[I had this vision about a year ago, but did not plan to share it publically. However, God asked me to share it in a teaching series, PS 37, What Happens When We Die?. Now that the lessons have been published to the prophetic-school, I am sharing there here as well....]

One time the Lord gave me a vision of what happens when someone dies for Him. This vision probably took place in the north part of Nigeria, which is heavily Muslim. I don't know if God took me to a real incident or if this was some Heavenly scenario to show me some kingdom principles about what happens when someone lays down their life for the Lord.

I saw the first part of it from the perspective of being a person sitting in the congregation. This particular church was one of those churches where the leadership all sit on the front row, and the congregation sits behind them. I was somewhere in the congregation, very near the front.

A worship service was going on. Suddenly several black-clad Muslims came into the room. They had both machetes (big sword-like knives) and machine guns. One of them shot the machine gun into the air above him and many people screamed and tried to get up and run out of the building. The man near the exit shot the first person to approach the door and his body crumpled to the floor. The intruders demanded that everyone shut up and sit down. Everyone obeyed, except the pastor who remained standing at the front of the room.

One of the black-clad men walked up to him and said, "Are you the leader?" He said, "I am the pastor." The man took his machete and sliced it across the pastor's throat. I won't go into the gory details, but it was gory. The pastors eyes got really wide in disbelief. For a minute, he looked like he might try to say something, his lips moved but no words came out. Then he collapsed.

The wife had already jumped up and screamed "No!" She tried to run to her husband but one of the black-clad men stopped her. The man with the machete announced to the congregation that the same thing that happened to the pastor would happen to anyone who would not renounce their God and embrace Islam. Then he motioned to have the wife brought up to him. He asked her to renounce the name of Jesus. She said, "Never!" In response, he began to hack at her with the machete. She began to scream, but she would not renounce the name of Jesus. She fell on the floor but was not dead yet. He continued to hack at her for another minute or two until she did not move or make any sound.

I watched the whole thing in shock and horror. I was not sure if God had literally transported me there and I was in physical danger or if I was in a vision (and therefore safe from being martyred myself). I was horrified at what I was seeing and did not understand why God would show me this. I also felt frightened and I wondered if I was in physical danger.

In this vision, I was sitting very near the front. I could hear one of the lady leaders quietly praying under her breath, "Lord, I am willing to die for You but I am terrified of the pain. Help me to bear it and to die well for You." I was so moved by her prayer that I temporarily forgot my own fear. I started to agree with her for her prayer, that God would strengthen her, that He would keep her from feeling physical pain, that He would give her courage and peace, and stuff like that. She kept praying that same prayer over and over as they killed the man leader who was sitting next to her. I was busy interceding for her, so I did not really watch all of what they did to him. Then they grabbed her next and dragged her to the front.

The man asked her to renounce Jesus and she refused. I had been looking at her eyes, which were wide with fear, but still determined. All of the sudden her expression changed and it looked like some sort of peace came over her. The man hacked at her with his machete and she made no response. She did not cry out in pain and she did not move, but she did start to bleed. He continued for a few minutes and then backed away. She was deformed from his efforts and bleeding, but she somehow remained standing. She said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, "Lord, I forgive them. Please forgive them as well." Then she dropped to her knees and looked like she was about to collapse to the floor.

Right then I was taken into the heavenlies. I was no longer in that church building; I was in the midst of a large group of saints and angels standing before His throne. In this vision God's throne was a large raised platform made of gold and precious gems. The platform was composed of what looked like a series of squares that were on top of each other, each square a little smaller than the one below it. Those squares made steps going up to the top of the platform, with the steps on all four sides. There were three thrones (seats) on the platform. I don't know how I knew this, but I knew that those seats were for each member of the Trinity. The Father and Jesus were both in seats, but the Holy Spirit's seat looked empty. I wondered why His seat was empty but I did not dare ask anyone, for this was a very solemn and magnificent setting. Suddenly I just knew the answer (which I am guessing was God answering my unverbalized question: "The Holy Spirit is not on His throne right now because He is currently on the earth in each believer living there.")

The raised square platform was very large and an interesting thing was happening on it. It was as if a three dimensional hologram of the scene in the church was being projected on the platform in front of the three thrones. I saw the lady, still on her knees. She was silent but her lips were moving. It looked like she was saying, "I love you Jesus."

