There have often been times in my life, for reasons I don't fully understand, when the veil separating this physical reality from the ordinarily 'invisible' reality of the spiritual dimension becomes very thin. Either with eyes shut or open, I then become aware of people living out their lives in a parallel dimension, what Christians/Messianics traditionally call 'heaven' or 'hell'. I have often written about these experiences over the years on this website.

It has been happening a lot in recent weeks, perhaps because I am facing a life-threatening operation but maybe for reasons I know nothing about. And it happened again two days ago. It often happens at night when I am unable to sleep or have been up praying or reading. On this occasion I was in a parallel dimension in which I could see lots of people walking around, or sitting, some conversing with others, while the rest were about other things. They were all dressed in white. This was not an unfamiliar place to me, indeed I have seen it many times before, what Messianic Evangelicals call 'The Garden', 'Paradise', 'Eden', 'Heaven' or that section of 'Sheol' where the disembodied righteous and saved await the resurrection. In the early days this world would appear very bright and dazzling but over the on at this occasion, at a couple - a man and a woman - in conversation with each other, and the woman was wearing a beautiful white dress, like a wedding dress. It all seemed to natural, so good, so pure.

This short article is not, however, primarily about the 'other world' as though it were some alien and remote place but a comment on what's happening in my life right now and to encourage born-again, spiritually regenerated believers to look at the next life, not as something 'weird' or even frightening, but as a continuation of this world minus the limitations of the fallen flesh and plus a number of sensory enhancements that tend to get dulled by the material world because of a negligence of things spiritual. I think it would be true to say that everyone who experiences 'the other side' for the first time tends to be surprised, shocked, overwhelmed, delighted or experience some other heightened emotion. I guess it depends how you were raised. My mother had this sensitivity as do at least a couple of my seven children so we are able to relate to one another when we talk about such things. My mother shared all sorts of experiences she had over years, many of which I have recounted to you before, that included times when she saw the spirits of the newly departed at funerals or even, on one occasion, at an execution site in Singapore. So even before I became a believer, the idea of one or more parallel worlds was something completely normal for me.

I realise, of course, as every serious believer must, that to be thus gifted - to possess this spiritual sensitivity - does not mean that one is automatically discerning. Throughout my life I have most certainly been the unwilling victim of deceptions orchestrated by the Enemy which were particularly common before I was born again but which steadily diminished in number as I matured in my faith. Becoming maturer over the years does not make believers immune from deception, mind you, a reason we are urged to "test the spirits to see whether they are from Elohim (God)" (John 4:1, NIV), and though the primary sense of this Scripture is to warn against false nevi'im (prophets) it is applicable generally to anything connected to the invisible, spiritual realm.

Many people have expressed a tingle of envy because they do not have this gift but I have to categorically state that there is a plus and a negative side to every gift, not least of which is accountability for how one uses it. There are things I have seen I would rather not have seen, both the vile things of the dark forces but worse, in my mind, being shown prophetically either what other people are going to do with their lives or, as in one recent example, the various choices a certain individual will face - hard choices, all but one of which would lead to bad outcomes. The apostle Paul once said, "eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy" (1 Cor.14:1-2, NIV) but I'm not sure I entirely share his sentiment. Prophecy is great - fantastic - when Yahweh shows you the good things that are going to happen, but it is simultaneously a nightmare when you are shown how believers will fall away and lose their salvation or of the horrible judgments that are coming to the world. Many of these prophetic visions have broken my heart. I have to truthfully tell you that there have been times when I have begged Yahweh to take the gift away from me because it simply distressed my soul too much to see into the future. And it is made worse when you see so many of these prophcies being fulfilled. Again, I have related numerous accounts of my experiences with this kind of negative prophecy over the years. It is a heavy burden to carry. So I can understand Paul in one sense. Coming from such a spiritual man who had been given revelations of the falling away or apostacy (e.g. 2 Thes.2:3), it might at first be a little perplexing that he would say what he did until you realise that for the most part he did not have visions like, for example, the apostle John. When you see things it makes everything so much more vivid and, if negative, frighteningly so. I can only imagine how John felt on Patmos after his apocalyptic visions, the interpretation of which is still baffling theologicans and scriptorians.

