Please understand these three events in my life are true (Rev. 21:8 quote) “and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death.” (Rev. 20:11-15) and I do not intend to go to hell and then on to the lake of fire! The reason I have written this introductory paragraph is because these three events are so unusual they are hard to believe but I did live them. They are included in other articles on this website but God deeply burdened me to consolidate them here and present them to you.
THREE THINGS EVERY NON-CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW AND FEEL
#1
TO KNOW SATAN’S PERSONALITY
Personal experience: Far into the night a few weeks before God burdened and later inspired me to start writing this commentary, my wife was asleep in our bedroom, I was studying in the living room, nature called, I went down the hall to the guest bedroom and used the bathroom there. I came out of the bathroom, crossed the bedroom and was ready to step into the hall that leads back to the living room and I was suddenly assailed by a most horrible sense of pure, dark, oily, powerful, malignant, unadulterated evil right there beside me. I was instantly terrified and I was nearly overcome with a strange weakness, helplessness and fear.
I have never felt such dark, powerful, vitriolic, straining, eager, evil hatred directed toward me and I knew it was Satan as he truly is. Humanity with all its evil, lust, murder, torture, butchery and hatred does not know the meaning of the endlessness of eternal, pure, unbelievably cruel, evil hatred unless they have individually felt what I felt come at me that night.
The mixture of Satan’s dark, unbelievable evil and his eager hatred of me was straining to unleash itself upon me and destroy me in some more than awful fashion; not to just kill me and leave me a corpse in my own home but to torture, mangle, strangle and tear at my body and my soul, ME, to tortured shreds with an awful ferocity that would last forever.
He did not want to just kill me and be done with it. He wanted to, and was determined to, make me suffer endlessly. In combat I have endured the awful fear of incoming projectiles that would tear bloody holes through me or blow me apart but this terror went infinitely further than that. I was so scared I was frozen motionless in the timelessness of the absolute horror of total terror.
I am so sorry I have not the words to cause you to feel the threat, horror and terror I experienced that night. My skin crawled and my hair stood on end because I was so close to Satan and he terrified me beyond measure. I, a man grown, was helpless as a tiny bird, a sparrow, serpent charmed! The unimaginable reality of the engulfing essence of Satan’s living, darkening, overwhelming magnitude of total malice, total hatred and total evil almost engulfed me in the horrifying quicksand of his dreadful personality. Satan is the Devil.
It was instant, I was there, I was trapped, there was no way out and I instinctively started screaming over and over; “Jesus, Jesus, oh God help me!” It was endless as I stiffly, cringing, clumsily, so painfully slowly tried to get away from that awful darkness by struggling to escape up the hall toward the living room. If I could have run I would have but I was so afraid my body felt almost paralyzed and I could only drag myself along; “Jesus, Jesus, oh God help me!” I finally made it to the couch and huddled there like a wounded animal shivering in horror and begging for help.
The presence of pure evil abated as Jesus drove Satan away but it was weeks before I felt comfortable going back down that hall in the night because I dreaded the possibility the experience would repeat itself. Since then I have never gone down that hall day or night, not even once, without thinking about what happened.
With my whole heart I wish all the lukewarm Christians, backslid Christians, idolaters, atheists, devil worshippers and sinners in the whole world would be exposed to the reality of Satan, the Devil, I felt that night. When they realized who is truly waiting for them, I know there would be a worldwide boom of church construction and they would flee in droves to Jesus and the salvation He offers.
NOTE: It is now about 2 months since I finished this entire article and a certain thought has been nagging me about the above. My wife was asleep in our main bedroom with its open door just a few feet away. We have 2 dogs in the house and they too were just around the corner in a room with its door open. I did not rouse any of them during this episode so I have concluded when I was screaming; “Jesus, Jesus, oh God help me!” they were soundless screams due to my absolute terror because none of them were awakened!
Also I wondered why God let that event happen. At first, I thought God had told Satan, the devil, he could have me and then told Satan He had changed his mind. BUT that reason would have meant God had lied and I abandoned that thought immediately! (Num 23:19, Titus 2:1 & John 14:6) God does not lie! Based on (Job. 1:8-12) my second thought was that God had told Satan He was going to inspire me to write and expose Satan for who he is and did Satan think he could frighten me out of writing this commentary. At least I had enough sense to call on God and Jesus for help! END OF NOTE.
(2Cor. 11:13-15) Satan is a chameleon because he cleverly portrays himself as an angel of light and he will verify your religion and its teachers are just fine (John 3:5-21 esp. V.14-19 & 1John 4:1-14) as long as it does not involve Jesus’ mission as the Saviour. **Satan does not care if your religion claims Jesus as a prophet; but not as the Son of God!** Satan, the devil, will not voluntarily expose his true nature because it would drive people away from him. Satan is a deceiver. Believe me, Satan is not the little, innocent, powerless, red imp the cartoon characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd so easily defeat in their cartoon battles.