The Lord said, "Bring her home." Immediately two angels were beside her, and one took hold of each of her upper arms. Then she fell face forward on the ground, and the angels still had hold of her, bending over her as she fell to the ground. Suddenly the background of the church and the terrorists all vanished and it was just the lady and the angels on the platform. She was not wearing her Sunday church dress any more, she was now clothed in a white robe. The angels let go of her but stood beside her.

Then I noticed that the other four who had died were also standing on the platform, not far from God's throne, and they were also dressed in white robes: the man who had been shot, the pastor, his wife and the male elder. They all had big smiles on their faces and they all had crowns on their heads. They were radiant, almost too bright to look at. I don't know how I knew it, but I knew that what I was seeing was the glory of the Lord reflecting on them.

All of Heaven's attention was fixed on the lady who was now laying face down on the gold platform before God's throne. I focused my attention on her as well.

"Well done, Daughter. I am pleased with you." The Lord spoke from His throne. His voice was sweet and full of melody, but it was also strong and powerful and sounded like rolling thunder.

She began to move and she raised herself up to a crawling position and crawled over to Jesus' throne. She was crying, but they were not frightened tears and they were not sad tears and she did not appear to be in any more physical pain. She seemed to be weeping in gladness at seeing the Lord. She wrapped her arms around Jesus' legs and put her face against His feet and just cried for a while. Jesus put His hand on her head in a tender gesture. She sighed a sigh of delight. All of heaven seemed to sigh with her in what felt like a corporate sigh. It was as if everyone was experiencing her joy and delight in seeing her Lord face-to-face and physically touching Him for the first time. She began to worship Him and all of Heaven began to worship along with her.

I think she would have been content to stay there forever. Time was very "fuzzy" in this vision. In one sense it felt like we had been there for an extremely long time (hours and hours) and in another sense it felt like no time had passed at all. I was worshipping along with the others around God's throne, but I was not able to enter into it as fully as they were. After a while, I began to ponder the time question. How long had we been doing this?

An angel came up to me and told me, "Time in Heaven is different than time on earth. On earth things progress from one minute to the next and you are trapped within its flow. In Heaven we are able to pull out of the flow of your time and do what seems like years and years worth of things and then pop back into the flow of earthly time as if no time had passed at all." I was surprised he had answered by unspoken question, but I was also grateful. That answer made sense to me. I guessed that each of the other four martyrs standing on the throne's platform had all received a similar welcome when they died. The angel nodded his head as if saying "Yes" to my speculation.

Then I began to feel bad that I had been thinking about this instead of being lost in worship like everyone else is. I guessed that my inability to worship like the others must be displeasing to the Lord. The angel addressed that concern as well.

"You are not able to enter into worship as fully as you one day will because you are still hindered by your human body and carnal nature. This lady is worshipping unencumbered for the first time in her life, and we are all joining in with her and celebrating this with her."

The worship continued and I entered into it again, feeling less encumbered and less self-aware. My worship took the form of looking at Jesus and adoring Him. I could not see Him clearly in this vision, He was very bright, sort of like the shining sun, and I could not make out a lot of details. It should have hurt my eyes to look at Him, but it did not. Part of the time I would look at Him alone and adore Him for Who He was. Part of the time I would look at Him interacting with the lady who was worshipping Him. His hand was still on her head, gently caressing it. I could not see His face because of the radiance, but I knew He was smiling at her and I knew there was a love and a tenderness in His eyes towards her. It made me think about wonderful He is to His own, and that made me adore Him all the more.

Then something happened as I worshipped and adored Him. I knew He was interacting with that lady, the one who had just so courageously laid down her life for Him. But it felt like His attention was also on me and I felt His great love towards me as well. I found myself getting lost in His goodness, it was so overwhelming. The more I worshipped Him, the closer I felt to Him and the greater awareness I had of His attention and His pleasure on me.

Then I made a mistake. I began thinking about and analyzing what I was experiencing instead of keeping my focus on Him. I "knew" that He could not possibly be focusing His attention on me because He was focusing it on the lady who had just been martyred. This was her moment and it was fitting and right for the Lord to focus His undivided attention on her.

"Teresa." The Lord spoke directly into my mind and not audibly, but it was clearly and definitely His voice. "What makes you think that I am not big enough to focus My undivided attention on her and on you and on all who are here before My throne worshipping Me?"

