In constantly thinking on and writing about Bible prophecy, one can lose sensitivity to the reality that people –even the saved– often view such matters as gloomy at best and terrifying at worst. Maybe “lose” is the wrong word. We who believe we are given the assignment by our Lord to write on these topics perhaps “misplace” sensitivity to the fact that things are gloomy or terrifying to people, rather than “lose” that understanding. We easily forget believers need to be uplifted, not terrified. And there is a way in presenting Bible prophecy to accomplish the former rather than the latter.
In speaking not long ago to a good number of people, I was nudged in my spirit to begin by trying to make it clear that while I was there to talk about things involved in Bible prophecy, the ultimate outcome of all the end-times things we see going on only point to the glory that is to come.
Paul, the great apostle and writer of much of the New Testament, for example, wrote:
Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the mind the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.
We are told that there is a “crown of righteousness” for those who love Christ’s appearing. Jesus, Himself, told us through the Apostle John that He –Jesus—will keep us from the time of the great trouble that is coming (Revelation 3: 10). Now all that encapsulates a glorious prospect, not gloom and doom!
I was told recently that my friend Dr. Ed Hindson, one of the greatest Bible prophecy teachers of our time, in his last moments of life opened his eyes and exclaimed something like: “I had no idea it was so glorious!”
I can relate perhaps only slightly to Dr. Hindson’s reported last-moments vision of Heaven, but certainly agree from firsthand experience. Many know of my dying clinically on Good Friday of 2011, April 22. What I saw was indeed glorious. (I don’t apologize for here over using the term “glorious”. One can’t overuse the term because there is none more appropriate to convey Heaven’s…well…glory!) I was, it has become apparent, “sent back” to tell exactly that truth to all who will listen. I cannot help but do so. Going to that place of glory was and remains something that comes to my mind at moments, particularly when things look to be gloomy, prophetically speaking. The trip to that sphere on three occasions of my heart stopping was truly glorious, and it was instantaneous upon each heart stoppage.
My thoughts on recalling those heavenly visits always go back to Paul telling us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. There isn’t even a twinkling of an eye of time between the last heartbeat and bursting onto that glorious scene –not one fraction of a second.
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