythology where it is believed that a part of the whole of one’s soul can temporarily leave their body and appear before the target of their hate in order to curse or otherwise harm an enemy. Soul travel is found in Theosophy and Eckandar, non-Christian religions based on mysticism, and it is also found in Rosicrucianism, a philosophical secret society.
But why are Christians now experiencing what has historically been an occult practice? And what does the Bible have to say about our spirit’s ability to travel outside of our living body? James 2:2:26 dispels the myths by saying that “the body without the spirit is dead”. What this means is that if a person were to go to Heaven without their body, their body would have to be dead since the body cannot survive with out the spirit. Paul himself said that being “absent from the body” was “to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) a clear reference to the death of the body without the spirit.
Paul writes that a person could be taken to heaven in their body, although he was unsure if the experience that he recalled in 2 Cor. 12:2 was such an occurrence. In this passage Paul recorded that a man (most theologians believe this was Paul himself) was caught up to the third heaven and Paul was not sure if this was in the body” (a transport of the body) or “out of the body” (an experience after death). Paul had several instances where he was whipped, beaten and once he was stoned, an act that usually doesn’t leave survivors. This maybe why Paul was unsure whether he experienced the third heaven after a death and resuscitation experience, or whether he went to paradise in his physical body. Whichever it was, there is no evidence at all that Paul had his spirit in paradise while he had a living body on the earth. Otherwise, the Bible would not be true when it says that “the body without the spirit is dead”.
When John writes about himself that he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”, he was not saying that he died and went to heaven as a spirit. The term “in the Spirit” does not mean that one becomes a spirit as the Jehovah’s Witnesses falsely teach about Jesus’ resurrection which was “in the Spirit”. Rather “in the Spirit” means to be under the power and control of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” he was under the Spirit’s control. He was not having an out-of-body experience.
Since the Bible teaches that the body cannot live without the spirit, why are so many Christians claiming to have left their body, when they never died? I believe the last day’s deception has arrived in full force and many Christians have been deceived by experiences that led them into various areas of extra-biblical deception. They accepted the experience without testing it.
We are instructed by the Bible to test everything, even our experiences, no matter how real and good these experiences seem to be, they must still be tested to see if they line up with God’s Word.
Patricia King relates experiences with groups of Christians levitating and then being transported as spirits to locations around the world. In this state she claimed that “Jesus” spoke to her claiming that these experiences will be said by many to be empowered by occult power, but she was assured that she should not to be afraid of a false source of power. It is evident that Patricia King did not test these experiences by God’s Word, for these experiences contradict God’s Word.
Rick Joyner, the self-professed mentor of the disgraced Todd Bentley, has written about his own experiences of going to heaven where he met with the dead. In Rick Joyner’s “experiences” in heaven, dead people read his mind, but this does not line up with God’s Word, as only God can read the hearts and minds of men. Joyner also claims to have met a dead man who admitted that he was an enemy of the gospel when he was alive on the earth, and who worked to keep people away from the gospel, yet this dead man ended up in heaven according to Joyner’s communication with the dead!
Joyner also received a revelation that reinterprets Scripture when a group of dead people claimed that they were the foolish virgins of Jesus’ parable, but that they too made it to heaven. Rick Joyner concludes that these dead people couldn’t be lying about that.
It is too bad that Joyner did not believe Jesus’ words rather than the testimony of the dead”. Matthew 25:10-12 shows the foolish virgins asking to be allowed into the wedding feast in heaven, but the door was shut to them and Jesus Himself denied “knowing” them.
Rick Joyner’s experiences with the supernatural brought him further revelations that Satan is a bearer of truth, although he says Satan’s truth is truth without grace. However, if Joyner had checked out the Scriptures, he would have found out the testimony of Jesus is that Satan “does not stand in the truth”, because “there is no truth in him”. Who are we to believe---Jesus or the testimony of the “dead” in the out-of-body experiences of Rick Joyner?
The deception that resulted from Rick Joyner’s experience in heaven taught him that having the “mind of Christ” results in the ability to know everything about everyone that you encounter.
Yet the Bible clearly shows that the realm of knowing the heart of man belongs to God alone. The one who testified to Joyner and reinterpreted the Word of God causing Joyner to seek to gain for himself God’s own ability to read minds, was nothing less than a liar and deceiver. The fruit of these out-of-body experiences is not truth but deception.
Bob Jones, the “seer-prophet” who admitted sexual misconduct in 1991, claims to go to the third heaven several times a week and he also receives visits by a female angel named Emma. This “female angel” is the one who birthed the prophetic movement in Kansas City in the 1980’s according to Bob Jones. Bob Jones was removed from the Vineyard Anaheim because of sexual improprieties, which consisted of encouraging women to undress in his office so they could stand ‘naked before the Lord’ in order to receive a ‘word.’ Deception and immorality often go hand in hand!
In a surprising turn of events, Dennis Cramer one of the Elijah List prophets, has written a scathing rebuke to the church for allowing bad doctrine to come into their midst, however much of what he condemned had already been rampant amongst the Elijah List prophets. Dennis Cramer’s warning was posted on the Elijah List and then quickly taken down when it caused a lot of concern from those who had been following the experience focused “prophets”. Later the warning was reposted with a clarification.
