The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Another Testimony of someone saved out of "Hell"

Evangelical Universalism
#1

The follow is a link to another testimony of someone who experienced Hell, only to be saved, experience the judgment and have his heart changed.
cbn.com/tv/3721325551001

Sadly, assuming his experience was real, it was interpreted through the lense of Infernalism, even though that lense doesn’t do the testimony justice. It seems to me that he experienced the full unmitigtated spiritual reality of what Paul calls this “present evil age”. And then Jesus stepped in and saved him, and revealed to him the spirtual reality of the kingdom of God, and he experienced the reality of the Judgment which delivers us from evil, truth burning the hell out of us; and he was given a new/healed heart.

So what do you think about the testimony?

#2

Yeah, I never know what to think of these things. I suppose the HS may have spoken to him symbolically with the fire and the demons and the damned shouting their warnings. I always kind of derail when someone who claims an NDE starts talking about that kind of stuff though. Because I really think the fire HAS to be the presence of God, and if that’s the case, you’re hardly going to be hearing demons cackling and the screamed warnings of the damned, etc. It would be clean, pure, even if agonizing. And of course I don’t believe it’s physical fire (though again it could appear symbolically if this was God sending Jordan a message.)

He seems very sincere, but I just kind of think he’s acting. It also doesn’t add up that it’s God the Father judging him, since He’s given over all judgment to His Son.

I think he manages to skirt the issue in that he portrays himself as “coming back” for a few heartbeats and gasping out his “sinners prayer” before his heart stops again. So he’s technically “alive” when he does that. Lucky for him, huh? What about all those damned screaming their warnings, trying unselfishly to save him from sharing their fate? Too bad their hearts won’t miraculously start beating again for a few micro-seconds so they could gasp out their belief in “this life.” Like I said, he seems very sincere, but I’ve been lied to a LOT, and well, you do have to come across as sincere. I don’t know, Sherman. I hate to say this because it’d be really cool if real, but I’m not convinced. (And I should say that I DO believe in NDEs. What do you think? Do you believe him?

#3

Yep, I know what you mean Cindy, though I do tend to believe him without evidence to the contrary. Concerning the people screaming and in pain, assuming they were people, I’d think he’s hearing the cry of other people currently caught up in the bondage of drugs and other forms of bondage and evil. Assuming it is true, I think he experienced the full spiritual reality of this present evil age. In this present evil age people are tormented by evil from within and without, in all manner of bondage, slavery to evil, even oppressed and tormented by demons. So what he experienced was not the mythological ECT Hell of someday, but he experienced the full blown present spiritual reality of the “hell of here and now”. And I see “fire” as speaking of both God and evil. God is a consuming Fire and in his presence all evil is consumed from us. On the other hand, evil is a fire that consumes us only to consume us over and over, unil we’re delivered from that fire by the Fire of God’s presence. So both God and evil are portrayed as fire, but they are of different substance and effect, the one heals and delivers, the other only torments.

Of course, it could be that it’s one fire seen from two different perspectives, destructive from one perspective and constructive from the other. Hmm, I don’t know. Also, it’s interesting that he didn’t actually say the “sinner’s prayer” but only confessed his belief in Jesus. I think it’s more of an attitude of one’s heart than what one actually says. For him, he did repent from not believing in Jesus to believing in Him.

#4

In all honesty, I never pay attention to NDEs. It’s not that I don’t believe any of them, it’s just that a) they’re not particularly verifiable and b) some of them I’ve read appear to contradict scripture. I’m just not really that interested in listening to them.

#5

I believe we need to be skeptical about anything we read or hear about. I’m not opposed to God speaking to someone or getting someone’s attention in such a way like this. But I often wonder, if true, why it doesn’t happen more often. Why this particular person and not also someone else in a similiar situation? I’m glad that he had it and that it changed his life (along with the girl he married). But did it really take an NDE for him to get the message? Was there no other means available to come across the gospel message?

I’ve alway wanted to experience sometime like this, if only for my own confirmation. Yet biblically speaking, maybe we should be thankful in not having an NDE ourselves, for as He said to Thomas, “Blessed is the one who has not seen and yet believes.”

#6

Good points, Sherman. Thanks! I always prefer to believe people if I can, and what you’ve said seems plausible. So . . . could be. :wink: At any rate, it’s definitely interesting.

