Tag: Near Death Experiences

The Fear of Death

The fear of death is a common theme and the motivator for many actions. We will all face death and, in a way, we are slowly experiencing it through aging. The final day of our lives can seem like a big, impenetrable wall through which even our imagination cannot go. One of the reasons for this blog is to help people think beyond death.

During the holidays, my wife and I decided to watch the old movie, Moonstruck. I think we heard the theme song in an Olive Garden. Anyway, during the movie the father of the family (Vincent Gardenia) is having an affair. His wife (Olympia Dukakis) asks, “Why do men chase women?” The conclusion is this is because they fear death. We are moving inexorably toward becoming old and then dying. An affair may deceive oneself that you are not aging.

In another setting, I heard Aaron Rodgers (the quarterback of the Packers) explain some of the benefits he obtained from trying the hallucinogenic drug Ayahuasca. One he noted was that he no longer fears death. Why? He claims the drug helped him see beyond death. How might this be so? Ayahuasca and other methods like Transcendental Meditation (TM) definitely alter the functioning of your brain. Your experience may be completely an illusion created by your brain or you may have access to a place that is not here nor is it Heaven or Sheol. I once read the testimony of a high-caste Hindu who later converted to Christianity. He practiced TM and found himself in an alternate reality that he would later discover to be dangerous and deceptive. Where it is or what it is, is not clear.

Near Death Experiences (NDE) can have a similar affect. Are they simply a product of the dying brain, or a genuine experience of Heaven or Sheol, or could they be something real but deceptive? It sounds like Paul had an NDE that he refers to in 2 Corinthians 12:3-4. Do we know what we are experiencing in any of these states and what even exists beyond our current reality?

I am open to the idea that an NDE could give you an actual trip (not an illusion or even a vision) to Heaven or Sheol (https://afterdeathsite.com/2021/05/11/an-expectation-of-sheol/. With the completion of Jesus’ atoning death, humans are not excluded from Heaven and there may be conditions that cause a temporary excursion there. The Bible also shows the permeability of what separates this world from Sheol with the story of the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28) and the summoning of the soul of Samuel. Non-God inspired peeks beyond the vail of death might be possible and the source of semi-accurate information about life after death found outside of Christianity.

But God gives a much clearer and trustworthy picture. Knowing the nature of God (His love, His honesty), the promise of forgiveness of sins and eternal life, the nature of eternal life (Heaven, a New Earth https://afterdeathsite.com/2017/06/13/the-new-earth-in-revelation-part-i/), and the reason we can have these things (Jesus’ death and resurrection) can minimize if not eliminate any fear of death. Making a big transition into something new and largely still unknown is still a little scary. But the firmer your faith in the source of eternal life, the more you are likely to not be scared at all.

How about fear of the process of death? The process of dying is still the consequence of sin. It is not as things should have been. Obviously, death comes in many ways, some painful and slower and some quickly. Knowing that God is near and cares for us all the way matters.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Psalm 116:15 (ESV)

We must and can live knowing that death is a reality that can come at any time. Last night’s football game between the Bills and Bengals had a frightening reminder of that. Bills safety, Damar Hamlin, suffered cardiac arrest likely caused by a perfectly timed blow to the chest. It was scary and hopefully Damar will fully recover. Should we let the fear of death stop us from sports where we might suffer such a blow? Every day we do risky things. Driving, talking while eating, and many more activities could result in a fatal accident. It is better to understand our temporary nature here and know that there is more.

Examining Near Death Experiences

I believe in life after death because God has given me faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior, the forgiveness of my sins, and the promise of entrance into Heaven and eventually also the New Earth. This faith is the combination of the Holy Spirit working on me through the use of God’s promises and Jesus’ story in the Bible. I have no personal experience of dying or Heaven.

That may not be true for everyone who is still alive. Medical interventions have drastically increased the number of Near Death Experiences (NDE). Though I would not count them as an equal source of information to the Holy Spirit and the Bible, they do represent information that needs to be explained.

In the book, Evidence of the Afterlife, Dr. Jeffery Long publishes the findings of an extended study of those who report leaving their bodies, sometimes hearing conversations they should not have been able to hear within this world, experiencing people and places beyond this world, and returning to their bodies and normal life.