From above paragraph: **Satan does not care if your religion claims Jesus as a prophet; but not as the Son of God!** See the commentary Hell: Covenant: Judaism, Christianity and Islam Part 12: READ: the second paragraph from the bottom of the article: Koran 4:157 Quaranic Arabic Corpus: Mohsin Khan (translator). THEN: Part 13: READ: the two paragraphs at the top of the article under the heading #6 The discussion concerning the invitation to Islam is continued: Koran 4:171 Quaranic Arabic Corpus: Mohsin Khan (translator). If you wish to read it; Parts 10 thru 15 is a complete investigation into the religion of Islam.
Satan is not the comedic caricature portrayed by comedians to get a laugh; “The devil made me do it!” Nor is he some magnificent, shrouded in mystery god who is worthy of human worship. (John 8:44) Plain and simple; Satan, the devil, is a murderer and a liar, (2Cor. 4:4) he is the god of this world and he blinds people with his (Rev. 12:9) deception (1Pet. 5:8 keywords: adversary, roaring lion) that Satan is, in reality, all of humanity’s greatest adversary (enemy) and he is like a roaring lion (a strong, fear inducing, active predator) seeking whom he may devour!
NOTE: Why did God let me experience such an awful event? Based on the reasoning of the first two chapters of THE BOOK OF JOB I believe God told Satan he could appear as his true self and test me to see if he could frighten me out of writing the commentary and/or to show me how serious it is for me to write and expose Satan, the devil, to people (you) for who and what he is. (Matt. 4:3 keyword: tempter & Luke 4:2 keyword: tempted: both words are defined: Strong’s #3985: a test or to test)
I believe God knew He would call, inspire, and enable me to write this commentary about Lucifer/Satan/the Devil and it makes sense that I should be introduced to the subject about whom I would be writing. Example: Without that experience I could never have written about how Tubal-cain died (Part 10). END OF NOTE.
#2
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: I have personally experienced the **(Proverbs 1:22-33 esp. V.25-31 keywords V.28 “but I will not answer”)** event as it happened to a dear friend and it was the most saddening, sickening, frightening, gloomy darkness I have ever experienced; worse even than the time I was staggering around, wounded and bloody and filled with that awful, numb sickness of being trapped in a surrealistic world.
The rest of them had left by med-evac and I was gathering my dead friend’s blown apart body, with its parts here and there, on a ripped, torn, stinking, unbelievably dirty, smoking, bloody, early morning dawning Vietnam battlefield. You might say; “How in the world can anything be worse than that?” There are worse things than that, there really are!
Hershel lived up the same “holler” (Hillbilly slang for: the valley, the hollow, between two mountain ridges) where we lived. Though he was three or four years older, he and my Dad had grown up together, served in WW2 together and he was Daddy’s good friend. As far back as I can remember Hershel was always around. He and his wife, Audrey, never had any children and they lived about 1&1/2 miles on up the road from us. She was my 1st & 2nd grade school teacher in the old, 1 room school up Lick Fork Holler.
Hershel was always good humored and loved to fox hunt with dogs and with his buddies; not the kill the fox kind of hunting, they liked to go to the top of a ridge someplace, build a campfire, listen to the dogs run, eat and tell yarns. Hershel always had an amusing story or anecdote and he would joke and pick at me. He was a good feller and he always seemed to be bursting with life.
Time went on; I went on my yondering with the Marines, got out, got married, went to trade school, went to work, fathered three sons and accepted Jesus into my life (got saved, born again) when I was thirty-three years old. I’d been a Christian four or five years and I heard Hershel was in the hospital. The first night I visited him there were three or four fox hunters visiting him and between their yarning and laughing I didn’t get to say much.
To say the least, they had some colorful language. There, there at the beginning of it, when I asked Hershel what was wrong, he said when he tried to get up from a sitting position he’d fall backwards; “It’s like my hips ‘n legs give out on me. No I don’t hurt none.” He looked and sounded like the same old Hershel and none of us could see that death had spread his black cowl over him and death was already sucking the life from Hershel’s body.
When I got ready to leave I asked Hershel if he wanted to pray. With that smiling, kindly, affectionate, condescending attitude he had toward talking about Christianity he told me to go ahead if I wanted to. “Hershel, you know it don’t work that way, you’ve got to want it.” “Aww, I know it Jimmie.” That went on almost every night for two or three weeks, He was getting skinny, he didn’t feel good and his buddies, the fox hunters, quit coming to see him.
Daddy wasn’t much for visiting hospitals; the only time I ever remember him visiting a hospital patient was when he came to see me the time I had a pretty tough surgery when I was around forty years old; and no, he didn’t visit Hershel, not even once. Daddy had been a medic and a bronze star for valor winner when he was in the war and he was rather fatalistic.
From then on I was the only company Hershel ever had, I’d stay three or four hours every night so Audrey could go home, wash-up, rest, eat, just whatever. We, no I, talked about the Bible and salvation during those precious hours, a little bit. I’d start and Hershel would interrupt and tell a yarn, an anecdote, or change the subject. I’d eventually veer back to Jesus and he’d veer right back off the Jesus subject.
