You never know when death will come, but what happens one minute after you die?
Nothingness, a strange light, another dimension, or eternity? Death is a gateway to an endless tomorrow. Heaven, Hell, the New Jerusalem, the moment we pass away, all coming up in a series you will not want to miss.
From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today you begin a series probing the mysteries of death, a series called One Minute After You Die. Tell us what you mean by a glimpse behind the curtain.
Well, first of all, Dave, I want to invite everyone to make sure to phone their friends, connect with them, go online, share with your friends the fact that this series of messages is being aired, because I believe, obviously, that this is one of the most important issues that anyone can face. And when we talk about a glimpse behind the curtain, it is just that. You and I have no idea of what it is actually like to die and to see the other side, but the good news is Jesus has been there. He's the one who was dead and is alive, and we can trust what he has to say.
We can trust what the Bible has revealed. So I want everyone to listen carefully. Be sure, as I've already emphasized, call your friends, invite them to listen, because now we're talking about everyone in the world, all of whom are going to die, including you and me, unless, of course, the Lord returns in our lifetime.
But for now, let's listen. As always, death is in the news. But it's been in the news recently because of a new book that has been written entitled The Final Exit. It's a book that teaches you how to commit to suicide.
After all, people today want to die with dignity. People want to know that they themselves are in control of their destiny here on earth, and nobody is going to keep them alive when they want to go. Unfortunately, the book will not only be purchased by people who are of age and who do not want extended hospital care. The book will also be purchased by a lot of people who are depressed, people who feel as if life isn't worth living, and young people who are tired of the pressures, tired of their parents. And this will give them an easy exit.
You know what the problem is? That in most cases, not in all, but in most cases when people commit suicide, when they arrive on the other side, what they are going to find there is far worse than anything they have ever endured here in this life. What a terrible, terrible, horrendous shock it's going to be when they land in eternity. Now throughout the ages, people have always wondered about whether or not there is life after death, and there is evidence that comes from various kinds of so-called scientific or experiential strands of information.
Let me give you a few. First of all, there is the world of the occult, the world of mediums. A number of years ago I was in a library, a public library, and noticed Bishop Pike's book entitled The Other Side, and I read about half the book.
I don't recommend that people read books like that, but nevertheless I happen to. Pike's son committed suicide, and Pike wanted to get in contact with his boy because Pike noticed that things were being rearranged in his room in such a way that his boy, his dead boy, wanted his attention. For example, he'd come home and find out that the clock would stop at the very moment in which his son committed suicide, or the drapes would be pulled in a way that his boy used to pull them. And so he assumed that it was being done by his son, and so he got in contact with the medium, and the medium called up the boy, and Pike had a long discussion with his son. I don't recall all the details, but I do remember Pike asking his boy, he said, do they talk much about Jesus on the other side? And the boy said, no, Dad, we don't talk about him a whole lot here. I couldn't help but smile, because if you ever die and land in a place where they don't talk a whole lot about Jesus, you're in the wrong place, my friend.
I can tell you that. But Pike then believed, as a religious liberal who had never accepted the Bible as authoritative, Pike ended up believing that indeed, yes, there was life on the other side, and it's a relatively happy life, and his son also told him, Dad, just keep doing the best you can and you'll be okay. Pike, a gullible theologian, believed him.
Isn't that tragic? Now I'm sure that I don't need to tell you that Pike never spoke to his son, never had one word with his dead son. You see, there are demons in the world that watch us. Undoubtedly, some are assigned to us. They observe all of our activities, hoping to gain an advantage against us in a moment of time, if they have that opportunity, and those demons come to know us so well that they can actually talk about us.
They know where we live, they know our history, they know our weaknesses, they know our strengths, and it is those kinds of evil spirits that are called up by spiritists, by mediums, today they call them chandlers, and gullible people think that they're talking to the dead, and they're not talking to the dead, they're talking to demonic spirits who impersonate the dead. One of the most interesting things about Pike's book is that while he was talking to his son, suddenly, of all thing, Paul Tillich shows up and begins to have a discussion with Pike. Paul Tillich had died several months before, another very liberal Protestant theologian. And Tillich showed up and had a discussion, and Pike again thought it was Tillich because he said, I even noticed his thick German accent. Well, I want you to know that demons are able to speak through other people's vocal chords with a thick German accent.
They are that smart, and they are that clever. But Pike never spoke to his son, he never spoke to Paul Tillich, he was speaking to demons and believed the whole bit. Tragedy indeed. While I'm on the subject, when I was in Canada, I was interviewed some time ago on television there, and during one of the breaks, the interviewer asked me an interesting question that I wish he would have asked when the camera was rolling. We were talking about the new age and we were talking about the occult and he said, what if I were to say to you that my grandmother, who's been dead for many years, the other night came into my room and sat on my bed and we had a discussion together. He said, what is your response to that? I said, first of all, I want you to know that I would believe your story. I would not say that you're crazy. I would not say that you were hallucinating. I would believe that something happened, there was an apparition and you had a discussion.
