Posted on 06/10/2006 9:45:53 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Despite lifelong beliefs that have been ingrained in my faith since childhood, I have to admit that like almost everyone else I have from time to time wondered if my existence will simply come to an end on the day I draw my last breath.
There is, after all, no way to prove one way or the other that human life continues in another realm after the body ceases to function. Nobody has come back to testify about it, with one notable exception of course, and those who reject his divinity also tend to doubt what he had to say about life after death. And the late Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the infamous atheist, hasn’t weighed in on the subject lately either.
Some would insist such doubts are implanted by the devil himself. Others counter there is no scientific basis for belief in a hereafter in the first place.
But just about every time I entertain such doubts, something comes along to reinforce my long-held belief in the hereafter. It’s often the experience of a dying saint getting their first glimpse, as an old gospel song puts it, of what’s over on the other side.
I’m told the Rev. Dr. Hollis Pistole appeared to have one such experience at his passing a little over a month ago. According to the story, Dr. Pistole, after a long battle with debilitating illness, raised up and put his arms out just before he drew his last breath. Apparently he received that glimpse of what awaited him.
My wife’s father had a similar experience, opening his eyes and reaching heavenward just before his passing.
I also recently went over my mom’s notes made at the time of my dad’s death more than half a century ago. “Under me? Under me? Thank you, Jesus,” he said.
A whole category of what have been termed near-death experiences have been catalogued by those looking for insight into what happens at the end of life. A common phenomenon is a light-at-the-end-of-a-tunnel vision. Many claim to have seen friends or relatives but were unable to reunite with them when they were suddenly jerked back into life.
My Uncle Melvin had such an experience, claiming to have seen his brother and another loved one at the time he was suffering a severe heart attack from which he recovered.
It is impossible to figure out the working of the subconscious, thus rendering any attempt at concrete conclusions problematic. Are any or all of these phenomena merely the gyrations of an active brain or might they be an indication of a link between this world and one to come?
Belief in life after death has been part of human experience as long as mankind has pondered its existence. It has been reinforced by the most sacred writings of most of the world’s major religions, including Christianity, which bases its entire concept on the idea of God personally demonstrating life after physical death through the manifestation we call Jesus.
In this life, of course, our existence is tied to our physical body. But to define human life according to our physical limitations is an obvious understatement of our role in the universe. Human interaction is limited by our physical senses. But the true self that has developed over the course of our lifetimes would seem to go far beyond the senses.
And certainly there can be no doubt that the rationality of human beings and their capability to build on their life experiences place them in a category entirely separate from other living creatures.
Is there life after death? The question defies physical proof, to be sure. But there would seem to be glimpses enough into the future to show that our existence has only just begun.
And anyway, by preparing for eternity, I think I’m building a pretty good life here as well.
Jim Bailey’s column appears on Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail at jameshenrybailey@earthlink.net.
bump
"In Revelation, it describes Jesus returning on a White Horse. Also, remember the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If Horses are in Heaven, why not dogs and cats?"
What a wonderful point you have made! Thank you!
Too much thinking about this stuff can really give you a headache. We will all have the answers someday. I'm just happy believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and knowing he chose to die for my sins so that I shall not perish but have eternal life. How can you top that?
No, A Message's point was that you have to want to believe:
I think the Lord is kind. I don't think he intends an eternity of hell for the average Joe that doesn't believe in Him. I think He will honor the wishes of those who think and believe when they die they are dead, that they cease to exist.He will give them what they want, no more existence.
Their argument is that you can't believe in something until you first want to believe in it. Which I think is crazy - it's like saying I believe that 9/11 happened only because I wanted 9/11 to happen. Or I believe that I'm not a twentysomething anymore only because I don't want to be a twentysomething. Or I believe that the TV show I'm watching is a work of fiction only because I don't want it to be real.
It's not about wanting to achieve the honor/reward/gift/whatever of being allowed into heaven, it's about not believing in God or heaven in the first place. What a person wants WRT heaven is irrelevant (or should be) to whether they believe in the place in the first place. Only after a person believes in something does the question of what they want with regards to it make any sense.