He didn’t take offence and we had a pretty good time considering the fact Hershel was getting more and more sick as time went on. On weekend days that I didn’t have to go to work I could stay longer. One night Hershel showed me a place on his right side. “Jimmie, they put the awfulest needle ye ever seen right there in my side and it hurt like h—! They stuck it in deep enough t’ go plumb through me!” He was getting skinnier and weaker all the time. Liver biopsy.
All we had, at that time, was a small local hospital with no lab. A few evenings later Audrey said she wanted to talk to me out in the hall “right now.” I hadn’t even had a chance to say “howdy” to Hershel. We went out in the hall; “Jimmie, those lab reports are back from Lexington; Hershel’s filled up with cancer; bones, every organ and there isn’t anything they can do for him. It’s the fast kind and that’s why he’s losing weight so fast. Don’t you dare tell him what’s wrong with him.” “But Audrey, I—.”
“You heard me; I said don’t tell him! If you can’t keep your mouth shut go home!” I promised I wouldn’t tell Hershel so I kept my mouth shut about the cancer but I felt like, in my heart, he ought to know he was dying and maybe he’d get serious about getting saved.
By that time, even though he didn’t know what it was, Hershel knew he was in bad trouble, he was scared and a few nights later he asked me to pray. I got down by his bed but the most eerie, darkening thing happened; it felt like my prayer was a big, black balloon that filled the room, went empty, then collapsed down on me and left me in cold, cold darkness.
My prayer never left the room and I knew it! I was used to getting through to heaven and that prayer backfire terrified me. What was wrong with me? What had I done wrong? Had I in some way offended God and was I too stupid to know what I’d done? I mumbled a few words to Hershel but he didn’t seem to notice; he was drifting off to sleep. I left in a hurry, went home and called my Pastor.
The next night Pastor and I met in the parking lot, went up to visit Hershel, he’d taken a turn for the worse and he was worse off than I’d ever seen him. I introduced them and let Pastor do the talking. After a while He asked Pastor to pray. My Pastor is a mightily blessed man of God and I knew we’d get results this time but the same thing happened to Pastor’s prayer that had happened to mine; that great, depressing, sinking darkness. We visited a few more minutes and left because Hershel was very weak and tired.
In the parking lot I asked Pastor what was wrong. “Why Brother Jimmie, Hershel’s been cut off. He can’t get saved because he’s turned God down sometime in the past. Read the first Proverb when you get home.” That night I read the first Proverb.
I’d heard about people being cut off from God and I simply had not paid much attention. On the surface of my soul I didn’t believe it but deep, deep down where I’m most tender, inside my soul I knew; I guess I just didn’t want to accept it about my friend. I hurt for me, I hurt for Hershel and I prayed for him. Nothing!
The next day I called Daddy and asked if Hershel had ever gone to church. “He sure did Son; when we was young men Hershel went to church a whole lot, he even sung with the choir but he never did get saved and I don’t reckon he ever went to church much, if any, after that. Why do you want to know that?” “I was just a wondering Daddy.” I changed the subject.
Sheer terror! What about Daddy, what had he done in the past? Had he also rejected God? We all physically die but was my Daddy a walking “forever” dead man? Daddy’s story is under the commentary The Holy Spirit & You, scroll the menu to the article The Holy Spirit is Truth (Part 2): Jesus, My Daddy and Me.
Hershel lasted a couple more weeks or so after that. I went every night, we prayed every night and I watched Hershel melt away until his skin hung down and I could see the outline of his teeth through the skin of his shrunken cheeks. He was afraid and it showed through his sickness and pain but he never mentioned his growing worry and fear and neither did I. My prayers went no place and I knew it; it was an exercise in futility but I couldn’t let Hershel think I had given up on him. I couldn’t desert my friend.
That last night, the last time I saw Hershel alive, I was helping him to the bathroom. I held his IV high with my right hand and he had a death grip on my left arm with both his hands and he was bent far over my left arm so I could support his weight. It was a torturous, painfully slow trip. He was a bag of bones covered with sagging, brownish, mottled skin.
He could only scoot his feet three or four inches at a time and that was the length of his slow steps; like I said, Hershel was all bent over my left arm as he clutched it; a big, long string of sticky snot dangled straight down from his nose six or eight inches and it wouldn’t fall off. He was crying and his huge tears hit the floor tiles and burst into droplets. I felt so sorry for my friend I could have died; I wanted to scream!
This was my friend, he’d given me advice when I was child, teenager and man, he’d played and joked with my children like he had with me when I was a child, he had played and joked with my only brother, sixteen years younger than me, he’d watched me grow up, he was closer to me than my uncles and, as a boy and as a man, I’d always admired him!
