Just a few days after my being "Born Again", it was bedtime, and I was lying in bed happily wrapped in the arms of God. I remember that I had a smile from ear to ear. I was at total peace and surrender, just quietly loving and praising my Lord before sleep!
Then, all of a sudden and without warning, I felt myself being taken away (although in one sense I never left my bed) to a place I can only describe as... "Impossible" (for lack of words)! I don't know how the Lord did it, but by His Spirit He brought me to a place of... "Death"... and then pulled back leaving me utterly alone, evidently to experience for myself (in order to warn the others?) what it was like to die without Christ!
Looking back on it all now, I realize that in order to really experience what Death without Christ was like while still alive, one must know what Life through Christ was like first. And I sure did!!!
I could not believe that Death was so... UTTER a reality, so... FINAL a state. I was in utter disbelief and awestruck over how totally powerless I was to do... ANYTHING, to go... ANYWHERE, to even move a muscle, and how wide open the eyes of my understanding were to see and take in the shock of... EVERYTHING!
This is written from experience, and is not written to prove any point. Does the person who dies without Christ experience "Death" at that time, or are they awakened at the great white throne judgement and experience it then? I don't know. (I have my own views on this!) I can only speak for the Christian, and will say that because they died WITH and live IN Christ (or rather, Christ lives in them) then they'll be allright!
Now I am like a dead man come back to life in order to warn the others not to end up here. However, I have learned that if they don't care to hear what God has to say, then nothing I can say will ever persuade them either.
Like the rich man who replied to Abraham: "...Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." Luke 16:30
The man sincerely believed that he could persuade his own family to repent and avoid this place - this hell. But for him it was too late - he died without God. Whether he was a real person or represented the unbelieving Jews, I don't know. Is it any wonder why Jesus insists on our having to being BORN AGAIN... BEFORE we die???
To whom Abraham responded: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Luke 16:31
The scriptures make it all so clear that it doesn't matter if a dead man comes back to life and speaks what he knows by experience, or if a man is alive (never having died) and speaks -- it is the word of God and our response to His word (thus to Him) that determines where we'll go when this physical body/life expires: either paradise or hell... and there will be no crossing over.
The moment that one becomes "born again" is the same moment that they are ushered into God's glorious presence, and are then (upon knowing Him) able to TRY and describe Him as He is: "God is Spirit and He is Truth! God is Love and altogether Lovely like no other, Perfect and Precious in every way!"
I am a man of black and white, a man of the scriptures, so I usually know when I am and when I am not treading into basically indescribeable (or supernatural) places. The reason I say this is because all people (until they are "Born Again of God") are people of "Reason", people who like their ducks all lined up in a row, in order to feel and touch them.
However, God is beyond our reasoning capacities! Any hope at all of trying to describe Him comes through the "Spirit"... and that only after one "Knows Him"! So any attempt at trying understanding Him beyond the limits He put on His own words, are futile... and even 'His words' are not mere words at all, but are Spirit and they are Life!
So the aspect of our "describing God" (because one really has been there and knows Him) is really a "mind-blowing experience", one that falls under the catagory of the "supernatural", whereas the scriptures fall into the area of the "natural" (although they too are really "supernatural"; and can only be understood as such).
We are primarily "spiritual people" consisting of a body and a soul. We know who we are by our spirits. It is the spirit of a man that knows the man, just like it is the Spirit of God that knows God... therefore all who have and walk after the Spirit of God know God!
For instance, if someone were to make a carbon copy of us and introduce him as us, we would have no trouble in knowing that he is a phony, regardless of how perfectly matched he was to us. We would know it because we are "Unique Individuals". There's only "one" of us, and because we alone know ourselves and what makes us tick, we know what and who is not of us.
Our spirits are like a reflector which allows us to look into our soul and see ourselves in the center. However, if we are not Christian (if we have yet to be convicted of sin, of righteousness, and of the judgement) then we have no way of comparing or determing what it is that we're looking at. We have no "revelation" of who we are what we are supposed to look like inside.
Unlike us, God, however, is "Spirit and Life". Without our knowing and having Him we are "fallen spirits" and contain only "death" in our most inward parts. The only way to become regenerated and gain life is to Know and Have God through the revelation of Jesus Christ! And the only way to receive the revelation of Jesus Christ risen and crucified, is through the kind of faith that brings one to receive the total and absolute conviction of our fallen nature by the Spirit of Truth!
Until then, no one will have a need for Christ! It will all be "games" that people play, as they do today via "religion". However, God is Light and there is no darkness or turning in Him.
So the instant one is brought to gaze upon Him is the same instant that they have a stepping-off point, a place of no return! (Another way of saying this is that they were brought to "the end of themselves".) Now they can "see" the difference between God and themselves - night and day!
Now they are convinced (made so by the Spirit of Truth taking and shining "God's Light" on them as no other can do) that they are sinners through and through in desparate need of saving, with zero righteousness of their own, and are about to face the judgement of death and hell without a prayer any second if they should die in such a state of gracelessness.
So what is Death? What's it like to die and have no more life in you? What's it like to die and be powerless to move a muscle? What's it like to die and fall short of the glory of God? Here's what it's like to die without being IN Christ....
YOU ARE... DEAD!
Words cannot describe the absolute state of shock and unbelief that exists upon ones realization of their never having anymore Life (whether temporary life here on earth - or eternal life with God). To die without Christ, whether now or a hundred years from now, there is going to be hell to pay!
Don't kid yourself!!! Mankind has made games to try and overcome these gruesome facts, under the guise of "religion". When they die they go right to heaven, don't they? Everybody believes this, don't they?
To "Die" is one thing, but to die "Knowing" that you've died, is quite another. Add to these that the state of death you find yourself in lasts forever and ever, without hope or prayer.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is Fearful Indeed, and it is one of the reasons why I preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost, whether they be the religiously lost or not. Christ is NOT a religion, He is a Person, one who MUST be savingly and convincingly known BEFORE we die!
I am like that dead man returned to life that we hear Jesus speak of....
Coming to experience this state of absolute death for myself (i.e. experiencing what it was like to die WITHOUT Christ), it was so shocking that it felt like the skin of my forehead was literally peeling away in my unbelief and shock that anything could be so horrible.
I was simply taken and made to see these things as they really are in what it's like to die without having and knowing Christ. I can only testify of how real and how awful these things really are.
If only we knew what "God" looked like inside, then we'd have a base to operate from, but this will never happen until one is convicted of what and who they presently look like.
YOU... KNOW YOU ARE DEAD!
AND (according to Jesus in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, beginning at Luke 16:19) YOU KNOW THAT YOU WILL BE IN THAT STATE OF DEATH... FOREVER!
The truth is that only those who want to remain "Gullible" and stick with religion rather than Christ believe that, while all true and tested "Christians" out there, the same ones who have the spiritual discernment to know better.
There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Luke 16:19-31
"If they won't hear the Scriptures, then neither will a dead man come back to life persuade them either!"
Jesus knows how terrible it is to die in your sins - and so too does the once sated rich man. I pray you listen to the Scriptures and HEAR what God is saying to... YOU!
As if that weren't enough the Scriptures go on to speak of a "SECOND DEATH" as well...
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: Hebrews 9:27
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:14-15
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Mark 9:44
If the Lord can save me, He can save you as well!!! Seek Him today... while you still can!
May God bless you in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ!
Biff