Now I said all of that in order to lead onto something else I wanted to share with you today, and that is what I tentatively call 'theological visions'. The tools we use to describe things we see or otherwise experience in the natural or physical world are not infrequently totally inadequate to describe the activities of the spiritual realm. We have, indeed, become a very picture-oriented society since the advent of the movies, television and the internet. And as anyone who has experienced the loss of one of their senses like hearing or seeing will tell you, one or more of the other senses tends to become much more enhanced to in some way 'compensate' for the loss.

Yesterday - well actually, for several days now, but things sort of came to a head yesterday - I was thinking about some of the symbolism in the Book of Revelation, and in particular, that of the Tree of Life and the River of the Water of Life in Revelation 22. We know that this tree is not literal - indeed, it cannot be - because it simultaneously exists on both sides of the entire length of the River of the Water of Life. This is the Tree, you will remember, that brings forth twelve crops of different fruits each year, a different crop each month. Westerners have huge problems wrapping their minds around such symbolism. This is particularly hard for people of certain denominational mindsets and theological schools of thought who want to see everything as literally as possible. There are those who really believe such a physical Tree exists, or will exist, at some point in time. It's real but it's not exactly like a physical tree of the kind we know down here.

I raise this subject because I have often got into debates with literalists who are incapable of thinking outside the Greek reductionist, materialist, literalist box. It's not their fault because that's how they were educated by the world system. Such thinking is great when dealing with the material world but retards their abililty to deal with or make sense of certain genres of Scripture. I am both a scientist and a theologian so I consider myself spoiled but to deal with the two dimensions or worlds does mean that you have to turn off one set of assumptions and interpretive lenses and turn on another. Though the analogy is limited, I live in a country where we drive on the right-hand side of the road (Sweden) but where I come from (the UK) we drive on the left. So when I am in the UK is quite natural for me to switch round and operate cars with steering wheels on the 'opposite' side. Now I admit I do have the occasional lapses (which can be quite scary, especially for passengers!) but on the whole I can manage fine. But taking a wife, who has only ever known driving on the right with the steering wheel on the left, to a country where everything is back-to-font, can be quite hair-raising for her! Using roundabouts can almost cause a mental breakdown!

Because I have done a lot of work recently helping out believers caught up in the flat earth delusion, I have had to switch to my mode of scientific thinking from the Hebraic one. It was easier in the old days when I used to work as an ITC instructor by day (which required by logical brain to operate full-time) and as a pastor at other times (which required another sort of thinking) as I was doing more or less equal measures of both kinds. When I retired as an educator and found myself in full-time ministry, I noticed how the scientific side of my mind started to progressively 'go to sleep', as it were. So when I was called upon to do lots of science to deal with the flat earth cult, it was initially really hard as my scientific mind had got lax. I have sort-of found the balance again but noticed how the more I get involved in science again how easy it was to start 'reading' the scriptures through a scientific lens again. And the older I get, the tougher it becomes.

With new controversies ever popping up (the latest being the fate of the wicked after death) I have found I have needed my 'other mind' a lot more, so I have had to focus flexing another set of mental muscles. But it's not always so easy to 'change over'. I have noticed how others like myself, like the late Dr.Henry Morris, the pioneer of modern creationism science, face challenges. I have a KJV Bible he published with copious footnotes and commentaries (The Defenders Study Bible) and I still receive his ministry's quarterly devotionals booklet, Days of Praise, authored by scientists who are Christians belonging to ICR (Institute for Creation Research, mostly Baptists). I also get another devotional, Our Daily Bread by RBC/ODBM (formerly called Radio Bible Class, now called Our Daily Bread Ministries), also Christian (and baptist) who are not scientists and the way these groups of people approach Scripture and write is entirely different. There is literally and clearly a left- and right-brain dichotomy and I can see how those who are trained scientists would be attracted to Days of Praise. It is not common to find people who can easily or comfortably inhabit both worlds. Whether this is a biological limitation, or whether it's just a matter of habitual ingraining, I'm not entirely sure, I just know it's real. That's why I am always strongly attracted to teachers and preachers who are comfortable and fluent in both. I will say, though, that maintaining both requires a lot of hard work because it seems to be the natural thing to have one form of thinking dominate over the other. It's not at all unlike the differences between male and female thinking, one of which is more logical and the other more intuitive. I've also noticed that women who are gifted logical thinkers tend to lose the intuitive side more readily than those who follow their natural biological programming, and vice versa for the men. That is why the feminised men of this snowflake generation are even less able to think logically than those women who have trained themselves to go against their natural disposition. I find feminised men and masculinised women far more dogmatic and unapproachable to either reason or intuition, respectively, than those following the natural disposition of their gender. That's my opinion based on a lot of observation over the years which is why I believe it is so essential to pursue our assigned biblical rôles.

