DEATH EXPERIENCE

Ben Priest loaded a syringe with heroin. Slipping the needle into a vein with practiced skill, he felt a familiar rush sweep over his body. How many times had he gone through these same motions? Thousands, no doubt.
Yet Ben knew that this time would be different for this day, May 11, 1980, was the day he would die.

Ben wasn't taking any chances about that.
He followed the heroin with cocaine. Then, for added assurance, he injected crystal. Sitting down, he waited to die. It wasn't really death that Ben wanted, just an escape from the pain of living. He'd been searching for that since the day his dad had walked out of his life at 7 years old.
He had started with alcohol at age 11, and then moved to drugs at 13. When drugs failed to satisfy, he joined a small club of outlaw bikers, hoping it would give him the sense of security and family he longed for. 1t didn't. Instead, the emptiness in his heart led Ben to more drugs, more violence and a stint in a dingy Louisiana jail.
He'd been released from the jail on a legal technicality. But he hadn't been released from the pain.

As Ben leafed through the pages of his dismal past, he thought of his younger brother. Three years ago he'd become a Jesus freak. He was pastoring a church in Louisiana. How strange, he thought. Ben looked out the window at the Texas sky. He should be out cold by now. Instead, he was sitting here very much conscious and very much alive.

The truth was, Ben never had been very good at dying. He thought of the time someone had firebombed a house he was in. He'd been too doped up to find his way out. He would have been incinerated if his grandfather hadn't arrived on the scene and dragged him to safety. All his clothes-everything except the neck of his T-shirt and one sleeve-had burned away. But, strangely there had been no burns on his body.

Then there was the time a drug deal went sour and he was chased down and run over by a Lincoln Continental. Add to that the times he had found himself looking down the wrong end of a gun and it was easy to see, death just couldn't catch Ben Priest...

The shrill ringing of the telephone jolted Ben from his daydream. He listened intently while some woman named Gloria, a friend of his brother, told him he needed to go to church that morning. Church? More likely he'd be going to hell. "Look," he told the woman. "I wouldn't know where to go to church." I suggest Lakewood Church there in Houston," she said. "'The pastor's name is Osteen."

Ben hung up the phone and thought about the call. The drugs were taking their sweet time working, why not go? He had nothing to lose.
Somehow Ben made it to the church. He walked into a sanctuary packed with standing room only. "You need a seat, Brother?" an usher asked. "Don't call me Brother!" Ben snapped. The man led Ben to a seat near the front. Ben listened intently to the sermon. "Just give Jesus a sincere chance to change your life," Brother Osteen preached.

Even Jesus couldn't help me now I'm too far-gone, Ben thought. After the service, he went home and spent the afternoon pumping his system full of drugs. But still, his body refused to die.

That evening, Ben walked back into Lakewood Church. "You need a place to sit, Brother?" the same man asked. "I told you not to call me Brother!" Again, Ben listened to the sermon, knowing that for him, it was too late.
Afterward, he walked outside the church and stood on the shoulder of the road. He could feel the drugs taking their toll. The presence of death was unmistakable. This is it, Ben thought. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees and did something he never though the would do. He prayed. "Jesus, I don't know if you're real like people say. But if you are, I give you my life.

"Instantly, a man appeared beside him. Ben was afraid to look in his face - somehow he knew, without being told, that the man was Jesus. "I saw Him reach over to touch me," Ben recalls. "His hand passed inside my chest and I felt something move. Suddenly I felt...clean. I remembered all the times I'd tried to wash my guilt away. Now, in one instant it was gone.

"Then he touched my head, and His hand passed into my mind. It felt like I'd awakened from a bad dream. All the confusion was gone. My thoughts cleared. I had peace. For the first time in years, I was in my right mind.
"Then suddenly, a surge of power exploded through Ben's body. He figured he was dying. Gasping for breath, he opened his mouth to speak his last words-and to his amazement, what came out was a language he'd never heard, seconds turned into minutes as the language continued to flow. It was wonderful! "Every time I breathed it felt like an electrical charge moved in and out of my lungs," Ben explains.
Instead of dying, Ben Priest was becoming more alive by the moment.
"I was happy - but uncertain about what was taking place. I went to a nearby convenience store and tried to ask the woman behind the counter if she knew what was happening to me. But when I spoke, that same strange language came out of my mouth, and the woman fell on the floor." Ben looked down at her in puzzled surprise. He had no idea why she had fallen. He didn't realize that his encounter with Jesus had left him literally radiating with the power of God. Afraid that passers-by might think he'd attacked the woman, Ben rushed out of the store and went to see his partner, a fellow drug dealer. But he was no help either. Like the lady in the store, he took one look at Ben and fell to the floor.
Bewildered, Ben left and headed across town toward his mother's house. Maybe she could explain this peculiar business. After all, she'd been acting pretty strangely herself lately. More than once Ben had glanced out his window and seen her walking around his property with a Bible under one arm. She'd point at his house and declare, "Devil, you can't have my son!".

