I personally is a Christian, so where I stand and believed is not hard to understand. While being Christian is a enjoying responsible as Christian we had lots of things we tend to consider when associating with one another. One of these things are the question is if people really can visit heaven or hell and can prophesize and if so how do we know which is true. Consider this, you been prophesized by numerous people saying different things and it could not all be true right since each one contradicting one another.
I believe in prophecy but to know who is real prophet and differentiate prophecy real or fake is the problem
"Their imaginary dreams are flagrant lies that lead my people to sin. I did not send or appoint them, and they have no message at all for my people. I, the Lord have spoken! Jeremiah 23: 30-32
'The problem is, in the hands of a fruitless Christian, the prophecy will tend to get warped into something other than God’s original intention. Prophecy is meant to strengthen, encourage, and comfort, (1Co 14.3) but in the hands of a fruitless Christian, it will be used to tear down, humiliate, and manipulate.
Non-Christian “prophets” are also known as psychics, mediums, channelers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, and all sorts of things. Many of them will claim to be Christians, wear crosses, quote bible, and speak Christianese, but largely they’re just using Christian props; they have no more of a relationship with Jesus than any pagan.
These folks don’t get their information from the Holy Spirit. They get it from other spirits, or from objects: rods, stones, cards, crystals, whatever. They might use those objects as props—much like we Christians sometimes use prayer props—to help them make contact with the spirits they talk to. But there’s the problem: They’re talking to spirits. Not God.
While those spirits might be quite knowledgeable, they aren’t, like God, only interested in our good. We don’t know their motives. We only know that God told us to stay away from fortune-tellers, (Dt 18.10-14) so the spirits that work with them, knowing that God prohibited this behavior, can’t be up to anything good. Best to stay away.'
Who was in Charge?
First of all, God came to the prophet on His own terms. Sometimes, God came after earnest prayer, most often He came when he wanted to. The prophet did not have God on a string, coming at his every call. Therefore, there were relatively few visions which were spread far apart. This does not mean that a prophet cannot get a vision every day or after every earnest prayer. But frequent visions were not the pattern.
This is different from current channellers and psychics. They call up God at will. Become possessed at will. Ask "god" stupid questions and get equally stupid answers. Often, these gods have no problems encouraging people to commit adultery or to consult with the dead. Curiously, they seem to have a big problem with "narrow minded" people who obey the word of God in the Bible.
First of all, God came to the prophet on His own terms. Sometimes, God came after earnest prayer, most often He came when he wanted to. The prophet did not have God on a string, coming at his every call. Therefore, there were relatively few visions which were spread far apart. This does not mean that a prophet cannot get a vision every day or after every earnest prayer. But frequent visions were not the pattern.
This is different from current channellers and psychics. They call up God at will. Become possessed at will. Ask "god" stupid questions and get equally stupid answers. Often, these gods have no problems encouraging people to commit adultery or to consult with the dead. Curiously, they seem to have a big problem with "narrow minded" people who obey the word of God in the Bible.
Scope and Content of the
Vision
Finally, the visions were generally of national or cosmic consequences. God definitely gave messages to individuals, especially rulers. He gave messages of comfort, warning and deliverance to His people. He sometimes sent prophets to people of other beliefs because they were in danger of coming under His judgement.
But the vast majority of visions were not, or never about, what shoes I should buy, what dress I should wear, whom I should marry, what job I should take, what to eat for dinner and utter nonsense about decisions that people should be able to make about their own lives.
Finally, the visions were generally of national or cosmic consequences. God definitely gave messages to individuals, especially rulers. He gave messages of comfort, warning and deliverance to His people. He sometimes sent prophets to people of other beliefs because they were in danger of coming under His judgement.
But the vast majority of visions were not, or never about, what shoes I should buy, what dress I should wear, whom I should marry, what job I should take, what to eat for dinner and utter nonsense about decisions that people should be able to make about their own lives.
But some false prophets appear to be frequently
accurate, this is possible through at least three different methods:
- Trick
or magic using either science or technology.
- Statistics
and psychology. Through their art of communication, they can extract
information from you. Or, their predictions are so general they will
probably fit your situation. By observing your personality, they can
immediately tell how you think and what are some of the problems that you
most likely have. I can do this quite easily.
- By
their direct association with agents in the The Unseen World, gain the ability to
acquire some supernatural knowledge and thus become false prophets. But because they are
false prophets, their accuracy is not 100% and they blatantly contradict
the Bible.
There are only three known methods by which God
has given messages to the prophets.
- Direct
face to face communication. God spoke to Moses in this manner.
- Dreams
while the prophet is asleep.
- Visions
when the prophet is awake.
Therefore, reading tea leaves, palms, stars,
crystal balls and other devices are not allowed.