Now I mentioned earlier that those gifted with the ability to see into the spiritual realm (Seers, Visionaries) face genuine temptations from the Enemy who knows how to tailor-make deceptions for every proclivity. I have seen plenty of false visions and seen plenty of counterfeit representations of the afterlife, especially when it comes to hell. Time and experience teach you how to discern between the true and the false but you do need to test by default because Satan is a clever old sod. The Enemy cannot resist lying because it is in the core of his nature but, because he is a supernatural being easily able to outwit those who are not born again or who are inexperienced, we are given the commandment to test all things. It ought to be our automatic response to any supernatural experience, particularly if it is unfamiliar. My first wife was deceived by a spectacular false vision, the first she had ever seen, in which she was convinced that her adulterous lover was a 'christ'. It was a very powerful manifestation, even though 'it' prophesied I would agree to something which I never did (proving it to be false, but which she ignored because she so much wanted it to be true) she had never experienced the supernatural like that before, and it overwhelmed every sense of reason she had. The relationship with the adulterous man, who was a New Age cult leader, did not last but then neither did our marriage, nor did she ever return to biblical Christianity. In spite of things not working out as she had hoped, she was still hooked by the power of that first experience - the spirit, which subsequently mutated to give her a modified religion - still held her in its grasp.

To those of you who are 'Christians' or 'Messianics' you may be smiling and thinking that you could never fall for such a demonic scam. Don't be so sure. Aside from the obvious counterfeits, like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Christian Science, and the like, there are plenty of false spirits in the churches and lots of believers are getting false supernatural experiences (particularly in the charismatic movement) but also even amongst those who regard themselves as 'cessationists'.

I was loking at a video made by someone who had the gift of seership who had been taken to 'hell' and from what I could tell almost everybody who ever existed was supposedly there. The vision started off convincingly enough but when she started saying that all Catholics were in hell and all Seventh-day Adventists, etc., I at once knew this was false. The spirit energising this vision was very familiar indeed, one I have encountered so often amongst hell-fire-and-damnation preachers, both charismatic and non-charismatic. Indeed the alleged 'seer' even said that those who are not 'evangelicals' cannot be saved.

You don't have to be a 'seer' to be animated by this false spirit. I know plenty of fanatical cessationist [1] Calvinists and non-Calvinists who are possessed by it who in their mindset are unmistakably cultic. Their harsh attitude toward people says it all. And whilst I am the first to warn against Yahweh's Judgment, I do not live in the terror that these people do nor do I presume to point fingers or place people into various categories that would mark them for eternal torture or extermination since I have no clue how Yahweh will sort souls out on the final day, since I am not Elohim (God) and do not know the minds and hearts of men and women as the Creator does. So many of the false spirits ride an élitist bandwagon, inspiring those who think themselves uniquely special to others trusting in Yah'shua (Jesus) because they differ on what they consider to be salvational issues that others do not. Our belief is that we will be judged on whether we are in Messiah (Christ) or not and I do not doubt that millions are believers of all sorts who embrace false doctrines of one sort or another. If, as that video commentator claimed, all Roman Catholics are in hell, then from about the 5th century to the 17th century (when the Reformation began) - 1,200+ years - no one was saved, save maybe a few dozen eclectics living in caves. I know this to be a lie because Yahweh has testified to me that devoted believers like Thomas von Kempen (Thomas à Kempis) are saved and in heaven even though they believed in a number of false Catholic doctrines. We are nut judged for being unwittingly ignorant.

