I've read all of the prophets experiences and more, because I had an experience (a theophany) back in 1997. I'd never been in a church or at a worship service before, nor had I ever prayed let alone read anything from the Bible. I searched around for a politically correct explaination. A version of what happened to me that night that allowed me to ignore my sense of foreboding for seven long months. First, I thought it might be an OOBE, but after reading along thinking yes this has got to be the only rational option, I got all the way to page 297 when the author said "While your outside of your body you may encounter people following Jesus in an enormous joyful happy horde,but don't be tricked into joining them because they have duped many by their charity and fooled by their love"
Abruptly, I knew who was the real author involved with marketing OOBE's. I picked up a Study Bible and read it cover to cover lessons and all without a stop. Nothing in the Bible or in my theophany was inconsistent, which I definately could not say was true from the other trash I'd wasted my time reading about. There was no longer any other possible way out with a potential scientific explanation either. I'm a medical professional and a scientist and I'm a sinner desparately looking for a loophole. Finally, I enrolled in fulltime graduate student status at a Seminary. Mind you I'm still trying to find a way out of this notion that life could not be reduced to quarks, molecules, radiation, light,physics and gravity.
Then I had a most dreadful encounter with what just a short taste of the alternative to being in God's presence was like. This occured just after my marathon study Bible cram session was over and I foolishly asked God to show me what the other place was like. sinking in and I knew that I had to make some kind of changes and tell somebody else that I knew who my Lord and Savior was Jesus and that I trusted Him completely.
I foolishly asked God to show me life in the absence of His presence, was life good outside of His protection. Apparently, He didn't like my arrogant prideful curiousity one bit, I spent the longest fifteen minutes in recorded human history holding on to my Queen size mattress with a nothing less than a death grip.
Mortal man saint, or sinner has no understanding about the great blessings that all of mankind enjoys, because of Our Loving God. All of our world is designed to provide the essentials of life for us. Now, take away food, clothing and shelter and things rapidly deteriorate,but one strong tribe might survive. Now remove all physical protection from our lives and things reveal the most base of human evils, but strong healthy tribal animals might make it out. Remove the shields He has placed that physically protect us from every kind of deadly catastrophe. Let comets, cosmic radiation, alterations in temperature extremes, natural disasters and plagues come toward us unabated, our luck might still keep grant us hope of survival.
Finally, should God's spiritual protection ever fall away from man and the dark forces and evil principalites given a free hand that bone chilling cold and fear comes along that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up straight up. Should every human nightmare become a reality that's what the absence of God feels like. If all of those sacred words mean nothing if the Spirit of God is not sinking in, I knew that this hell was going to be my eternal reality. Unless I made a move toward eternal life. I had to make some big changes and tell somebody else that I knew who my Lord and Savior was Jesus and that I trusted Him completely.