Another "Heaven" Lie

Yikes, more of this out-of-body stuff that supposedly proves the reality of "heaven."  This is one from Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who had such an experience and of course wrote a book on it, Proof of Heaven.  It's not out yet but Amazon has a page on it started.

http://www.amazon.com/Proof-Heaven-Neurosurgeons-Journey-Afterlife/dp/1451695195/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349964774&sr=1-1&keywords=proof+of+heaven

The demons are working awfully hard promoting this particular deception these days. 
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If you know and believe the Bible you should be able to spot these reports as false, but those who reject the Bible may fall for them.

Notice that they NEVER give the gospel of Jesus Christ, that He is God incarnate who died for our sins. They give an otherworldly experience and often a false idea of God and Jesus -- that is, false according to the Bible.

As a Bible-believer I know these stories are deceptions.  I believe they are real, however, in the sense that they are actual experiences of a real spiritual realm these people are having, and not hallucinations or tricks of the mind. But Heaven isn't the only spiritual realm, and demons are very clever at deceiving people.

Jesus died for your sins and ONLY those who are saved by believing in Him, saved by the blood He shed on the cross to pay for our sins, saved by faith alone in Christ alone through grace alone, can expect to see Heaven or the new earth.

These illusions are all designed to deceive unbelievers into thinking they, and everybody else, will go to heaven. It's an evil lie concocted by the demons, or fallen angels.   Unfortunately some Christians believe this stuff too and contribute to the deception.  Really depressing. 

A teaching on Hermeneutics from the Reformed perspective, specifically opposing Dispensationalism

Since I've identified Dispensationalism as the source of so much of the craziness the critics of The Harbinger are bringing against it, in an effort to get a better grip on the theological issues I've been listening to a series on hermeneutics from a Reformed perspective and skipped to the two parts that clearly apply to this question. 

This is a series by a local pastor, in fact the pastor of the church I'd be attending if I were attending church, and I have to give lots of caveats here because he doesn't agree with me about some things so I don't want to make it appear that there's some kind of accord that doesn't exist.  I simply strongly appreciate this particular teaching and am learning from it.   I'm already basically Reformed in my thinking, but this particular teaching deepens that perspective a great deal.

As for The Harbinger I have no idea what Pastor Borgman thinks of it, if he even knows about it, and it could well be that he would have many objections to it.  

I'm also aware that a Reformed perspective probably doesn't accord with Jonathan Cahn's theology either, which I've felt all along even as I've been defending his book.  But this isn't a problem with The Harbinger's interpretation of Isaiah 9:10, which is pretty simple and straightforward.  The only reason Dispensationalism is an issue is that it is apparently the basis for some of the objections of this particular camp of critics that I've been arguing against, who fault Cahn's interpretation for supposedly denying the state of Israel its biblical preeminence according to their theological system. 

This elevation of Israel as the main object of the Old Testament is precisely what the talk linked below answers.

Hoping that covers all necessary caveats, I want to recommend listening to these talks at the links, the first one titled

Hermeneutics: Apostolic Exegesis - How the NT interprets the OT

Toward the end of the talk [about 1:07:40], he says this: 

So what do you have [referring to Luke 24]?  You have Jesus interpreting the Old Testament in a way that pointed to ... Israel? 

To who?  To Himself!

You should be really thankful that I'm completely out of time because this is a soapbox issue for me.  To read the Old Testament as if it points us to the nation Israel, either in the past, the present or the future, is to miss the divinely appointed purposes of the Old Testament.  Jesus said the whole thing was about Him.  It all points to Him.

And here's the following talk that continues the same theme:

Hermeneutics: How do Jesus & the Apostles Interpret the Old Testament

Pastor Borgman did a series on Isaiah some years ago, and this is the sermon on Isaiah 9