Ben was still speaking in the unknown language when his mother opened the door. He hadn't spoken a word in English in two hours. He reached out to take his mother's hand...and she fell on the floor. "Boy, what's the matter with you?" roared Ben's stepfather. "Did you get messed up on drugs and knock your mother down?" He stormed across the room toward Ben, but 10 feet away from him...he fell to the floor.

Just then the phone rang. Ben answered it speaking in tongues. "Ben!" he heard his brother say, "You met the Lord!"

SO THAT'S WHAT THIS MEANS
Ben went home that night a different man. "My partner showed up at my home between 2 and 3 o'clock that morning," Ben remembers. "The moment he stepped through the door, I knew he wasn't my brother anymore. He brought a batch of drugs. I told him I'd gotten saved and didn't need it. I picked up the coffee table with all our drugs on it and dumped the whole thing outside."

From then on, Ben turned his back on everything he'd ever known. "I lost it all when I met Jesus," he says. "I lost all my friends. I lost my possessions. I lost my finances." Ben also lost something else - a lifetime of pain and loneliness. In its place, he found someone whose love for him surpassed his wildest dreams. And even more astounding, He found that love had been there all along.

"I remember one time when I dropped by to visit my grandparents," Ben recalls. "My grandmother opened her buffet and pulled out a little sack. Inside were scraps and pieces of material. She laid them out on the table, and I realized it was the neck and sleeve of the T-shirt I'd worn the night of the fire." "Honey," she said, "Almighty God intervened in your life to save you. He has a lot of things for you to do." Then she pulled out a tattered calendar. His grandparents had marked the days and nights that God had awakened them to pray for Ben. The dates told their own story. How he'd survived the fire. How he'd miraculously lifted a Lincoln Continental off his stomach and walked away. Each miraculous escape from death was preceded by prayer.

Ben tried to comprehend God's love. A love that pursued him year after year. A love that wouldn't quit." It seemed strange to me," Ben admits. "Love definitely wasn't the code l had lived by up to that time, but l wanted to change. About two weeks after I was saved, Kenneth Copeland arrived at Lakewood Church to teach a seminar. His topic was the love walk. That teaching laid a foundation in my life"
Ben was so excited about God's love, he told just about everyone he met. He kept a notebook, recording the names of each person who accepted Jesus as Lord. At the end of four months, his notebook held 1,000 names. Despite his evangelistic accomplishments, however, Ben still felt oddly out of place. He enrolled in Bible college - and graduated - but He couldn't seem to find where he fit in the Body of Christ. Exactly what was it God wanted him to do?
About a year after lie was saved, Ben learned the answer to that question.

A woman had told me that God had spoken to her in a dream and told her to give me a motorcycle," he recalls. It was a 1950 Pinhead, orange with a black pinstripe. A classic Harley Davidson. "I poured a can of motor oil on that bike and anointed it for God. I dedicated it as a machine of war in His army. In my search for the security of a family, I was part of a real family of brothers and sisters. The Bible called it the Tribe of Judah."
It has been more than 13 years now since Ben began Tribe of Judah Ministries. Thirteen years of preaching the gospel at motorcycle rallies and around campfires. During those years, some of the people Ben has preached to have wanted to hear the gospel. Others haven't.
Laughing, Ben recalls one particularly rough character who demanded he keep Jesus in church, then backed up his demand shoving a shotgun in Ben's face. He even tried to pull the trigger-but he couldn't. Ben admits, he was a little disappointed. After all, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And the thought of going to heaven brought a thrill to Ben's heart.

In the end, the joy on Ben's face brought the shotgun-toting sinner to his knees and he was born again.
It seems heaven will have to wait awhile on Ben Priest. He doesn't have time for dying these days. He and Jesus have too much living to do.
God gave me a dream that I truly believe He wants me to share with family and friends whose loved ones have gone on to be with Him in heaven.

