As the preacher-man got up to leave, the widow put her hand on his arm, saying, "Don't go, I got one more thing." The kitchen quieted. Her boy said, "Ma, don't tell him." The preacher-man said, "Don't tell me what?" Ma whispered, "Last night, 'bout midnight, I heard a noise in this here kitchen, and so I come in to take a look around. I flicked on the overhead light, and right there front of the sink, right there, standing looking right at me, big as life -- was my dead Stan, the love of my life. He always washed the dishes after supper. I know he's dead, but it was him. He was looking at me with those lovin' eyes, and smiling, like he was telling me he was OK. That's the warm feeling I got -- that he's OK. He's OK. Isn't he? Preacher? He was smiling so sweetly, and I felt loved and good. My kids think I was either dreaming or crazy. Sadness can make you crazy. I read that. I ain't never seen nothin' like that, preacher. Nothin'."
The preacher-man stilled himself and said, "No, you're not crazy, Mrs. Kolinsky. Can't tell you how many times I've heard similar stories on days like today, sitting around kitchen tables just like this, talking about death and funerals. What you saw happens to many people, all types of people, only people don't talk about their experiences publicly, except to folks like me, because it sounds crazy, but it's common. It's a gift, Mrs. Kolinsky. Stan was telling you he's OK. And so are you."
Mrs. Kolinsky is not her real name, but I was the preacher-man. The first time I heard whispers of the grieving seeing the dead was when I was a boy, and I have heard such stories a hundred times since, almost always whispered. My dad told me that when he was a boy of 12, he had a bedroom in the third floor attic of his family home. One night, in the middle of the night, suddenly he awoke to see his grandmother standing at the end of his bed. She was just standing there, smiling at him, and then she vanished, and he knew, deep down inside, that she was dead. My dad jumped out of bed, pulled on his pants and a shirt over his pajamas, and ran barefooted down the three flights, out the front door and down the concrete sidewalk. It was 1942. There were no cars on the street that late at night. He ran across the street, opened the unlocked front door of his aunt and grandmother's house, and rushed inside. The kitchen light was on. He found his aunt who said that her mother, his grandmother, had just died.
Over the years as a community pastor, like most pastors, I attended to death, funerals and grieving in my town. Over the years, many times, the grieving would pull me aside and say, "Preacher, I had this dream..." or "Maybe I'm going crazy, but I saw him standing there..." Sometimes when such a story was told in the company of other family members, someone's eyes would widen and he or she would say, "I saw her, too. She came to me, too." And everybody would cry, smile and believe, maybe for the first time, in the afterlife. Most often in such circumstances, there was direct communication from the dead to the grieving, with words spoken ("Mom, I'm OK."), or loving smiles, or soft eyes, or a warm feeling, all telling the living that the loved one, now dead, was all right and at peace.
True? Or crazy? I leave that for you to decide. Too many times I've seen the grieving find comfort, find solace, in such visions. Over the years, I've come to understand that the human soul is real, just like the rest of my body is real -- a reality of physics -- only the soul is somehow quantum, for lack of a more accurate word. I pray that someday science will measure the soul, see the soul, and understand what common people and mystics have known for centuries, across cultures that the dead are living, and sometimes they come to us to give us solace. Or maybe that's just crazy talk.
St. Paul wrote that we are imperishable, and will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye.
Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:50-56; Luke 24:39
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It would also be nice, though perhaps not as comforting to those who have lost someone in death, but hindering those fortune tellers who cheat people who want to communicate with lost loved ones, if all preachers would accurately represent what the Bible says about the condition of the dead as is indicated in these verses.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more reward" KJ
Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." KJ
One should be encouraged to get their life in compliance with the requirements to have God's approval and be more likely to be able to see and help their lost loved one if reunited in the resurrection, rather than to live a life promoting beliefs that are contrary to what God's Word says.
"Life between Lives" by Dr. Michael Newton. Very impressive !
