90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life

R

ravenmolehil Aug 16, 2007

My unsaved brother raved about this book;
(Of a Baptist pastor with a Near Death Experience)
I think it is a NY Times Best Seller, hummm..that should throw a red light.
But from from what I can gather, it seems to be very dangerous.
Is there anyone in the SI crowd that has had a dealing with this book, The author is Don "not john" Piper.
I don't have any intention of reading it, but just wanted to know what areas may need to be combated.

I know we shouldn't have knee jerk reactions to such, & just focus on the preaching gospel, but I think his excitement from the book will open a door (that is usually closed) to witness.

C

ccchhhrrriiisss Aug 16, 2007

Hi ravenmolehil...

I have not read this particular book. I'm not even familiar with Don Piper, except for having seen his name mentioned in an advertisement or article.

I know we shouldn't have knee jerk reactions to such, & just focus on the preaching gospel, but I think his excitement from the book will open a door (that is usually closed) to witness.

I suppose that we shouldn't have a knee-jerk reaction -- but we should be extremely cautious.

After becoming a christian, I read countless books about individuals claiming to have died and gone to Heaven. The main similarity to them is how completely different most of their stories are. There are some that are obviously incorrect. For instance, a particularly famous prosperity preacher/comedian, Jesse Duplantis, claims to have seen "Gucci" furniture [complete with the name tags] in his Heavenly mansion. He also claims to have heard angels playing rock music on heavenly pianos. There are some that are quite suspicious. For instance, Roberts Liardon claimed to have caught a glimpse of Heaven in which he found out that there will be "paying jobs." And then there are some that sound quite credible.

Dr. Richard Eby claimed to have died and gone to Heaven. Later on, he claimed to have caught a glimpse of Hell. He claimed that God specifically told him that he would not die before the Lord's return. He was a frequent guest on TBN. His story was quoted around the world as "proof" that Jesus was coming soon -- particularly when he grew old. However, Dr. Eby died in 2002.

Paul spoke of a nameless man (often thought to be Paul himself) who was "caught up into the third heaven" (or "Paradise"). The ironic thing is that Paul claims that what was seen "is not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). There are so many claims being boastfully presented by modern ministers of the Gospel, it is important to remember the caution that Paul used in sharing such a story.

In the end, I would use extreme caution in the embracement of such tales. While I don't pretend to know the validity of any of them, I am quick to include a disclaimer as such. We cannot know the validity of these stories. This doesn't mean that an individual who shares is lying. They may have dreamt of Heaven. They may have had a near-death hallucination of Heaven. And they may have actually seen Heaven. But it would be impossible (outside of the obvious) to know the difference.

:-)

R

ravenmolehil Aug 16, 2007

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant knee jerk reaction in terms of trying to find out & combat everything in the main stream.

Another reason that I am concerned is that I read a NDE book, before coming to Christ, 'called saved by the light,' & It really messed me up in my views of a Biblical Heaven (overall message: love everybody b/c were all going to heaven :-) ); needless to say it didn't glorify God :cry: . It has taken a while for me to get alot of that junk outta my head. So I tend to be very cautious, as Paul Washer says 'With anything written that isn't a least a 100 yrs old'

H

HomeFree89 Aug 16, 2007

ravenmolehil wrote:
My unsaved brother raved about this book;
(Of a Baptist pastor with a Near Death Experience)
I think it is a NY Times Best Seller, hummm..that should throw a red light.
But from from what I can gather, it seems to be very dangerous.
Is there anyone in the SI crowd that has had a dealing with this book, The author is Don "not john" Piper.
I don't have any intention of reading it, but just wanted to know what areas may need to be combated.
I know we shouldn't have knee jerk reactions to such, & just focus on the preaching gospel, but I think his excitement from the book will open a door (that is usually closed) to witness.

My mom just read it and it helped her in a couple of areas. Like, he was just entering into heaven, but a pastor felt the Lord telling him to pray for Don Piper even though he'd been dead for 90 minutes.

When Piper came back to life he fell into great depression because he didn't want to come back to live on earth, he wanted to go to heaven and be with God. However, the Lord used a song by the Imperials (Praise the Lord) to show him he needed to praise Him and then he came out of the depression.

Jordan

sermonindex Aug 16, 2007

quote

I know we shouldn't have knee jerk reactions to such, & just focus on the preaching gospel, but I think his excitement from the book will open a door (that is usually closed) to witness

moe_mac wrote:

90 Minutes in heaven was written by Don Piper of Texas.It is a true and documented story and definately a miracle in anyones language. I purchased one his book and his couple of his audio tapes when I went heard him preach in person. Mr.Piper had every bone in his body broke except his right had which his son told him that was spared for signing books. He had a vast number of major surgeries over many parts of his body and a first time ever performed bone stretching proceedure. Another preacher was on the way to the same church and came up on the wreck. He would have been in front of Don had his wife not have wanted him to stop and get her a cup of coffee to go. He almost had to fight the EMT's and the state trooper to go to the car and pray for Don Piper because he felt the Lord leading him to do so. They trooper told him, the man dead, there is nothing you can do, he has been checked by 4 sets of EMT's and myself. The preachers persistence in obedience of what he felt from the lord to lead to go pray for him paid off and when he advised the trooper of experience as medic in vietnam , he allowed him to get into the car with tarp covered body of Don, him still in the drivers seat, waiting on extraction crew to arrive and to cut the dead body loose. This preacher said on the way to car, he said Lord," what good it is going for me to do in praying for a dead man, this don't make a lot of sense". The preacher climbed in the cars back seat, reached fro Don'r wrist to check for a pulse and there was none and put his hand on preacher Don Piper's shoulder and starting singing "what a friend we have in Jesus", when he got to the chorus, Don Joined in the song. The preacher jumps out of the car and looked to see the last ambulance on the scene or should I say attempting to leave the scene, with no victim inside. He ran up to the window and stopped them as they were slowing rolling off. He said he is alive, they said, impossible, we already checked him and he is dead and beeen dead for awhile and started to roll off again. The preacher said no he is not dead now, he said I will lay down in front of the ambulance if I have to, but you ain't leaving until you go see he ain't dead. You got to get the book and hear the story. What a testimony. Don Piper was on his way to preach that evening. He still has his blood soaks sermon notes from the accident the trooper brought later. He said he begged for the Lord to let him die for almost a year after the accident. Nothing is impossible with God.