Dr. Long looks at demographics such as religion to consider whether expectations have created false memories. He is convinced that the NDE experience is genuine and not the product of hypoxia as the brain dies, nor false memory. He notes that not all NDE’s are identical, but considering that an NDE is an abnormal state, one would expect some variation. He would also note that there are a set of frequently occurring experiences. Let’s consider what these may be.

The first is simply leaving your body. This would not fit with a materialist view that consciousness is simply brain chemistry and resident in the body. It fits very well with the biblical model of the soul and body separating, ultimately because of sin. It would also support the idea that consciousness is either connected to the soul or is the soul.

The ability to briefly move independent of the body and to see or hear things within or even outside of the room containing the body is further proof of the veracity of the experience. It suggests a brief lingering between our body and our life-after-death destination.

The second is heightened senses. This is an intriguing surprise. Our sensory organs and the sensory portions of our brain are part of the body. How can senses be greater without the body? This common experience (74% of those surveyed) suggests that some of our sensory faculties are a part of the soul. This allows for a heightened experience of color and beauty, also sound and music. It may suggest the formation of a heavenly body, though awareness of having a body is not reported.

The third is the experience of intense and generally positive emotions. The Bible warns us that some, in fact a majority, will experience Sheol at their death. Those experiencing this would be unlikely to share it, thereby creating biased information among reported data. What is primarily reported here is such things as love, joy, happiness, warmth, safety, belonging, forgiveness and understanding. These are emotions that would be expected from Heaven and the experience of meeting God.

The fourth, and maybe the most well-known, is passing through a tunnel. People sometimes describe the tunnel as soft. They experience movement, sometimes at great speed. While the tunnel is not necessarily dark, they know that they are moving toward a bright light. What could this be? I would theorize that Heaven isn’t a part of the space-time dimension in which we now exist. You will not find Heaven by traveling far enough out. I expect it forms a type of parallel universe, as does Sheol. The tunnel is a form of transition from one realm to the other. Whether it has anything to do with Einstein’s “wormhole” concept, I do not know.

The fifth, is experiencing a mystical or brilliant light. Dr. Long reports that 64.6% of respondents report seeing this light. God is described in 1 John as light. While this could be read as being metaphorical, it can also be understood as a statement about his being. The one account offered by Long in the first chapter of his book speaks about an interconnectedness of other lights, including the reporters, to the main light. I think this is intriguing about the Bible speaks about our being a part of the body of Christ. It is connectedness to Christ that saves us.

There are several more common experiences noted in the book, Evidence of the Afterlife, I would like to continue discussing these in my next entry.

The Unique Perspective and Mission of Jesus

If you wanted to know something about life after death, who would you consult? The obvious answer is someone who has died. Clearly, this answer has a problem. Death is typically a one way street. You don’t die and then come back to tell people about it. But throughout history there has been some exceptions, especially lately. There has also been work-arounds, though forbidden. And then there is Jesus, the one who not only died but rose again; the one who has created “all things unseen” and bridged an otherwise unbridgeable gap to eternal joy.

Near death experiences (NDE) are on the rise because of advances in modern science. They are intriguing accounts. For the most part they are brief. There is some consistency in the reports. There is also decent proof that these are not the memories of dying brain.

It seems that most people experience an ecstatically joyful experience with great beauty, heightened senses, and often meeting people that they know who are deceased. Some have experienced the opposite, encountering a place of agony, hopelessness and anger. These accounts clash with a common message that comes from NDEs, that all will be saved. This message also is contradicted by Jesus. So what does this say about the message and what does it say about the experience of an NDE?

We are definitely in unfamiliar territory when we cross over death. Is it real? Is it a vision? Can we be misled? It is exciting that people can report on heavenly experiences but we cannot give our trust to the information unreservedly.

Even less so what I termed as “work-arounds”. From Old Testament times the Bible reported practices of consulting the dead. These were forbidden by God. Why? These were also widely practiced. Were they real? If practices of consulting the dead were strictly forms of fraud, I could understand God forbidding them but not attaching such seriousness as we find in Deuteronomy 18:9-12:

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”

Deuteronomy 18:9-12

Similarities between the after death beliefs in various religions are often attributing to copying between cultures. While this could happen, could not inquiries of the dead produce some similarities with possible distortions?

