Spare Parts Room in Heaven?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Friday, March the twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. It is currently eight fifty two am Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I don't know about you, but for me, I haven't even had breakfast yet, I haven't done all the things I probably need to do. But I was watching well. I went to check YouTube just to see if anyone had left any comment, because sometimes people will leave some rude comment or something, so sometimes I will respond. Sometimes I leave them. I just usually just to check to make sure there's nothing out there.

0:52 So I went and when I went to look, there was a recommended video. That YouTube was like, hey, we think you may be interested in watching this, So I clicked play, and I was like, no, I'm not interested in this. Why are you recommending this? This is complete and total garbage. Why are you doing this to me at such an early hour in the morning. I haven't even had breakfast. Okay, well, okay. I basically then started just talking out loud to myself, and then I'm like, you know what, if I'm irritated, if I'm frustrated, well then let me turn on the microphone so I can ruin everyone else's morning. Okay, so I'm here to ruin your morning. So if you haven't had your coffee yet, if you drink coffee, I don't know who does and why you would. But if you drink coffee, you may want to get your coffee. You may want to you may want to take your blood pressure medication. I don't know if this is going to bother you as much as it as it bothers me, because anything related to the charismatic movement bothers me to no end. I hate charismatic theology. As we talked about yesterday with Paula White and how to get those seven blessings, it sounds like you have to give them a thousand dollars to get seven blessings. But we won't go into that entire mess.

1:59 But what I'm going to play for you here, so someone on YouTube. I'm going to start this right where they kind of introduce themselves, so you can go look up their YouTube channel and you can subscribe to them. But really, I'm not interested in anything they have to say. They have a clip. They have a clip from Let me see see if this name sounds familiar to you. They have a clip by someone named Bill Johnson. Does that name ring a bell? Bill Johnson the pastor of Bethel Church and Ready in California. We've talked about Bethel Church a few times. We've talked about it. I everything about Bethel Church is just insane to me. I don't know how they have any influence. I don't know how they have any power. I don't know how anyone listens to them. But to be fair, I don't know why anyone is drawn to charismatic theology. I don't know to be drawn to charismatic theology, what you basically have to do is you have to turn off your brain and ignore all of the reality around you, because reality around you contradicts everything charismatic theology claims. But for some weird reason, charismatic theology charismatic churches continue to be influential. They continue to draw in people, They build big ministries, they bring in gobs of money, They have publications and books and material.

3:26 I don't get it. I will never understand I that's one of look just like you can't understand things I may struggle with, or my failures or my sin, just like you can't understand me. Well, I can't understand anyone being pulled into charismatic theology. To me, anyone listening to charismatic theology for five seconds should be like this is insane and I'm leaving. But so I can't understand it. That doesn't mean it's not a real thing, and that you know, people who've been in it can probably explain how they got pulled into it. But even if they try to explain it to me, I just never get it. But that's okay. I'm not saying anything negative about people who are pulled into it. I'm just saying I don't understand it. Again, just like if I was to explain my issues or my struggles or my difficulties are things I've been pulled into, you wouldn't understand it, Okay. So that and that's just the because people are made differently and think differently, and our brains are wired differently. So I mean there's there. I guess that's the explanation. I just have to try to be transparent and say why I come across sometimes, So angry at charismatic theologies because I just don't get it. I just don't understand the appeal.

4:37 I don't get it. So we've talked about Bethel Church, but so this guy on YouTube, I'll try to put this all back together. I'm sorry, I'm getting I'm going to get into the philosophical differences in human beings and why we think different. I've got to get back on track. Here this person on YouTube, you're gonna hear him introduce himself here in a second. He has this clip from Phil Phil Johnson, not Phil Johnson, Bill Johnson, from Bethel Church and reading California. Now I want you to hear this. Now. I'm just gonna make this very clear. One. He does try to play the clip and some I mean, it gives it some context, but it's now nowhere close to full context. That's number one. Number two, I can't seem to currently find the actual sermon where this comes from.