"Lord," I whispered, "the definition of undivided is that it is fully on one one thing. How can you put your attention fully on her and on something else at the same time?"

"That is one of the advantages of being God. I am not limited the way you are. I can give her such attention that it feels to her like she has My undivided attention and at the same time do the same thing for everyone else here, including you." All of the sudden I had this sense of God's vastness and it was incredibly overwhelming. He was so big and so great. I felt scared by what I was sensing. Then Jesus whispered, "Don't be afraid. I did not bring you here to be afraid." As He said that, all of the fear left me and I was back to adoring Him.

I don't know how long it went on, but I do know that He talked to me several times as I worshipped Him in this manner. I don't remember everything He said, but I do remember one thing. At one point He said, "All of My angels and all of My perfected saints are always looking for any excuse to worship Me. The excuse at this moment is My martyred daughter worshipping Me unencumbered for the first time."

At one point I remember thinking that He was getting the short end of our worship because He was blessing me more than I could possibly be blessing Him. He seemed to be giving out more in blessing than He was receiving in worship. He told me that He is a big God, much bigger than all of His creation, and it will always be uneven like this. I got the impression that part of the reason Heaven likes to worship so much is because there is such a sense of glee and delight and joy when He interacts back to us as we worship. In the past I had always seen worship as one-sided; I thought of it as us blessing Him. But as I experienced this corporate Heavenly worship, I realized that worshipping God is a very relational thing with Him. Worship is not one-sided, it can't be.

Worship is coming into God's presence and interacting with Him. When we interact with Him and see His goodness and feel His nearness...WOW! Being there with Him like that was the most wonderful experience I ever had, it felt so great to have His loving attention focused on me and to feel His pleasure. That is what it must feel like for people in heaven all of the time. It is relational and He is a very good and a very giving God. No wonder Heaven is always looking for excuses to worship Him!

I have no idea how much time passed. But now Jesus was standing up and He was lifting the recently martyred lady to her feet. She appeared to be as overwhelmed and undone by Him (in a good way) as I had felt during the worship. He wrapped His arm around her and led her away to be alone with Him. As they walked away, everyone gathered before His throne began to break out into applause. I found myself clapping and cheering as well. I was not sure if I was clapping and cheering for her and for how valiantly she had laid down her life for the Lord, or if I was clapping and cheering for Him. The angel leaned over and whispered, "It is for both of them. No Saint can do anything without Him, but they must choose to cooperate with Him when He asks something of them."

You would think that by now I would be getting used to angels leaning over and answering unspoken questions, but it still caught me by surprise. Then I was filled with delight and found myself laughing as I continued to applaud and cheer.

It did not seem like they were gone very long. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when the Lord came back with this lady. She was different, she had been transformed. For one thing, she glowed like the others and I had to squint to look at her. For another thing, she walked beside her Lord with a confidence, and all tentativeness was gone from her. The angel whispered to her, "She is secure in His love for her and she has been transformed." I remember thinking "Wow, that was fast." Then the angel reminded me that time in Heaven is different than time on earth, and many years' worth of things can happen for one person in what seems like just a few minutes to another.

Everyone was still cheering when they returned, and the cheers got louder. There was something celebratory about them, as if all of Heaven was celebrating her arrival. Jesus kissed her on the forehead, gave her a big hug (she hugged back with this huge smile on her face) and then He released her. He went back to His throne and sat down. The people (angels and transformed saints) around her began to hug her and to greet her. It reminded me a lot of warm/loving fellowship at church.

I knew that I was different than everyone there--that I still had my carnal, sinful nature and no one else there did. I did not approach her because I felt a bit unclean compared to the holiness and purity that everyone else had. I did not want to dirty or contaminate her moment. But to my surprise, she purposely made her way over to me.

"I wanted to thank you." she said.

"You wanted to thank me??" That did not make any sense to me at all. She was the one who had heroically and bravely laid down her life for the Lord. All I had done was watch, and throw up a few prayers for God to strengthen her in that.

"God told me that He brought you here to be my intercessor in this and that you were with me when I died."

"Well, yes, but..." I stopped. I did not know what to say to her. I did not really have any part in what she had done, I was mostly an observer. I was obviously in some type of vision and it began to dawn on me that what might be a vision for me might have been real to her. I really did not understand what was going on or how to act. So I just stood there and let her talk.

