At good ol EvC there's a thread now about Steve Jobs' supposedly saying "Wow wow wow" just before he died, and they're wondering if that proves anything about the afterlife.
Unbelievers are saying no, it could just be a chemical or physical effect of the dying process or of the drugs given him for pain. Believers in Christ are claiming yes, but get themselves all tangled up in the untenable implication that Steve Jobs must therefore have been saved at the very end.
My guess would be that Jobs WAS seeing into another realm just before he died, just because of how he's described as having a faraway look, and it must have been a pleasant other realm because the expression "Wow" does not sound unhappy.
I don't know what general condition his mind was in at the end but I do know that some kinds of illness affect the mind and produce hallucinations. A relative of mine saw long-dead family members in her room a day or two before she died, and kept talking about a "party going on downstairs" that she wished she could go to. Its being "downstairs" was disturbing to me as that's the wrong direction for a Christian's last wishes to be directed. It wasn't her last words, she became more or less comatose right before she died, but the point is that even a happy vision of another world isn't necessarily a sign of salvation. Since she was a Christian what she experienced (heard?) of a party going on "downstairs" (her apartment was on the ground floor) does bother me and I won't know until I see the Lord myself if that said anything about whether or not she was really saved, or was simply the toxins of the cancer in her liver affecting her brain.
If Jobs was fairly lucid when he exclaimed his "Wow" and it was RIGHT before he died, I'd guess he did see into the other world he was going to but that it was a counterfeit show put on by the demons waiting to receive him into their company, to convince him and the people with him that he was going to a good place. Anything to call the Bible into doubt.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
There is something that has been bothering me more and more lately. It is the amount of deception going on in the world. I found your other blog with the counterfeit heaven stories on it and I am in agreement with your viewpoint on it.
ReplyDeleteBut more and more I have this general annoyance, um, maybe anger and fear mixed in too, about how *good* the deceptions are. I think ahead to the tribulation where there will be lying signs and wonders. Lying signs and wonders. Is that happening now? I think people--Christians too--are ripe for the plucking.
The world is going to suck the antichrist right up...and he will have a false prophet with him.
These stories about near deaths, afterlives, glimpses of heaven and hell...maybe part of me thinks that *that* domain should remain God's and the devil shouldn't be allowed to play in that realm. Maybe everyone else thinks that too and believes he doesn't or can't.
But after being in charismania for ten years I know he does. I still think about stuff that happened to me that I can't categorize...yet God allowed it. Maybe as a test? I don't know. I feel like I got out--barely. Maybe He wanted to see what was in my heart...do I want the experience of the emotion more than I want Him?God help us all.
Sorry this is so rambling, but I just had to get it off my chest. I need to bring it to the Lord.
I think you're right, some people probably do think "that domain" is God's and the devil can't interfere with it. Charismania often promotes that sort of naivete as I recall from my own experience. Yes, take it to the Lord. Thanks for your comment.
ReplyDelete