5:24 And number three, this concept that he's going to be talking about. All right, it's not completely new to the charismatic world. This has been talked about for multiple times. But this is what I this is what I stumbled upon this morning. So I stumbled upon it, so I'm gonna talk to you about it. So are you ready? Here we go. We're gonna go to well Bethel Church and Reading California. Bill Johnson's on the platform. There's all these people standing behind him. I don't really know the context of what's going on. I asked AI to help me find the sermon. I said, well, the specific sermon isn't directly available in the provided search rest results. You might explore the following sermons by Bill Johnson, which could contain similar themes, and then it gives me two sermons that are on YouTube by Bill Johnson. There's got to be a way to probably track this down. In some ways, I don't want to find it because if I find it, then I probably feel obligated to review the entire thing.

6:23 And trust me, I want to move on from this as fast as I possibly can. But the concept, anyone who's kept up with the charismatic world, as soon as this concept is mentioned, you're gonna be like, oh, this concept is so common in the charismatic world. Multiple charismatic pastors have mentioned this kind of thing, So it's not anything revolutionary or out of the ordinary for the charismatic world. But it just drives me crazy. And what I'm going to try to do is, after we listen to this, try to kind of I don't know some lessons we can possibly take from it. So are you ready? Here we go. What you're getting ready to hear is the YouTube burr. The person on YouTube introduce himself. You may want to look up their channel. I'm not saying we would agree with it or disagree with it. I have no idea. You can go find it. And then he's going to play the clip. Here we go. Hey, everybody, Sean here and welcome to revealing truth. So let's hear this in context.

7:20 And I know this sounds strange and I may be pushing the limit here, but I've had three or four friends that have actually seen in heaven a spirit utch room, actually have seen it. And in one of our in our school, somebody told our students about this, and our team was on one of our trips and a gal came forward in a wheelchair a horrible accent, and she wanted prayer. And she made a comment to the student that was praying for said, I don't even have an ECAM. I think I mentioned this last night. The student said, well, I'll get one for you, because she remembered there's a spirit parts for him. You say, where's that in the Bible.

8:07 I don't know where it is. Just leave me alone. I don't know. She reaches up and comes down and lays her hand on her knee and prays for just a short period of time, and the Lord actually recreated aneecap. So I feel like part of the shift and what's happening here tonight that is going to continue and accelerate is going to be creative miracles. You will have people come that actually need a new heart. They will be functioning on twenty five percent of their heart. Fact, there's someone here tonight that you're functioning on like twenty five thirty twenty five percent or so of your heart. That's what you were told. And I believe the Lord is going to make all things new for you. And I want to.

8:48 Encourage when. I I don't know what to say. Ladies and gentlemen, A spare parts room in heaven, A spare parts room in heaven. There's just a room in heaven filled with spare parts, kneecaps, legs, arms, hearts, I guess, brains, eyes, ears, bones, whatever you need it's just a spare parts room in heaven. Hey, hey, don't ask me where it's in the Bible. I don't know where it's in the Bible. Yeah, I know, because it's not in the Bible. It's nowhere in the Bible. But hey, that's okay, it doesn't matter. So God is going to do creative miracles, right, So he's gonna so there's someone here with your only your heart's only operating at twenty five percent. God's gonna create a new heart inside of you. Well, hey, Bethel Church, this is wonderful.

9:42 This is great as someone has been in the military for was in the military for nineteen years active duty and then you know, I got medically retired because of everything that happened to me. I saw plenty of people come back from Iraq or Afghanistan without an arm or a leg. I'm sure you're making sure our disabled veterans now have arms and legs, right, because God's doing creative miracles, he can bring back those arms and legs. Right. This is the kind of and what it drives me crazy. On one hand, I just the people who teach this, they have to be just insane. I don't have any other words for it. But it's the people applauding. What are you applauding. You're being manipulated, You're being lied to.

10:23 Look at the world around you. This stuff is not true. But he's not the first one that says it on this video. The individual goes on to share a number of other people who make these claims about going to heaven and seeing a spare parts room all of these parts. Bethel Church does this. I mean, it's very common in the charismatic world to do this. Hey there's a spare parts room in heaven. There is just there. It's just there. Now this same concept. I need to track this down now, now this just uh, this just kind of hit me. There is I think there's an illustration. It sometimes deals with prayer that there's like all of these unclaimed promises and heaven there's like these there's a like some that they still tell this illustration about praying and that someone that there was in heaven there's all of these unanswered prayers because are unfulfilled promises because people did not claim them or they did not ask for them. So I think maybe that's the kind of the origin of this concept.