My mother went to be with the Lord several years ago. I was comforted knowing that she believed in Jesus and was saved, and because of that, was with Him in heaven, but I always wondered what she, and other loved ones, were doing there. I searched the Bible for answers and studied for some time without much success. I was getting discouraged, but I knew the answers were there if only I would keep looking.
After searching hard one night, I went to bed late and went right to sleep. That's when I had an experience so wonderful that it is hard to explain. I was walking down a bright white, clear pathway, but on both sides I saw a light fog or mist. In the mist, I was initially frightened to see people, which I assumed were the souls of our loved ones who had left the earth. They were all around, as far as I could see, seemingly floating in the air, a couple of feet higher than the path. I saw the backs of many heads, but no faces. All of them were wearing what I thought were long coats that made them look like the mist except they were much brighter.
I was compelled to continue down the pathway. I could see the end far off, with a stairway leading up to an open doorway. Through the doorway I saw the brightest light I've ever encountered. I couldn't look at the blinding brightness, but the most wonderful feeling of peace and love, stronger than I had ever experienced, drew me closer.

As I continued I saw two people standing on the stairway looking up into the light. As the one on the left turned towards me, I realized she was my mother---as beautiful as my childhood memories. Her face was glowing white as snow as she gave me a big smile. I turned and recognized the one on the right as my grandfather. He looked so young, and his face was also glowing with a big smile. I could feel the peace and love they exhibited. As I turned back to Mother, she stretched out her hand, and said, "Come on son, it's all right now." Those were the only sounds during my dream. I wanted to stay and remain in the presence of almighty God, experiencing His peace and love, so I stretched out my hand to take hers, but before our hands met, I woke up.
I awakened fully, but the feelings were still so strong that my body wouldn't move. Even though I was unsure of what had happened, and frightened to think I might have had a near death experience, the strongest feelings of peace and love were still with me. That experience stayed with me for days and as I went over and over what had happened, I finally realized it gave me many of the answers I had prayed for, although I still wondered where I had been.

That question was answered through the TV ministry of Pastor Murry of the "Shepherd's Chapel". In one of his teaching tapes, entitled "Where Are The Dead?" he quoted Revelation 6: 9-11. He read that John could see all the saints under the alter of God, and "all the saints were given white robes and told to rest a while longer." That explained the long coats I'd seen in my dream.

As the Holy Spirit spoke to me, my dream experience of peace and love came on me again. I knew then that I had been under the alter of God with all the saints.

I want you to know this dream has changed my life! It has answered so many questions. I used to be afraid of death, but no longer. I long to eternally be in that peace and love that I experienced in my dream.
I truly believe that God gave me this dream not only to help me, but so I could share it with others who are hurting, that He may be glorified. I have written this down, with all the details I recall, to make sure that I deliver this message from God exactly as He wanted it.

Just one more thing---make sure in your heart that you are saved and have made Jesus the Lord of your life. If you follow the teaching in John 3:16 & John 8:51, you will never see death, and one day when your work here on earth is done, you to will be under the alter of God where our loved ones now rest.
I Love You All. May God Bless You.
Joey Kendrick

I Almost Burned to Death
Harvey Mitchell
Sesser, Illinois
Church of God Evangel May 12/ 1975
When I returned home from the church on Wednesday afternoon, May 9,1973; my wife told me she smelled gasoline fumes. I went to the basement of the parsonage to check and found that a gasoline can had leaked on the floor. In a split second, heat from the furnace ignited the gas and it exploded. I was set aflame.

I tried to climb out of the window because the flames were between the staircase and me. Upon the first attempt to get out of the window, I could not make it. I prayed, "God, you've got to help me or I will burn to death!" After this prayer, I was able to climb out.
My wife was in the yard hanging out clothes. She quickly smothered the flames.

I was rushed to a local hospital but the doctor said he could not help me. I was then rushed by ambulance to the Intensive Care Burn Unit of the Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. The doctor told me that he would have to lacerate my legs or they would burst. Sixty-three percent of my body was burned and the doctors did not expect me to live.
My wife called many Church of God people, including the Prayer Vigil at General Headquarters. Just a few days later God came to me in a vision. I saw heaven open and the prayers of God's people going through to the Father.

