These statistics courtesy Dr. R. Moody's Website © Copyright 2000 Theater of the Mind, All rights reserved

ANGELS, APPARITIONS & GRIEF

1) 66% of widows experience apparitions of their departed husbands.

2) 75% of parents experience apparitions within a year of death of the child.

3) 25% of Americans admit to seeing ghosts.

4) 33% of Europeans admit to seeing ghosts.

5) 7 reasons why society has tried to suppress mirror gazing:

1) Fear or the unconscious
2) Demonic Forces
3) Mirror gazers are charlatans/frauds
4) Conflicts with modern technology
5) Unscientific
6) Not real
7) A seedy game
6) 42% of Americans claimed to have contact with the dead.

7) NIWJ in LA (434 respondents) reported 44% were convinced they had several experiences of post mortem contact with the dead.

8) 60% of these involved dreams.

9) 25% reported dead person actually visited them.

10) More than 50% believe in life after death.

11) 44% of Canadians who catagorize selves as "very religious" believed communication with the dead is possible.

12) 42% of "somewhat religious" believed communication with the dead is possible.

13) 35% of "not very religious" believed communication with the dead is possible.

At the end of a meeting in October, 1953, I was praying whether we should go with mother to Miami. She said, "Come on, we'll take a month off, a vacation, and we'll have a meeting in December. We'll take a month off down there and renew old friends."
It sounded good. I always loved Miami and the beach and swimming, and the kids were crazy about it and were raring and ready to go. But I always wanted to make sure I was in the Lord's will. So I had been praying for the Lord's will and went to sleep.
It was the closing night of the meeting and now we really had to make our decision, whether we were going to go with my mother for another meeting in Florida or not. And going back to church for just this one meeting got me so sick of the churches that I really didn't feel like it!--And to go to Miami, that's one of the hardest fields in the whole world!

A DREAM WITH GOD'S INSTRUCTION
But that night, during the night, I had this dream. I realise now that I apparently was getting revelations then but I didn't really understand it. But I had this dream and I knew it was from the Lord.
The Lord showed me that we should go with my mother and hold the meeting, but then He wanted me to establish a Soul Clinic Missionary School there, to send missionaries to the Caribbean and the Latin American countries from there. It just all unfolded beautifully!
Miami was an ideal place for a missionary base for the Caribbean and Latin America. It was the gateway to Latin America. The Lord showed me that it would be the ideal place to have a Soul Clinic School to train missionaries. It was a beautiful dream, just like a picture!
But then I woke up and got to thinking about it. If you're really in tune with the Lord and you love the Lord and you're filled with the Spirit, and you're really seeking His will, usually your first reaction is the right one. God speaks first, then He lets the Devil talk to you to test your faith. And the minute I woke I got to thinking:
"Lord, that's a great idea! somebody really ought to do that, but you've got the wrong guy! I don't know a thing about running a Soul Clinic School. I taught school but I never had the responsibility of promoting anything like that!
"It takes money, you've got to have buildings and you've got to have advertising. You've got to have a radio or TV show like Fred Jordan, or something, you know!" Jordan had the only Soul Clinic School there was then. So I said:
"Lord, to get that job done you ought to get some real flashy kind of entertainment personality. You need somebody like that to go down there and push it and promote it and maybe get the churches to support it!"--Which shows you how far behind the times I was then! When we finally went at it with nobody but God behind us and strictly by faith, the Lord never failed us. But I said,
"Lord, I don't know a thing about that, I'm not the right man for the job! I'm too shy and timid and I don't think I could ever run anything that big. Lord, I'm living in this 18-foot trailer, a family of six with four kids, how in the world could I ever have a school?
"Where am I going to get that much faith for enough money to run a school that would cost probably several thousand dollars a month? I'm doing well now if I make $100 a month or even get just my food!"
The Lord tried to encourage me, but I said, "No, no, I'll tell you what I'll do Lord, I'll write Fred Jordan to send his right hand man down there, he's just the man for the job. It's a great idea, I'll sell Fred on the idea, and I'll get them to do it. Fred can do it, he's got money, he can finance it, he can support it, and can promote it and he can advertise it and he can go down and rent the buildings and he can send the students and they can do the job.
"Not me, Lord, not me! I know Miami, I know what a tough town that is! I love it, it's a beautiful wonderful climate, my favourite place to live, I love the beaches and swimming" (I even loved the Jews in those days!), "but I don't want to get involved in that kind of thing down there.
"No Lord, you get somebody else, not me! I don't mind going down with my Mother for a meeting but I'm not going to try any big project like that, I am not the man for the job!"
It was like that old Negro poem:

"De Lawd had a job fo' me
But I had so much to do
I said, 'You get somebody else,
Or wait till I get through!' I don' know how de Lawd come out,
But He seemed to get along
But I felt kinda sneakin' like
'Cause I knowed I'd done Him wrong. One day I needed de Lawd,
And I needed Him right away!
But 'way down in my accusin' heart
I could hear Him say: 'I'm sorry, Boy, I's got too much to do!
You get somebody else
Or wait till I gets through!' Now when de Lawd has a job fo' me
Ah never tries to shirk,
Ah lays down what I has on hand
An' I does de good Lawd's work!"