We need to be very careful of the 'visions', 'revelations' and 'prophecies' of many believers and be sure to test them rigorously. For one thing, you have to see beyond artificial man-made denominational boundaries because Yahweh recognises none of them. There are no 'evangelicals', 'catholics' or other d'enominationalists in Heaven'. Denominations don't save. Yahweh goes straight to the core essence of a person's heart, looks at his works, and judges those. And as far as I am concerned, that's His business and not mine. I teach the emet (truth), such as He has revealed, and continues to reveal, to me and I leave the rest up to Him. I am not competent to judge someone else's final salvation or declare the final state of the dead. That lady 'seer', incidentally, says she saw Martin Luther King burning in hell. Maybe he is there, maybe he isn't, I don't know. Do you? It could be either way, since he was allegedly an adulterer and was involved in freemasonry. But I never knew the man personally. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. And if he was, maybe he repented.

Our business is teaching folks to trust in Yah'shua (Jesus) daily, repent of their sins, and obey the mitzvot (commandments) of the New Covenant Torah. If we are leaders of households and congregations, or are evangelists like Timothy, we are to "preach the Davar (Word) [and] be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction" (2 Tim 4:2, NIV). If we are not, and a brother ot sister is caught in a Torah offence, we are told how to handle such situations - take the guilty party aisde, to gently admonish them, and if they won'd repent, to go to the elders, and if they do not respond to the elders, to then take more drastic action. Yes, there are sins that "lead to death" (1 Jn.5:16, NIV) which the apostle John makes clear are those sins such as resolutely rejecting the doctrine about Messiah, chronic disobedience to the mitzvot (commandments) and a persistent lack of love for fellow believers because these are evidence of a lack of saving emunah (faith). Others reading John's letter make a distinction between "mortal sin (pros thanaton)" (NRSV) - literally "toward death" and those which are not mortal (mé pros thanaton) or "not toward death" and would say the former applies only to those who deny Messiah and the latter a failure to be obedient (see 1 Jn.1:8-10; 3:9). Is is differences in the interpretation of such passages that can create disagreements between believers and may explain why some are more hell-fire-and-damnation-minded than others. Certainly we are to admonish in love, truth, gentleness and patience for as long as our testimony will be listened to. Thereafter we are to simply pray for them.

I mentioned that I was shown in vision three choices a certain person would face, a person going down a wrong road. They could either repent and come back into proper relationship, continue down the road holding onto a distorted faith (I saw a vision of that person clothed in a special way who had become a teacher of the false doctrine being espoused), or abandon the faith altogether and become an atheist. Yahweh would not show me the outcome, for reasons I can appreciate, even if He may know the final outcome. I have certainly been enormously surprised over the years as a minister to see some of the choices people have made, choices I would never have dreamed they would ever make. I think if Yahweh had shown me the final outcome of this person's life it might have destroyed my tiqveh or hope for my heart has already been broken so many times by the paths former brethren and sisters have taken. We can only take so much. More often than not He shows even the seers nothing. We really don't need to know. We only need to know what He wants us to know and that is a big enough mystery as it is. Some people He has shown me the final outcome of their lives in vision. This has been especially scary as the visions have been fulfilled. I hate this kind of revelation but I guess it was given to me so that I would not agonise needlessly for their souls.

I love John's council in such situations so let me end with that:

"We know that anyone born of Elohim (God) does not continue to sin; the one who was born of Elohim (God) keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. We know that we are children of Elohim (God), and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of Elohim (God) has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true - even in His Son Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). He is the true Elohim (God) and aeonian chayim ('eternal'/age-long life)" (1 John 5:18-20, NIV).

So I am not going to stress out over those things not in my control but I will continue to go through any door that Yahweh opens for me to minister, to believers and unbelievers alike. There are lots of things we can't understand and probably will never understand and that is how it is supposed to be. We walk by emunah (faith) and not by sight in the things of the Almighty. May you find shalom (peace) in this and confidently move forward. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Those (like Baptists) who believe the major spiritual gifts like visions, prophecy, revelation anf speaking tongues were 'only' for the New Testament period to 'establish' the church which Yahweh 'removed' after the death of the last apostles. See Cessationism: The Witness of a Continuationist

Further Reading