Roberts Liardon arrived in Orange County CA about the same time Benny Hinn did. “Roberts” Liardon (named for Oral Roberts) was in his early twenties at the time,and was the l'enfant terrible of the word-faith movement. One of our employee’s sisters attended his new and rapidly growing church in Irvine (Embassy Christian Center) and wanted us to sell his book, I Saw Heaven. She gave us a copy to read—thinking this would convince us. Instead it brought howls of laughter.

Between customers, my employees and I would take turns reading sections to each other. There are not words. Liardon recounts being taken to heaven, and then describes what he saw. He claims that Jesus led him into a warehouse which contained all of the organs, limbs, eyeballs, etc., which were waiting for those who were sick and which could be theirs if only they would name and claim them. Liardon was shocked and saddened to the point of tears by the unclaimed healings (and body parts), and announced this as the basis for his burgeoning healing ministry—to motivate God’s saints to claim what God had already provided for them. To buoy his spirits, he describes how Jesus took pity on him and they engaged in a playful splash fight in the River of Life. I’m not kidding.

I laughed at it then, but am now disgusted by the sight of the cover of the updated version of I Saw Heaven which celebrated its 25th anniversary awhile back, bragging of sales of over 1.5 million copies. Yes, this is thoroughly heretical, but my present concern is “how on earth do 1.5 million people find this kind of book worth buying?”

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