Then she explained things to me. The Lord had told her that morning when she woke up that He was going to ask something hard of her that day, but she should not worry because He would help her. She had no idea what He was talking about, but since God said it would be "hard," she asked Him if He would please raise up intercessors for her. He told her that He'd not only raise some up, He'd actually send one from a foreign land to be physically there with her when she did the "hard thing."

She seemed to feel that I was the intercessor God sent in answer to her prayer. (That was a bit of a surprise to me, since I don't really think of myself as much of an "intercessor" any more.) But she was convinced that I was the answer to her prayer and she was excited that He had answered it. She was also thrilled that I had been able to worship with her the first time she worshipped free of her carnal nature. Actually that worship had been a highlight for me, and I did not see it as doing her any sort of favor or service. I saw it as just getting blessed by God.

"I want to tell you something," she continued.

"Ok."

"I want you to know that your prayer worked--I did not feel any pain when that man was cutting me with the machete. The Holy Spirit was on me so strongly and I felt this incredible joy and peace. The fear all left me just before they started to kill me. It wasn't really all that hard because the Holy Spirit was on me so strongly and He helped me so much. God was so good to me in how He helped me."

I said, "Wow!"

Then she said, "And it is going to be the same way for you when you die. The Holy Spirit will come on you and you won't feel any pain at all."

Her statement brought me to a mental flashback of the early days of the renewal, back in 1995. I had accidentally severed a tendon in my thumb, and I had surgery to reattach it. My left hand was in a surgical cast and was very sensitive to any bumping or jostling. When I got prayer at the renewal, I was slain in the spirit and ended up laying on a cement floor. The presence and power of God came on me and I began shaking like crazy. My hands were making chopping motions at my side and my cast kept clanking loudly on the cement floor. I remembered thinking that should hurt, but I felt no pain at all, because the Holy Spirit was on me so strongly. That was when God told me that when He asked me to lay down my life for Him, He would come on me just like that again, and it would not hurt! This lady was now telling me the same thing God had told me long ago. The memory flashed back as she made that statement. Then it felt like the Holy Spirit was laughing and telling me, "See, I told you so!"

I said, "Thank you." Then I silently wondered if God did that for everyone who He called to lay down their lives for Him. That angel who had been answering my unspoken questions leaned over to me, and said, "No, not for everyone, but for many of them."

Suddenly our attention was caught back to the throne. It seemed as if the church scene with the black-clad terrorists martyring believers was appearing on the platform again. The lady who had just been martyred said to me, "Oh, I need to go," and she began walking toward the platform. She took two or three steps and suddenly she vanished before my eyes and reappeared on the platform standing next to the four others who'd died for the Lord. I was reminded of a passage in Acts 8:36-39. In that passage, right after Philip finished baptizing the Ethiopian, God suddenly transported him to Azotus, the next city (some distance away) where he was to preach. Someone had used the word "tele-transported" to describe how God instantly relocated Philip from one location to another. I thought to myself, God just tele-transported her back to the platform. I wondered if people traveled that way a lot in Heaven. I glanced to my right to see if the angel was going to answer my unspoken question, but he remained silent.

I began to focus my attention to the scene before the Lord's throne, where another saint was about to lay down his life for the Lord. Right then, the angel said to me, "This is not for you to see at this time, but I have something else to show you."

All of the sudden we (the angel and I) were transported to be right next to the bottom step of the platform where the Lord's throne was. We were so close to it that I wanted to reach out and touch it, as if touching the step to His throne would somehow allow me to experience more of His glory. I just wanted to be closer to Him. But that was not why the angel brought me there.

We were not in the same scene as before. The martyred saints from earlier in the vision were no longer on the throne, but were standing before it, not far from where I was standing.

Two angels had a hold of one of the black-clad men who had been martyring believers earlier in the vision. I don't know how I knew it, but I understood that some amount of time (weeks or maybe years) had passed. Each angel had hold of one of the man's arms and then escorted the man to stand just before the first step up the platform to God's three thrones. The man was clearly terrified. The angels were not harsh with him, but they also made no effort to comfort him. They were not unkind, but they were very matter-of-fact. There was a space cleared around the man and the two angels who held him.

The man looked terrified, but at the same time, he looked weak and unable to stand on his own. I am pretty convinced that if the angels had let go of him, he would have collapsed to a heap on the floor. The Lord's attention turned to him, and the rest of Heaven's attention followed the Lord's gaze. Every eye was focused on this man.