I read Hagin’s book less than a year after I became a Christian, and was almost taken in by it. Thankfully, toward the end of the book, another quotation of Jesus gave me second thoughts. Jesus supposedly said this to Hagin: “If you will learn to follow this inward witness, I will help you in all the affairs of your life. If my children will listen to me, I will make them wealthy.”7 Even as a new Christian, who had scarcely begun my Biblical studies, I knew something was wrong with a Jesus who told Kenneth Hagin that He would make all Christians wealthy if they just followed an “inward witness” that was supposedly the voice of God! The Jesus of the Bible taught “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Maybe this “Jesus” who appeared to Kenneth Hagin and threatened to kill pastors who wouldn’t listen and promised to make Christians wealthy if they would was not the Biblical Jesus! I decided to lay Hagin’s book aside and study the Bible. Especially since on the last page of Hagin’s book, Jesus supposedly told him that Christians were in charge of their own personal angels and were to directly order them around to do things like get money for us.8
Visiting Hell
Mary Baxter, an ordained Church of God minister, claims to have received new revelations and to have been commission by Jesus himself to write these so that the “world” will know them.9 Her book is replete with first person, direct quotations from Jesus, which she claims to be true and authoritative. She quotes Jesus, “My child, I will take you into hell by My Spirit, and I will show you many things which I want the world to know. I will appear to you many times; I will take your spirit out of your body and will actually take you to hell.
Baxter claims that Jesus revealed to her that hell is shaped like a woman’s body and resides in the middle of the earth. She writes, “Jesus spoke again, ‘Hell has a body (like a human form) lying on her back in the centre of the earth. Hell is shaped like a human — body very large and with many chambers of torment.’”11 didn't He inspire the Biblical writers to include this information in the Bible? And also, why wait until the twentieth century and reveal this to an American Pentecostal?
Since hell is supposedly in the form of a human body, Jesus took Baxter on a tour, one anatomical component at a time, starting with the left leg. In this compartment of hell are many individual pits with fire and brimstone with each pit holding a lost soul in the form of a skeleton crawling with worms, with a grey mist inside.12 On their tour, Jesus would bring Mary Baxter to individual souls in torment and they would conduct what amounted to an interview. The interviews reveal how and why these people were in hell. Here and elsewhere in the book, people in hell either reveal what they had done, or Jesus would tell them what they had done. They would also cry out to Jesus for mercy, but He would tell them it was too late and they should have repented when they were alive. As a result, His presence and discussions with them added to their torment and they often cursed Him when He refused to help.13
The compartments of hell did not contain human inhabitants alone. Satan himself dwelt there with a mass of demons each having appearances such as grizzly bears, monkeys, and various grotesque forms.14However, in contrast to the tormented human souls, the demons seem to be having a good time. Essentially, they are able to go about their evil business, be it discharging the commands of Satan or tormenting the souls of the damned.
Consider this description of Satan in hell: “Satan was standing with his back to us, and he was all aflame. But he was not being burned; rather, it was he who caused the fire. Now he stood engulfed in the flames, enjoying the cries of these poor, lost souls. As Satan moved his arms, great balls of fire shot from him.”25She further describes the situation: “Satan walked through the flames, and they could not burn him.”26Contrast this with the Gospels where Jesus indicated that the fire of hell was prepared for the devil, not that he was in charge of it and not touched by the fire. For example, “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41).
The idea that Satan is in charge of hell and enjoying the process of inflicting various torments on people is a fictitious notion that comes from popular folk religion but is not taught in the Bible. Part of the problem with Baxter’s book is that it never makes a clear distinction between hades and gehnna. Hades is the Greek word in the New Testament that is used for the place where the lost go upon death, awaiting the resurrection of the body for the final judgement. Gehnna is the final abode of the lost, which is also called the “lake of fire.” In Revelation 20 we find that hades is thrown into the lake of fire: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:13,14).
A biblical Christian might say that he would compare what they say with what is presented in the Scriptures about Heaven. If it rings true to the Word of God, then it must be true. Well, yes and no. Yes, it must be true to Scripture. What is presented certainly cannot be at odds with what the Bible teaches about Heaven; nevertheless, just because it conforms to Scripture doesn't prove that the person's declaration or experience of being in Heaven actually took place.
I know a good deal about Heaven from my study of the Bible. If I told you that I had recently visited there and only communicated what I knew was recorded in the Bible about it, you couldn't object to what I said on the basis of my being biblically inaccurate. Accuracy, however, is not the only criterion for biblical discernment. There are many other instructions and examples that we must take into consideration. For example, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12 of a "man in Christ" (no doubt Paul himself) who was caught up to Heaven. He didn't know at the time whether it was an experience in which his spirit had left his body, or a vision while his spirit remained in his body. Nevertheless, he states that what he saw and heard in paradise was not lawful for a man to utter. Paul's experience was followed by a humbling infirmity, which he states that God allowed him to suffer "lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations..." (2 Corinthians:12:6-7)
That isn't always
the case in Scripture. The Apostle John obviously was given permission to
declare what he witnessed in Heaven in the Book of Revelation. This would
seemingly apply as well to the writer of the Book of Job."
Too many links, lazy but to put the proper referencing system, so some will be using Ong referencing system. Anyway you all know where to look ya to double confirm what I wrote.
http://www.ackcity.net/godswarning.htm
http://morechrist.blogspot.com/2010/11/prophecy-and-identifying-fake-prophets.html
http://www.teachinghearts.org/dre03prophecynotes.html
Critical Issues Commentary.Visisting Heaven and Hell.[online] Available at: <http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue54.htm> [Accessed 16/1/2013]