With a wild, clutching desperation I gritted out; “Hershel! Hershel, can’t you pray?” He swung his thin, wasted, saggy, grotesque head up; that string of snot swung back across his thinned down lips and beard stubbled chin, great tears poured down his face. He looked at me out of his sunken, rheumy, dying eyes and he softly and clearly said, with absolute certainty, in a gasping, miserable, hopeless, forlorn, far away voice; “Jimmie, Buddy, God’s right here and He won’t hear me! I’ve missed it!”
Yes, I helped Hershel do his business in the bathroom, we slowly tortured tears tracked back to the bed, I lifted and helped my nearly fleshless friend back into bed, lifted his yellowish, skinny, stick-like feet and legs up and I helped him get adjusted and covered him up. While he gasped and cried I got down on my knees by his bed and petted on him and tried to comfort him with some kind and tender words like I did my boys when they were hurt, or sick, or scared.
He shortly drifted off into a shallow, just breathin’ now and then, I’m somewhere else kind of sleep and he lay there so still, busy with his dying. Hershel was no longer aware of me; I stood there looking at him for a while, silently crying; I knew what was coming and I crept silently away; my tears were still pouring as I softly shut the door and that was the last time I saw my friend Hershel alive.
Even now, even after all these years, I can’t help but wonder what great things God would have accomplished through Hershel’s testimony and works for God if Hershel had just gotten saved when he had his chance. He had a lot of natural gifts like his gift of gab, his magnetic personality, humor, wry outlook on life, and, well, I don’t guess there’s any use of talking about it; it’s like Hershel said; “I’ve missed it.”
I can still see Hershel, smiling there in my memory, his pickup truck pulled up in front of our house on a summer evening, his door opened, one foot out on the running board, sitting in his seat, smoking his cigarette, one elbow on his knee, the other arm on the steering wheel and joshing with Daddy and me there on our front porch.
It will be good to get to heaven so I won’t have those sad, bittersweet memories ever again. No, I don’t hold it against God. God gave Hershel a fair chance to settle his sin account here and get saved through the spiritual rebirth process and that’s all Hershel got, no more and no less of a chance than the rest of us, even you.
God could have forced Hershel to love Him or He could have created Hershel to love Him but neither way would have been Hershel’s free will giving of love. A forced, arm twisted “I love you” would have caused Hershel to hate God and created love would have made Hershel robotic, just another pop up toaster with no real feeling to it.
God wants us to love Him for who He is and what He is; just like we want someone to love us for who we are and what we are. When they don’t love us like that, even though we love them, sooner or later, we simply go our way and they go theirs.
That’s the way God is too (Gen. 1:27) because we’re made in His image. (Matt. 26:37-38 keyword: exceeding sorrowful–>to be intensely sad; John 11:35 keyword: wept–>to shed tears and Eph. 4:30 keyword: grieve–>to be sad) God can get His feelings hurt too and it makes Him sad. (Rom. 8:6-17 & Rev. 22:1-6) God is building a loving family for Himself and God gave His beautiful Son, Jesus, to die on a bloody cross at a place called Calvary so Hershel could get saved and be a part of that family.
Hershel refused God when God drew him and, in reality, by his decision, Hershel told God he didn’t want to be part of God’s family and to go away and leave him alone. God is infinitely loving, fair, merciful and just; God is a gentleman too and that is exactly what God did; He left Hershel alone and Hershel died lost and alone.
I guess that’s about it, I’m sad now, but, through the Holy Spirit, I’ll finish what God told me to write. God’s word, common sense and the Holy Spirit tell us THERE IS NO CHRONOLOGICAL AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY. THERE IS ONLY A TIME “SOMETIME” IN YOUR LIFE WHEN GOD DRAWS YOU. HE BRINGS UP YOUR SIN ACCOUNT AND YOUR UNREGENERATE STATE OF BEING LOST TO BE JUDGED and it doesn’t matter if you are six years old, or eighty-three years old, or any other age either.
All the time, every day, people from all walks of life routinely refuse God because they don’t want to be burdened with going to Church and living a Christian life. They love what they are doing better than they love the idea of a personal relationship with God. It’s their decision and God eventually removes His drawing. They go on living their life then they finish it and die just like Hershel and that’s just the way it is.
I know two other men like that. One looked into my eyes at least three different times, his eyes were filled with a knowledge of what had happened when he refused God’s drawing several years before, his dark brown eyes were filled with a dark horror and dread when he said; “I can’t get saved ’cause I turned God down right when I had the chance to get saved and that drawing just faded away. He died a few months ago.
The other looked into my eyes, held out one spread hand and said; “I turned God down more than twenty years ago. Two or three years later I started going back to church. In the last twenty years I ain’t missed church more Sundays than the fingers on this hand but I can’t get that feelin’ back that I had when I turned God down!”
BUT: The most pitiful situation is when people are being drawn but they put off their decision and suddenly they get very sick very fast and can’t comprehend getting saved. Sometimes, in hospitals people are so sick, partially conscious, drugged, or in terrible pain that they don’t care about getting saved, OR: they know it’s too late and they just hump up and silently die.
