(July 18, 2010) A Weekly Meditation of Pastor Chang

< Witnesses of Life after Death > (1)

Recently, in our Flushing church, almost every week for the last 4 weeks, we heard someone who was related to our church members just passed away. If they were in Flushing, I presided at the funeral services for them; but if they were in Taiwan or in China, I just could join the families to pray for them. Of course, when someone we love past away, we could feel terribly sorrowful and painful for the loss, but no matter what the ages are, death could happen anytime to anyone. It is not only the aged or sick people will die.  

Because of this, I feel that I need to share the knowledge of death from the biblical perspectives with my people so that we may all get comforted in case we face the reality of death. Praise the Lord Jesus Christ who had come to this world and experienced the life, sufferings, and cruel death; but He was resurrected and now lives forever. He is the example for us to learn from, because this is His promise that whatever He is we will be!  

In the past 30 years I serve as a pastor at GCC and I have many opportunities to see and witness many people who were about to die and to watch their “near death experiences.” How did they die? And what were the results after their death? The experiences are very meaningful to me which intensifies my belief in Jesus Christ that He is the living God. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can go to the Father in Heaven except through Him (John 14:6.) Let me describe these stories to you one by one! 

First of all, we need to understand about the biblical concept of death. It is totally different from our perceptions or even medical description of death. From medical point of view, death means: a person who does not breathe anymore because his heart stops beating and his brain stops functioning, then, that is called “death” medically.  However, the Bible does not see this way. The Bible declares that death is a kind of phenomenon of separation. Namely, when a person’s spirit (or call soul) is separated from his/her body permanently, that is called death. And there are two kinds of deaths – physical death and spiritual death. Let me talk about the physical death first.  

Before I keep going talking about death, one wrong concept that atheist has I need to mention here. The atheists do not believe that human beings have “spirits” or “souls.” They think that after a person’s death that means, that person is totally “gone” or “disappeared” in this universe. But, I certainly declare, anyone who holds such kind of thinking is very foolish and even pitifully stupid. I am pretty sure, when they die, they will discover that their beings are still very alive, even more vivid than they were in this physical world. By that time, they will regret, but it is too late for them, because their future destiny has been set up by their disbelief.  

Furthermore, let me describe another kind of phenomenon: Some people have experienced of their spirits (souls) temporarily out of their bodies. It is more than a kind of ecstasy but their spirits are totally departed from their bodies. Some people had it because of accidents, but some have it because of going through special disciplines, especially in Buddhism and Chinese Taoism. They provide a kind of special training that can make people experience it. But they all know that it is very dangerous. In case, when a person’s spirit is being separated from his body, the other kind of evil spirit can take an advantage of it and get into the bodies. Then, that person’s spirit will never be able to come back again, eventually the body will be taken over by other kind of evil and that person will be insane as the appearance. Yet, the real original spirit of that person is gone forever. And the evil which occupies in the body will begin to torture and abuse that body until the body is totally corrupted. Then, the evil spirit will depart from that person. Therefore, in Buddhism and Taoism, those who practice such kind of training always needs others to keep watching over them. Otherwise, it could be chaotic. I heard that in China, many such kind of insane people are locked in the mental hospitals.  

In the Bible, we may also see some of the ancient prophets had the same experiences. For example, Ezekiel, several times experienced his human spirit was left up by the Holy Spirit to different places while he still resided in Babylon. He went to meet the almighty God (1:26-28); he was brought back to Jerusalem (Chap.8); he was taken to a battlefield to see dry bones (Chap. 37.) Daniel had different but similar experiences (Chap. 10); Zechariah also had the same experience (Chaps. 1-6.) In the New Testament, Apostle Paul told us his amazing experience that he was caught to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:1-4); Apostle Peter had another similar experience (Acts 10:9-16); Apostle John told us the same experience (Rev. 1:9-3:22; 4:1-4.) The difference between the experiences of these men of God and other religious people is that the men of God never worry about being hijacked or interrupted by the evil. Who dares to test God’s power in the universe! Therefore, the Bible strongly condemns those who use witchcrafts to do such kind of practice. Praise the Lord for our God is the almighty One! (Next Sunday I will continue to discuss about the second type of death – the spiritual death.) May the Lord bless us!