Manuel Greer
Spiritism in any form is soundly condemned in the Holy Scriptures. One should not try to seek out spirit mediums in an effort conjure up to try and speak to those that are dead for this is the work of the demons.
The account in 1 Samuel 28:4-25 shows what the demons are capable of in order to make it seems that God is providing answers. When the witch of Endor answered King Saul, her description of Samuel made King Saul conclude that it was really Samuel. It should be noted that previously, God had not answered Saul’s inquiries and obviously would not have done so through a witch. Therefore what the woman said must have been of demonic origin.
The Holy Scriptures state at Genesis 2:7: “Therefore the Lord God formed man of the slime of [the] earth, and breathed into his face the breathing of life; and man was made into a living soul.†So the body is the soul and not some imperishable thing that flits about after one dies. If we have a soul that flits about then Acts 24:15 has no value.
My mother is a nurse and has a similar tale: a patient, suffering from stomach cancer, was on her floor for a few weeks before he died. After that, a series of patients who had that room complained about a strange man being in there, holding his stomach and moaning.
More goosebumps!
I have seen souls holding themselves, in all sorts of manner, IN their own body or holding their relatives or bloodline in THEIR bodies...to accomplish their journey before God.
If we do not allow a soul to accomplish its goal here on earth..we have failed God...
there is, sadly, as much or more money in failing God..and more PR to make it seem like a brilliant thing..than there is for those who stand up and refuse the name calling and labelling that faces them when they WON'T GIVE IN...and KNOW that they have a task on God's earth.
is it after we have come to terms with our life...
is it after we have used up the time we were supposed to have been on earth...predetermined...
especially when someone dies in some situation caused by human error or the excess of this world... as unexpected by God's order?
Do we disappear physically but have some spiritual sense left which can remember; or reform itself. if it dares to do so in a place where we once lived or are expected...so as not to scare loved ones?
Or do we return home in our spirit form from a mental or subconscious journey or dream sequence which we have been caught in or living or working in and although we would ordinarily blend into 'our' body..we now show up as a shadow...?
there are many things to think about.
As for the dead: Ps.115:17, Ec.9:5, states there is no thought in death; 1Cor.15:20, 1Th.4:15 refer to death as a sleep. (In sleep we are not aware that we are asleep).
I believe it is ministering spirits that appear in various methods and forms to comfort us in times of sadness.
Question. If the dead are in heaven why does Jesus come back to raise them? If Jesus must come back to raise the dead, they haven't risen. Acts 2:29, 34; Heb.11:13, 39 strongly suggest no one has risen or received eternal life.
To these adopted sons is granted the privilege to be resurrected immediately and in the “twinkling of an eye†so that they can begin assuming their positions of being co-rulers and priests over the Kingdom of God along with their brother Jesus Christ.
That leaves people like King David who did “not ascend to heaven†and all the others listed in Hebrews 11 who did “not get the fulfillment of the promise.†So what was this promise? Well, each one of the “so great a cloud of witnesses†mentioned by Paul in Hebrews had a valid basis for their faith which was built upon the “promise†that deliverance would come through a “seed of deliverance.†Had these ones been alive after Jesus died, they would have been candidates for heavenly life because of their outstanding faith.
John the Baptist and all faithful ones that died before Jesus Christ are not part of the “firstfruits†and will not gain heavenly life. Yet, we will all be made “perfect together†since whether we live in heaven or on earth we will live forever because we will be sinless or in other words, perfect.
The individuals of which God exercised his foreknowledge are Esau, Jacob, Pharaoh of Exodus, Samson, Solomon, Josiah, Jeremiah, Cyrus, John the Baptist, Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ as well as certain classes of people such as those of Noah’s, Days and the Edomites. As regards Samson, Jeremiah and John the Baptist, God exercised foreknowledge prior to their births but the foreknowledge did not specify what their whole course of life but they were not visited by angels. In the case of Samson, it was his parents that were visited by angels. All who are right-hearted in their search for the true God will be blessed with Holy Spirit which is the strongest force in the universe since it emanates from God himself and it is stronger than a visit by angels.