A current day practice called (TM) Transcendental Meditation produces out of body experiences. This might be just an altered state of mind, but we have to consider whether it accesses some type of space beyond our current dimension and that it could fall into the condemnation mentioned above. Are these work-arounds forbidden because the power used to do them is not from God, and/or does it leave the individual exposed to deceptions that will poison society if they are shared?

Jesus is something completely different from NDEs and forbidden procedures. Jesus has unique claims about himself. First, he claims to pre-exist his birth and to hail from Heaven.

13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

John 3:13

As far as understanding the place of joy that exists beyond death, Jesus makes this unique claim and then backs it up with very public miracles involving health issues, control over the laws of physics and even raising people from the dead. Who else comes close to having authority on this topic and proving it?

With this quote He is not dismissing the possibility that others could have had visions of Heaven (like Daniel and Isaiah) or that others who came after His resurrection could have actual travel there. But I bounce everything reported to be information about Heaven and getting there off of the words of Jesus. He alone has the credentials for truth.

Then there is His mission. Jesus does a lot of good during His earthly ministry, but He is clearly the Son of God in human flesh for one reason-to change the course of what happens to us when we die. Jesus can tell us about life after death because He is making real life after death possible by fixing our relationship to God’s Law which would condemn us. I can trust a being who made such a great sacrifice for me.

Because of how God worked His plan, when I read about Jesus’ death on the cross I am looking at my death and forsakeness under God’s Law. Also, when I read of Jesus’ resurrection, I am reading about something that happened for me and will happen to me. I will be physically resurrected, and it will be a resurrection to a new level of glory.

If other sources of information are preferred they need to show why. Jesus is the source of our information, and its interesting and serious stuff.

Why Believe In Eternal Life?

You go to a funeral or visitation and there lies the body of a person you know. There is no movement, no sign of life. None of your senses tell you that this person still exists. There is just observable death and with it grief. Perhaps you want to believe that they are “in a better place”, but it could be just wishful thinking that we desperately need at this moment.

In another instance, you are sitting with a person in the process of dying. They seem to be having a vision. “I see Grandpa!” “The angels are coming for me!” ” I see Jesus!” You, of course, don’t see any of this. Is it real or is this just the expected delusions created by a dying brain? The same might be asked about people who have more terrifying visions. “I see fire!” “Help me!”

The sensory experience or even instrumental readings available at the time of death, all carry with them a large degree of doubt. Short of being able to freely move back and forth from this life to the next, all accounts are questionable. While I would put some weight behind the testimony of those who have had Near Death Experiences, I would consider our ability to measure or experience life after death to severely limited. Maybe someday we will have an instrument that can peer beyond death, but the current scientific orthodoxy has already decided that such a thing doesn’t exist.

That leaves us with two further means of information: one I can endorse and one I cannot. God can give to people the truth of what lies beyond the grave, if He so desires. And to a limited extend, that is exactly what He has done. When you are unequipped to investigate on your own, you are dependent on revelation. The other is a type of stolen revelation. Dabbling in the occult is tapping into the knowledge and power of other beings, evil beings, that can span the gap of death. God strictly forbids it. Why? He knows them to be prolific liars and deceivers. He knows them to hate our species, but that hasn’t kept people away.

The people of Israel were strictly warned against this type of inquiry. The people who occupied Canaan where deeply into these practices along with other disgusting forms of worship. For these reasons, they were being dispossessed of the land.

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.”

Deuteronomy 18:9-14

Such practices and the desperate demand for such contact has also created a cadre of con-men and women who prey on sorrow. It leads many people to doubt that such capabilities even exist. But God was not warning about hucksters.

Revelation from Jesus, who is God incarnate, is our most trustworthy source of information. Others sources provide modest, secondary affirmation. Jesus promised to be straight with us.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

John 14:1-2

If we were limited to just this life, then Jesus would have said so. There was no motive to lie. But Jesus’ whole mission was to prepare a place for us. It already had been determined and revealed that people would face a Judgment Day and experience a resurrection from the dead. Jesus was preparing a further place and a better resurrection. He was going to become the way to have Heaven as a destination at death, and a New Heaven and New Earth as a home after the resurrection.