But I said, what I would not believe is that you had a discussion with your grandmother. You see, sometimes we forget that there are demonic spirits who actually take the names of dead people and people think that they're having a revelation from some person who's returned from the dead and all that they are encountering is a spirit being that has taken the name of that person that knows something about that person and they are in contact with dark occult deceptive evil powers. If you don't believe in haunted houses, you are uninformed. They exist. I can assure you they exist.
Even scientifically they exist. It's been proven that there are spirits in some houses. Where do those spirits come from? Are they the spirits of the dead?
Of course not. A haunted house is a house in which some demons have chosen to live and frequently when a person is himself demon possessed and dies, some of those demons choose to stay at the point where the death occurred. And that's why you have haunted houses. In this church right now, there's a couple, I don't know if they're here today, they were suddenly visited by some evil spirits in their apartment but they could not understand why suddenly this assault from the hosts of hell and then it dawned on them. The wife, her father, was a spiritist and he had just died and those demonic spirits now needed some place to go and in needing some place to go, they decided to retaliate against the family. And so what you have today is a world in which people must understand the nature of demonic spirits, their incredible deception and they will tell you anything that you really want to hear, especially things like, oh dad, all that you have to do is to keep what you're doing and you'll be alright on the other side.
Nonsense, deception, bought by gullible people who refuse to believe the Bible. Now there's a second line of evidence that is sometimes used for life after death and what it's like on the other side. Reincarnation says that you always keep getting better and better. Now if you're in the east, you know that there's not only evolution but there's also devolution. You can crop up as an ant on the other side.
But in western culture, we don't like that. So the idea is that you just keep being recycled. Shirley MacLaine says it's like shooting a movie.
You just keep doing it until you get it right and you keep going around and around and around and each time you're a little better. And the evidence for reincarnation we're told is overwhelming. Many years ago I told you this story but I need to tell it again because it fits here. Remember the woman Shirley that I rode with on the plane?
I mean this plane wasn't even off the ground. I think I was flying to some eastern city and we weren't even off the ground and I was sitting beside her and we were already into it. She asked me what I did. I said I'm a minister.
I speak to people. She said oh I love to speak to people because I have the gift of healing and I can do this and I'm a psychic and I'm this and so I thought my word. How could God in his infinite providence have arranged this more beautifully than that I should be the one to sit beside this lady?
You know God is so good that sometimes I just marvel at the wonders of his providential care. So in the middle of this she said I can prove reincarnation. She said I used to dream and have visions of a house that I lived in in Vermont during the 1800s.
I felt like saying Shirley you're old but not that old but anyway. She said I lived in this house and she said I'd never been to the state but she said I saw the house. I understood where its furniture was in incredible detail and then she says as an adult I finally went to the house and confirmed it and she said I had never been in the state before in this existence but I lived there during the 18th century.
I said Shirley I want you to look me in the eye. I said I want to tell you something that will be very unambiguous and very clear. I said you are into the spirit world and you are having communication with evil spirits because I said there is no such thing as a transmigration of souls there is a transmigration of demons and because you are in contact with demons they know what that house is like over there in Vermont and I said you are receiving information from them that you are believing and you're being deceived and she said absolutely not. She said I am in contact with spirits but not evil ones only good ones.
I said how do you tell the difference? She said I refuse all spirits that come to me in darkness. I receive only communication from the spirits that come to me clothed in light. Do you know what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 14? Paul says there are ministers of righteousness who are really ministers of unrighteousness and he says we should not be surprised because Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light and I said Shirley I want to tell you something not even Swedenborg one of the greatest occultists he agreed at the end of his life that he couldn't tell the difference between good spirits and bad spirits. He agreed that he had been deceived and I said I want you to know that you are also.
You're a deceived woman and I urged her to come to Christ for repentance to get her life straightened out. Reincarnation another form of occultism. Well what shall we say about near-death experiences?
Back in the 70s there was a man by the name of Raymond Moody who wrote a book Life After Life and he dealt with near-death experiences. His name is yes Raymond Moody m-o-o-d-y. People sometimes wonder whether or not he is related to DL Moody. I don't think he's related but he's a reincarnation of DL Moody you understand.
Now you did get that did you not? He wrote a book about out-of-body experiences and here's what he discovered that many people have as they have these near-death experiences. He says people first of all hear themselves pronounced dead and then their spirit goes and hovers over and watches the doctors working on its own body and then others come to meet this person in his new existence.
He meets relatives and friends. He sees a being of light and then he sees a tunnel and when he knows that he has to return he does so reluctantly because he has been so engulfed in light and in love and has such a sense of well-being and peace. He does not want to go back to the earth but when his spirit is again sucked up into the body and he lives when that happens afterwards he never fears death again and he lives a more productive life because he knows that after death there is life and it is totally beautiful.
This past week I read another book, a newer one on the topic. It says closer to the light learning from the near-death experiences of children. This man interviewed a lot of children who died or who came very close to death I should say and they tell their experiences and the thing that is so remarkable is their similarity. You may say to yourself well how do we know that this isn't just an hallucination? What this man did was he interviewed a lot of different children who were very very ill and who were on all kinds of drugs and he discovered that some of them had hallucinations but none of them had an experience like this. You actually have to be near-death to have what is called a near-death experience.
