In John 5:25-26: Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live."

In John 11:25-26: Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

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My Near Death Experience - I. S. Alcordo 

I have been married for the last 51 years to my high school classmate. We have four children, three boys and one girl, all married. We have eight grandchildren. My wife and I ive in the Philippines.

Our family has its roots in Carcar, Cebu, one of the provinces of central part of the Philippines. I and the whole family are Roman Catholics.

In 1952 at 17 years old, in order to finish high school, against the desire of my parents,   I went to an agricultural school in Mindanao (the big island in Southern Philippines) that required  a 12-hour over-the-ocean trip and then another 150 km bus ride over potholes and bumpy gravel road with only enough money to pay for the tuition fees.

In that school, you formed a group of 2 to 3 students who were then assigned to 3 to 5 hectares of land and given a carabao, a plow, and a harrow to cultivate the land. On the land, we dug our own wells, we built a small hut made of logs and bamboo slats for walling and flooring and cogon grass for roofing. We built our own bamboo beds. Until we harvested our first crop, we were provide sustenance by the school. We went to school half a day and worked on the land the other half of the day. From our produce, we fed ourselves, and from the sales of portions of it we raised cash for our needs and for tuition fees.

Because I came from a city, such life was hard work for me and that was the reason I got sick for 4 to 6 weeks, I could no longer remember how long, with very little food and no medicine. At noon, alone lying on my bamboo bed, I prayed to Jesus that “I want to go home.” Mine you, for reason I do not know, I was not thinking of home across the sea but home to him in heaven.

Suddenly, the roof and the walls vanished and I found myself still lying on my back on my bed with the immediate surrounding and the sky abnormally bright but not hurting to the eyes. The sky split open and a stairway emerged from the opening, which was far away as I can see, and slowly extended itself down to where I was lying, until the first step stopped right at the foot-end of my bed. A young men stood one at the left and another at the  right ends of each step, to as far away as my eyes can see, all dressed in white robes. Only at the first step was there a man standing at the center, between the two men, also similarly dressed in white robe. Intuitively, I knew him to be Jesus. Jesus then extended is hand to me. Something of me responded, that raised itself from the head to the waist of my body, and from the head to the waist of my body appeared to my conscious self not to exist anymore. In effect, that portion was dead. So were my two hands. At the same time, my conscious self (I) felt that the part of my body from the waist down to my feet was still alive, but numb. I extended my conscious right hand to reach the right hand of Jesus. But before our hands touched each other, he asked me in a mental communication, “Are you ready?” After some hesitation, I said, “No.” And the vision vanished. Without any medication I was back attending school and doing my share of working the land within a week's time.

Since then I have asked myself “who am I in relation to Jesus” to deserve such privilege to be received personally by him in death? Only in later years did I learn that Jacob (Israel) also saw a stairway to heaven extending from the ground up to the sky to the very limit of his sights.

From then on, my life changed forever. I have no fear of death whatsoever. Everything I asked the Father in the name of Jesus, I received in silver platter. Without spending a single cent of my own, I got the best education here and in the U.S., from my Bachelor of Science to my MS, to my Ph.D. degrees. Without any political clout, I became president of a regional state university in the Philippines at the age of 34 in 1970, the youngest in the country then until I was forced out in 1982 shortly after an unwise request to God.

While president in 1971, my 3-year old son, Raoul, was kidnaped by a group of land squatters to force me to release to them portions of the university reservation under my administration. I was never shaken that I will get back my son without any untoward incident, and I did late that night through some miraculous way.

In 1981, there was a assassination attempt on my life that killed my personal security guard and almost killed my son, Isabelo, Jr., who was born in the U.S., who was hit with 45-caliber bullets, but only flesh wounds, at five spots of his body. For those involved in the plot to kill me, a number of them died within three years of diseases and accidents and in the hands of other people after I gave them to the hands of God, in obedience to His words, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord” instead of taking vengeance myself, for which I had the resources to do so at that time.

It has been 57 years since my NDE. Since that day up to now I have lived a miraculous life. God in Jesus has been extremely gracious, merciful, good, and protective of me and of my whole family. To this very moment, I can truly say that everything I have, tangible and intangible without a single exception, I received from God the Father and from Jesus His Son. And not only to me but to whole family as welI. I am now going 75, healthy and extremely thankful for everything Jesus has done for me.  Before I do anything when I woke up each morning I thank God the Father in the name of Jesus for His mercy, graciousness, and goodness to me and to my family.   

With my near death experience, I believe that some time in 70 AD, upon the destruction of God's Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which marked the end of the Jewish Age and God's rejection of Israel as a Nation as His chosen people, the FIRST RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD also occurred which since then has been going on. Jesus declared this in Jn 11:25-26:

25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Jesus then asked, "Do you believe this?" With all my heart, spirit, and soul, I DO! I  pray that with my testimony, you can also say, "Yes, Lord, WE DO BELIEVE!"

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