I was thinking about death. I guess I experienced “bad death” just before I turned 21. I had a near death experience that wasn’t one of those “the-angel-introduces-you-to-Jesus” experiences. Nope, I got the other guy. And rightly so.

I was an utter atheist and I enjoyed trying to break the faith of any quasi-Christians that came across my path. But when I was very nearly pulled out of my body by the spirit of darkness, there was a terror and a bundle of emotions which don’t really have words to reflect them in English.

I was experiencing a bad death. I didn’t believe in God and I was very nearly at the edge of the precipice into eternity and everlasting life but in an unregenerate state.

This was the experience of the unsaved because that was how I was at that time, passing out of my body and into eternity but without salvation in Jesus. If you have read much about folks who have life-after-death experiences or near death experiences, one continually striking characteristic is that almost everyone finds it hard to describe what they experienced.

And I believe it’s because they’re trying to describe experiences and realms that our language just doesn’t have words for, or at least very little. So folks think that those who experience these things are just making it up. Or they are in some kind of strange place in their minds and that they will soon “return to their senses”.

But so often those who have gone through these things say that actually and really, those experiences were more real, more true and more containing the essences of life than what we mostly all experience on a day-to-day level. And I can certainly agree with that. So I went through, or at least nearly so, a “bad death”. The death of the unsaved.

And as folks age, as we all do, we often think more of death. For me, I have to comfort myself in the thought that my death at the end of my life will not be what I experienced just before I turned 21. I experienced a “bad death”. And I deserved that at that time because I’d “mocked the messengers of God and despised His word and misused his prophets” (II Chronicles 36:16) so that the Lord allowed me to receive what I deserved, right up to the very point of death and eternal damnation.

But that was what it took to deliver me from atheism. That was the most major turning point in my life and the dawn and beginning of a life of faith, belief and deliverance in God. Some months later I received Jesus as my Savior and after that have served Him in many countries for over 50 years.

Now in my 70’s, longevity in my genes, I look forward to the point somewhere ahead when I do experience what we all experience. “So death passed upon all men…” (Romans 5:12) But that death ahead of me will not be like what I went through over 50 years ago. That coming death will be what can be called a “good death”. Paul the Apostle said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”. (Philippians 1:21)

Death for a Christian, although this goes against so much of our “carnal mind” as the Bible calls it, is actually a release, a graduation, a transition and an alteration into the condition God has planned and ordained for His children and saints since the beginning of time. Jesus said, “Whosoever believes in Me shall never die.” (John 11:26)

So my experience from when I was 20 is not really a good analogy for me to use when thinking ahead to what that experience will be at the end of my life. Maybe in some ways it is because I did experience that sudden, shocking and complete change that occurs. But back then, it was from this world into a so much worse world of horror and meaningless confusion that words fail to describe. I experienced the terrors of hell in its eternal state.

But the “good death” to come for me will have a few similarities but mostly be utterly different. I won’t be falling into bottomless nothingness forever. I will be leaving this physical plane, this earthly existence and going on to inherit the destiny that’s been planned and prepared for me by the Lord since the foundation of the world.

That’s what the people of faith, the people of Jesus, have to look forward to at the end of their lives. Their carnal minds may still grown and creak with the whole concept of “eternal life”. But that’s ok. Like God said to Job, “Shall it be according to your mind?” (Job 34:33) No, it will not be according to our carnal, worldly minds and understanding.

“Now unto him that shall do exceeding abundantly, above all we can ask or think…, unto Him be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end.” (Ephesians 3:20 & 21)   I’m looking forward to a good death. How about you?