Can't be had in any other way. Now the whole book is filled with stories. Let me read two paragraphs to you.
A boy is speaking. I reached a certain point in the tunnel where lights suddenly began to flash all around me. They made me certain that I was in some kind of a tunnel and the way I moved past them I knew I was going a hundred miles an hour. At this point also I noticed that there was somebody with me. He was about seven feet tall and wore a long white gown with a simple belt tied at the waist. His hair was golden and although he didn't say anything I wasn't afraid because I could feel him radiating peace and love. No he wasn't the Christ but I knew that he was sent from Christ.
It was probably one of his angels or someone else sent to transport me to heaven. And so the book goes on and on discussing similar experiences. What can we say about these near-death experiences?
A couple of comments very quickly. First of all they indeed may prove the separability of the soul and the body. Now of course there are some materialists who want to explain all of these experiences purely as brain generated. That is to say that this is an hallucination.
This is the ability of the mind to reconstruct a scene like this, something like dreaming. The reason that I don't think that that's an adequate explanation is that there are some stories in which the people leave their bodies and actually end up seeing things in other places in the hospital that they could never possibly know about except for the fact that their soul actually had separated from the body and they could see a much wider area. So it may, I'm not dogmatic about this, but it may prove the separability of the soul and the body. But there's a second comment I want to make and that is these experiences may or may not reflect conditions in the life beyond. They may or may not.
In some instances they may and in some instances they may not. Now I want you to take your Bibles and turn to the seventh chapter of the book of Acts where somebody had a near-death experience and this gives me the assurance that when some Christians die and just before they die they see Jesus, I have no reason to doubt that that indeed may be a possibility. You'll notice that Stephen is being stoned and it says in verse 54 of Acts 7, when they heard this, when they heard his speech, they were cut to the quick, they began gnashing their teeth at him, but being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
Stephen is being stoned here and he has not yet died. In fact, perhaps he had not even yet fallen down, maybe none of the stones had even hit him, but already God had opened heaven so that he could actually see into heaven and see Christ. So if a believer is dying and if he is not drugged, many people die today drugged as you know and therefore they can't communicate their experiences to us, it is entirely possible that they can open their eyes and say, I see Jesus. A nurse here at Moody Church told me that a girl in the hospital, a little girl who was for many days unconscious, suddenly woke up, sat up and said that she saw Jesus and her friends and then instantly died. I would think that very possibly she saw Jesus and her friends.
Why not? But, and I come now to something that is so crucial that I don't want anyone to miss it, but remember this, that Satan wants to give unbelievers the very same positive experience in these near death experiences. Can you imagine what would happen if Satan came to unbelievers as dark evil spirits and then they came back to life, they would be terrified out of their wits.
So what does he do? He gives them an experience of light, an experience of peace. They meet a being that has no concern about future judgment.
They are led to believe that everything on the other side is sweetness and light and happiness. One woman said that she had an experience like that and Jesus came and took her by the hand and led her and showed her all the different paths. Here's the path of Buddhism. Here's the path of Hinduism. Here's the path of Christianity and Jesus wanted her to know that all the paths lead to the same place. Isn't that sweet? I can assure you that that was not Jesus.
That was who? Satan himself transformed into a being of light with all the sweetness and love and ecumenism that one could possibly muster. And so she comes back to tell everybody authoritatively, it doesn't matter what you believe, we're all going the same place. Now I want you to know today that I know with absolute unquestioned certainty that those are demonic experiences. They are not from God.
The light that is often seen is not the light of Jesus Christ, it is the light of a demonic spirit who comes like he used to come to Shirley and probably still does, clothed in light. You say, why is it that you are so sure? Why all this dogmatism?
I'll tell you why. Because the messages that people bring back from the other side are sharply contradicted by the Bible. What do you mean this idea that everybody's going to the same place when Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven?
What do you mean that there is no judgment when it says in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27, it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment? What do you mean sweetness and light when Jesus had so much to say about the terror that awaits unbelievers? It is nothing but a deception pulled off by gullible people who don't want to believe the word of God. You know I have to tell you my friend that recently in the news there was an article as to what happened to hell. The idea is that hell disappeared and no one noticed. Well, Jesus spoke about hell as I emphasized in this message and the Bible has a great deal to say about it. So my friend, this is why these messages are so absolutely critical because there are only two places. There is heaven and there is hell.
There is no intermediate place where people can go and so what we must do is to look at the scriptures and find out an answer to this question, where will I spend eternity and what is it going to be like on the other side? For a gift of any amount you can receive the book I've written entitled One Minute After You Die. Here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com. Of course RTW offers all one word. RTWOffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now because I want you to receive this resource so that you can read it and share it with your friends, I'm giving you this contact info again.
Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. The title of the book One Minute After You Die. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win comes to you from the Moody Church in Chicago. Next time, more on the fascination of near-death experiences and why they keep so many from the truth about life's end. Don't miss our next program. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
