Are Near Death Experiences Real?

 An American preacher died in a car accident. The ambulance took him to the hospital and the doctors were unable to revive him, but after eight hours something totally amazing happened.

‘There was a sheet on my face. Oh, the pain!
I heard someone say: ‘He's been dead for hours.’
I sat up and replied: ‘I'm not dead yet.’

Someone from the medical staff screamed out loud.
Another lost control of his bladder.

Apparently I had been dead for more than eight hours and they were about to take me to the mortuary.

I could feel my bones coming back together. I could feel my wounds healing as I sat up. And I could breathe and speak.’

Sigmund, Richard. My Time in Heaven: A True Story of Dying and Coming Back to Life.

Richard Sigmund recounts what he experienced during those eight hours. He really did visit heaven.
But that will seem unbelievable to some.

Why? Because theological experts have claimed for many centuries that the dead remain unconscious until the last judgement.

But in 2 Corinthians, Paul tells of a Christian who visited heaven and returned to earthly life. Obviously this was Paul himself.

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.

And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—

was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. 2 Co 12:2–4 NIV

In our times we hear of many near-death experiences. Why are such reports so common in our time?

Some claim that it is a sign of the end times, when occult phenomena are so widespread and so many people are deceived and misguided by sorcery.

But there is a practical explanation. In the last 60 years, emergency medicine and surgery have made enormous progress. Many heart attack patients and accident victims who would have died in earlier times have been resuscitated.

The research of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Dr Raymond Moody has also helped to publicise the near-death experiences of many patients.

There are several Bible stories where really dead people were brought back to life by God, but critics of near-death experiences will claim that no one in the Bible told of otherworldly experiences.
But this is not entirely true. The apostle John saw dramatic revelations from heaven in the last book of the Bible. John was still alive, but that makes no difference. Nothing is impossible with God.

There are many Christians who think that no miracles in our time should surpass the amazingly dramatic miracles in the Bible. When they hear testimonies of miracles that are more dramatic than the miracles Jesus performed on earth, they want to reject the testimonies as unbiblical.
But Jesus taught the opposite.

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. Jn 14.12 NIV

People who die or nearly die and then talk about the afterlife are not taken seriously by many Christians, but why?

As the return of Jesus draws closer, should we not expect even greater miracles than the miracles in the Bible stories?

But some argue that no one should die twice.

That is a weak argument. Lazarus and some others died and were resurrected by Jesus. Of course, he did die later.

But when Paul spoke of his journey to heaven in 2 Cor 12:2-4, he was very cautious. He said he was not allowed to pass on what Jesus had told him in heaven.

Sometimes Jesus shares secrets, and sometimes He shares revelations that need to be passed on.
Paul heard secrets but the apostle John in the last book of the Bible told exactly what was revealed to him.

So it is today. In Western countries, many no longer believe in God, no longer believe in the immortal soul, no longer believe in heaven and no longer believe in hell. Through near-death experiences and testimonies of the afterlife, many are coming back to faith.