The January 15, 2011 repost by Cramer (and subsequent Charisma magazine article also by Cramer) denounced the teaching that Christians could go to heaven at will. While Dennis Cramer did not come right out and refute the teaching that a person can leave his body alive and travel in the spirit, he did bring a stinging rebuke to the false doctrine that is rampant in the experience-related prophetic movement. Here is a part of his message:
“Do I believe in Third Heaven experiences? Absolutely, I do. The Bible supports such sovereign experiences as in the example of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. Do I believe in being physically transported? Absolutely, I do! By a sovereign act of God, Phillip was physically transported (Acts 8) from one location to another. So if it’s in the Bible I believe it! I believe it all! Amen!
“However, there is a HUGE difference between God willing you to have a certain sovereign Bible experience (like Paul or Phillip), as opposed to you willing it or trying to make it happen, to duplicate it through mere human effort or merely through the exercising of your human or soulish will, in other words, “at will.”
These Bible experiences were 100% sovereign. They did not happen because these individuals willed them into existence or willed them to happen….Teachings like this often crossover into dangerous methods and techniques that resemble New Age Mysticism, Spiritism or other occult manipulative practices. A believer cannot and must not force, manipulate, or otherwise attempt to reproduce a sovereign supernatural Bible experience by merely following a method, a series of steps, or worst of all “willing it” to happen.”
Dennis Cramer goes on to give an antidote to pervasive false teaching in the charismatic church. He writes:
“I would like to prescribe a good healthy dose of the written Word of God, the Bible. The Church needs an immediate injection of the truth! We must all pray for the church to return to the orthodoxy (traditional belief) of Scripture. This means a return to the proper reading, INTERPRETATION, and application of the Bible in our lives. There is a growing trend toward some really bad doctrine out there. And we, the Church, must put a stop to it! If we don’t no one else will!! The Church must begin to police herself against unorthodox (false) teaching and bizarre practices. You must reacquaint yourself with the Scriptures and know your Bible…
“We must pray for a “Berean Revival” in the Church -- a revival which returns us all to our roots --our roots in the Word of God. In the bible, the original Bereans were Believers who “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things be so.” There is a lot of doctrine currently in circulation in the charismatic Church that is highly questionable---even heretical.
Each Believer must begin to “search the Scriptures” for himself to discover whether what he is believing is Biblical or not (Acts 17:11). Stop unequivocally trusting ministers and their pulpits to always and completely preach the truth---some do, some do not. You need to search and know the Scriptures for yourself. If their teachings sound too good to be true---they very well may be! Know your Bible!…It is time for the Church to return to her basic Bible beliefs (fundamental doctrines) and the core values these fundamental doctrines produce…We must stop extracting obscure, vague, single, solitary verses out of context, and stop trying to make major “sound “ doctrines out of them…We are “twisting the Scriptures to our own destruction.”
What an amazing message from within the Elijah List itself! No doubt there were ripples in the charismatic community when Dennis Cramer listed a lot of the excesses as bad doctrine. Here are just a few from his list:
- Open Heaven/Spiritual Portals = BAD DOCTRINE
- Going to Heaven At Will to Get Your Gifts = BAD DOCTRINE
- Cloud of Witnesses/Dead Saints= BAD DOCTRINE
- Traveling in Time At Will = BAD DOCTRINE
- Transporting Physically At Will = BAD DOCTRINE
- Going into Trances At Will = BAD DOCTRINE
- Trance Dancing = BAD DOCTRINE
- Hyper-Grace: Christians Do Not Need to Repent of Sin=BAD DOCTRINE
While I cannot endorse all that Dennis Cramer has said about the prophetic, his rebuke to the experience-seekers in the church was a breath of fresh air that was sent out to all 100,000 subscribers of the Elijah List! In concluding his rebuke, Cramer writes this encouraging word:
“I hear the Church saying again, “DEVIL, IT IS WRITTEN!” It does not matter what you think, feel, sense, or even believe. It does not matter what experience you claim to have had, or how many trips to Heaven you claim to have made, or how many angels you know on a first name basis. The only thing that matters is what God said in His Word. Know your Bible….Many will willingly and increasingly enter into incorrect thinking. Hard-core deception will find a home in the Church in 2011, if we are not diligent to know and follow the Word of God. Remember these words from Scripture: “Be not deceived!” This is a command, and the Responsibility of all Bible-believing Believers. Notice that deception is a choice! We must choose not to be deceived in 2011. How? Know your Bible!”
We pray that the word that was spoken from inside the Elijah List will cause many to re-evaluate their failure to test all things by God’s Word. We are in the last days and we have been told that deception will be rampant in these last days. Let us not be ones who are snared by a lie but rather let us be ones who love the truth of God’s Word and hold it tight, who have the fear of God and who are willing to lay aside every weight that hinders us from running the race in truth. Such ones will not be hooked by the deception but will be kept by God’s truth.
Copyright© 2011 Cheryl Schatz
MM Outreach - News & Views - April, May, June 2011
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