"11 Months In A Coma, And God's Amazing Love And Mercy!" The doctor said disconnect him!

11 months in a coma and God's amazing love and mercy. That's our message. The text is taken from Lamentations 3.

It was the last day of 2024 and I had promised a friend that I would give some assistance to a man who had been very ill, and was now unable to work. As the year was expiring rather quickly, I needed to get it done before it was all over. I felt a strong urge to complete this project before 2025. As I approached the fence leading to the duplex apartment where he lived, there he was sitting behind the closed gate, waiting for me. He was sitting in a walker with wheels and even though he was sitting I could see that he was a fairly tall man with broad shoulders. As he greeted me, I could see that his movements and his speech were very slow, and somewhat unsteady, but his smile was warm and genuine. Clearly, he had been through a whole lot, nevertheless, his mind seemed to be quite sharp. Chris which is not his real name lived alone in a single room at the rear of the left side of the duplex.

He was very grateful for the gift. My friend had told me that Chris had been in a coma, and I was curious to know more about what had happened to him. Am often told that I ask too many questions. But I always feel a need to know, because information is power. And I just might be able to help someone by what I may learn! And he was quite willing to share. As he talked about his ordeal, I listened intently. He told me that, one day he started feeling really bad, and he asked a friend to drive him to the hospital. While in the waiting room of the hospital he blacked out, and did not awaken until 11 months had passed by.

Father we give You thanks and praise for this message. Send it forth under the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Give understanding to The Listener in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

He said he remembers two things, in fact two significant things about his many months of Oblivion. The first is that he was constantly feeling a lot of pain! To me this sounded like a kind of tormented state day after day. He said that the second was that he was always asking the Lord to forgive him his sins! This went on for 11 months which is unusual for someone who's in a coma. Then one day after hearing no sounds for quite a while, he suddenly started hearing loud talking and laughter and it woke him out of his Rip Van Winkle like sleep. And when he opened his eyes, almost all of his eight surviving siblings from his mother's marriage were in the hospital room, talking and laughing. But before bringing him out of the coma, the Lord had given him two unmistakable warnings for him to carry with him! But first I need to share with you more about Chris's Life as a youth, and as a young man. Chris had an unstable upbringing. While his mother was pregnant with him, his father left the Bahamas and went to find work on the Florida contract like many Bahamian men did in those days. Many of them returned to their families after a few years, but Chris's dad remained in the US and so his mother was left to bring him up by herself. And sometime later she married someone else but the first time that Chris saw his biological dad he was 12 years old. They liked each other right away and he said he was the splitting image of his dad. But even though he loved his mother, he said, that life with her had not been easy. Apparently she was filled with bitterness toward his dad, and at times he felt that she took her anger out on him and the other children. He said that she gave him many licks on his head with the broomstick and when she would beat him this way it left lumps in his head. Chris became very rebellious and now he was also full of anger!

Sometime later his mother became a minister in the Church of God of Prophecy and she told him about God. He believed somewhat. In fact he had gone to a Catholic Church in his community, and the priest had poured holy water on his head to baptize him. He said he remembers standing there barefoot at the time. But his soul was full of anger, and he did not know what to do with it. And so he resisted The Father's call to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior for many many years.

Chris was ambitious, and adventurous. From the age of 13 or 14 he worked a job after school to pay his high school fees. He was good at basketball, and had a dream to go to the US and play ball in college. At the age of 16 he ventured out and traveled to the US on his own, hoping to finish high school in Florida! But he had no plan of how he would make it. At some point a wealthy Bahamian benefactor at the request of one of his friends, agreed to pay his final two years of high school in the US. But when he arrived in Florida, he had no place to live! The Lord smiled on him again, and a Bahamian couple living in Florida took him into their home for a few years. From there he went to college, but did not finish. He got married in Florida, and he and his wife had a couple of children. Unfortunately, the marriage was not so happy, and so they parted going their separate ways. He returned to the Bahamas, and after a while his wife mailed him divorce papers, which he said he signed and returned.

Chris's sad story brings to mind the words from the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah in which he says, I am the man who has seen misery because of the rod of His wrath. He has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. Indeed, He has turned His hand against me repeatedly all the day. He has made me live in dark places, like those who have long been dead. He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; he's made my chain heavy, Lamentations three. Truly Chris had experienced misery anger pain and bitterness from his youth. I am sure that he felt many times that God had deserted him or did not even exist. Nevertheless he was about to experience God's mercy in an amazing way! He would discover that the Lord acts of mercy indeed do not end for his compassions do not fail. They are new every morning. Just the way it is laid out in Lamentations 3. And so he would discover that according to this scripture the Lord's faithfulness is great indeed.

But now it was 2024 and there he was, 57 years old, waking up from an 11 month comatose state. A coma in fact is a state of prolonged loss of consciousness, which can happen for a number of reasons, including traumatic head injury, stroke, brain tumor, drug or alcohol intoxication. And it may also be caused by underlying illnesses. But no number of external stimuli such as sounds or sensations can cause the brain to become awake and alert again when someone is in a coma! A person in a coma cannot even respond to pain. 11 months in a coma is a long time, but there are cases in which people have been in a coma even longer. There was one person who had been in for 37 years, others who had been in for 27 and 29 and 30 years.