Why is this so hard for so many believers to understand?
Ed Norton, Ralph Kramden's pal on the Honeymooners?
I wasn't. For some it wouldn't be heaven without their beloved pets.
From this I must conclude that if there is a heaven, and people I know to be good Christians go there, there must be cats and dogs there.
Excellent guess! Wrong, but very good guess.
Right time frame, too!
Thanks for the ping. I'm glad to see more and more people sharing their own experiences and those of people they know well.
The Bible is proof. Try to disprove it. You will only end up frustrated and a good possibility a believer.
"Some of the NDE books report on hellish experiences, and I don't think we should ignore these reports. If Jesus had to die to save us, there has to be something - some place -from which we need saving."
Amen churchillbuff!!!
You said it all right there...and it needs repeated
"If Jesus had to die to save us, there has to be something -some place -from which we need saving."
I've always admired Lewis's ability to cut to the quick.
"I walked down a long corridor, and into a room...and they had me take a number..."
Eternal life is given "after" death in the next realm and was never meant to be given for life here on earth. This is not heaven - this is earth.
You say that eternal life is not "given" in this life but comes after the death of our natural bodies. I John 5:13 says,
"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life... "
The Greek term translated "have" means possess, have in one's hand, own, or to find oneself in such a condition, all of which definitely implies that we who believe on the name of the Son of God now, presently, currently, possess the subject of the sentence which is eternal ("aionios", without beginning or ending) life. And no, I don't know Greek. I use an online Strong's Exhaustive Concordance to supplement my 8 lb cloth bound copy.
You said;
God is not required to reveal all to man in order to make him believe. You believe or you don't.
Of course God is not obligated to reveal anything to his created beings, he is sovereign and we are not. But he has chosen to give us enough information to form an educated opinion regarding the sequence of events attending the time at which sin and death entered the universe by Adam's fall from innocence.
Rom 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;"
That verse clearly states that death (thanatos, = death of the physical body) entered the world at the time Adam sinned. Of course Adam lived for centuries after he sinned, but physical death was supernaturally programmed into his genes at the moment he sinned, and physical death has been passed on genetically to Adam's progeny throughout all of the human race.
But more to my point, a careful analysis of scriptures referring to the matter shows that the curse of death which resulted from Adam's sin was also decreed on all the world's living creatures at that same time. The earth itself was also cursed so that man must now labor to eat bread by the sweat of his face, whereas before the fall Adam and Eve ate freely of the garden's no doubt plentiful and luxurious produce. Paul states;
Ro 8:21 "....the creature (ktisis, = creation) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption (phthora, = death, destruction, or perishing)..........
Paul's statement definitely implies that creation, a term which according to it's Hebrew meaning included all of nature's physical life forms, came under the same curse of physical death as Adam when God cursed his creation and it's living creatures with death as the result of Adam's original sin.
All the above may seem tedious and without much relevance to the subject of the timeline of creation. But I think that if you will follow my line of reasoning (not an easy task I know) you will see my scriptural reasons for not accepting the theory of evolutionary creation. To wit, if death was decreed upon all living creatures at the time it was decreed for Adam's race, which the quoted scriptures definitely imply, then there could not have been millions or billions of years of animal life dying and leaving fossilized remains on earth before the creation of man. There must be another explanation, but it may not be revealed to us while we live on this earth in these mortal bodies equipped only with limited mortal minds and logic. What is logical to our mortal minds now may be revealed to be utter nonsense when our transformed bodies and minds are introduced to God's unlimited intelligence and divine logic in our eternal home.
That point I tried to make regarding the relatively recent introduction of death to animal life and the resulting fossils created by their deaths is made much more clearly and convincingly by Dr. Morris in his book "Creation Science" than by my poorly done efforts at the same task. Until someone can explain the apparent contradictions between inerrant holy scripture and the theory of evolutionary creation, I must remain in the camp of those who are willing to allow for a relatively modest period of time after the creation of the universe before man was created and then lived an unspecified length of time in innocence before he fell into sin and was cursed with death for himself and his progeny, along with the same curse on the entire spectrum of living creatures who shared earth with him at that time.