WAKING UP DEAD OUT OF MY BODY
So I rolled over after I said no to God and went to sleep. Now I really don't know whether I dreamed it or whether it actually happened, but it was just as real to me as you sitting right there right this minute! I think maybe it really happened!
The next thing I knew I was sitting up in bed, but my body was lying in the bed behind me! I was sitting half in it and half out of it, and my first feeling was "Ah, this is great! I feel light as a feather, I never felt so good! I don't feel heavy anymore!" I felt like I could just give a little shove and I'd just float right off! At first I felt great, then all of a sudden I thought!:
"If I'm dead, that means now I've got to go face the lord, and I just said no to the Lord!" And I mean that really scared me, thinking about facing the Lord, having just refused to do what He told me to do!
That room was only about 8 feet long and I was sleeping in the corner of the room on a couch that you folded down to make a bed at night.
And just that minute in the other corner of the room stood Dr. Koger!--Just as plain as day! He still had his white suit on, not a white robe, and he looked just like he always looked, exactly! He was standing there in the room just as plain as day, just as plain as I can see you right now!
Dr. Koger looked exactly like he did when he was in his prime in the early days in Miami when I was a kid, when he was his most magnificent. He looked in his 40s, in his prime, not as I knew him at the time of his death when he had grown old and was in his 70s.Oh, he was handsome, so handsome!
And he was looking at me with that look, and I just knew he was going to start to cry, like he was ashamed of me! He never had to say a word, he never said one word, but
I knew had come to get me! And he was taking me where I figured I was going to have to face the Lord and give an account of things! And right after saying no to the Lord I was really scared. He loved me, but I knew he was ashamed of me. He'd come for me to take me, but he was ashamed to!
And I'll tell you, I think I never felt so cheap in my whole life! I never felt so little and so mean and so horrible to think that I'd refused the Lord and now I had died and I had to go face the Lord!

A QUICK REPENTANCE AND RETURN TO LIFE
It was bad enough to face Dr. Koger, to me he was just like the next thing to God Himself, and to see him with that kind of reproachful sad expression on his face, like I'd really failed God. I never said words out loud but I was thinking,
"Oh my God, Lord, I'm sorry! Lord, if only there was some way I could get back! If only I had another chance!"--Right away, just like that, I woke up instantly and I was lying in the bed just like I'd gone to sleep! I said, "Okay Lord, I'm on my way!"--And we left for Miami the next day!
Of all the dead people I knew, Dr. Koger was the nearest and dearest and closest relative, you might say, of anybody I knew, and that's who came for me! God couldn't have chosen anybody I knew better or loved more or would have felt more at ease with. Oh, one thing I forgot to tell you!:
At first I was so scared, I thought, "Oh my God I'm dead and I've got to go face the Lord after telling Him no!"
Then I saw Dr.Koger!, My first feeling was, "Oh thank God, what a relief! Dr. Koger's come for me, so at least I know I'm headed for the right place!"
But when I saw the expression on his face I thought, "Oh my! I think I'd almost rather go to Hell, I really do, than to have to go face the Lord now!"
I was so ashamed! I understand now what that Scripture means: "And some shall awake to shame everlasting contempt!" (Dan.12:2.)
I'll tell you, I would have been certainly ashamed and felt deserving contempt if I'd had to go face whoever the judge was right then, to give an account of myself right after I'd just said a flat no to the Lord! "No, I will not do it, it's too hard a job, I don't think I could do it."
We took off for Miami the next day!--Just living and travelling by faith and trusting the Lord. I think I left with $30 in my pocket, but by the time we got to Miami we had $300!
And we had our school, thank You Lord! We built it up to where we had a staff of ten, and forty students. And we sent 38 missionaries to seven different countries and helped all kinds of other missionaries coming through there, some of whose works are still going! Everything the Lord had showed me in that dream that night came true, the whole thing!
That was one of the most supernatural miraculous amazing spiritual experiences I ever had! I died! So there it is! That's what happened and that's what Dr. Koger had to do with it. Dr. Koger practically scared me into it! The first time I ever met a real ghost, a genuine spook!--PTL!
Have you ever met a real ghost? It's quite an experience! Tell us about it and we'll tell you more, God willing. God bless you!--Love,--David Berg.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family