Man in near death calls on God, who comes?

[Maria]

I have to add something to my first reply. I feel I was harsh. God guides people through many experiences. It's a learning process. Many turn from Christianity to non-Christian religions, but I've heard many stories of them finding Orthodoxy. Fr. Seraphim Rose is a great example. Also, many Protestants have found Orthodoxy despite their limited theological understandings.

So, I will say that this man has every chance of coming to the true faith in time.

I have great doubts that Jesus Christ visited him. He rarely visits the holy saints. So perhaps it was an angel of God, but this man wants to interpret it as Jesus Christ Himself. Or it could be a deception. Only time will tell who the source is.

Also, I would like to mention, that near death experiences are not death experiences. There is a great difference because a true death experience means you don't come back. But, in this man's case, he didn't even die.

So there are a lot of questions, but if this man is sincere about his faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then that is better than what he believed before.

If anyone thinks that a ghost, an angel, saint, the Theotokos, or Christ God has appeared to them, then he/she should hasten to tell the priest, who can help provide advice and discernment. While it is true that the devil, that shapeshifter, can appear as an angel of light, or even misrepresent to be the Theotokos or Christ Himself, the angels and saints have appeared to mere sinners to shake them out of their confused thinking and lead them to salvation.

The most important thing to remember is that the Church and her clergy are here to help. Prayer and fasting are also crucial.

In a book on the Holy Mountain, there is told the story about a monk who apparently was visited by Jesus Christ. He kept it secret and did not reveal this to his Elder. When the apparition told him at night, "Come follow me," the monk obeyed. He was led eye-closed to a cliff, and was told to take one more step and that he would be protected. A gust of sharp cold wind came up, and the monk opened his eyes and saw that if he were to have taken one more step, he would have surely fallen to his death. The vision immediately disappeared and the monk hurried in repentance to confess his disobedience to his spiritual father.

[Maria]

...

[Matthew]

Yes, There are many things that God can use to draw people to His True Church. One small step at a time, he unfolds things to them, because they will not be able to accept it all at once. It is a mystery why God has one person convert directly and quickly to the True Church whereas others are led down a long winding road through many different half-truths and half-light denominations. But we should not despise the day of small beginnings. It is in the case of some people the first small but necessary step towards the True Church.

God save us from the kinds of diabolical deceptions you mention, Maria. Lord have mercy. God help us never to desire or imagine ourselves worthy of anything miraculous so that we will never fall prey to the ego-stroking whisperings of the enemies of our souls.

Symeon

[joasia]

then he/she should hasten to tell the priest, who can help provide advice and discernment.

What priest? This man was muslim. He came to believe in Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour because of this experience. The evil one doesn't promote that. The evil one tries to make us believe that we can do it ourselves. I don't believe that it was Jesus Christ that came to him. If it was, he would have been led directly to true Orthodoxy. I think it was an intervention by an angel of God because this man was not ready to understand the full truth.

We have to be sympathetic to the conditions of someone who is going through this experience. We went through it ourselves.

[Maria]

Yes, we must be sympathetic.

I have known a lot of folks who are converts to True Orthodoxy. However, many were Protestants, some went through the Roman Catholic Church on the way to World Orthodoxy, and then finally came into True Orthodoxy.

Could it be said that God led them to the True Orthodox via this route?

Or should it be said that they were never Christians until their baptism in True Orthodoxy? Some do believe and teach that.

Perhaps I am wrong, but if a man, woman, or child, comes to believe in Christ through reading the Bible, and through the words of the Protestant Pastor, then I believe that there is a little grace at work here.
Through that Protestant Pastor, that person is being led to Christ ... not fully ... there is still a lot of work to do.
But in time, hopefully, that person will encounter the True Orthodox, and then be able to see and embrace True Orthodoxy.

A convert should be grateful to his Christian parents for raising him with Christian beliefs. If he is not, then he is ungrateful for all the time his parents spent in teaching him Biblical stories and the Lord's Prayers. We have so few priests and hierarchs in the True Orthodox Churches. Thus, we should be grateful that someone is sowing the seeds of faith for our priests and hierarchs to bring to the harvest.

If on the other hand, that person was raised by Muslim or Buddhist parents, then the journey would be more difficult, as that person would have more errors to renounce.

I do believe that God has guided me through my earliest days as a Catholic. I remember praying with devotion, perhaps a little misguided, but God was present to me, and He comforted me in my darkest hours. If I had not experienced that early faith in Jesus Christ, I doubt that I would have been led to True Orthodoxy.

Lord have mercy.

[Matthew]

then he/she should hasten to tell the priest, who can help provide advice and discernment.

What priest? This man was muslim. He came to believe in Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour because of this experience. The evil one doesn't promote that. The evil one tries to make us believe that we can do it ourselves. I don't believe that it was Jesus Christ that came to him. If it was, he would have been led directly to true Orthodoxy. I think it was an intervention by an angel of God because this man was not ready to understand the full truth.

We have to be sympathetic to the conditions of someone who is going through this experience. We went through it ourselves.

Yes, Joanna, sometimes the devil could be at the root of such experiences. Or as you say also, it could have been an angel trying to draw his soul on the right path, and that the devil was simply trying to "poison the well." Often when the Lord has blessed us or visited us in some grace, the devil is not long in trying to undo whatever good the Lord has done.

[Matthew]

Perhaps I am wrong, but if a man, woman, or child, comes to believe in Christ through reading the Bible, and through the words of the Protestant Pastor, then I believe that there is a little grace at work here.

A convert should be grateful to his Christian parents for raising him with Christian beliefs. If he is not, then he is ungrateful for all the time his parents spent in teaching him Biblical stories and the Lord's Prayers. We have so few priests and hierarchs in the True Orthodox Churches. Thus, we should be grateful that someone is sowing the seeds of faith for our priests and hierarchs to bring to the harvest.

I do believe that God has guided me through my earliest days as a Catholic. I remember praying with devotion, perhaps a little misguided, but God was present to me, and He comforted me in my darkest hours. If I had not experienced that early faith in Jesus Christ, I doubt that I would have been led to True Orthodoxy.

I don't know if Protestants or Catholics can or can't experience "much grace" outside the Church. I think grace must be hard to quantify. But as you note, God greatly helps people in those confessions in his compassion and love for mankind. And they recognise the presence of God. On the other hand, I have met many protestants and others who were deceived by their own acceptance that they were being led by the Spirit of God, but it was a lying spirit, doing a little good and then once trust is gained, slipping in a big lie.

One of the saints, perhaps St John Climacus, said that when he saw the temptations and trials that await the follower of Christ he thought, who then can be saved? How can anyone make it through such temptations and such deceptions unharmed? But it is the Mercy of God that we are saved. Thanks be to God. We have no other hope that in God the Trinity and the Holy Mother of God, as it says in our prayers.