#7

Yeah; nobody really knows how we view present reality once the veil has been removed, or if all NDEs are simply products of the imagination. If real though, I think I’m inclined to think as you do, Sherman.

#8

A few years ago, a friend who was upset about me going UR challenged me to watch several NDE testimony vids, 7 or 8 of them. He thought they would convince me of the reality of an ECT Hell. I watched them because he is a friend but I noticed several things he obviously, or obivivasly, did not notice. For exampl:

  1. In each case where a person who was not saved died and experienced “Hell”, the person go saved, ALL. Some got saved while they were dead, and some got saved shortly after coming back to life. So for none of the people who experienced “Hell”, was “Hell” endless.
  2. For the Christians who experienced “Hell” and “Heaven”, they came back to life with a tremendous passion to share the good news of God’s love for everyone.
  3. In one testimony, the unsaved lady was experiencing “Hell” and saw an “uncrossable gulf” only to have Jesus save her, carry her across the gulf and reveal to her His love and heaven before taking her back to her body.
  4. And every time someone experienced Judgment it resulted in the person being delivered from evil by understanding the truth of God’s love and their depravity, especially the sin that caused pain in others. Judgment was always for the person’s good, to draw them into God, and it was never to seperate someone from God.

I studied these testimonies “assuming” that the person was being honest about their experience and seeking to understand them via what I believe scripture to reveal. What they experienced could have been real or only mental; either way I considered them to have experienced it. But of course, I do not consider their experience “authoritative” in any way.

#9

Yeah, that’s fair enough. I don’t doubt that some of these experiences really have happened, and I think it’s great that these people have often changed their lives around and come to really love Jesus. Not knowing anybody who’s had this sort of after-death experience or vision, I prefer to stay away from paying too much attention or focus to these stories because I cannot really make a judgement call on them as people.

#10

The only person I personally know who had an NDE is my aunt. She died on the operating table because of an annuerism (sp?). The doctors were operating on her for an annuerism and caused another one. She died for a few minutes but they ressussitated her, though they had to remove part of her brain and close the wound to stop the hemorraging. They thought if she lived she’d be a veggie, but when she finally awoke she had her full faculties.

She later shared that while she was dead she went to heaven and saw Jesus. He spoke to her just briefly saying she had to go back. She said she didn’t want to. But Jesus said that she had to go back for her youngest son’s sake because he needed her. So she came back and lived another 30 years or so in realitively good health. And it turns out that her son did desperately need her. It’s a long story, but all in the family except her gave up on her son because of his bad behavior. She never did though. And because she never did, her son eventually turned around and started making better decisions. She was one of the kindest, most gracious, caring, loving, and hard working persons I’ve ever known.

#11

I have a sneaking suspicion that these experiences are much like the visions experienced by some of the biblical writers. Perhaps the state of consciousness (or unconsciousness) they’re in allows them to “pierce the veil” as it were and see things in the spiritual realm that we are unable to see in our usual state. The descriptions that people come up with are perhaps much like John’s in revelation, trying to describe what he sees in the language available to him. Perhaps that’s why there are so many reports of a “hell” like experience where people see what the reality of the universe would be like if it weren’t for Christ.
Of course, none of this explains people who have “died” and come back and have experienced nothing at all, they report it as having been like they were asleep.

#12

Melchi, I’m just reading a book about NDE’s by a cardiologist who’s done prospective studies. According to him, about one in ten do remember experiences, and remembering is higher with people who also have clear memories of dreams and who are younger. He thinks it has more to do with people’s ability to remember than with having/not having an experience. But that’s just his educated speculation of course.

#13

It’s certainly possible (and makes sense) if what happens is something akin to dreaming. They say that we don’t really “not dream”, we just don’t always remember them.