The final realization of your drawing can take a few seconds, a few hours, or simply however long it takes; that’s why you sometimes hear about end of life salvation events in hospitals or at accident scenes but there aren’t many of them, not many of them at all, and those people who experienced the end of life salvation event were being drawn by God when death took hold of them. There are lots of people, even in those circumstances, who refuse God’s drawing and they go ahead and die lost.
I know, I know because I’ve seen that too and no, I can hardly believe my own eyes and ears either. I know you are wonderin’ about it too and the only answer I can give you is that it’s just the normal, hard-hearted, cantankerous, boneheaded, human stubbornness, pride and unbelief; but still, (Luke 11:23 & John 5:22-29) to choose Satan instead of Jesus and to choose death instead of life is almost unbelievable but astonishingly enough (Matt. 7:13-14 & Isa. 5:14) people choose hell over heaven all the time!
It’s like my dear, close friend Theodore said on his death bed; “I’ve lived the way I wanted to without calling on God ‘n I ain’t starting now”. Don’t put it off; please, please, when God draws you don’t push Him away, run toward him just as fast as you can because YOUR forever is the result.
WHEN YOUR SIN ACCOUNT IS BROUGHT UP IN YOUR TIME OF DRAWING THAT IS THE TIME TO FACE YOUR *JUDGMENT. FACE YOUR *JUDGMENT HERE IN THIS LIFE AND, IF YOU ACCEPT JESUS’ BLOOD PAYMENT FOR YOUR SIN ACCOUNT (your salvation) (Heb. 2:9-11) JESUS HAS ALREADY TASTED DEATH FOR US HIS SANCTIFIED ONES (CHRISTIANS).
(Acts 7:54-60) Jesus will remove the sting of death from you just like He did Stephen, (Heb. 13:5) JESUS WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU and you will always live with Jesus in the glory and joy of forever.
OR: (Heb. 9:27 & Rev. 20:11-15) YOU CAN WAIT AND CRY AND STRUGGLE OUT YOUR DEATH ALONE AND THEN FACE YOUR *JUDGMENT FOR YOUR SIN ACCOUNT ALONE AFTER YOUR LIFE HERE IS OVER.
(Luke 16:19-30) You, the unregenerate soul with all the physical attributes and emotional reactions of your natural life in your natural body (Rev. 20:10-15) WILL STAND THERE BY YOURSELF, ALONE, SO TERRIBLY ALONE, TERRIFIED, CRYING AND YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY YOUR OWN SIN ACCOUNT WITH YOUR OWN ETERNAL LIFE, FOREVER, yes you, precious, precious you, worth the life of Jesus, the Son of God, you, forever dying IN THE FIRE, just like my friend Hershel.
YES, IT SOUNDS LIKE A MIGHTY TOUGH, COLD PROPOSITION BUT IT ISN’T, IT ISN’T WHEN YOU MEET GOD ON THIS SIDE OF DEATH, GET SAVED AND FIND OUT JUST HOW LOVING, KIND, MERCIFUL, TENDERHEARTED, GRACIOUS AND DELIGHTFUL GOD REALLY IS AFTER YOU GET TO KNOW HIM.
THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS BECAUSE GOD SET IT ALL UP THE WAY HE WANTED IT AND GOD IS FAIR. HE GIVES ALL OF US A FAIR CHANCE. (Eph. 2:8-16 & Rev. 20:11-15) YOU WILL FACE YOUR *JUDGMENT FOR YOUR SIN ACCOUNT EITHER HERE OR THERE!
#3
I HAVE EXPERIENCED CHRISTIAN PHYSICAL DEATH Part 1
(Deut. 19:15, Matt. 18:16, 2Cor. 13:1, 1Tim. 5:19, Heb. 10:28 & Rev. 11:3) All through the Bible is the instruction there must be at least two witnesses to prove the truth of an event. There were two witnesses to the physical aspects of the following situation, one, an EMT, to the time, and one, a mortician, to the condition, which proved beyond doubt, this spiritual event really happened.
My oldest son, Jimmie, told me; “Dad, I’m nineteen years old. I’ve been in school thirteen years. I’ve finished one year of college. I want to go to the Marines like you did. Let me out of my promise to go to college after high school and I promise you I’ll finish when I get back home.” Of course I agreed; he would learn nothing if I held him to his promise and he became an unwilling student.
So, he joined the Marines. My wife was the baby daughter from a huge family and her brothers and sisters, their children and their grandchildren lived scattered across a two county area. Jimmie decided to visit a different family of aunts, uncles and cousins each night for the two weeks before he shipped out to boot camp. Jimmie’s old beat up car was disabled so his good friend decided to drive Jimmie in the evenings.
That particular Sunday night, March 25, 1990, we went to bed as usual; the four of us held hands and said our prayer then we went to bed; my wife and I in our bedroom and our other two sons in their bedroom. I went to bed happy because my sons were saved and they had participated in church services that day. Jimmie was filled with a strangely beautiful happiness I had never seen before.
