What does it mean to die? It certainly doesn’t mean to slip into non-existence. When we die what is conscious and immaterial about us breaks from what is material. People experience this sometimes as hovering above their bodies, or going through a tunnel toward a light, or they experience the horrors of Sheol, but many times the experience is of a joyful, loving Heavenly bliss. No one who experiences these joys is interested in returning. Life suddenly loses its interest. But, as we know, many people are resuscitated and live to tell the story. But is the story real and accurate?
The majority of reported experiences are of Heaven. “Reported” may be the key word here. Most people don’t want to report they experienced “Hell” or for that matter even remember the experience. Those who experience “Heaven” are more willing to speak, though no one wants to be considered delusional.
I don’t doubt the reality of Heaven nor the possibility that one might experience a bit of Heaven in a NDE. I do have some doubts that everybody who reports seeing Heaven actually did see it.
A fairly large group of people return proclaiming a message that Heaven is a place of pure love that everyone will experience. They endorse universal salvation. This pronouncement runs contrary to those who experience Sheol. It also runs contrary to what Jesus proclaims in the Bible. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He also states, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.” That’s not universal salvation. How did people come back to life with a contrary message?
Transcendental Meditation seems to have a similar capability of separating your conscious self from the physical self. This practice is not benign. Some practitioners have reported experiencing evil, perhaps Satan himself, in whatever dimension TM puts you. Could death, even temporary death, also put a person into a dimensional space (not Heaven) to encounter a spiritual being who there to deceive? I think the answer is “yes”; and all experiences, no matter how positive or blissful, need to be tested.
I would very much wish for universal salvation. Even God desires universal salvation. But if universal salvation is not the truth, then a message of universal salvation is extremely dangerous and is exactly the type of misinformation that Satan wants to spread.
The goal of those who experience a NDE and return with a message of universal salvation is not to deceive. They want to spread hope and remove the fear of death. But they are the one’s who have been deceived. We are neophytes when it comes to experiencing death. We don’t know what we are experiencing and could easily be misled. Perhaps this is part of the reason why God strongly forbade practices that could lead to such out of body experiences. A NDE just happens to us, but discerning the reality of the experience takes some caution.
afterdeathsite 