What Happens After Death? NDE Stories

A Pastor Died in 1743 and Saw the Glory He Couldn't Describe | William Tennent NDE

What Happens After Death? NDE Stories

Show Notes

They made his burial arrangements twice.

In 1743, the beloved Presbyterian pastor William Tennent Jr. of Freehold, New Jersey, fell so ill that everyone around him was certain he was gone. His pulse faded to nothing. His breath stopped. His physicians and family prepared to bury him, not once but twice, while his body lay still and lifeless for three entire days.

Then William Tennent opened his eyes, and he was weeping.

This episode tells the true story of one of colonial America's most remarkable near-death experiences, recorded by his brother Gilbert and preserved in "The Life of the Rev. William Tennent" (1822). Tennent said his soul had been taken from his body and carried up through the heavens into the very presence of the glory of God. He saw a light and splendor beyond any human description, and tasted a joy so deep that he desperately wanted to stay forever. He was sent back to earth against his will, and for three days after his return he could do nothing but weep at the loss of that heavenly vision.

The experience remade his life and ministry. He preached for thirty-four more years with a power that astonished everyone who heard him, and his brother recorded that he seemed like a different man, carrying the memory of God's glory everywhere he went.

Historians of near-death phenomena now regard Tennent's account as one of the earliest and most detailed NDEs in American history, containing every classic element: the separation of consciousness from the body, the overwhelming light, the encounter with the divine, the reluctance to return, and the transformation that followed.

His testimony has comforted the dying and strengthened the faithful for nearly three centuries. Listen and decide for yourself what William Tennent saw on the other side of death.

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