This is a digression from the theme of mysticism in my personal attempt to renew my spiritual life, to return for a moment to the End Times scenario and the role I've come to think is likely to be played by all these "visits to heaven" that have been proliferating in the last few decades. They all seem to be designed to persuade people that there is an afterlife, and some of them purport to give the Christian view of the afterlife. Personal experiences seem to have a great deal of persuasive power no matter how much they contradict each other or teach clearly false doctrine.
I just saw this one at You Tube and decided I should listen to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDbGbzu7a2w&t=3s It's about the experience after death of a young Buddhist monk in Myanmar (Burma) some years ago. He describes walking across a flat plain and crossing a river, at which point he sees a "lake of fire" and encounters a demon spirit who answers his questions about what he is seeing.
The demon spirit says he is the King of Hell, the Destroyer, and tells the monk to look into the lake of fire. There he sees his Buddhist teacher who had died in a car accident and asks why he is there. since he was a good Buddhist teacher The King of Hell says
"Yes he was a good teacher but he did not believe in Jesus Christ; that's why he is in Hell."
He then sees Gautama Buddha in the fire and is told that he too is there "because he did not believe in the eternal God." Then he sees a famous revolutionary leader of Myanmar who is there "because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ" and then the giant Goliath who was killed by the young David according to the biblical story, and the King of Hell explains that he is there "becuase he blasphemed the eternal God." He has to explain who David and Goliath were to the monk who has never heard any of these things before.
He is told to go back where he came from because his name isn't written down for the Lake of Fire (not that it would be. We are told in the Bible that our names are in the Book of Life or not, those slated for Hell aren't written anywhere)_ He is to become a Christian. He comes to a fork in the road, he sees a couple of men walking on the broader road and follows them, seeks them killed. He goes back to the fork and takes the narrower road instead which eventually turns to gold and he meets a man who eventually identifies himself as the one who has "the keys to heaven." He tells the monk he can't go to heaven now but "if he follows Jesus Christ" he can go there at the end of his life. "The man's name was Peter."
Hm, we seem to be in a Catholic Vision where Peter has the keys to heaven?
"Peter" directs him to see what is supposed to be the Creation of man. He sees "the eternal God" who says to an angel, "Let us make man." The angel objects, saying "they will do wrong" but man is created anyway, the man named Adam. God "blows" at him to bring him to life.
Some bad theology in this vision, but of course the monk wouldn't know that since he knows nothing at all about Christianity or the Bible. However, Christians listening to the story should know it's false, but I gather from the Comments below the video that they don't.
So the monk is told to go back to his life and tell everybody that they must "believe in Jesus Christ or they will go to Hell."
OK. So. When one first hears a story like this from such a sincere-sounding person it is hard to find fault with it. You can get persuaded thta for whatever reason God saves some people in such a direct way, by teaching them the gospel through a near-death experience of the afterlife. Such stories have been coming out of Muslim parts of the world too. There's something about testimony based on direct experience that is persuasive even when it is full of obvious deceptions when you take the time to think about it.
The main clue to this one as a deception is the repeated phrase about how one must "believe in Jesus Christ." That is what passes for the gospel here, but the true gospel is never given. "Believe in Jesus Christ" means what? Beleive He exists or existed? What does it mean? There is nothing in this vision about Jesus' dying to pay for our sins, THAT being the gospel of salvation. You can believe in his existence, you can like his teachings, you can "follow Him" even, but if you never receive the new birth on the basis of His death to pay for your sins you are not a Christian, and it is very possible that none of those who beleive this vision are saved.
There are other deceptions in the vision though that one alone should be enough. In the Bible account of the Creation God says "Let Us make man in our image." He's not talking to an angel, He's talking to the other two Persons of the triune Godhead. And God "breathed" into Adam, didn't "blow" at him.
The demons are apparently capable of creating such scenarios to deceive people and they seem to be working overtime on this particular kind of deception as the last days close in on us..
The deception that interests me the most in this case is the portrayal of "Peter" as the holder of the keys of heaven. Why is this vision teaching a Roman Catholic misinterpretation?
Well, here's my thought on it: I have been arguing here that the final Antichrist is most likely going to be the Pope, and if the Rapture occurs within the next few years that would be Pope Francis. The Harlot Church of the Book of Revelation clearly represents the Roman Church and although there may be a part played by Islam in the final scenario the Revived Roman Empire prophesied as the setting for the playing out of the Great Tribulation looks to me like it's essentially the recovery of the Holy Roman Empire that ruled over Europe in the Middle Ages. It never really died if you think of it as the outworking of the Roman Church which has never gone away although it lost its civil power at the Reformation.. The Vatican is a nation state unto itself so all the pieces are in place for whatever event allows them all to come together in the revived Empire. As I've seen it, with the true Christians taken out of the way at the Rapture, the Pope, who has international standing anyway, will emerge through a covenant with Israel as the man who can bring peace to a chaotic world, the Antichrist who will rule the entire world, not just Europe. The Roman Church will recover both the religious and the civil power it lost at the Reformation, but much more power this time around./
SO, I'm thinking this vision experienced by the Buddhist monk is one of the ways Satan is preparing for this scenario to unfold by creating a population of deceived "believers in Christ" who contribute to the expansion of the worldwide influence of the Roman Church, that institution being the core element in the false religion of the Tribulation period. Somehow Islam will have to come on board, probably through their reverence for Jesus as a Prophet. Not sure how that's going to play out, but somehow in the end there's going to be this pastiche of religions coming together as One Religion, presided over by the Harlot Church of Rome. the Popes have been working hard to bring all religions under their wing for decades now. The final world religion has to be at least a hodgepodge that can be taken for "Christianity" by the vast majority of people who have no way of judging it.,
Remember, this whole scenario is Satan's doing, his masterpiece you might say. He invented the Roman Church and the papacy, he also invented Islam, both creations of his evil genius. The whole drama of Planet Earth is a playing out of the war of Satan against God, and the final act will be Satan's Day when he gets to rule the world through his Antichrist, putting himself in God's place, and gets to do his worst to destroy humanity which he hates. He was defeated at the Cross, he knows his time is short, but he's pulling out all the stops for the Grand Finale.
There will be dissenters. There will be those who will refuse the Mark of the Beast. Many of them will die as martyrs. Others may go on living into the Millennial Kingdom. A vast number of people will be saved through the most miserable time anyone has ever seen on Earth.
But I'm picturing the main engine of the False Religion to be the Roman Church and its revived Inquisition.
Come soon, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
