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WHEN A MAN DIES

[offline version for download]

(Part 2 from 4)

Listen to Part 2 (mp3, 1,4 MB)

From an extensive survey made by Dr. Karlis Osis in USA, the following was discovered:

(a) Patients taking either seditives or drugs that are known to produce hallucinations are less likely to have after-death experiences than those who take no medication at all.

(b) Illnesses that produce hallucinations are associated with fewer encounters with an after-life than other diseases.

(c) Drug-induced hallucinations deal more with this present world than with visions of another world or existence.

(d) What patients see and experience does not appear to relate to wishful thinking for three main reasons:

(1) Such experiences occur regardless of whether a person has a good expectation of recovery, or whether he knows he is dying.
(2) Patients having such experiences do not see heaven or hell in the form they have previously considered. What they see is usually unexpected.
(3) The nature of the experience is not altered by differences in culture and religion. Dying patients in USA and in India have both claimed to see this dark passage, the brilliant light, and their previously deceased relatives.

Dr. Charles Garfield, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California Medical Centre, also concludes from his observations that the whole quality of life after death experiences are entirely different from drug-induced hallicinations or the kind of dissociated sensations that patients in a great deal of pain may experience.

Furthermore, the Bible tells us that the body is dead without the spirit, and this separation of the spirit from the body is characteristic of practically all these experiences.

The Bible also tells us:

Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Heb. 9:27 2 Cor. 5:10

Dr. Rawlings, in his description of what happens at death, mentioned how sometimes a person's whole life may be played back in an instant as if in anticipation of a judgement. This was Stephen Board's experience.

Then it was light. I awoke and knew it was real. In front of me, I watched my whole life pass by. Every thought, word, and every movement I had made in my life since the time I knew Jesus was real. I saw things I had done which I had forgotten, but remembered as I watched them pass before me. This experience was, to say the least, unbelievable. Every detail, right up to the present time. It all took place in what seemed just a fraction of a second, and yet it was all very vivid.

But, you may ask, how could a God of love want to judge and condemn somebody. Listen to what Jesus tells us about this:

God, my Father, judges no-one, but has entrusted all judgement to the Son, that they may all honour the Son just as they honour the Father. If a person hears my words, but does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.

John 5:22-23 John 12:47-48

The following experience shows us vividly how God's love and justice do blend in judgement, and illustrates clearly what Jesus meant when he said, "That word which I spoke will condemn him".

On 20th December 1943 at Camp Berkeley, Texas, in USA, Dr. George Ritchie, who is now a medical doctor and practising psychiatrist, died of lobular pneumonia and remained dead for nine minutes. He was only 20 years old at the time...

I backed toward the doorway. The man in that bed was dead. But... if that was my ring, then... then it was me, the separated part of me lying under that sheet. Did that mean that I was...

It was the first time in this entire experience that the word "death" occurred to me in connection with what was happening.

But I wasn't dead! How could I be dead and still be awake? Thinking. Experiencing. Death was different. Death was... I didn't know. Blanking out. Nothingness. I was me, wide awake, only without a physical body to function in. Was this what death was? This separation of one part of a person from the rest of him?

I wasn't sure when the light in the room began to change; suddenly I was aware that it was brighter, a lot brighter than it had been. I stared in astonishment as the brightness increased, coming from nowhere, seeming to shine everywhere at once. It was impossibly bright; it was like a million welders' lamps all blazing at once. "I'm glad I don't have physical eyes at this moment", I thought. "This light would destroy the retina in a tenth of a second!"

No, I corrected myself, not the light. Not the light. He. He would be too bright to look at. For now I saw that it was not light, but a man who had entered the room, or rather, a man made out of light.

The instant I perceived him, a command formed itself in my mind. "Stand up!" I rose to my feet, and as I did came the stupendous certainty: "You are in the presence of the Son of God". Far more even than power, what emanated from this Presence was unconditional love. An astonishing love. A love beyond my wildest imagining. This love knew every unlovable thing about me - the quarrels with my step-mother, my explosive temper, the sex thoughts I could never control, every mean, selfish thought and action since the day I was born - and accepted and loved me just the same.

When I say that he knew everything about me, this was simply an observable fact. For into that room along with his radiant presence had also entered every single episode of my entire life. Everything that had ever happened to me was simply there, in full view, contemporary and current, all seemingly taking place at that moment.

Every detail of 20 years of living was there to be looked at. The good, the bad, the high points, the run-of-the-mill. And with this all-inclusive view came a question. "What did you do with your life?"

It was obviously not a question in the sense that He was seeking information, for what I had done with my life was in plain view. It seemed to be a question about values, not facts: what did you accomplish with the precious time you were allotted? Hadn't I done anything lasting, anything important? All at once rage at the question itself built up in me. It wasn't fair! Of course I hadn't done anything with my life? I hadn't had time. How could you judge a person who hadn't started?

The answering thought, however, held no trace of judgement. "Death", the word was infinitely loving, "can come at any age!"

If I'd suspected before that there was mirth in the Presence beside me, now I was sure of it: the brightness seemed to vibrate and shimmer with a kind of holy laughter - not at me and my silliness, not a mocking laughter, but a mirth that seemed to say that in spite of all error and tragedy, joy was more lasting still.

And in the ecstasy of that laughter, I realised that it was I who was judging the events around me so harshly. It was I who saw them as trivial, self-centred, unimportant. No such condemnation came from the Glory shining around me. He was not blaming or reproaching. He was simply... loving me. Filling the world with Himself and yet somehow attending to me personally. Waiting for my answer to the question that still hung in the dazzling air. "What have you done with your life to show me? How much have you loved with your life? Have you loved others as I am loving you. Totally? Unconditionally?

I hadn't known love like this was possible. Someone should have told me, I thought indignantly! A fine time to discover what life was all about - like coming to a final exam and discovering you were going to be tested on a subject you had never studied. If this was the point of everything, why hadn't someone told me?

But though these thoughts rose out self-pity and self-excuse, the answering thought held no rebuke, only the hint of heavenly laughter behind the words: "I did tell you!"

"But how?" - still wanting to justify myself. "How could he have told me and I not heard?

"I told you by the life I lived. I told you by the death I died."

Yes, death can come at any age.

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. No-one has power over his spirit to be able to retain it, neither does anyone have power over the day of his death.

Prov. 27:1 Eccl.8:8

 

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