Jesus proved his reliability on such grand promises to his contemporaries by raising people from the dead, three in all; and then rising from the dead himself. Do you have someone with better credentials?

It is true that there is nothing like experience. I can guarantee that you will get you chance at that. But listening to the revelation that God has given us is more than just interesting information. It is critical and relevant to all. It is information intended for you and truthful. It prepares you for death and guides you in life. It can make you certain of things you cannot see or measure.

Prepared for Your Death

You are in good health. Maybe you are even young. Why should you think about death? The obvious answer is that all you have to be is alive in order to die. There is no particular age or way that it comes, and you are not guaranteed that you will grow old before death. But there is a better answer for why you should consider your own mortality. That is because living like you will die someday (and you will), will cause you to truly consider the purpose of life and help you to live fully and wisely.

If it were a fact that we just die and cease to exist, then truly life would be without purpose. In that case do whatever you want and can get away with. But that is not the case. Both the Bible and Near Death Experiences around the world confirm that we go on. The Bible also confirms that life has a purpose and it is a purpose often neglected by people.

When you don’t consider your mortality, or more accurately your immortality, you tend to do mostly what pleases you. Your life is measured by the number and quality of your experiences or the accumulation of your wealth. There is a bumper sticker that reflects this default philosophy, it says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” If that is on your car, you may want to scape it off before I see it. I will mock you.

Wealth simply passes through our fingers. We enjoy it only temporarily. Life isn’t a contest either. You don’t win anything for being the richest or having many toys. Some of the richest people in history have even concluded that dying with massive wealth was a source of shame and not honor. It certainly hasn’t done much for family dynamics as people quarrel over the estate.

Legacy is a concern of those who truly doubt the reality of eternal life. To be remembered well isn’t a bad thing, it is just not something that will enhance your existence. It is like having a great looking monument on your grave. Others will see it and not care. You won’t see it at all.

The most important quality of both life and death is to right with your Maker. Running a course independent of that chosen by God may feel like freedom but it is actually slavery to our inherent evil. If our death deposits us into the judgment of a Being we have denied and rebelled against, then nothing else matters. We are doomed. If on the other hand, we move from a life that has always been tainted into the arms of a Being that loves us and has compensated for our inherent evil, then that is the most fundamentally important thing in life. The meaning of life is connected to whatever comes next.

The good news is that God does favor the human race. We aggravate Him. We provoke Him. We do our best to write Him out of history. But God is a different kind of being. When He has decided to love someone or something, then He loves them regardless of their response. Despite ourselves, God has enacted a plan that puts a joyful, fun, social and unblemished life after death in our laps. He just has to get through our tough defenses to make it a reality for us personally. A connection to Jesus is the most valuable and indispensable asset we can have, and it is a gift that God is trying to give.

If you have a faith in Jesus as a Savior who has given Himself to die for your sins, then God has done it. He has broken through to you. Every other preparation for death is small by comparison, but there are more. The upcoming blogs will talk about how life impacts afterlife when you are connected to Jesus through faith and baptism. I hope you are curious enough to read them.

The Story of Lazarus: Resurrected or Fixed?

In John 11 we find the story of the death of Lazarus.  Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha, and all were friends of Jesus.  Lazarus fell mortally ill.  We are not told what type of illness.  In an attempt to help their brother, the sisters sent word to Jesus of Lazarus’ illness.  Jesus was in Judea, keeping his distance for the time being from the Jewish leadership.  Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived just outside of Jerusalem.

Time was of the essence, but Jesus delayed His departure for two days.  He told his disciples, “This sickness will not end in death.”  A true statement, though Lazarus would literally die and be dead for four days.  Jesus allows the death to happen to demonstrate His power over death and His compassion for all of us with respect to our eventual death.

Jesus told his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.”  They, naturally, assume Jesus was using the word sleep in the usual sense, but He was not.  Lazarus had died.  Why did Jesus and later Paul refer to death as sleep?  They want to save the word “death” to describe eternal exile from God.  The choice of sleep has lead to some confusion, though.  When we naturally sleep, we enter an altered state of brain activity.  We are not inanimate.  When we die, we may be unaware of the state and surroundings of our bodies, but we are very much aware and animated.  Our awareness will be of wherever our soul happens to be.  So where was Lazarus?