11:32 It may not even have started in the charismatic world, I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I can ask AI, because I just now thought about this. I've heard this kind of this idea, isn't They're a. Famous illustration that preachers may use about they're being in heaven a storeroom, a storehouse of unclaimed promises, etc.

12:18 Okay, I'm gonna ask AI here, Okay, all right, yes, so so okay, here we go. AI says, yes, you're right. There is a well known illustration, often using sermons and devotionals, about a storehouse or warehouse in heaven filled with unclaimed blessings, unanswered prayers, or unrealized promises. So this concept goes way before Bethel Church or Bill Johnson. It has circulated for decades across various Christian traditions, particularly in prosperity Gospel, charismatic and revivalist circles. So I've heard this in very non caresmatic ideas that one day we're going to get to heaven and we're going to see this storehouse and we're going to be what's in that room, Well, those are all the unanswered promises and all the things you never asked for in prayer. You could have had all of these things. I remember hearing that in an independent fundamental Baptist church that hated charismatic theology, but the concept was there.

13:21 Ai says. It usually goes something like this. A person dies and they go to heaven, and while touring heaven, they're shown a vast warehouse or room filled with beautifully wrapped packages. They ask what are all of these? And the angel replies, these are blessings and answers to prayer that were never claimed or received on earth. Sometimes it includes the idea that the packages had the person's name on them, that they were meant for that person, but due to a lack of faith, prayer, or obedience or knowledge, they were never delivered. Now where does this come from? Well, the story is not found in scripture. It functions purely as an illustrative device. The order is difficult to trace, but it has been used by evangelists to stir people to pray more boldly, prosperity teachers to push the idea of claiming promises, motivational preachers to urge people not to miss out on what God has for them. One early source that made this popular was likely the devotional God's Storehouse idea from authors like Norman Vincent Peale, or Oral Roberts style teaching, and more modern times, it often gets wrapped up with ideas like don't let your blessings go unclaimed.

14:33 You have not because you ask not James four two. Activate your faith right. It's emotionally powerful because it plays on regret, possibility, and the fear of missing out on God's best. It promotes a God as a vending machine, theology that God has blessings ready to dispense if only you insert enough faith, only if you ask, only if you do certain things. It places to blame on the believer. If you are suffering, or if you are lacking, maybe it's because you didn't unlock what was waiting for you in heaven. It distorts the nature of God's promises. It turns them into individual material rewards rather than covenantal truths grounded in Christ, and it moves hope away from Christ, making heaven seems like a missed opportunity for personal gain astead of the place where the fullness of redemption is realized.

15:26 The Storehouse and Heaven illustration is famous, but it is philologically problematic at best. It's motivation, it's a motivational metaphor. At worst, it's a manipulative guilt trip that misrepresents both God's character and the very Gospel itself. So when I hear this that immediately this spare parts room in Heaven, it's just kind of the next it's like the storehouse in Heaven two point zero. So it kind of starts off like, hey, guys, we don't pray enough, we don't ask for us well enough, we don't ask for enough, we don't do this enough. Well, what can motivate people to pray more? Well, let's tell them the story about a storehouse in heaven that has all of these packages and your name is on the package, and what is in that package all of the blessings and all of the promises that you did not claim. When you get to heaven, you want to find that there is no package with your name of it on Heaven because you have asked for everything, you have claimed every single promise.

16:28 Don't do that, so now go pray more. That's how it kind of started. Bethel Church has just kind of now added the two point oh, the three point oh, the four point oho. I don't know what version we're on. Now there's a room in heaven filled with spare parts. You're missing an arm, you're missing a heart, you're missing what, you've got a traumatic brain injury. Well, all you got to do is ask in God, reach up into heaven, ask for access to the spare room. I guess you already have access to the spare room. Just reach up there and you can get a new brain. I don't know why anyone would die then, if God's doing creative miracles giving you new hearts, new brain, what are you dying from? What? What? Because everything can be replaced. You should have new knees, new arms, new mind, new at heart.