Certain vitamin deficiencies can sometimes cause changes in brain chemistry that can prevent one from remembering dreams. That doesn’t really have anything to do with the discussion necessarily, it’s just interesting. :ugeek:

#14

Normally, I ignore this kind of stuff. I still don’t know what to make of the whole The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven story even after reading it a couple of years ago. Though, when I watch this video, I had some of the same observations Sherman had. This video gives me great hope rather than fear. I was led by the Spirit to come to this website to watch this video because of a personal revelation in the video. I truly believe what this guy is saying is true. Nowhere in the video does he actually contradict the Christian UR message; he only says that hell exists, which I already knew. Though, this might be a reference also to what happens to the spirit when the person enters Sheol. People that haven’t given their lives all for Christ are in hell and everyone else is enjoying heaven. At the first resurrection, those whose spirits who were in heaven get resurrected bodies. At the second resurrection, those who had faith without evidence of works will also inherit life after having their spirits in Sheol. The wicked, at that point, still need discipline from God and His sons. Those who had faith without works are those who did not put all their ‘poker chips on the table’, so to speak. They weren’t fully committed to God. Anything less than perfection through Christ in us is hell. Sorry, I don’t feel like providing my biblical reasoning for the above statements but I’m willing to explain in a different discussion if someone asks.
As to the validity of this story, I believe there is a very good chance it is true because the man was induced by a combination of drugs and death resulting an altered state of consciousness leading up to the NDE experience. Also, it is possible that God wanted to use this state-of-(un)consciousness to give new birth (as mentioned in John 3) to this man just like He did to Paul. This is also an example of what I call God’s sovereignty trumping the authority of human free-will because of His great love for us. :slight_smile:
Last point, validity for the spiritual cannot be proved science, yet. I doubt it will be proved until scientists learn to grapple with divinity.
Thanks for sharing, Sherman.

#15

I believe in NDEs, that is “NEAR death experiences”, but that is a far cry from believing in ADEs (AFTER death experiences) or ADERTLs (“after death experience & return to life”). I happen to believe that when you’re dead, you’re dead, and will remain dead until your resurrection.

I think NDEs may be given by God as a foretaste of post-resurrection experiences. Or in some cases, demons may have a hand in it in an attempt to deceive people into believing that the Resurrection is unnecessary.

I have noticed that accounts of many people who supposedly returned from death, are about going down a long tunnel, and feeling overwhelmed with joy as they reach the other end. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the person who experienced the NDE was a Christian or a non-Christian.

I have also noticed that accounts by Christians of their supposed ADERTL that involved God or Jesus or angels, is always consistent with what they believed prior to this experience, and is inconsistent to what various other Christians believe.

#16

I ran across this interesting article on NDEs, iands.org/about-ndes.html.

#17

  1. I think that many NDEs are genuine spiritual experiences.

  2. It is a fact that every person is fallible, and thus his interpretations of his NDE and his NDE itself are necessarily fallible. Only the Holy Trinity is infallible.

  3. Given the above two observations, I never allow an NDE to over-rule my Orthodox faith. When an NDE is consistent with Orthodoxy, I rejoice in it. When an NDE is inconsistent with Orthodoxy, I think that some fallible person made a mistake somewhere.

:slight_smile:

#18

Hey that’s some really good logic there, Geoffrey. I definitely think that is the best approach.

#19

The thing is that while we yearn for confirmation in NDEs shedding some light of the afterlife, we are skeptical as we view these accounts through the lens of our orthodoxy. We hope to see a “unified theory” on NDEs, yet we cannot merely just hold onto the accounts that seem to favor our view. What about Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and even Jewish NDE accounts that thwart those efforts to come up with a smooth explanation? Do we just discount them because they don’t line up with our views? Do we pass them off as deceptions of Satan? Or are we safer in just catagorically denying that NDEs have any basis in reality at all?

Hindu NDE:

youtube.com/watch?v=vWcs-AykknQ

Muslim NDE:

youtube.com/watch?v=6hjr1aCW28g

Buddhist NDE:

youtube.com/watch?v=9YOA_hHPVFQ

Jewish NDE:

youtube.com/watch?v=ryY8OZgLXdw

#20

I do not doubt that many non-Christian NDEs are genuine spiritual experiences. I don’t doubt that God will often communicate with us where we are. I further think that our fallibility and sinfulness puts “lenses” on what we perceive. Thus a Muslim wears Islamic lenses, an Evangelical wears Evangelical lenses, a Buddhist wears Buddhist lenses, etc. Each of them thus tends to have an NDE that is Islamic or Evangelical or Buddhist or etc. (as the case may be).

These considerations do not invalidate the genuineness of these spiritual experiences. They do rule-out, however, using NDEs as normative for one’s faith. This is neither surprising nor scandalous. The only perfect and complete revelation of God is in the incarnation of God the Son in Jesus Christ. All else (including all NDEs) is imperfect and incomplete.