When Chris awoke, he was lying in a hospital bed, and unable to lift his legs. In fact he could not move. He had no idea how he got there or what had happened to him. He neither knew the day, nor the year that he was in. It would be a while before he would be able to make a few steps. But what is interesting is that the day that he awoke, his siblings on his mother's side had all come from Florida to see him.

But just before bringing him back to consciousness the Lord showed Chris two warnings in the form of visions. Here's the first one. Shortly before opening his eyes, he had an out of body experience. In fact he felt like he was soaring high above the Earth, and he could see things happening down below. In fact he saw a yard that had a white building that might have been a church. And there were thousands of people in the yard trying to get into that building, but there were no windows and no doors, in the building! And no one was able to get in, even though they were trying very hard.

The scene of the church yard reminds me of how it will be on that fateful day when many will say Lord, Lord! But according to Matthew 7:22, the Good Master will say, "depart from Me, I never knew you!" In addition in Revelation 6 we are told, many of them will cry out in anguish to the mountains and the rocks pleading with them to fall on them, and hide them from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb of God. At that time there will be no one to rescue them! And the church doors indeed will not be open to them any longer, because the bridegroom, who is Jesus Christ would have come and gone carrying the Church of God with him.

It appears that the Lord had used the familiar voices of Chris's brothers and sisters to penetrate his dormant brain, and pull him out of that dark dungeon that he'd been in for 11 months. But where was he for all those months? Perhaps he had been somewhere between heaven and hell. Or, you might say he had been in, 'No Man's Land,' or in purgatory as the Catholics believe. Nevertheless a temporary and miserable state of existence.

Now we come to the second vision that the Lord showed him before awaking him out of his deep sleep of death. Chris said that, all of a sudden, he began to fall from the sky swiftly. He plummeted to the Earth rapidly, heading for a crashed landing! He said that he landed very hard, falling between what appeared to be a toilet and the wall! And I said to him thank God you did not fall into that toilet! But make no mistake about it Chris this was another clear message to you from God. I told him that, the Lord chose to allow him to miss the toilet which perhaps represented hell and death. And the the hard landing on the ground was indicative of the seriousness of his rejection, and a warning to get his life together! Chris had never been born again, and so I believe the Lord spat him out of his mouth.

This vision put me in mind of Christ's warning to the Laodiceans in Revelation. He told them that He knew their works, and that they were neither cold nor hot, and how he wished that they would have been either one or the other. However, because they were lukewarm, He promised to spit them out of His mouth, which means to reject them! Perhaps Chris was given this second chance, because of his mother's prayers, or maybe because he had a good heart. Or just maybe the Lord planned to use him as an ambassador for the kingdom! Or it simply might have been the mercy of an ever loving, ever compassionate God! But the warnings are clear.

When I heard the story, I saw it as a snapshot of God's grace and God's mercy. This man had no control over his life, over where he was, over what was happening to him for 11 solid months! He could not move his body, and was as good as dead! Yet, God sent people to clean him up and take care of him every day, 24/7. Because of His Son Jesus Christ He saw fit to snatch him out of the dark dungeon and bring him back to the Earth. He gave Chris another chance to repent of his sins, and to come to know this gracious and wonderful Savior who sacrificed His life for him. Today, Chris says that he's a born again believer in Christ. Physically he's a mere shadow of the tall 6 foot 2, 280 pound man that he had been, because he lost 100 pounds during the 11 month ordeal in the hospital. But God is returning him to strength! He now uses a walker to get around, but with some therapy he will become stronger! However it is important for Chris to come to the Lord properly and make sure that his soul is right. Because next time it will not end too well for him if he has not worked out his salvation with fear and trembling which we are all encouraged or warned to do. May God bless and keep you in the precious and the holy name of His Son Jesus Christ.

You've been listening to this message and perhaps you do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We want to give you an opportunity to make that commitment today. Please say this prayer once you have engaged your heart:

-Father I am a sinner.

-Please forgive me my sins. All of them Lord.

-I crave Your forgiveness.

-I need Your forgiveness and I want to return to You.

-Thank You Lord for Your forgiveness.

-Today I invite Jesus Christ into my heart.

-Dear Lord Jesus make my heart Your home.

-I give You the key to my heart because I now belong to you forever.

-Please give me the Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth.

-Thank You Lord for saving my soul. Amen.

Welcome friend to the body of believers in Christ. There are so many of us here awaiting the return of the Good Master. In the meantime we want to encourage you to become water baptized as quickly as possible.

Begin reading the Word of God every day. Begin in the Book of John and then go to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, reading audibly as often as possible. Because faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Pray daily. Attend at your local church. And one glad morning the Savior will come and receive us all unto Himself and we shall forever gloriously wonderfully be with the Lord. God bless and keep you in Jesus mighty name. Amen.