During the Illinois Camp Meeting, I asked for five ministers to come and pray for me. On Tuesday, the doctors had told me the ligaments of my left leg were still exposed and they would be unable to graft new skin. On Wednesday, the ministers came. Two entered the burn unit and laid hands on me and the other three entered the hospital chapel and prayed. We had the assurance that God had answer prayer.
On Friday, the doctor came and told me that skin had begun to grow and that they would now be able to graft skin. God was with my family and me through eight surgeries of skin graft and nineteen blood transfusions. I am alive today because of the mercy of God and God's children who prayed, fasted and wept before God on my behalf.

Victorious In Death
T. David Sustar
Cleveland, Tennessee
My brother, Bob Sustar, preached for 21 years before dying with cancer at the age of 37. His ministry touched the lives of thousands as he served as state youth and Christian education director for the Church of God in North Carolina and Virginia. He was a man of the highest integrity and a great witness to everyone he met. He loved to sing about God's keeping power through every circumstance of life.

He fought cancer for 3 years, being reduced physically to approximately 80 lbs in weight but never once losing faith in God. There were times when the pain was unbearable and he groaned for deliverance but he always testified to God's goodness.

The day he died in August 1975, I watched as death slowly came upon him. His hands and feet were cold and purple. About noon, he lost his sight because of the lack of oxygen getting to his brain. It seemed he would slip away at any minute. However, God had a special home going planned for him.

About 2:30 p.m., in a strong and deliberate voice he said from his semi-conscious state: "I'm looking for Him, I'm looking for Him!" His wife, Barbara, came into the room and said, "Who are you looking for, Bob?" He responded, "I'm looking for Jesus." Since the age of sixteen, he had preached that when you come to the last moment of your life, if you have faith in God, Someone will be waiting for you.

In a few minutes, he triumphantly declared, "I've found Him, I've found Him!" When he died, the Spirit of God filled the room and the peace of God flooded our hearts. It was as if God said, "Don't worry about a thing. I've just kissed away his soul at his lips and put my big fingers on his eyelids and I'm taking him home to the paradise above." With great assurance, I look forward to seeing him again.

THE NULLABOUR INCIDENT
On the Western Australian border, 300 feet beneath the Nullabour Desert, lies the largest underground lake in the southern hemisphere.

I was SCUBA diving about 150 meters from shore, in an underwater canyon when suddenly the right hand wall just disappeared. It was replaced by a large black void. This was the entrance to the underwater cabin, which is where the cave continued underwater. The roof of the cabin measured 45 feet underwater, while the floor of the cabin was 75 feet in depth. Its length, approximately 500 feet. This was the first of several underwater cabins, as the cave continues for some 3-4 kilometres.

I was carrying two glow sticks, tied to a couple of rocks. These became my markers. As I entered the underwater cabin, I placed a marker on the cabin floor, as a reference point to return to. In dropping the marker I stirred up a large quantity of silt, from the approximately 6 inches of silt that covered the cave floor. This stirred up silt is commonly called a blackout, since enough stirred up silt will blockout all light, even the light from your flash light, at which point the diver won't know up from down, in from out. Blackouts were responsible for 14 deaths in 12 months in Mount Gambier.

This cabin was too large for a blackout to form, but seeing the silt stirred up, scared me. It also left me with the risk of a silt particle
blocking my regulator, at which time I would of been breathing water, not air.

I continued into the cabin, and placed the second marker towards the back of the cabin, not far from the entrance to the second underwater cabin.
Here the cave floor descended into deeper water. Now I'd entered the first cabin with only 0.25 of a tank of air. Since I'd used so much just looking for the entrance to the cabin. I decided it would be unwise to attempt the second cabin, and besides, I was all out of glow sticks.

Looking up at the roof of the cabin, I could see an opening that looked like a huge above water cabin. But I was deceived by the water, and when I swam up into it, it turned out to be only 8 feet across and 2.5 feet high. Naturally I was curious to see if the air was breathable, so I took my regulator out of my mouth, and tried to breath. The air was stale, and barely breathable.

Placing my regulator back into my mouth, I began to swim back the way I had come. On about my second breath of air, my regulator became dislodged and I received a lung full of water. This induced convulsions, since that is the bodies natural way of clearing the lungs once fluid has gone down the wrong way. I took my regulator out of my mouth to see if it helped to clear the lungs, but with no effect. Starting to get starved of oxygen I swam for the surface, and found nothing but rock. By now panic had began to set in and I began to hyperventilate. My lungs were going in and out but nothing was happening. It was about this time I remembered that I only had 0.25 of a tank of air when I entered the cabin. This led me to the conclusion that I'd ran out of air. That thought only increased my panicking. The more I panicked the more I used up what precious little air I really had.