Several people at church had commented about how good Jimmie looked and how he had such a special radiant glow about him. I had noticed it too but I had dismissed it as his excitement about going on his upcoming Marine Corps adventure. It never entered my thoughts he was going much further, much faster, for a longer time than I could have ever imagined.
I am never aware of going to sleep; I think, then I don’t think and I am asleep. Suddenly, weirdly, I was in the back of an auto. I had the sense I was somehow bodiless because I had no awareness of my body. There was no sensation of my feet on the floor of the car, I couldn’t touch the back of the front seat, there was no sensation of sitting on the seat; I was somehow an observer without a body.
I was looking directly at Jimmie. He had slid forward a bit on the front seat, his right hand was on the dash, his left hand was gripping the front edge of the front seat, and he was facing the driver. I personally did not feel any emotion, nothing! Strangely enough I could feel Jimmie’s great alarm, he was straining and he shouted; “Look out, Scott.” I had been in auto wrecks and I know the sound, the skidding and grinding and the crashing impact. There was none of that in this situation.
There was simply the straining, the emotional alarm, and his voice; “Look out, Scott!” Then someone and I were wrapped around each other; intertwined with an odd boneless, somehow fleshless flexibility. There was the vague feeling something protective, maybe like arms, somehow shielded us. I had a sudden impression the other person and I were coming out of an abdomen and we were out; it happened very fast, almost like a gentle whoosh but soundless.
It was Jimmie and me! Jimmie and I were on a black surface, on our knees, but I felt no sensation of roughness on our knees. Jimmie knelt there, leaning forward, with his hands on the front of his thighs. I was right beside him, on his left side facing the left side of his head and my face was no more than two feet from the side of his head. I sensed Jimmie did not know I was there.
I knew everything he was thinking and I felt every emotion he felt and, at the same time, my thoughts and emotions were entirely separate from his. Write something with a pencil on a piece of paper then color over it with a magic marker. Both are plain to see and do not interfere with each other; that’s what both of our thoughts and emotions were like inside of me.
I personally felt no alarm or sadness, just a great wonder, an awe. Out of my peripheral vision I could see a nude body lying on its back with its feet toward us. Through Jimmie’s eyes I could see the body plainly and the living, unmarked Jimmie was looking at was looking at his own body. That body on the ground was burst, broken and torn.
Jimmie’s emotions and thoughts were as fast as thought, like a blink. Jimmie’s emotion was that breathless, emotional surge like a jarring in his chest that we all get during emotional upheaval and his thoughts were; “Oh God; what awful wounds!” Another emotional surge; “They’re going to kill me!” Another emotional surge; “I am dead; but I’m not dead!” Another surge; “But I didn’t hurt!” Strangely enough neither of us felt alarm or sadness; just surprise and wonder. Jimmie, I, nor we had felt death! Jimmie had changed but he had not died!
Suddenly a third person was there! He was standing on the other side of Jimmie, just a little behind him. I could not see Him but I could feel Him; oh how I could feel Him! I have never felt anything like that in my life and I knew it was Jesus!
His presence was not simply around us; He was within us; all through us; He was immersed within us as well as surrounding the whole situation. Jesus was everywhere. Jimmie was filled with a swelling, thrilling, gladness and he forgot everything but the Presence; there was no room for anything else. Jesus’ soul flooded us, and filled us, and surrounded us with an unutterable gladness.
There was humor; not the ribald or raucous kind we know so well. This humor was bold and happy; the kind of happy that wraps its arms around you and wishes you the best day you’ve ever had; and we knew He was giving us that day right now. There was kindness, happiness and tenderness in the sense He was greeting Jimmie.
Jesus was filled with anticipation to take Jimmie with Him and to show Jimmie what He was going to show him. But most of all there was love. My words are pitifully feeble and woefully inadequate and completely unable to describe Jesus. His magnificent love was of such power and intensity it was impossible to feel fear, worry, or any badness whatsoever; there wasn’t even a thought of anything bad; it was impossible for bad to exist in the presence of the Master of forever.
I had the distinct impression nothing could ever be needed or wanted in Jesus’ presence because He is all of everything. Jesus’ love was filled with the joy of being, and the joy of loving, and the joy of giving and of endless capacity; it was timeless and all encompassing. Jimmie was consumed with the same glorious emotional astonishment and gladness as I. Jimmie and I met GRACE in person there in the night. I could not see Jesus.
Jimmie started to look back over his right shoulder toward Jesus and I was thrilled beyond measure because I knew I was actually going to see Jesus through Jimmie’s eyes.
I woke up from where I had been with the distinct impression of catching my breath like I had not been breathing! I thought or maybe even mumbled it; “Wow, I’ve never had a Vietnam dream like that!” I became aware the house had gotten cool. We used a Hawke coal stove in the living room and the fire had gone down a little.
The cover was down under my wife’s arm and her arm and neck were cold. I raised up on one elbow a bit so I could cover her arm and tuck the cover around her neck and I noticed it was 11:05 PM. I lay back and in the few seconds I was awake I remember feeling warm, safe and content.
