What about near death experiences?
Hi, welcome to today's Little Lesson.
Thank you so much for joining me.
It's a delight to share with you, and today we're going to address a question posed by
one of our beloved viewers.
What do you think about near death experiences?
They are indeed fascinating.
As Christians, we of course believe that when the body dies the spirit lives on, and the
spirit is a person.
It's almost universally described by people that have near death experiences that they,
they say, "I came out of my body and I looked down and I saw the doctors trying to get me
to come back to life, pumping my heart," or, "at the scene of the car accident I looked
down and saw," and they describe these things later on, they describe things that they could
only have seen from an elevated vantage point.
You know?
It certainly seems to give some credibility that they did leave their body and that there
is a spiritual realm, which the Bible teaches.
Right?
Right.
That, the spirit is the hidden person of the heart as the Bible calls him or her, the hidden
person of the heart.
The inward man.
The outer man is perishing, the inner man is being renewed day by day.
This is all Biblical.
First of all, near death experiences.
Well, if your body becomes an unfit container temporarily for some reason for your spirit,
what we might define as physical death, well no doubt, spirit goes out.
I've heard testimonies over the years, I've been a Christian for 40-some years, of people
who left their body and actually ascended up to Heaven and heard words, that God said
something like, "It's not your time.
You have to go back."
In every case when I've heard them tell those testimonies, they'll all say the same thing.
"I said, I don't want to go back.
It's too wonderful here.
I'd like to say."
"Sorry, you got to go back."
Reluctantly, they found themselves back in their body and back in the ER, and the doctor
is saying, "All right, they're breathing now," you know.
Neat experience.
But, what about near death experiences of non-Christians, even those who have no profession
of faith in Jesus Christ have had near death experiences, and they often describe this
tunnel of light and going down this tunnel.
Maybe even feeling the sense of this other great being that is warmth and love, okay.
Often, what they come back with then is this feeling of, "There's no judgment.
It's going to be all right, because I was headed towards this warm being.
It must have been God, and I wasn't feeling any negative vibes.
It gave me less fear of death."
That often is a stickler for Christians, because scripture says it's appointed for men to die
once and then comes judgment.
We believe based on nothing less than scripture itself and the words of Jesus Christ as well
as His holy apostles.
Right?
That, there's a judgment coming.
Now, what's the timing of that judgment?
God never said in His word that within a millisecond of when your heart stops beating, that bingo,
you now find yourself standing before the judgment throne.
No, no.
There obviously can be a time elapse between death and judgment.
How long that time might be, I don't know.
No one knows.
It could be different for different people.
Who knows?
Who knows these things?
But, the whole idea of a non-Christian feeling warmth and love, and therefore that mitigating
their fear of death and of a God of wrath and judgment, I think that's a false assumption.
Okay, because God is love.
In fact, the reason He's a God of judgment and even wrath is because He's a God of love.
We're talking about God who knelt before 11 men one time and washed their feet.
This is a very loving God.
A God who then, shortly after He washed their feet, died on the cross as a substitute for
their sins so that they could have eternal life.
Not just them, but everybody who might believe in Him.
I mean, when the Bible says God is love, I'm almost tempted to say that that's like, the
understatement of the century, but there's no words to describe that kind of love on
any human level because there's nobody on earth that loves like that.
Right?
Right.
All right, so I'm not surprised that people sense the love of God as they feel like they're
approaching His presence.
But, this is also a God who wept over Jerusalem's rejection of Him.
Oftentimes, we think that God is angry, and He does get angry.
Now, we're not taking away from His wrath and all of the scripts that talks about His
anger.
But, there's still another component here.
God weeps.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
God weeps.
He laments, mourns for those who reject Him.
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, the Bible tells us.
That's God.
I can imagine that people could be standing before God at His judgment, sensing His love,
but also then getting a revelation as He begins to speak to them with a great sadness, "I
gave you your entire life.
I tried to reach you every day of your life through your conscience, convicting you of
your sins so you'd be ready for this day.
I did a continual magic show before you, macro and micro magic show.
Millions of things that were just amazing mysteries that no one can explain that were
before your eyes every day and in your body every day.
You just ignored me.
You know, you don't get eternal life, because I made a way for you to have eternal life.
I died on the cross, that was not important to you.
Depart from me, you who practiced lawlessness into the eternal fire which was prepared for
the devil and his angels."
I don't see God clapping with joy at that, and, you know, and angels doing back flips
saying, "Woo hoo, we get to burn another ..." No, no, no, no, no, no.
God is love.
If you've heard of someone having a near death experience and they say, "Well, it was all
love and warmth and so forth, but I'm not a Christian," well, that doesn't discount
the Bible or that Jesus came and that Jesus died on the cross, and He was a real person
and He spoke those words that are recorded in Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, and that
this is real and that there is a judgment to come.
But, it's by a loving God who's going to render to every person according to their deeds.
If you don't get mercy and get all your bad deeds erased by putting your faith in Jesus
Christ, well then, all that's left is to get what you deserve.
What do you deserve?
You've been sinning all your life, ignoring God, doing your own thing.
You know, the theme song in Hell is Frank Sinatra's famous song I Did It My Way.
Okay, so that's my thoughts on near death experiences.
There's other ones I could tell of people, specifics, but it's extra Biblical.
A lot of times, it does fit into the Bible.
I love it.
I love those things, but I'm sticking with the Bible.
If someone gives me a near death experience that contradicts that, sorry.
I'm going to stick with the Bible.
Okay, I think I'll talk about this one more time in our next Little Lesson.
Okay?
A little more to say.
Okay, thanks for joining me.
Hope to see you next time, bye bye.