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MY NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

Rich Kelsey

 

 

I was born in Renton, WA, in 1955.  I grew up in the 1960s.  The culture of the day consisted of pure godless heathenism: black-light posters, hippies, sex, drugs and rock and roll.  People in my world were not thinking or talking about God.     

Also, not only did teachers from elementary school throughout high school never convey the idea of God to me; they reinforced the prevailing concept in the media that God did not exist.  For example: a headline from the New York Times read:

“God is Dead.”

I was 11 years old when I saw that headline.  I did not read the article.  The article explained that many professors of religion no longer believed in God.  Yet, having only seen the headline, this young soul thought that maybe there was a god at one time but he had died?  So, basically during my formative years, I had little to no understanding of spiritual things. 

 

Then, when I was 16, my older brother died in a car wreck.  He was 18.  My brother had just graduated from high school.  I was devastated.  As mentioned, at this point in my life I did not believe in God and I was certainly  not sure if Jesus ever existed as a historical person.  I had yet to figure out what life was about and this was the first time I was confronted with death.

I was so distraught that, for a while I quit going to school, because I could not handle the emotional problems I was experiencing when seeing some of my brother’s old friends.

I remember praying to God for the first time in my life saying:

“If there is a God and You have taken my brother to Hell, then that’s where I want to go.”

Then, I decided to try to contact my brother.  I though that maybe now he existed on another plane.

The first night that I got a response, one little ball of light came swirling into my bedroom.  It was just floating around in midair for a few seconds; then it flew right out through the wall.  As the weeks passed, at times, my room was filled with little glowing lights.

Soon thereafter, weird things began to happen: I started being attacked by invisible beings!  I would be lying in bed and what felt like a man would jump on me and wrestle with me.  It felt like superman had fallen straight down upon me from some distance above.   

 

Then, the unthinkable happened:

One morning I woke up.  I looked outside through the window into the backyard.  It was a beautiful summer day.  I remember thinking about going to the park. 

Right before I got out of bed superman hit me again; like a man falling out of the sky.  I heard the bedsprings screech.  This time the wind was knocked out of me and my muscles tensed up.  I could not move or breathe.

It gets worse:

I felt those little lights swirl right into me.  I felt spiritually defiled.  I believe demons entered my body.  I also heard perverted sounding music; (evidently demons have music in their realm).

At this point my spirit left my body.  But, at the same time, I was still on the bed.  I found myself in outer space traveling (I guess) at the speed of light; what seemed odd was there weren't any stars.  I was headed for a gate that looked like the Alcoholics Anonymous symbol.  (At this point in my life I had never seen the symbol).  It consists of three pyramids stacked so that there is an opening in the center.

 

               AA Symbol

 

I believe this was the gate leading to hell/outer darkness???  And, I was heading right toward the center of the gate!  I got the impression that I was going to be banished from God's presence forever.  It was the worst thing I could have ever imagined; but this was no dream.

I thought, maybe if I cried out to God, He would help me?  So, I tried to say the word

“God.”

Remember, the wind had been knocked out of me and my muscles were all cramped up; I can’t move.  I’m both on the bed and on my way to hell.

I can’t utter a word.  Finally, I think; I’ll focus all of my effort to just spit out the syllable

“G.”

I was desperately trying to start by saying,

“GAW.”

Then, right before I was about to lose consciousness from being unable to breathe, finally at the top of my lungs, out of my mouth came the name,

“Jesus.”

The demons left.  I got up, went upstairs, and washed my face, hanging my head over the kitchen sink, thinking:

"what an odd way to start the day."

What was so weird: I had tried to say GAW, or God, with every ounce of my strength.  Not Jesus!  Yet the name Jesus came out of my mouth. 

I went from being agnostic, to a man who believed in demons, Jesus, God, and what I think may have been hell, all in one morning; with no one preaching to me.

This experience is what started me on a path to try to figure out what’s going on in life.  Since then, I have found answers from the bible which make sense out of the trouble I experienced that morning and my deliverance in Christ's name. 

Over the years I have been reluctant to share this story for many reasons:

1. It is somewhat embarrassing to admit that demons entered my body.  Even though it was only for a few minutes.

2. I was concerned that people would not believe me.

3. I was concerned that I would be labeled as a fanatic, or a person suffering from delusion.

4. I was/am concerned that it might discredit my written works which have been established through years of careful study.

Well, I'm older now; this experience took place 40 years ago; so, I've had a lot of time to think it over.  I made the decision to make this story known because I know it happened — Satan and/or demons tried to kill me.  They showed their hand.  Now I'm in the fight; I'm not going to be silent anymore.

One thing is clear: the name Jesus delivered me.  Yet, at age 16, I had yet to learn anything about Jesus Christ.

When I got off of my bed that morning and walked upstairs to the kitchen I was not thinking:

"There's power in the name of Jesus."

I was not thinking:

"God is good."

The truth is: I was scared.  I was confused.  I still didn't know anything about God.  I had never read word one from the Bible.  At the time, I certainly did not equate Christ's victory over sin and/or death on the cross with the reason I was given his name; because I had yet to learn about any of these things!

This Near Death Experience was just the first step of my journey in search of answers to life's questions.  I have come a long way in the 40 years since.

Perhaps God let me experience this 'trip to hell's gate and back'  for a reason.  Maybe it is so I can tell the world about it?

What have I learned:

 

A Thousand Points of Darkness:

 

Satan deceives the nations. The devil has had thousands of years to refine his approach to man. He has seen what methods have brought results and he has witnessed what tactics have failed. From the very beginning Satan understood that he needed to keep the light of truth from shining on his prey. If people could see that it was really him who was goading them to take certain pathways in life, they would never walk down those paths.

The devil endeavors to bring the whole world into rebellion against God. In a vain attempt to forgo the inevitable Satan and his demon host are fighting down to the last hour. As the final curtain of human history is drawing to a close, will the devil look across the vast sea of humanity that he had duped into following him?  If so, what will he see in their faces?

Will he see men and women who were proud that they gave their eternal lives to bolster his image? Or will his followers mock him in derision when they finally see things clearly? The Bible paints a picture of the devil as he awaits his judgment, it portrays his followers marveling over him saying,

“Is this the one who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the one who made the world a desolate place, who overthrew its cities…?” (Isa. 14:16-17, author paraphrase)

Satan will go down in history as having conceived and carried out the worst plan ever! Instead of staying within the Creator’s good graces and enjoying an eternal paradise in God’s presence, Satan along with all of his followers will have hell to pay. The words to the song,

“I did it my way”

will have no redeeming value on Judgment Day. On that day many tormented souls will be lamenting over their rebellious attitudes. Undoubtedly throngs of human souls standing before the Judgment Seat will be thinking about the decisions they made that put them at odds with God, wishing beyond hope that they had yielded to the truth of the gospel that could have saved them.

 

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