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'Christ in You...'

    by Dale Krebbs

Near Death Experience
Date Posted: February 3, 2019

God has appointed for every person on earth to experience a “near death experience”. Not actual death (that also, eventually) but a near death experience. Most are familiar with the term in relation to medical settings in which someone claims to have died, saw certain things or sensations, etc. There is a kind of near death situation when someone is in a coma resulting from accident or illness. These are relatively rare, regardless of the circumstances or beliefs surrounding them.

Every day of our lives, we experience a near death experience, or at least most do every day. Perhaps a more accurate way of saying it would be every night.

We sleep...

The phenomenon of sleep is the closest to the experience of death that we can have (other than a coma, etc.) without actually dying. Sleep is very near death, both physically and mentally. Without adequate sleep we would eventually experience real death. Except for those who claim to have died and come back to life, no one knows anything about death. When sleeping we just as well be dead, practically speaking. We cannot do or experience those things that those who are not asleep experience - except in our dreams perhaps. Without being morbid, have you ever considered that when you lie down to sleep, you give up totally any control over living? We either live until we wake up, or we don’t. We like to have control, at least physically, over the state of our bodies and minds. In sleep we do not have either one. If one really understood the fragilness of sleep, and Who sustains life during that time, we would drop to our knees in open surrender to Him - and we would be sure to do it prior to bedtime. We take it for granted. It is so natural, but actually there is nothing simple or commonplace about sleep, in the sense of what must occur for us to experience it and still be alive when we awake. It qualifies as a true “miracle” - a miracle so familiar and constant that it is almost never considered in that light. It is a marvelous gift of the grace of life from a loving God (Psalm 127:1-2). And it has many purposes - other than a near death experience, and the replenishing of the body resources. God never sleeps. We should be very thankful (Psalm 121:4).

There is a varied and extensive typology in God’s Word involving the phenomenon called sleep. It is first used by God at the creation of women (Genesis 2:21). Adam had to be anesthetized and a rib removed from which the first woman was constructed.. Something similar was used by God on Abram, something like a nightmare in which God dramatically revealed to him the future of his posterity (Genesis 1 5:12-16). Sleep is referred to extensively as a type of death. as early as the book of Deuteronomy, regarding the death of Moses. Samson’s hair was cut while he slept, and his mighty strength disappeared. Sleep has been the medium of visions, and dreams, and revelations for prophets and servants of God down through the ages. There are many more types, parallels, and analogies in God’s word involving this common, and so necessary thing called sleep.

One of the most important for us is the spiritual analogy employed by the Apostle Paul. Sleep is a type of spiritual lethargy and blindness: “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of SLEEP: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Romans 13:11-12 KJV). If there is one word that could describe the body of Christ today, it would be the word - asleep! Many are sleeping while Jesus Christ is agonizing over the possible future of His spiritual body, as He did with the sleeping disciples in the Garden that night. While the church sleeps, its awakening portends a possible nightmare. More than once there has been a “great awakening” in the body of Christ. We need another now - desperately. Jesus knows the state of His flock. He is waiting, agonizing, and pleading by the Holy Spirit for a turning, and a returning. May all who are His enter into His labors - wide awake (1 Thessalonians 5:6-7).

Sleep is also a type of physical death. Regardless of various views about the state of those who die, the fact remains that God's Word plainly makes the analogy. Some will "awake" from this sleep to more than a nightmare (Daniel 12:2-3). The traditional method of caring for those who have died seems appropriate and in line with the typology of sleep. If you are in Christ, it is a very peaceful presentation of this truth - Jesus has turned the imagery around and reversed it. Now, death can been seen by those in Christ as only “sleep”...(1 Thessalonians 4:14), and awake to an eternal new day.

When you fall asleep tonight and awake, you are being granted a preview of marvelous things to come...

“Take notice! I tell you a mystery (a secret truth, an event decreed by the hidden purpose or counsel of God). We shall not all fall asleep [in death], but we shall all be changed (transformed), in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the [sound of the] last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable (free and immune from decay), and we shall be changed (transformed). For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us, this nature that is capable of dying] must put on immortality (freedom from death). And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be fulfilled the Scripture that says, Death is swallowed up (utterly vanquished (forever) in and unto victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” - 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 (AmpBible)

"God's Words For US" from Cecelia Lester

Grace

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Biography Information:
Dale Krebbs served as an Elder, preaching, counseling, and conducting Bible studies for over 25 years in Texas, California, and Arizona. He is now retired, lives in Arizona, and continues the study and research of Gods Word.
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