An ancient church hymn that I have sung many times in the past proclaims, “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all get to heaven we will sing and shout the victory.” I believed those words and later preached them. I was “alive” then. But when God’s Truth came alive in me I had the same reaction as did the Apostle Paul–“I died,” meaning that I realized that I had learned, believed, lived and preached A LIE. And not just A lie, but many lies that Satan had slipped into the minds (“hearts”) of billions of people over the past 2000 years. A list of some of those lies are found on the homepage to this website. The stated purpose of this website is to expose the many lies the Institutional Church has perpetrated against salvation seekers.

One of the premier lies that I and the rest of the church world believed to be true was that those belonging to “the church” would instantly enter heaven upon our deaths. Nothing has changed. Once that lie was put forth, it automatically became “Bible truth” and has remained an unquestioned “fact” ever since. One of the main “proofs” used to back up that “truth” is the story of the Prophet Elijah as recorded in Second Kings chapter two. This episode has been used for generations to “prove” that our dead loved ones are now in heaven, “looking down on us” from a “better place” where the streets leading to their “mansions” are “made of gold.” As my series on heaven proves, immediate entrance into heaven is just one of many so-called “truths” that Satan has perpetrated on the masses seeking eternal life. Read Life After Death? Key word–After. Warning: the Truth is not what you have been told. In fact, it is the exact opposite.

Another passage of Scripture that supposedly “proves” that when Jesus returned to heaven following His resurrection He took with Him all righteous people who had died in the past, beginning with Abel. The Life After Death series reveals the Truth about His taking “captivity captive” (Eph. 4:8), that it had nothing to do with the resurrection of the dead or with what has happened to those who have passed away since that time. One will find that Bible Truth is the opposite of what has been proclaimed from pulpit and podium for two millennia. Veteran readers of this website have learned that most, if not all of the so-called “truths” they have been taught in church are either partially or totally wrong. Satan’s false prophets have not deviated from his Edenesque system of using just enough Bible Truth to deceive the religious masses. I know, for I was one of those deceived ones for many years. I praise God for His patience, long-suffering, grace and mercy.

I, along with billions of others, had been deceived by Satan’s “smooth things, lies and deceits” (Isa. 30:10) which church people insist on hearing, pay their hirelings to tell them and fire them if they dare to preach Bible Truth. To pull off such deceptions false prophets use God’s “headlines” to hook the Biblically unlearned into rejecting His “fine print.” In Ephesians 6:11 the Apostle Paul warns us about the “wiley” devil’s Bible-based deceptions which Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24:4,5. Recall that Satan was using the “God said” trick on Eve when he asked, “Did God say ….?” then repeated what God had said. Having gained her trust, by repeating what God had said, he then slipped in a smooth “however” statement which reversed what God had told her. Eve was drawn to the serpent because he spoke the same language as God, called Him God and quoted Him. How much more proof did she need? Anyone who quoted God HAD TO BE LEGITIMATE, RIGHT? The fact that he told her what she wanted to hear was an added bonus. The deception worked: Eve was deceived (“beguiled”); Adam was weak-willed; both sinned against God–the rest is history as billions of eternal-life-in-paradise seekers have followed in Adam and Eve’s religious footsteps. DO NOT DOUBT SATAN’S CONTROL OVER THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS, with the exception of a tiny, rejected, exclusive body which God calls His “remnant” comprised of a few thousand souls who refuse to go with the religious flow of institutional religion.

Now let us direct our attention to the subject of this series–God’s prophet Elijah, one of my Biblical heroes whom I look forward to meeting during the first resurrection which will take place upon Christ’s return to earth to establish His Father’s Kingdom. Read The Kingdom of God and The Three Resurrections. Key words–Kingdom and Three respectively.

In Second Kings chapter two we find Elijah preparing to leave the earth. Not long afterward he did in fact leave in a fiery chariot pulled by fiery horses aided by a whirlwind. One of the Scriptural passages that gave rise to the belief that members of the church ascend into heaven at the moment of death originated with a misunderstanding of Elijah’s chariot ride into heaven after transferring his ministerial mantel to Elisha. The ultimate question is: WHERE DID ELIJAH GO? Consensus holds that he went to heaven where he has remained ever since. Is this true? If so, then Jesus lied when He said that: “No man has ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man,” meaning Jesus Himself (Jn. 3;13). The following Words “Who (Jesus) is in heaven” should not be written in red for this is John writing about what Jesus had said to Nicodemus. “Who is in heaven” is John telling the reader where Jesus was at the time he wrote the letter which took place in approximately 90 A.D., some 60 years after Christ’s conversation with the Nicodemus.

Another proof that Jesus did not take the righteous dead with Him to heaven upon His ascent is found in Acts 2:29 where it was stated many years after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, that “… the patriarch David IS both DEAD AND BURIED, and his sepulcher (box containing his remains) IS still with us to this day.” In verse 39 we are told again that David did not ascend up to heaven with Christ during His ascent. If anyone deserves to be in heaven it would be the “man after God’s own heart.” However, as shown in verses 27 and 31 through 33, Christ was taken up into heaven where He remains to this day (1 Tim. 2:5). And as He makes abundantly clear in John 3:13, ONLY HE (JESUS OF NAZARETH) HAS EVER ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN AND REMAINED THERE.

In the next posting we will answer the question: WHERE DID ELIJAH GO DURING HIS FIERY WHIRLWIND AND CHARIOT RIDE? L.J.