At this point my body was crossed between convulsing and holding my breath. I started swim for the air pocket, but remembered how little oxygen I found there before. I then had a vision of two divers pulling my body out of the water.

Convinced that this was the end, I began to call on the only Name, that could get me out of this much trouble; Jesus. I simply said the Name Jesus over and over in my mind, and began swimming, convulsing as I went.
Looking around I couldn't see the glow stick at the entrance to the cabin. I'd swam along and up to get to the air pocket, so the first glow stick was out of sight. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I swam down towards the floor of the cave, the glow stick appeared. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, swimming and convulsing as I went.

Now I'd been SCUBA diving alone, a big no-no. And by a miracle of God an unsaved friend of mine, sensed there was something wrong and was already in the water swimming towards me when I surfaced. Good thing he was, as my buoyancy vest had ripped on the roof of the cave, and instead of keeping me buoyant it was dragging me down. By the time I reached shore, my lungs had cleared.

It's not for nothing that Cave Diving is the most dangerous sport in the world.

A short time later I realised the lesson in all of this -

If I had died there and then, it would have been just like I had never been born, for all the impact I'd been on society.

If you live your life unto yourself, you make zero impact on society.
If you live your life unto God, you make a difference to society.

While there's air in your lungs, you can make a difference.
Yours in Christ,
Roger

Back From the Dead
By Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu

The Remarkable Testimony of a Buddhist monk in Myanmar (Burma) who came back to life a changed man!

Introduction
The story that follows is simply a translation of a taped testimony from a man with a life-changing story . It is not an interview or a biography, but simply the words from the man himself. Different people react in different ways when they hear this story. Some are inspired, some skeptical, a few will mock and ridicule, while some others have even been filled with rage and anger, convinced these words are the ravings of a mad man or an elaborate deception. Some Christians have opposed the story simply because the radical and miraculous events described herein do not fit their feeble image of an Almighty God.

We were first made aware of this story from several Burmese church leaders who shared it with us. These leaders had looked into the story and had not found any suggestion of it being a hoax. It was with this in mind that we decided to step out and circulate the story. We do not do so for any monetary gain, or with a motivation of self-promotion. We just want to let the story speak for itself, and invite Christian believers to judge it according to Scripture. If God wants any part of it to be intended for His glory or to encourage His people, then we pray His Spirit will work in the hearts of the readers in those ways.

Some people have told us they think the monk in this story never actually died, but that he just lapsed into unconsciousness, and the things he saw and heard were part of a fever-driven hallucination. Whatever you think, the simple fact remains that the events of this story so radically transformed this man that his life took on a complete 180-degree shift after the events described below. He has fearlessly and boldly told his story at great personal cost, including imprisonment. He has been scorned by his relatives, friends and colleagues, and faced death threats for his unwillingness to compromise his message. What motivated this man to be willing to risk everything? Whether we believe him or not, his story is surely worth listening to and considering. In the cynical West many people demand hard evidence of such things, evidence that would stand up in a court of law. Can we absolutely guarantee, beyond doubt, that all of these things happened? No, we cannot. But we feel it is worth repeating this man's story in his own words so that readers can judge for themselves.

My Early Years
Hello! My name is Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu. I am from the country of Myanmar. I would like to share with you my testimony of what happened to me, but first I would like to give some brief background information from my life growing up.

I was born in 1958 in the town of Bogale, on the Irrawaddy Delta area of southern Myanmar [formerly Burma]. My parents, who were devout Buddhists like most people in Myanmar, named me Thitpin [which means 'tree' in English]. Our lives were very simple where I grew up. At the age of 13 I left school and started working on a fishing boat. We caught fish and sometimes also shrimp from the numerous rivers and streams in the Irrawaddy area. At the age of 16 I became the leader of the boat. At this time I lived in Upper Mainmahlagyon Island [Mainmahlagyon means 'Beautiful Woman Island' in English], just north of Bogale where I was born. This place is about 100 miles southwest of Yangon [Rangoon], our nation's capitol city.