I don't know how to explain it, but it was as if God suddenly turned up the intensity of His manifest holiness. When we'd been worshipping earlier, I was mostly aware of God's love and His goodness. But that changed in an instant, and the sense of God's holiness began to swallow everything else up. I don't think it bothered the other people and angels around God's throne, because all of them had been perfected. But I was still in my carnal body.

The more I became aware of God's holiness, the more I became aware of my own sin and shortcomings. I felt terrified just being near the radiance of His holiness, even though I knew His attention was not directed at me. I found myself silently pleading to be covered by the blood of Jesus. I was pretty close to nonfunctional and must have looked like a blithering idiot. I started to collapse in a heap before the Holy One, but the angel held me up. He blew gently in my face and I felt strength pouring back into my legs until I was able to stand on my own again. I think that might have been symbolic of the Holy Spirit breathing His strength into me, but I am not sure. At any rate, the angel kept hold of my left arm to support me, just under my shoulder.

When the Lord began to speak, everything shook like an earthquake and a strong sense of His power emanated from His throne. I remembered the verses in Revelation about voices sounding like "thunder" or like "seven thunders" and I thought that was a pretty accurate description of what His voice sounded like at that moment. (John 12:29, Revelation 6:1, Revelation 10:3-4, Revelation 19:6).

I was so terrified at one point that I hid my face in the angel's shoulder. The angel let me stay there a few minutes, then he gently took my chin and turned my head to look at the black-clad man. He was clearly more terrified than I was, and with very good cause. He did not have the blood of Jesus to cover his sin, and he was the subject of God's judgment attention. That was not a good place to be!

"What do you have to say for yourself?" The man was too terrified to speak, but it was as if I could suddenly hear some of this thoughts. He was very puzzled because he expected to go to Paradise for his "services" to his god. But instead of standing before his god, he was before the living and true God, and that God was not at all pleased with him. He began to mentally review his "services" to his god (some of which seemed like terrorist types of activities to me). I am not sure, but I think he expected God to be impressed by them, but He was not. I know I felt appalled by them and I wondered if that was what God was feeling. Then the man began to think about all those times he had prayed and observed religious ceremonies. He had been faithful to drop what he was doing and face the right direction and pray three times a day. God was not impressed by his faithfulness and He said, "Those prayers were not to Me and I do not receive them."

The angels let go of the man and he fell face-down before the Lord. He seemed unable to move. He did not even raise his head to look at God. He seemed to be much more terrified than I was and he was whimpering and sobbing.

I cannot remember all of the thoughts the man had or all of the words that God spoke to him. I was so scared myself by the manifest holiness of God that it was hard to pay full attention to everything that was going on. I don't know what I would have done if I did not have the blood of Jesus covering my sin. (Even when I thought back about it to write it up for this lesson, it was too intense for me and I had to take a few breaks while writing this portion of this lesson.)

The man was held accountable for the blood of the martyrs who he had helped to kill. They were present and standing beside him as God held him accountable. He was judged for a lot of other things as well. Then, since he did not have the blood Jesus covering his sins, he was sentenced to eternal separation from God. He was screaming and crying and whimpering as they took him away.

By the time they took the man away, I was in tears myself. I am not sure if I was crying out of sympathy for him and the sad destiny that awaited him, or if I was crying out of my own fear. I was concerned that the Lord might turn His attention to me next. I was so keenly aware of His holiness and of my own sinful nature and of how far short I fell of His mark. The last part of the vision was very hard for me because I saw a side of God that really scared me--the Holy God and the Righteous Judge.

Then all of Heaven began to worship the Lord again. I wanted to join in, but I could not--I was still terrified. Then Jesus caught me away to a quiet place where it was just me and Him. He told me that what I saw was for unbelievers and my own judgment experience would be quite different; it would not come from a place of terror and fear. He told me it wasn't time for me to experience my final evaluation yet, But when I did, it would not be a bad experience, because I was His.

Then He sort of turned down the manifest holiness and turned up the sense of His love and goodness. I was not fully in the vision any more, I was sort of in a place of quiet-time worship now, only His presence seemed stronger and more tangible than it usually does.

After a little while His presence lifted and I was sitting on my sofa where I had been when the vision started.