This is a relatively short post, so I encourage you to first read a prequel post entitled “I was in the Presence of God” as it explains Dr. Timothy W. Ehrlich’s experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit and how he was transformed. It will give you a better understanding of his experience as described here. The following is an excerpt from his book, The Long Road to Eternity, now available on Amazon.
About an hour after my amazing experiencing of the presence of God I was sitting on the edge of my bed praying, still feeling the miraculous transforming afterglow of the event. It was not just that I still felt as if the molecules and atoms of my body had been realigned, I realized the Holy Spirit was also still on me in much power. As I prayed, I felt that God was telling me that He was pleased with me, and because the Spirit was still in me in such abundance, He was going to give me the power to travel in the Spirit to anywhere I wanted to go. I thought, “Hmm, where should I go? I must pick wisely.” Instantly I realized the perfect place was heaven.
So, while praying sitting straight up with my head back and my eyes closed, I quickly traveled upward through a tunnel of light. As I came to the end of the tunnel it seemed to propel me in between the clouds of heaven. I found myself soaring, flying above and around the clouds. I flew up and down and side to side, soaring for maybe thirty seconds in absolute bliss. I then slowed and came to a stop in the air; at which point I was met by a large angel. He came to a stop in the air near me and slightly above me. Above him and 50 feet or so behind him I could see two more angels, also in the air one over each of his shoulders. We were all motionless, in the air with no effort involved in holding our positions.
The three angels were dressed in white and had white wings. They all were focused on me and seemed a bit angry. The large one who was closest to me said, “You don’t belong here! You need to leave, now!” I responded, “Okay, sorry.” and immediately fell through a cloud and found myself in the mouth of the same tunnel I had come up in. I looked up and could still see heaven. As I was not in a hurry to leave, I was going as slowly as possible down the tunnel. While I could still see heaven, I heard one of the angels yells down to me, “Get rid of your lust!” At that time, the hole closed, and I was accelerating downward. through the tunnel and into my body.
I have never shared this experience with my congregation; I don’t even know how I would react if someone told me about a vision or experience like this. But even though I haven’t shared it with others, it helped me to understand a little more of what heaven is like, to know how real it is and how wonderful it is; and that has given me a lot of confidence as a pastor performing funerals to proclaim that the promise of eternal life with God is real and true. It also helped me redouble my focus and efforts on getting rid of my lust. The next time I get there I want to be able to stay.
A little bit later, on in that same day, I took my son Timmy with me to Shore Mariner, a condo complex on the beach. Some members of Oakhurst Church lived there, and they invited me to come over and bring Timmy so we could use the pool. I brought along my skin-diving mask and fins.
The condo complex has two pools, a large one that had several people in and around it and a small one that is about eight feet wide, ten feet long and about seven feet deep.
No one was in the small pool, so Timmy and I put our stuff on a table that was near that pool and we got in. After a little while Timmy got out and sat at the table and I stayed in. I put on my dive mask and asked Timmy to time me while I held my breath under water. As I floated there face down, I could still feel as if the molecules and atoms of my body were realigned such that I was still partly spirit. (link again)
After two minutes of floating face down the sensation of temporarily becoming a physical/spiritual amalgam in His presence was still on me so powerfully that I realized not only did I not feel a need to breathe after two minutes I didn’t even need to keep my lungs filled with air. I breathed out totally and sank slowly to the bottom. It was a beautiful blue-sky day, and the pool bottom was filled with reflected light. I was simultaneously enjoying the experience and amazed at what I was able to do: to breathe out after two minutes underwater and feel fine about sinking to the bottom!
I wondered how long I could stay there without breathing but as the seconds turned into minutes, I was still quite comfortable. I was praising God and thanking God continually. After a little while I saw a man walking around the pool, and he seemed to be looking at me. He appeared to be getting agitated and I knew that he thought I might be drowning. As soon as he jumped in, I pushed off the bottom and surfaced. I told him I was fine and thanked him for trying to save me, and he explained that I had been down there so long he was sure I was drowning. Timmy told me I had been under for five minutes and thirty-seven seconds!
I have been a scuba diver since I was sixteen and my record of holding my breath before this day was two minutes and thirty seconds. I have no idea how I did what I did other than God’s presence truly temporarily rearranged the molecules of my body. In my daily prayer I thank God letting me know that He always hears us even when we don’t think so, and for transforming the molecules of my body and enabling me to travel up to heaven in a vision and proving that he transformed the molecules of my body by enabling me to hold my breath for five minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
You can hear about the experience of another visitor to heaven in his video entitled “A Testimony – Witnessing Jesus Face to Face”. An intro and link to this video can be found at the “Stunning Vision Reveals Heaven’s Lobby” post.
Because it is related to this post you may be interested in the post entitled “What is Heaven?”
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Relevant Scripture
I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know that I was caught up to paradise…” (2 Corinthians 12:1b-4a NLT)
Spiritual Meditations 