To be honest, most of us don’t like to think much about what might happen when we die. Maybe we hope we'll go to ‘Heaven’ or be ‘at peace’?

In the light of eternity, the 70-90 years we spend on this earth is a very short time but many of us understandably don’t want to think about eternity and where we will spend it. We find it easier to believe that there’s just nothing after death…that we simply cease to exist.

However, if you start to delve a bit deeper (as I have recently), there is some incredible evidence out there which would suggest that death isn’t the end so maybe its worth finding out a bit more before it happens.

The Jelly Fish Man

My interest began many years ago when I heard a guy who I've always called 'The Jellyfish Man', telling his story of how at the age of 24, he  was stung by five deadly Box Jellyfish whilst diving.

In the ambulance strange things began to happen. He was shown a review of his life and he realised he needed to ask for God's forgiveness. Having arrived at the hospital however, he died, but he still had a consciousness. He left his body behind on the hospital bed and went on a journey.

To begin with he found himself somewhere he decided must be Hell (more about hell later) but then he was transported to an amazing place and met someone he instinctively knew to be Jesus.

He was given a choice about staying there or going back into his body and he decided to go back because he saw his mother praying for him and he wanted her to know that he'd had an encounter with Jesus. He returned to his body and gave the mortician a huge shock as he had been clinically dead for 15 minutes!

The guy was called Ian McCormack and you can hear his story here if you’re interested.

What happened to him, I later learned is known as a Near Death Experience, although Ian would argue that he definitely died

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Heaven is for Real

A number of years later, I read a story about avery young boy, Colton Burpo whose condition was considered fatal after his appendix ruptured and he was given emergency surgery as a last resort. Colton eventually recovered. However, he soon began making strange statements to his parents about leaving his body and going to a wonderful place where he had sat on Jesus' lap.

Over time he told his parents about things that he could not have possibly known. He recounted meeting a sister of whom  unaware as she was miscarried, and a great grandfather who died in his 60s, long before Colton was born, but Colton recognised a photo of him as a young man whom he’d met whilst with Jesus. His parents realised that Colton must have visited heaven whilst in surgery.   Heaven is for Real is Colton's story.

Closer to Home!

More recently I discovered that a number of years ago, my mum in law, Joy had a Near Death Experience herself during a stroke, when she too met Jesus and was given a similar choice of whether tostay or come back.

This increased my interestin the subject and I decided to see if it had happened to many other people -and it has….Thousands of them!

So I searched a bit more and recently I found another book called ‘Imagine Heaven’ which is a compilation of lots of people’s stories and is absolutely fascinating! A lot of my information here has been gleaned from that book. The author, John Burke, compares many stories of NDEs and from his research tries to answer questions such as, Will I be myself? Will I see friends and lovedones? What will it look like? What is God like? What will we do forever? What about children and pets?

Similar stories

So many people in these stories shared the same or similar experiences, although all were described in unique ways by the individuals. Things like…

their consciousness becoming separated fromtheir physical body, having heightened senses and very intense and generallypositive, peaceful emotions or feelings. Passing into or through a tunnel and encountering a brilliant light were also common experiences.

Heaven?

After their journey down the tunnel or maybe a flight through space, many of them were given a glimpse of an incredible place which a number referred to as Heaven or Paradise although they couldn’t fully enter it as their time hadn't yet come. Some felt they wouldn't be able to enter if they'd stayed anyway, as they they had rejected God all their lives so far. 

They could see vivid greengrass with each blade, ‘perfect, alive and moving’, beautiful, indescribablecoloured flowers that glowed as if lit from the inside. Some saw birds andanimals too.

There was an amazing freshness to the air with a wonderful fragrance, and beautiful, inspirational music (the sound of peopleworshipping God created by millions of voices in harmony).

They found it to be an exhilarating, exciting place with music, dancing, celebration with nothing boring about it. Definitelyno sitting around on clouds, strumming harps!

There is much about the descriptions people giveof this place that make it sound like a perfect version of the earth we know.So maybe its the new Heaven/Earth that the Bible talks about and when we die and step out of time and into eternity we're already in that future destination?

Loved Ones

They recognised people who had died previously including babies born prematurely, and children. Those who saw them were able to communicate with them as well as with Jesus and other heavenly beings too, without using any words. No one was sick or old in the sense of having less active bodies, being unwell or having lost capacity.

The City of God?

Many saw an immense endless, glowing city with pearlescent, translucent golden walls. A radiant pulsating light came from somewhere (or someone!) in the centre of the city giving light and life toeverything.

Jesus?

Many met an incredible ‘Man of Light’ who radiated love beyond imagination and a lot of people instinctively knew him to be Jesus, even people from other faiths. Even if they didn’t know who he was, they all described the same person.

Many of them commented on his eyes…. “piercing,magnetic, alluring, kind, and beautifully captivating like nothing you can imagine.”  “I experienced in His eyes that they are deep and full oflife…. In His eyes I saw the love for every human …. At first it seemed as ifHis eyes had love only for me. But when I thought about someone else, I saw Hislove for that person and it was like He loved only that person.”

Many of the people who had Near Death Experiences would not be described as ‘Christians’ although some had a faith of a kind. However many of them felt that their experience gave them a second chance and the opportunity to spend the rest of their earthly life choosing tofollow and serve God instead of ignoring Him or actively rejecting him, having discovered that the choice they made on earth would determine where they spent eternity.

Hell?

Not all Near Death Experiences were positive. In fact many were hideously frightening, although many people who had that experience had only hazy memories of something terrible when they returned to their bodies. They couldn’t quite recall all the horrible details as their subconscious appeared to repress them.

Christian Bill Weiss believes God allowed him to experience a terrifying out of body experience in hell, (which he did remember) in order to to warn others.

In this shortened 6 minute video he describes terrifying darkness and screaming, unbearable pain, overwhelming fear, putrifying stench, unquenchable thirst, grotesque demons, snakes and maggots, a horrifying feeling of hopelessness and a deep sense of eternal loss and damnation.

Around 4.5 minutes into the video though, he shares some good news!

Oxford scholar C. S. Lewis, an atheist turned believer, wrestled with the idea of hell and concluded that God does not send anybody to hell. Everyone can choose to be with Jesus for eternity but many don’t. He said, “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked from theinside . . . [to] enjoy forever the horrible freedom [from God] they have demanded.”

The Choice

I guess my main motivation for writing all this,is that I can't bear the thought of any of my friends or loved ones being separated from God for eternity in that way, and this may be one way of drawing attention to this deadly serious matter which cannot be ignored. None of us know when time will run out and the end of our lives will come. 

It doesn't make sense to me that Jesus would have died such a terrible death if it wasn't to save us from something utterly terrifying. If Hell is eternal separation from a loving God and all that is good, then it definitely makes sense that He would go to that length in order to save us from hell, so we could spend eternity with Him.

From my understanding of the Bible however, we only secure that escape from hell and gain eternity with God when we accept what He has done for us as a gift. We can do nothing to earn it and He offers that gift because He loves us more than anyone has ever loved us. The choice that we will all make at some point in our lives is whether to accept that free gift or ignore it.

We all have to face the consequences of that choice. Just because we don't believe that something is true, doesn't make it untrue. What if it turns out to be the absolute truth? 

The most famous Bible verse in the Bible says itall....

'For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternallife.'  (John chapter 3 verse 16. The Bible)