Trips to heaven. Personal home visits from God. Angelic visitations. Intimate conversations with Jesus. If you have ever heard a well-known man or woman regaling of past times where Jesus walked into their living room or where they were taken on trips to heaven with secret divine revelation personally given to him/her, you may have been left wondering, “Why doesn’t Jesus come to my house and meet with me? Why don’t I hear God’s voice for myself like these people? Why am I not special?” The appeal to have a supernatural and personal encounter is ever growing, and the case could be made that with this growth is the danger for deception and strong delusion where people are led astray away from the truth of the Word of God and from God Himself.

Reactions to those who profess such experiences are mixed. There are those who defend this type of conduct. People are placed on pedestals to where mere questioning is unwelcomed and viewed as hostile to the move of God and even void of the Holy Spirit in the individual posing questions. Some may dismiss the accounts, proclaiming there are better things to discuss and to expose. There will be those who test these experiences and extrabiblical revelation in accordance with Scripture, contend for the faith, and care for souls, realizing that people being led astray is quite serious.

For those who would envy these encounters and grand exploits, here is a comforting truth to digest: personal supernatural experiences are not what marks you as a believer in Christ. What I mean by that is there is no necessity to prove your intimacy with God and your spiritual walk with the Lord by having Jesus visit you in the bathroom or in your car. Trips to heaven and personal talks with Jesus do not prove you belong to Christ. You are known to be His by what He did on the cross and by your faith in Him alone to save you and to give you eternal life. How sad it is that the supernatural transformation at the moment of salvation is not sufficient enough to capture our awe and reverence of God.

It is also sad when stories of these extraordinary encounters are accepted as truth while an individual claiming to have spoken directly to Jesus ascribes instruction from Him blatantly contradicting Scripture. A recent interview comes to mind where Bobby Connor told Todd White how God told him to use profanity at a seminary where he spoke years ago as a guest. Bobby spelled the word he was to say and then went on to demonstrate how he argued with God about saying it. What followed next was the verification for this revelation; he claimed to have fallen into a trance where he saw every person at that meeting, including a woman in a white suit on the front row. He put out a fleece for God, stating that if that woman was in the meeting, he would do what God had instructed. Long story short, the woman was said to have been at the meeting and Bobby stated what God told him to say, repeating it a second time for those in attendance to hear.

What is interesting in this account is that he briefly referenced a portion of Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Bobby acknowledged what God’s Word instructs in conduct for believers. Yet it seemed he was using a personal experience, the trance, to verify this instruction contradicting Scripture. There was no way to verify the account or the trance. There were no witnesses to the encounter. Scripture provides proof by the apostles who were given authority to write Scripture. There were witnesses to the supernatural experiences described in the Word. There are times it seems as if the claims today attempt to mirror those found in the Bible while also claiming that alleged experiences with Jesus and relaying words He said are not on par with Scripture. The issue is that God speaking never stops being authoritative, and claiming, “Jesus told me” or “God said” should not be taken lightly.

Another example of fantastical claims with trips to heaven and talks with Jesus came from Kevin Zadai on his program, The Secret Place. He stated how shocked he was at the things Jesus told him about the last days. Kevin spoke of modeling our lives after Moses, paralleling his walk with God. He said Jesus told him about the prophetic generation in the womb much like Moses. Several times he mentioned Jesus told him things to share and stated that because he prayed in tongues so much his spirit man had grown to be thirty miles long. He shared an account of angels coming to him while he tried to sleep, and he told them he was tired, and he had been working hard. When asking them if there was anyone else able to pray, the angels allegedly stated there was no one else. Imagine a world with millions of people, and there is only one man to depend upon for prayer. This is the epitome of being special and anointed, leaving the viewer watching this program with potential questions as to why they are not special and why God does not send angels to them in times of prayer. Perhaps there are no questions at all but a sense of awe, wonder, and envy at the level of perceived fellowship Kevin and others like him have with God.

Here is where I would like to pose some things for consideration when listening to individuals who subtly claim to hear God speaking and attempt to authenticate said revelation with unverifiable experiences. Who is being exalted in these accounts? Who is the main focus? What message is proclaimed? Is the gospel of Jesus Christ central? Is there a call of repentance and saving faith alone in Jesus Christ, or is the focus on self and the experience? Is the Word of God at the forefront, or is the Word used as a garnish to dress up the presented experience? Is anything said contradicting Scripture? This is why we must know what the Bible has to say. Otherwise, we will be vulnerable to deception and delusion. Finally, can we reject special instances proclaimed by special people? Yes, we can. When experiences such as these have been tested by the Word of God, which we know to be the truth, and they have not agreed with Scripture, we can reject them. We can also love people enough to guide them back to the truth rather than fantastical subjective stories potentially leading them after another god and another gospel.

You are under no obligation to have these types of testimonies in order to prove you have fellowship with God because this is not proof of fellowship. The truth is we are not as special as we like to think, and false humility runs rampant in these types of accounts. Rest in knowing that what Christ Jesus did was sufficient for your reconciliation back to the Father. Continue to grow in fellowship with the Lord by staying in His written Word, praying, worshiping, and participating in the corporate gathering of fellow believers, and know that you have heard His voice when you heard the gospel. This is truly supernatural.

Listen to the latest episode of The Lovesick Scribe podcast where I discuss this detail in further detail and sharing audio clips: Special People Verifying Revelation with Unverifiable Experiences – The Lovesick Scribe Podcast | Podcast on Spotify