You are on to something with demonic interaction. Having the Spirit of God gives the discernment to avoid such pitfalls. Those without the Spirit are at a disadvantage.
As for the first fruit, I agree with you. However, Jesus being resurrected from the dead, and living is no longer among the dead, and the conversation pertaining to the dead not yet to risen does not include Jesus.
As for predestination, we agree that the one predestined does not necessarily get 'visitation.' Enoch might be an exception.
I've enjoyed the discourse.
What happens to the soul when people are asleep, in a deep coma or under anesthesia that puts them precariously close to death? If the soul is real, just like your body, then what is the evidence for it while we are alive? Does death somehow rip the "living soul" from a dying body at the appropriate time? How can a soul maintain any kind of consciousness when the brain dies since the brain is what creates it? Wishful thinking is not evidence and people seeing their dead loved one's while in a state of severe grief is not evidence, no more than a daydream of being abducted by aliens is.
Hopefully the author of this story never faces a jury of his peers for a falsely accused crime resulting in severe punishment that accepts his kind of evidence to convict him.
You can say 'This can't happen,' but whether that's done with certain religion or with science's standards of *proof,* ...doesn't mean it doesn't actually happen. If you know something you're not supposed to be able to, it doesn't mean you don't know it or can't use that information: Proving it to others of course requires other standards. One can sometimes go check it out in the 'waking' world, of course, ...proving it in a court of law or a lab, that you weren't exposed to the information otherwise or making it up, is of course another matter.
People tend to see these things as isolated phenomena projected into 'the real world,' but that's not quite what it is.
To try to put it more scientifically: Suppose consciousness and information are not as *localized* as we attribute to brains? Suppose brains and those aspects of our humanity and personality are more like *interfaces for * than 'generators of' consciousness?
Now the materialists will deny this, for they have to. If not, their entire system of cherished beliefs comes tumbling down. That is way to painful for the ego to take in one bite.
The evidence is there but for most it is rejected before any investigation. How many religious people really investigate anything outside their cherished beliefs. The same mentality applies to the materialists in the world. It is a human thing that lies beyond logic and reasoning abilities.
Often a significant emotional event occurs and this "crushes" the ego to the point that a person can look outside their cherished beliefs and hidden paradigm. I know of no example where a materialist becomes a sincere seeker of these mysteries without a significant emotional event occurring in their lives.
Um... NO, it's not. Stop throwing around word you have NO clue about.
BTW: Every scientific attempt to find the soul has failed miserably. There is no evidence any such thing exists. It's all in your head.
"maybe that's just crazy talk"
Exactly. You Christians are scared so crazy by the thought of dying that you have to invent some wonderful place you're going to when you die.
"Every scientific attempt..." Certainly true, though there's that old adage about "absence of evidence." The "soul" has no operational definition for scientists to work with, so it would be hard to know it if they saw it. Is the mind more than brain activity, and is this what people mean by "soul?" If so, there may be some basis (at least a philosophical one) for believing that a soul exists. As for someone seeing their dead spouse, I'm not sure that there's even a lot of evidence that they're related to any talk of souls; why is grandpa still washing dishes? And don't get me started on the various "I went to heaven and came back" books which seem to be having their 15 minutes of fame at our local Christian bookstore. They rarely make theological or biblical sense, much less scientific sense.
Having said all this, I'm not sure that people make up ghost stories out of fear. The ancient Hebrews seemed pretty comfortable with a rather vague sort of "afterlife" which didn't seem to be particularly wonderful, and historical Christianity seems at least as worried about Hell as about Heaven. Considering some of what is in the New Testament, just ceasing to exist on death would be rather nice in comparison.
Suffice it to say that if your very-much-physical brain is sufficiently damaged you cease having a conscious mind.
Of course none of this has any bearing on anything approaching a 'soul' any way.