One day, when I was 17, we caught a large number of fish in our nets. Because of the many fish, a large crocodile was attracted to us. It followed our boat and tried to attack us. We were terrified so we frantically rowed our boats toward the riverbank as fast as we could. The crocodile followed us and smashed our boat with its tail. Although no one died in this incident, the attack greatly affected my life. I no longer wanted to fish. Our small boat sank because of the crocodile attack. We had to go home to our village that night on a passenger boat.

Not long after, his employers transferred my father to Yangon City [formerly spelt Rangoon]. At the age of 18 I was sent to a Buddhist monastery to be a novice monk. Most parents in Myanmar try to send their son into a Buddhist monastery, at least for a time, as it is considered a great honor to have a son serve in this way. We have been observing this custom for many hundreds of years.

A Zealous Disciple of Buddha
When I turned 19 years and 3 months old (in 1977), I became a normal monk. The senior monk at my monastery gave me a new Buddhist name, which is the custom in our country. I was now called U Nata Pannita Ashinthuriya. When we become a monk we no longer use the name given to us at birth by our parents. The name of the monastery I lived at is called Mandalay Kyaikasan Kyaing. The senior monk's name was called U Zadila Kyar Ni Kan Sayadaw [U Zadila is his title]. He was the most famous Buddhist monk in all of Myanmar at the time. Everyone knew who he was. He was widely honored by the people and respected as a great teacher. I say he "was" because in 1983 he suddenly died when he was involved in a fatal car accident. His death shocked everyone. At the time I had been a monk for six years.

I tried hard to be the best monk I could and to follow all the precepts of Buddhism. At one stage I moved to a cemetery where I lived and meditated continually. Some monks who really want to know the truths of Buddha do things like I did. Some move deep into the forests where they live a life of self-denial and poverty. I sought to deny my selfish thoughts and desires, to escape from sickness and suffering and to break free from the cycle of this world. At the cemetery I was not afraid of ghosts. I tried to attain such inner peace and self-realization that even when a mosquito landed on my arm I would let it bite me instead of brushing it off!

For years I strived to be the best monk I could and not to harm any living being. I studied the holy Buddhist teachings just like all my forefathers had done before me. My life proceeded as a monk until I got very, very sick. I was in Mandalay at the time and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. The doctors did some tests on me and told me I had both Yellow Fever and malaria at the same time! After about one month in the hospital I was getting worse. The doctors told me there was no chance for me to recover and discharged me to make arrangements to die.

This is a brief description of my past. I would now like to tell you some of the remarkable things that happened to me after this time...

A Vision that Changed My Life Forever
After I was discharged from the hospital I went back to the monastery where other monks cared for me. I grew weaker and weaker and was lapsing into unconsciousness. I learned later that I actually died for three days. My body decayed and stunk of death, and my heart stopped beating. My body was prepared for cremation and was put through traditional Buddhist purification rites.

Although I faded away in my body I remember my mind and spirit were fully alert. I was in a very, very powerful storm. A tremendous wind flattened the whole landscape until there were no trees or anything else standing, just a flat plain. I walked very fast along this plain for some time. There were no other people anywhere, I was all alone. After some time I crossed a river. On the other side of the river I saw a terrible, terrible lake of fire. In Buddhism we do not have a concept of a place like this. At first I was confused and didn't know it was hell until I saw Yama, the king of hell [Yama is the name ascribed to the King of Hell in numerous cultures throughout Asia]. His face looked like the face of a lion, his body was like a lion, but his legs were like a naga [serpent spirit]. He had a number of horns on his head. Hisface was very fierce, and I was extremely afraid. Trembling, I asked him his name. He replied, "I am the king of hell, the Destroyer."

The terrible, terrible lake of fire
The king of hell told me to look into the lake of fire. I looked and I saw the saffron colored robes that Buddhist monks wear in Myanmar. I looked closer and saw the shaven head of a man. When I looked at the man's face I saw it was U Zadila Kyar Ni Kan Sayadaw [the famous monk who had died in a car accident in 1983]. I asked the king of hell why my former leader was confined to this lake of torment. I said, "Why is he in this lake of fire? He was a very good teacher. He even had a teaching tape called 'Are You a Man or a Dog?' which had helped thousands of people understand that their worth as humans is far greater than the animals." The king of hell replied, "Yes, he was a good teacher but he did not believe in Jesus Christ. That's why he is in hell."

