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Dr.
Gerard Landry |
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The
following is one of the near-death experiences, reprinted here by
permission, which Rita Bennett documents in her excellent book,
To Heaven and Back. I highly recommend this book especially for
those Christians who are still not sure whether the near-death
experiences are Biblical. Visit Rita Bennett's website
Emotionally Free. The
following experiences will show you they are, in fact, Biblical.
Dr. Gerard Landry,
an anesthesiologist, worked twenty-seven years in medicine and had a very
good life as a Christian with a wife and three children up to the time of
his heart attack on March 24, 1979. The heart attack resulted in the
following NDE:
Suddenly,
in a flash, I couldn't think. At 4:13 p.m., I was transported from the
physical realm, the realm of the body, to a spiritual realm. I knew I was
in another world - a world that is as real as this world is to anyone
reading this. What I saw, I saw with the eyes of the spirit, because at
that time my soul and my spirit were in heaven. At the time you leave the
flesh, your spiritual awareness becomes acute, because the flesh holds
down your spiritual awareness. At death, your spirit is released. My
experience was supernatural but nonetheless real.
The first
awareness was of eternity ... When we die everything stops. It is like
finally getting to the nanosecond, where time stops for us. Like a watch,
our body stops at that time. Yet our spirit and consciousness
continue to live on in a dimension beyond sequential time. We go beyond
nanoseconds into a space-time measurement we cannot know here on Earth. I
call it the eternal now, because that is how it felt to me. The past,
present, and future are all merged into what scripture calls eternity.
Eternity is the present, the now that never ends.
Truly
understanding this dimension requires a joining of the human spirit to the
Holy Spirit. As this connection happens, we go beyond head knowledge to
heart experience. Jesus came expressly to give us this kind of life -
eternal life. He told us about it. He demonstrated it. He imparted it.
Then, as
if I had eyes all around my head, I saw saints, souls that were in heaven
- multitudes. There was no way to count them. Whether there were millions
or billions, I have no idea. As far as I could see in every direction were
people of all sizes dressed in white robes. The people were transparent; I
could see through them. They were behind me, across from me, all
around me. They were "floating" on what appeared to be a
crystal mirror or cloud or smoke. It is hard to describe these things in earthly
terms, but I am trying to show you what my spirit saw. Each person
was holding a crown in his or her hand.
The saints were saying, "We
were waiting for you."
I looked
at my body and realized I was one of them. When you look at yourself and
can look through yourself, it is quite an experience. I was looking at a
form of my body.
Then the
clouds seemed to be separating (yet they were not actually clouds), and
Jesus appeared. When he appeared, he showed himself to me on the cross as
if he were in the flesh, still with his nail-pierced hands and feet, the
wound in his side.
To me this
signified that the cross will be remembered forever in heaven and that the
salvation it brings is forever.
If I tried
to describe what he looked like, the color of his eyes and all, my words
would be inadequate. It would be like seeing a picture and then trying to
describe what it was like to experience the person.
Then Jesus
glanced at me with a look of compassion, full of love and caring. A glance
similar, I imagine, to the look he gave his mother, Mary, and his friend,
John, as they waited in agony at the foot of the cross. This glance was
the essence of love. I understood the fullness of the love of God at that
moment. This glance must have been like the one Jesus gave Matthew at the
tax collector's table.
Jesus probably just stopped, looked at him, and
said, "Follow me."
I also saw
the perfect obedience that Jesus has for his Father. He obeyed him on the
cross. He died on the cross for us because he loves his Father and he
loves us. In love, he became a servant for us. All the things I had read
in the Bible became real to me right then.
Jesus
spoke with a voice that relayed the same love his glance transmitted to me
- such gentleness and tenderness. Once you hear it, you will never forget
it.
He
welcomed me with, "Gerry, my peace be with you" - my first name,
then peace be with you.
He said, "You are healed. You will feel no
pain. You will have no anxiety. You will have no fears or guilt from the
past. In one week you will be home from the hospital."
When
Jesus said, "You are healed," I thought, Lord, it is wonderful
in this place. I want to stay.
He also
told me that all the prayers we had prayed that morning would be answered
or were right then being answered.
And he said, "Go and tell your
family, your friends, your fellowship, and everyone you come in contact
with; tell them about my love. I want you to read the gospel of John, the
first two letters of John, and all of Revelation."
Lord,"
I said, "Why do you want me to do this?"
He said,
"John is my friend. He knows all about my love."
I didn't
fully realize what was happening - that my heart had stopped for four
minutes and that I was being brought back to life. When the Lord finished
talking to me, I was aware that I was back in my body. I then
entered a deep coma in which I was unable to communicate or move any part
of my body for more than ten hours.
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