I was jarred awake by my wife standing at the foot of the bed screaming the Sheriff and Coroner were at the door. They were old friends, also Christian brothers, and she had called them by name instead of title. Though older than me I had known the Sheriff since school. I jumped out of bed, jerked on my trousers and ran down the hall with my wife right behind me. When my wife had answered the door they had asked for me and she had simply turned and ran to the bedroom.
They had come on in and were waiting in the living room; old friends in a familiar house; and awful misery was on their faces. I noticed the big wall clock behind the Sheriff said 12:30AM. I stopped about four feet from the Sheriff and our eyes were locked but he couldn’t say it. It was an eternal moment.
I could only whisper: “Is it about Jimmie?” He said; “Yes.” “Has he been in a wreck?” “Yes.” “Is it a bad one?” “It’s real bad, Buddy!” “Is he dead?” He nodded in the affirmative and mumbled; “Yes.” Our world shattered and would never be the same again in this life.
A while later; after family had come to tend my wife and sons, I asked the Sheriff the details. Jimmie’s friend had lost control of his car on a curve because they were speeding far too fast. He had started that over correction struggle that lasted on into a long straight stretch of road; off the road, on the road, off the road, back on, over and over; never quite regaining control. A tractor trailer was coming in the opposite direction. The driver locked the brakes when he saw the wreck happening and the truck slid one hundred feet in a straight line.
The car came back on the highway at a ninety degree angle to the truck and impacted the tractor fuel tank on the driver’s side. The impact jerked the car around in the same direction the truck was going and the inertia was so great Jimmie’s body tore the car door off and Jimmie went under the tandem wheels on the back of the tractor.
The impact caused the tractor to jack-knife and it and it’s trailer traveled eighty-five more feet with Jimmie under the wheels. After the emergency responders got the truck jacked up and had gotten Jimmie’s body out, the ambulance attendants had put his body in a body bag and were in a local hospital parking lot awaiting instructions.
The Pastor of our church was part owner of a funeral home and worked there. I asked the Sheriff to ask him to accept Jimmie’s body and conduct the funeral. I was in an awful, pain drenched numbness, operating in a slow quagmire of shock. I was soul wounded nearly unto death. I believe the Marine combat experience helped me somehow slog through the motions of instructing, choosing, selecting and answering while I was immersed in a swirling sea of pain.
Monday and Tuesday afternoons and evenings were the viewing and wake. My Pastor had instructed me to stand beside Jimmie the whole time and to not let anyone touch Jimmie’s body because “he might start coming apart“; there was that much damage to my precious, precious son’s body.
Otherwise it would have been a closed casket wake and funeral and I knew my wife could never stand that; so I stood there hour, after hour, after hour; tears pouring endlessly down my face, being hugged and hugging, loving and being loved by an endless line of people; explaining to them through my tears and dying inside. So much was happening so fast I never even thought “in depth” thoughts about the supernatural event that had involved me in the wreck and its aftermath.
An odd thing happened during that time. One of Jimmie’s friends, a paramedic, told me he was a couple of hundred feet behind the tractor trailer and saw the wreck developing. He slammed on his brakes and stopped until it was over then he drove his car up to the wreck and got out to see if he could help.
He said, due to his medical training, he glanced at his watch and it was exactly (1st witness) 11:06 PM. Jimmie was obviously dead under the wheels, the truck driver was in shock, so he helped Jimmie’s friend who had been driving the car because he was terribly injured. He was transported to a major hospital in West Virginia and he lived.
I had wondered about my out of body experience the night my son was killed but I didn’t dare tell anyone. Jimmie’s funeral was Wednesday. That night after the funeral I told my wife and remaining sons about it but there was disbelief in their eyes and silence from their lips.
I didn’t mention it again until five weeks later. We had gone to church every Sunday because I had seen so many people start blaming God for things like that and I did not want that to happen to my family. It happened to my wife anyway. “If God is so good why did He let my baby get killed?”
After church was over on that fifth Sunday after Jimmie’s funeral I told my friend, our Pastor, I needed to talk to him after church. In his study I told the story of my out of body experience with Jesus and Jimmie and I described the wounds on Jimmie’s body that Jimmie and I had seen. The Pastor’s mouth fell open in astonishment when I described the wounds.
When I was finished he quietly said; “Son, when they got Jimmie out from under that truck they could tell he was dead by the condition of his head and they put him in a body bag just the way he was. I’m the man that cut off his clothes; those heavy Levi blue jeans, his heavy flannel shirt and undershirt, the leather bomber jacket and his boots.”
“I’m the one who worked, and sewed, and sewed, and straightened, and filled so you could have your open casket funeral. (2nd witness) Nobody else saw Jimmie’s injuries. I’m the only human on earth that saw those wounds and you’ve described them completely and accurately! I don’t know why; but God let you be there!” I went out to the car and my family with my head down, tears streaming.
I got Pastor’s statement; “I don’t know why; but God let you be there!” in my thoughts and it wouldn’t go away. That statement and the questions it engendered gnawed at me.