I was told to look at another person who was in the fire. I saw a man with very long hair wrapped on the left hand side of his head. He was also wearing a robe. I asked the king of hell, "Who is this man?" He replied, "This is the one you worship: Gautama [Buddha]." I was very disturbed to see Gautama in hell. I protested, "Gautama had good ethnics and good moral character, why is he suffering in this lake of fire?" The king of hell answered me, "It doesn't matter how good he was. He is in this place because he did not believe in the Eternal God."

I then saw another man who looked like he was wearing a soldier's uniform. He had a large wound on his chest. I asked, "Who is this man?" The king of hell said, "This is Aung San, the revolutionary leader of Myanmar." I was told, "Aung San is here because he persecuted and killed Christians, but mostly because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ." In Myanmar the people have a common saying, "Soldiers never die, they live on." I was told that the legions of hell have a saying "Soldiers never die, but they go to hell forever."

I looked and saw another man in the lake of fire. He was a very tall man and he was dressed in military armor. He was also holding a sword and a shield. This man had a wound on his forehead. This man was taller than any person I have ever seen. He was six times the length between a man's elbow and the tips of his fingers when he stretches his arm out straight, plus one span of a man's fingers when he spreads out his hand. The king of hell said, "This man's name is Goliath. He is in hell because he blasphemed the Eternal God and His servant David." I was confused because I didn't know who either Goliath or David were. The king of hell said, "Goliath is recorded in the Christian Bible. You don't know him now, but when you become a Christian you will know who he is."

I was then taken to a place where I saw both rich and poor people preparing to eat their evening meals. I asked, "Who cooked the food for these people?" The king of hell replied, "The poor have to prepare their own food, but the rich people get others to cook for them." When the food had been prepared for the rich people they sat down to eat. As soon as they started a thick smoke came up. The rich people ate as fast as they could to ease their consciences. They were struggling to breath because of the smoke. They had to eat fast because they were fearful of losing their money. Their money is their god.

Another king of hell then came to me. I also saw a being whose job is to stoke the fires beneath the lake of fire, to keep it hot. This being asked me, "Are you going into the lake of fire too?" I replied, "No! I am only here to observe!" The appearance of this creature stoking the fire was very terrifying. He had ten horns on his head and a spear in his hand that had seven sharp blades coming from the end. The creature told me, "You are right. You came here just to observe. I cannot find your name here." He said, "You must now go back the way you came." He pointed me toward the desolate plain that I had first walked along before I came to the lake of fire.

The Road of Decision
I walked a long time, until I was bleeding. I was hot and in great pain. Finally, after walking for about three hours I came to a wide road. I walked along this road for some time until I came to a fork. One road, going off to the left, was wide. A smaller road went off to the right hand side. There was a signpost at the fork saying that the road to the left was for those who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The smaller road to the right was for believers in Jesus.

I was interested to see where the larger road led so I started down it. There were two men walking about 300 yards ahead of me. I tried to catch up with them so I could walk with them but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't catch them up, so I turned around and went back to the fork in the road. I continued to watch these two men as they walked down the road away from me. When they reached the end of the road they were suddenly stabbed. These two men cried out in great pain! I also cried out when I saw what happened to them! I realized the bigger road ended in great danger for those who traveled down it.

Looking into Heaven
I started walking down the believers' road instead. After traveling for about one hour the surface of the road turned to pure gold. It was so pure that when I looked down I could see my own reflection perfectly. I then saw a man standing in front of me. He was wearing a white robe. I also heard beautiful singing. Oh, it was so beautiful and pure! It was much better and more meaningful than the worship we have in churches here on the earth. The man in the white robe asked me to walk with him. I asked him, "What is your name?" but he did not answer. After I asked his name six times the man answered, "I am the one who holds the key to heaven. Heaven is a very, very beautiful place. You cannot go there now but if you follow Jesus Christ you can go there after your life has finished on the earth." The man's name was Peter.

Peter then asked me to sit down and he showed me a place to the north. Peter said, "Look to the north and see God create man." I saw the Eternal God from a distance. God spoke to an angel, "Let us make man." The angel pleaded with God and said, "Please don't make man. He will do wrong and will grieve you." [In Burmese literally: "He will make you lose face."]. But God created a man named anyway. God blew on the man and the man came to life. He gave him the name "Adam". [Note: Buddhists do not believe in the Creation of the world or of man, so this experience had a significant impact on the monk].

