Near Death Experience

I will tell you from my own experience that I saw my body in the water, where I was drowning. I was in a panic, and then the most amazing peace came over me. There was very bright light, and it was through that light that I saw my body in the water. Take it for what you will. I know what I experienced. Was it near death? Yes Was the light Jesus? I don't know. The light never talked to me, but it was the most peaceful feeling I've ever experienced.

 

For what it's worth, I have been extremely close to death a couple of times -- both times I was expected to die: when the horse kicked me in the gut when I was 21 and when an ovarian cyst ruptured, touching off my appendix, and I ended up with severe peritonitis when I was 30. Both times I spent time in extreme pain, floating in and out of consciousness. Neither time were their any lights or angels or anything else.

However, after the last, several days after the surgery, when I was still sinking and not expected to live more than about 24 hours more (from what I was told later), I knew I was dying. And it felt like sinking gently into a deep, velvety well where there was finally no more pain. I remember talking to my brother at one point on the phone and telling him I was just giving up. He got upset and I guess kicked a number of prayer chains into operation.

I obviously didn't die!

But that experience of sinking gently was peaceful. And, contrary to the ND experiences, there was no light, only a rather blessed and gentle darkness.

I would like to suggest that a number of visitations are the results of actual brain damage due to lack of oxygen during these times of death or near death, but that these brains also belong to people who had rejected Christ in the first place, and thus are subject to being manipulated by demonic forces. In other words, it might well be a combination of both the medical condition and the choices these people had made prior to the experience.

Edit: I think the two posts above mine do show that Christ-given experiences can happen as well, and I didn't mean to speak against that.

 

No problem Helen. I've been in emergency medicine for a long time and completely understand what you have stated about oxygen depravation. Again, I do not view my NDE as anything other than the fact that if you are a Christian, you need not fear death. Even something as terrifying as drowning can become a peaceful experience. I think we draw near to Christ in our last moments. What did Stephen do when he was stoned?

It is rather ironic that I was the one who had to do cpr on my grandson when he nearly drowned in our pool. I say nearly, lightly, because I have never done cpr on a person who was as far gone as he was, and survived.

He had no brain damage. When he woke in the ER the next morning, the first thing he asked me (four years old) Papa, where are those pretty ladies in the sparkly dresses? I asked what pretty ladies. He said those that were holding his hands by the pool. There were no pretty ladies in sparkly dresses at the pool. Take it for what you will.

 

I would disagree with the spirit leaving the body temporarily, Martin.

The Word of God tells us to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

I do not beleive any account of out of body experiences. The Word of God tells us that when we see the Lord, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.

If the person's spirit left the body, it would have to be in the presence of the Lord Himself. And if the Lord did allow them to come back to the sinful flesh, it would go against that which we read in Luke 16 in the story (not parable) of Lazarus.

 

I would debate again on the NDE.

Paul did not say to be dead is to be with the Lord, he said 'to be absent from the body'.

If the spirit is God's, when it leaves the body, it goes to be with the Lord.

NDE accounts of people leaving their body is hogwash. If they left the body, they would be with the Lord. They would see Him, and be like Him.

As to Jesus' friend Lazarus, there is no account of what transpired in his life after his resurrection from the dead. He had to have been in the place Abraham and the other Lazarus was... providing the other Lazarus died prior to Jesus' friend. But after his resurrection, we have nothing other than a meal at his house.

The Word says it is appointed unto man once to die... I believe Lazarus could not have died a second death. I believe he was taken up with the dead that were seen in the city after Christ's death.

I do beleive that somthing happens to people who are close to death, but I do not believe the spirit hovers over the body and then returns to it.

 

1Ki 17:22And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.

Mar 10:27And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men [it is] impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

 

Martin,

Interesting thread. I have not formed an opinion on this matter yet, but your conclusions seem to be in harmony with the scripture. Even the spirit or soul leaving the body (as a process) is supported by scripture...

Gen 35:18 And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.

I hope this is helpful.

Max

 

Elijah will come back for his appointment with death. Enoch will as well.

 

will be changed

 

Those who are 'in Christ' die daily

 

seems to me they will have to suffer death in the change in a moment a twinkling of an eye.

1Cr 15:36[Thou] fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

And of course there is the appointment. I think that change is death of the natural man and alive with the Spirit.

 

I am not disputing that there is a NDE, only that people claim they left their body.

The Bible does not point to such.

I submit that rather than leaving their body, they experience a vision of sorts.