17:13 Maybe you can get a face transplant, you can get rid of that faith. Maybe if you're losing your hair, maybe you can get a hair transplant. Maybe you can just look like Maybe we should all look like we are twenty one, twenty two and we have perfect bodies and perfect everything right. Maybe we could all get a new brain where we could be at least a genius level in our thinking. I mean, come on, Christians should be the smartest, perfect, we should be the best athletes because we can get we can get new parts. I mean, I mean, is that how it works? A spare parts room in heaven. Now, what is the problem with this? Well, let me go through a couple of things, right, I think, I mean, there's so many issues here, but I think we can learn. I got to try to give you some kind of practical lessons. I think this whole idea of a spare parts room, it highlights the danger of experiential theology over scriptural authority. Experiential theology over scriptural authority. Now, I want to make this very clear. All right, I want to make this very clear. What charismatics do. Hey, everything's about an experience. Everything's about an experience. Everything's about experience, and your experience becomes now really the source of truth versus scripture. So in this story about the spare parts room, they some students in his I guess school of ministry heard about this, you know, spare parts room in heaven,

18:44 and so then well, hey, then they go ahead and utilize the concept as if it's true. And then they use it to give a woman a new kneecap. And even Bill Johnson's like, where's that in the Bible. I don't know, don't ask me, don't basically, don't worry about it because the experience trumps the Bible. Who cares what the Bible actually says? Experience experience, and this experiential idea goes beyond just charismatics, because there's lots of people who claim this is true, or this is true, or this is true because supposedly an experience they had. But your experience is not the source of truth. Your experience must be judged by scripture. Your experience is not the interpretive key to scripture. You interpret your experience through scripture. You do not interpret scripture on the basis of your experience, or you don't just add things to the Bible. So it highlights the danger of experiential theology over scriptural authority.

19:42 Bill Johnson often emphasizes supernatural experiences, visions, and miracles over rigorous biblical exegesus. When experience becomes the ultimate source of truth, it opens the door to all kinds of unverifiable or even contradictory claims. There is no scriptural foundation for a literal spare parts room in heaven, so presenting such a vision as instructive or normative undermines this efficiency of scripture. And there isn't any storehouse in heaven with unclaimed prayers and unclaimed promises. So see Charismatics do this. Non charismatics do it. It's just to the level. What you have to do is stop people from saying things that are not in the that are not scriptural. Number two, it reveals how desperate people are for tangible miracles and how easily they can be manipulated. The imagery of a heavenly warehouse full of body parts offers hope for miraculous healing, especially to those suffering with illness or disability, but it creates unrealistic expectations and a theological framework where a lack of healing can apply a lack of faith, which can lead to guilt, despair, or spiritual abuse. If a miracle doesn't happen, people may be told they didn't access the right parts in faith, putting the burden on them. But I just want you to know how desperate people are for tangible miracles. The longer you live, the more the

21:18 more you're going to desire and almost beg God for tangible miracles to heal someone, to fix this, to fix this problem, to fix this problem. When you watch, if you are, if you're caring for a loved one who slowly dying, You're going to be like, God, do a tangible miracle. If you have a child who's suffering with a disease, God do a tangible miracle. If you have been diagnosed with a horrible disease, God do a tangible miracle. Everywhere. The more you the longer you live, you're going to be confronted over and over with tragedy, with pain, with suffering, with disease, with with death, and you're gonna want God to do a tangible miracle. There are millions of people out there desperate for a tangible miracle. And the charismatics come along and offer this absolutely fraudulent story about a spare parts room in heaven, promising you as if healing is guaranteed because of what Christ did here and now people get their hopes up. They pour their life into it, They give their money, their time, their focus, and they and they're lied to and they're manipulated. And guess who benefits the charismatic church that brings in more people and more money. The charismatic minister on television asking for money.