Sent Back with a New Name
Then Peter said, "Now get up and go back to where you came from. Speak to the people who worship Buddha and who worship idols. Tell them they must go to hell if they don't change. Those who build temples and idols will also have to go to hell. Those who give offerings to the monks to earn merit for themselves with go to hell. All those who pray to the monks and call them 'Pra' [respectful title for monks] will go to hell. Those who chant and 'give life' to idols will go to hell. All those who don't believe in Jesus Christ will go to hell." Peter told me to go back to the earth and testify about the things I had seen. He also said, "You must speak in your new name. From now on you are to be called Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu ["Paul who Came Back to Life."].

I didn't want to go back. I wanted to go to heaven. Angels opened a book. First they looked for my childhood name (Thitpin) in the book, but they could not find it. They then looked for the name I had been given when he entered the Buddhist monk hood (U Nata Pannita Ashinthuriya) but it wasn't written in the book either. Then Peter said, "Your name is not written here, you must return and testify about Jesus to the Buddhist people."

I walked back along the gold road. Again I heard beautiful singing, the kind of which I have never heard before or since. Peter walked with me until the time I returned to the earth. He showed me a ladder that reached down from the heaven to the sky. The ladder didn't reach to the earth, but stopped in mid-air. On the ladder I saw many angels, some going up to heaven and some going down the ladder. They were very busy. I asked Peter, "Who are they?" Peter answered, "They are messengers of God. They are reporting to heaven the names of all those who believe in Jesus Christ and the names of those who don't believe." Peter then told me it was time to go back.

It is a Ghost!
The next thing I was aware of was the sound of weeping. I heard my own mother cry out, "My son, why did you leave us now?" I also heard many other people weeping. I realized I was lying in a box. I started to move. My mother and father started shouting, "He is alive! He is alive!" Other people who were farther away did not believe my parents. I then placed my hands on the sides of the box and sat upright. Many people were struck with terror. They cried out, "It is a ghost!" and ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.

Those who remained were speechless and trembling. I noticed I was sitting in smelly liquid and body fluids, enough to fill about three and a half cups. This was liquid that had come out of my stomach and my insides while my body was lying in the coffin. This is why people knew I had indeed been dead. Inside the coffin there was a type of plastic sheet fixed to the wood. This sheet is placed there to retain a corpse's liquids, because many dead bodies release much fluid like mine did.

I learned later that I was just moments away from being cremated in the flames. In Myanmar people are placed in a coffin, the lid is then nailed shut, and the whole coffin is burned. When I came back to life my mother and father were being allowed to look at my body for the very last time. Moments later the lid of my coffin would have been nailed shut and I would have been cremated!

I immediately started to explain the things I had seen and heard. People were astonished. I told them about the men I had seen in the lake of fire, and told them that only the Christians know the truth, that our forefathers and us have been deceived for thousands of years! I told them everything we believe is a lie. The people were astonished because they knew what kind of a monk I had been and how zealous I had been for the teachings of Buddha.

In Myanmar when a person dies their name and age is written on the side of the coffin. When a monk dies, the monk's name, age and the number of years he has served as a monk are written on the side of the coffin. I had already been recorded as dead but as you can see, now I am alive!

Epilogue
Since 'Paul who came back to life' experienced the above story he has remained a faithful witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Burmese pastors have told us that he had led hundreds of other monks to faith in Christ. His testimony is obviously very uncompromising. Because of that, his message has offended many people who cannot accept there is only one Way to Heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. Despite great opposition, his experiences were so real to him that he has not wavered. After many years in the Buddhist monk hood, as a strict follower of Buddhist teachings, he immediately proclaimed the Gospel of Christ following his resurrection and exhorted other monks to forsake all false gods and follow Jesus Christ with all their hearts. Before the time of his sickness and death he had no exposure to Christianity at all. Everything he learned during those three days in the grave was new to his mind.

In a bid to get his message out to as many people as possible, this modern-day Lazarus began distributing audio and video cassette tapes with his story on them. The police and Buddhist authorities in Myanmar have done their utmost to gather these tapes up and destroy them. The testimony you have just read has been translated form one of those cassette tapes. We are told it is now quite dangerous for citizens of Myanmar to be in possession of these tapes.

His fearless testimony has landed him in prison at least once, where the authorities failed in their bid to silence him. Upon his release he continued to testify of the things he saw and heard. His current whereabouts are uncertain. One Burmese informant told us he is prison and may have been killed, while another informant was told he is now released from prison and is continuing his ministry.