I’m not a super Christian! If it can be messed up I’m just the person to do it! I am truly the most unprofitable servant of all of God’s servants! So, why me? Why would God give me this wonderful experience with my son that, as far as I know, no other man has ever had? Why me? I sure didn’t deserve it! I’m not special! All I have ever been is a nuisance to God; so, why me?
It was months later when I found the answer and, of course, it was in the Bible. (2Cor. 12:9) Jesus said; “My grace is sufficient for thee: my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (Paul said) “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Well praise God! He gave me that “extra” because I’m so weak. In His tender pity and kindness He knew my son’s death would have destroyed my soul spiritually. In His power God gave me that “extra” so I would have a fair chance. He brought me up on a level with stronger people to be fair to me. I weep and rejoice that God loves me like He does.
One day, a couple of weeks after the funeral, I was at work; I’d only been allowed three days off for the arrangements, wake and funeral. Words suddenly started going through my soul. I was panic stricken I would lose those words from my memory.
I had a stub of a pencil in my pocket and I wrote the words on a steel power pole in the electric company substation where I was working that day. I didn’t realize they were burning permanently into my soul. God, in the tender beauty of His endlessly loving soul, wrote the words of Jimmie’s life in my heart.
FOREVER NINETEEN
Just as a small boy Jesus touched his heart;
He saved him so tender, Jimmie chose the best part.
And Jesus He loved him through Jimmie’s short years;
He loved him through failures and helped him through tears.
Then death set up a roadblock, Jimmie could not get by;
and they came and told us that Jimmie had to die.
But I know what happened on that lonely night;
the Master was present to hold Jimmie tight.
And when it was over Jesus took him away;
to live in that dear sweet land of one endless day.
He’s forever nineteen in a world without sin;
he’s living with Jesus, his very best Friend.
There are no words, in any language of the whole world that can properly describe the endless magnitude of God’s love and grace. I can only hump up like a helpless child and accept God’s wonderful gifts from His store of perfect plenty. I sometimes feel so sad I have no precious, perfect, one of a kind gift, including myself, to lay at the feet of the God of glory; you see; I am only a destitute beggar and I have nothing except what He has already given me.
I am blessed beyond measure to have the perfect and beautiful knowledge I will look into my son’s smiling blue eyes again, we will laugh together, we will hug each other and there will be no sign or memory of our wounds.
Now I truly understand what Jesus meant when He said; (John 11:26) “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believeth thou this?” BECAUSE: (Heb. 2:9-14 esp. V.9 & 11) (V.9) “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
Then that is clarified in (verse 11) in that Jesus tasted death for “they who are sanctified” which means (Rom. 8:13-17) God’s children (Acts 11:26) and we are called Christians. AND: (John 8:39-59 esp. V.51) “Verily, verily (truly, truly), I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”
THAT’S IT: A Christian who lives and believes in Jesus will not have to suffer dying in this life (Rev. 20:10-15 esp. V. 10 keywords: into the lake of fire- and shall be tormented for ever and ever) and that Christian will not eternally die in the fire and never get the dying accomplished in his eternal life like non-Christians. That’s why there was no physical sensation of dying when Jimmie passed from this life to the next one in the gentle protection of Jesus. My Pastor passed on a few years ago and I’m sure he experienced the same thing.
NOTE: Maybe part of the reason God let me experience all this is because He knew I would share it with you when He told me to make this website fifteen years later. I do know, for a fact, this experience has helped other people find some peace and closure. It was one of those oddly beautiful things God does when my Pastor’s (the mortician) blood-kin youngest brother and his wife had their Darling Daughter taken in a car wreck in 2011.
I wish you could have been there to see it when the Holy Spirit took the truth of this event into their Christian souls. I wish you could have seen the dawning understanding and relief in his eyes and I wish you had been there to see his wife smile again when the peace from God entered her soul. I know, for sure, this experience has helped a lot of Christian families understand their loved ones passing in the arms of Jesus. END OF NOTE.
In Part 2 is given the how, who, what, why, where and when God set up this marvelous event for His Christians with the scriptural references given.
PLEASE REMEMBER THIS: There are ignorant people who think children who die young before they have experienced the salvation event will go to hell! Please go to the commentary, Is God Fair, on this website and you will scripturally see how God’s mercy extends far beyond our greatest imagining. You can see your Darling again.
Scripturally there are nine categories of people who did not have an opportunity (1John 1:7 thru 2:2, Rom. 8:6-17 & 10:8-13) to accept Jesus’ blood covenant salvation before they died. Surely you don’t think God, (1John 4:8, 13-14 & 16) Who is love itself, is so sloppy He would let a wonderful, made in His image person just fall through the cracks into hell without a chance to obtain salvation?
I PRAY WITH ALL MY HEART THAT THESE THREE EVENTS WILL TOUCH YOU WITH THE REALITY OF JESUS AND SATAN, LIFE AND DEATH, HEAVEN AND HELL AND YOUR ETERNAL DESTINATION.