22:37 They bring in money. They bring in money, They bring in money, and it's just crazy to see miracles or see ministries that promise fake miracles to bring in money, more money, more money. And then you'll see other ministries that don't offer those fake promises can barely survive and they don't bring in a dime. But it does reveal how desperate people are. And people can get desperate. Okay, I don't know where you are in your life, but let me tell you, people can get desperate. You can look at your life and you never know where you're going to end up. You don't know if what you're going to end up with yourself, what disease, what disability you're going to be struck down with. You don't know, and you don't know the people around you what they're going to be struck down with. And you watch them slowly deteriorate day after day, day after day, they get worse, they get worse. Everyone knows they're going to die, and you just watch it, and you just watch it and you just watch it and God doesn't do anything now, and then you listen to someone saying, oh, there's a spare parts room that could fix it, or God's guaran healing. Well, then you get drawn into that ministry because it gives you some sense of hope, and all you're doing is being lied to and manipulated, and almost inevitably, what they're going to get from you is your money. Number Three,

24:10 it exposes a transactional view of God. The claim turns God into a cosmic supplier of body parts, where believers claim or pull down what they want by faith, much like placing a divine Amazon order. This reflects a theology rooted more in Word of faith, prosperity gospel ideology than biblical teaching. This transactional view of God. We see this all the time. If you do this, then God will do that. This transactional by faith. In Christ, I have all spiritual blessings in Him by faith alone, by grace, because of His mercy right. So it's a transactional view of God. Next, it promotes mythological rather than thiological thinking.

24:54 The concept sounds more like a fantasy fiction than a sober theological reflection. The line between visionary metaphor and doctrinal truth, which can confuse believers about what is real and what is symbolic and what is scripturally grounded. Yeah, it's it's mythological thinking. It's it's it's just crazy thinking. I don't I don't. Maybe using that it's mythological thinking sounds more academic, but it's just insanity to me. And then number five, it undermines the meaning of suffering and perseverance. The New Testament speaks much about enduring suffering, where for example, Tewod Corinthians Paul is not healed, and very little and and there's and very little about divine guarantees of physical healing.

25:42 A theology that bypasses suffering with sensationalism can lead people to deny reality or feel abandoned when they're healing. Does it come these kinds of teaching? They tell us more about our modern human hunger for spectacle. They tell us. It tells us more about the power of charismatic authority and the philological shallowness and many church church circles than they do about God or Heaven. The real challenge is calling this out clearly, not just because it's stillologically questionable, because it's harmful. It's messed up, it's twisted, it's evil.

26:32 There's no spare parts room, there's no storehouse, there's none of these kinds of ideas. It's not the way it is. So we start off our morning, yeah, making me extremely frustrated. But just please I. On one hand, look those people applauding, I get very frustrated with them, I really do. The people who get pulled into the cares nonsense, I get really frustrated with him because you try to talk to them, and man, they will just argue with you all day, quote scripture after scripture after scripture, so far out of context. They don't have a hermeneutical clue. It gets so irritating.

27:15 But at the same time I feel bad for them because they get pulled into it. Now the leadership for charismatic churches. Man, I I to be honest, I don't have a lot of patience, and I know that's ungodly, and I try never to make it about the people. I try to make it about the ideas. But for the people who get pulled into it, I ultimately feel sorry because I know at some point, maybe right there there gung ho in there, and they'll argue with you, and they'll tell you that you don't you know, basically call your faith into question. That's okay they do that because I know sooner or later life is going to punch them in the face ten times and they're gonna come to the face with reality, and they're either going to have to continue to deny reality, and they're going to have to realize that it's just all the stuff they've been told is a lie. And and so you kind of almost feel sorry for them because you know that day is coming for the leaders man. They gotta know what they're doing. They have to, but they they they're so disconnected from reality that it's hard to know.

28:18 Do you feel sorry for them? Do you do you want to get them help? Do they need counseling? What? What do they need? I don't I don't know. The charismatic world is insane to me. But there we have it. That's what I stole. That's how I started my morning by listening to Bill Johnson say, there's a spare parts room in heaven. But hey, the good thing about doing this we kind of This really goes back to, like I said, this, this goes back to if I can go back down here to my notes, it goes back to this idea of this well known illustration used in sermons and devotionals about this storehouse or warehouse in heaven with all of these unclaimed prayers and unclaimed promises. That's kind of where it really basically originated from. And then charismatics have just taken that concept, built upon it, and now all the way to well people have gone to heaven, have been taken to heaven and they saw the spare parts room. It's not just a warehouse full of unanswered prayers.

29:23 There's a warehouse now full of well, spare body parts, and all you have to do is claim it, and you can have it. I don't know how anyone can look at charismatics and charismatic theology and say that's Christianity. That's my own opinion. I don't know how you can ever be seen as But there you have it. Thanks for listening, everyone, have a great day. God bless