Lazarus was not having your typical near death experience.  He was dead for four days.  Still, as a pre-resurrection of Jesus person, I would expect that he was experiencing what every righteous, Old Testament person experienced–which is not Heaven but a part of Sheol.A Word You May Not Know: Sheol  As Lazarus is summoned from the grave, it would be easy to say that Jesus resurrected him; but that would not be technically correct.  As with people who have Near Death Experiences, Lazarus was temporarily fixed and revivified by Jesus.  Resurrection is something much bigger.

When Jesus comes out of the tomb after three days, He is resurrected.  His body is more than just alive again.  He has the full remake that humans have been promised by God:  no more sickness, aging, pain, death or whatever.  A new set of capabilities and less limitations can be expected as well.

The best modern medicine and even future science can hope to do for you is fix you.  That isn’t so special.  We look forward to being resurrected.  Resurrection may not even use that much, if anything, of your earthly remains.  It will be uniquely you, but cleansed of sin and the curse and perfected.

Lazarus would have to die again.  In fact, some conjecture suggests that Lazarus might have made it on a hit list.  His existence would have made him unpopular with Jesus’ enemies.  Now Lazarus is in Heaven.  Jesus has cleared the way.  Lazarus still waits for the resurrection.  It is something to which to look forward.  The Resurrection of the Body

Can You Tell a Person’s Destiny?

Knowing what happened to somebody who died, or knowing what will likely happen to somebody when they die are two pieces of information we can greatly desire.  Sometimes you want to know because you care.  Sometimes you want to know because you want to minister to them appropriately.  Sometimes that knowledge would help you to grieve.

But can you know?  Jesus urges us not to judge in Matthew 7:1.  This command is especially relevant here, because there are many factors that could lead to the wrong conclusion.  Here are a few:

One cannot determine a person’s eternal destiny based on how they died.  It is common to view a peaceful death that is well anticipated as a superior sign over a violent, unexpected death.  But the cause of death says nothing about a person’s eternal destiny.  Jesus confronted this popular misperception when a tower that was under construction collapsed.  People concluded that the workers who died must have been worse “sinners” than others.  Jesus put us all in the same boat.

Nor can we conclude anything based on experiences as one dies.  Some have visions of Heaven.  Some express nothing at all.  My own mother had the experience of “falling” as she was dying.  Sheol isn’t actually down and Heaven is actually up.  So experiences of going up or down are just caused by the failing of the brain.  In my next blog entry, I plan to start to address Near Death Experiences.  While both experiences of Sheol and experiences of Heaven occur, also in the mix are intentional deceptions by Satan.

One cannot make an absolute judgment based on behavior.  When we are connected to Jesus and saved from our sins the Holy Spirit does change us for the good.  This change of qualities and increase in love should be observable.  But even saved people continue to struggle with sinful nature.  As such, the progress of our sanctification (being made into somebody good in our actions) can be slowed with periods of digression along the way.  Don’t get sucked into the “good enough” evaluation.  We are not saved by our deeds.  We are saved by Christ’s deeds.  While good works are valuable, they are neither the source of salvation nor a trustworthy way to evaluate whether somebody is saved.

One cannot make an absolute judgment based on whether a person’s faith is unwavering.  Ephesians 2:8 says we are saved by grace through faith.  This sentence uses the word “faith” to describe a connection that God makes between us and Jesus.  That type of “faith” can produce the “faith” that is certainty in what is unseen but promised by God.

Many solid disciples of Jesus can have frightening doubts as they approach death.  It is common.  You are not saved by your certainty.  You are saved by Jesus.  So do not get sucked into the “faith enough” evaluation either.  Comfort a dying person who is afraid.  Don’t beat them into believing better as if that were possible to do.

In the end, judgment is God’s business alone. Our ministry to the dying should be one of sharing and reaffirming God’s promises of grace.  Our “self-evaluation” can be this simple three-question quiz: 1.  Did Jesus really die and rise again?  Yes or no. 2.  Did God promise eternal life to all who call on Jesus?  Yes or no. 3  Is God a liar?   If you can answer yes, yes, no, it is because God chose you and gave you those answers.

Any other circumstantial evidence should kept at arm’s length.  It probably doesn’t mean anything.

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