reported "near death" experiences

[8thdaypriest]

A few of my friends, one of which attends our Friday evening study group, just cannot accept the unconscious state of the dead, because of reading about "near death experiences."

Now I personally believe that after physical death comes a state of unconsciousness. God retains a "memory" of each person which He uses later to resurrect them.

I went on amazon.com looking at all their religious books. Do you know that half of them are about near death experiences.

I had a friend (6 yrs ago) who was SDA, and left after her son died. This woman's father was an SDA minister. She could NOT accept that he was "sleeping". She started to read about near death experiences and ended up leaving the SDAs, and all her old friends who would not accept her new belief.

A young electrician who did some work at our home told me about his personal experience. He was up on a power pole in "the box", and received enough volts to kill him. (He still has the burn scars.) Suddenly he was "outside of himself", watching the rescuers get him down and put him in an ambulance, doing CPR. Somewhere during the ride to the hospital he blacked out, and then woke up IN HIS body at the ER. He is absolutely SURE that the person is conscious when separated from their body at death.

Anyone here have any good advice for dealing with this situation? Quoting Bible passages has NOT helped.

I told the fellow at our Fri eve study group that I have to go with what the Bible says first.

Thanks

[Gail]

May the Spirit speak through you on this one!

[8thdaypriest]

Guess no one has any answers.......

[Gail]

Rachel, you can rely on the Bible... If the person doesn't accept the Bible teaching what else can you do? The Holy Spirit will need to do this one.

It's not like they don't happen, for I believe they do. But do we know everything there is to know about the dying process? I don't think so. Are what people experience supernatural like some healings and/or spiritually generated? Those are questions you could ask.

At this point, with only our limited knowledge of that, you would need to accept the Bible teaching by faith.

[Gail]

This is one of those cases where we need to choose what God's word says over what our senses are telling us, because of supernatural involvement. As Adventists this is not a surprise, for we are warned that this is a tool used to deceive people against believing in the Biblical truth through EGW.

People who have been involved in the occult can vouch for spiritual activity in the realm of what we can see.

[olger]

Exactly Gail.

Either we allow subjective experiences to define truth or

We allow the Bible to define subjective experiences.

[olger]

Nan & I were at a funeral in April. This fellow had one of those near death experiences while he was dying and "saw" people "over there" and named some of them.

Here is what I wrote in my logbook that evening:

"I wasn't at the Diet of Worms when Luther was on trial but I was in the audience at a funeral last Saturday when the principles of the Protestant reformation received a major blow in the church of my fathers. Here is what happened.

Apparently, this deceased man had had a “vision” while he was near death. In this “out of body experience” he saw dead people in Paradise. He reportedly saw Jesus there. I was told that he saw his brother who had committed suicide in 1977 there.

On what basis do we judge this experience? Now, according to the Sola Scriptura principle of the protestant reformation, the Bible is to be used to interpret itself. External experiences and “spirits” are to be placed on trial by the Scriptures (1 John 4:1; Isaiah 8:20). The Scriptures are never placed on trial by the spirits, or by an experience.

In the first sermon on Saturday this ‘vision’ was used as a springboard to jump to a few selected Bible texts in an attempt to validate the vision. This is called an eisogesis. When we assign explanatory power to an external subjective experience (which this vision certainly was) we have adopted a real bad hermeneutic. In short, we are allowing subjective experience to define Biblical truth, instead of allowing the Bible to test our experiences.

Lay beside that experience other non-Christian people who have the same experience."

Sorry if it sounds rambling - it was a scrawled note that may lead to an article.

`g

[8thdaypriest]

Thank you for your thoughts on this. I agree - that we MUST believe Scripture OVER any experience, or person. I agree that this is one of Satan's major deceptions - to undo the sola Scriptura concerning the unconscious state of man in death.

I wish there was a way to follow those people who experienced "near death visions" to see what happened in their lives AFTER they accepted those things. Did they come under more Satanic influence??

Gail,

I noticed that you wrote, "believing in the Biblical truth through EGW." I agree that the writings of EGW have led many to Bible truth. But that does not mean that we should test every Scriture by EGW. It HAS to be the other way around. 30 years ago - I read Scripture thru Ellen White glasses. I had to put her books AWAY, so that I could HEAR what the Scriptures ALONE were saying.

Peace

Rachel