The evolutionary creation theory seems quite reasonable at first reading, but any theory or supposition that does not conform to the clear word of God falls on deaf ears AFAIC. I would believe the most fantastic proposition imaginable concerning creation or any other matter over the most profound example of human reasoning and logic if that fantastic proposition was clearly presented as truth in the Word of the living God, whose absolutely impeccable, divinely holy character will not allow him to lie or deceive his created beings. I believe in the absolute, unquestionable veracity of the holy scriptures in the original autographs, and the copies which are now extant are so accurately copied from an ancient series of accurate copies of the autographs that the Dead Sea scrolls, copied almost 2 millennia ago from even more ancient texts, are virtually word for word identical to the modern Hebrew language texts that were published before the discovery of those scrolls.
OK it's much later now on this busy Sunday, and I have just remembered another creation theory which the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee proposed concerning the same matter one or two generations ago. He gave considerable credibility to a modified version of the well known gap theory which acknowledges that the period of time that passed between the events of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is unspecified and could have been of any length required to account for the events that are proposed to have occurred during that "gap" period. It is pointed out that the Hebrew term translated "was" in 1:2 can just as easily be translated as "became", which could reasonably be taken to indicate a radical change in the planet's composition and ecological makeup from the condition in which it was first created in 1:1 until it became waste, void, and dark in 1:2. During that indeterminate time period the fossil record and the geological "evidence" for evolution which the evolutionists cite as their proof could have been created by whatever processes the creator chose to accomplish his intended purposes for that pre-Adamic world system. The theory proposes the existence of a completely different and unique world on planet earth which bore little or no relation or resemblance to the Adamic world which was re-created from the older one in Genesis 1:3 when God said "Let there be light" and thereby ended the original world's predetermined period of time and began all over again with what amounted to a brand new creation in every aspect other than the animal and plant fossils and the geological formations of the original creation which remained in place.
I may not have accurately described the theory since it has been many years since I gave it much thought. At the time I heard the gap theory I saw no reason to alter my traditional Judeo/Christian belief regarding the Genesis creation account, and I am not saying that I do now. However, I will admit that if my understanding of that theory is in line with that of it's proponents I can't reject it out of hand without more study and more prayer for wisdom that I don't have naturally.
Hope you understand what I am trying to say with my inept example that goes in circles.
I think our Hindu granddaughter is looking for the witnessor's personal opinion, based upon his understanding of Scripture, on whether or not her deceased Hindu grandparents are doomed to Hell.
Do you tell her that your opinion is "yes", or do you tell her your opinion is "no"?
Maybe because it contradicts the clear word of God given to mankind in holy scripture. There is only one way to attain eternal life, and that way is by grace through faith in the divine, virgin born, crucified, and risen Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Jesus said, "No man cometh to the Father but by me", and he never said anything that is not absolutely and eternally true.
It's very late here for an old man to be trying to think clearly, but I am not claiming that as an excuse for my failure to read what you wrote and understand what you said. If I offended you please accept my sincere apology.
I should say not! In that spirit, what are we to make of this study--
__________________________________
Retrospective Studies of NDEs
--Only 4 percent had hellish experiences.
--International Association for Near-Death Studies 2004 Annual Conference
Peter Fenwick, M.D., F.R.C.Psych. Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London, U.K. Mental Health Group, University of Southampton
http://www.iands.org/research/fenwick1.php
I'm not sure that I understand all that your reply says regarding my comments and those of ClancyJ. It's very late here and I have had a very busy Lord's day, (not the intended purpose for the day I admit) so please bear with this tired old brain until I can study your comments on my comments with a clearer mind. I think I can agree with most of your comments on my comments, but I don't want to commit myself to that without another and more careful reading.
Hmmm, interesting. Now if you add the 24% of barrier+ 4% hellish experience = 28%, not too far from 33%.
I've heard of stretching statistics, but you just inflicted the Tortures of the Damned!
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