Second Chance :Pastor raised from the dead in Nigeria.
Daniel Ekechukwu
Nigerian Pastor who was raised
from dead
in 3 days!
On November 30, 2001, Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu's
brakes failed and his car slammed into a concrete
pillar. He was rushed to a Nigerian hospital. His
condition was serious.
For some reason, Daniel wanted doctors to transfer
him to another hospital. The doctors warned that the
trip would kill him. They were right. Daniel's wife
remembers her husband's dying words.
"My husband called to me and told me that I should
take care of the children and the ministry. He said he
had built a house for me, and that I should not
worry. I should take care of everybody. He said that
there are some people who are called to go quick (to
die early) and that he was among them," Ekechukwu
said.
Daniel died on the way to the second hospital. He was
rushed to a Nigerian clinic where Dr. Josse
Annebunwa was working.
"I was told he was involved in a motor accident in
Onitsha, Nigeria. When I examined him, I looked at
the chest and there were no respiratory movements. I
listened with the stethoscope and there were no
breath sounds. I searched the heart and
cardiovascular system, but there were no sounds. The
patient had no pulse. I looked at the eyes - the pupils
were fixed and dilated. I came to the conclusion right
away that the patient was dead and that he should be
removed to the mortuary," Annebunwa said.
Mortician Barlington R. Mann remembers when
Daniel's father and wife brought his body into the
mortuary.
"There was no life in him, no heartbeat, and no signs
of breathing," said mortician Barlington R. Mann. "I
accepted him as a corpse. After checking these
things, I checked all around the body and everything
was stiff. That is what gave us the conviction to start
our embalming procedure. I sent him into the second
room and put him on the last slab."
For three days, Daniel's body lay there, in the open-
air embalming room. During that time the body was
prepared for burial-including embalming! While they
waited for the funeral, Daniel's wife began to argue
with her Maker.
"I began to call on the name of the Lord. I wanted to
remind God of His promises," Daniel's wife said. "One
verse that inspired me was Hebrew 11:35: 'Women
received their dead bodies to life.' The moment I read
this verse it strengthened me to hold God firm and
act."
Three days after Daniel's death, his wife decided what
she would do. She had heard about a meeting near
by-where miracles were happening. It was a Reinhard
Bonnke prayer service. She went to collect her
husband's body.
"Before I could come they had the casket ready," she
said. "The moment they put him in I ran inside the
ambulance with my son and his brother, and we
started coming down to this place. And I asked
somebody if Bonnke had come."
Within a short time they arrived at the Reinhard
Bonnke service, and asked if they could bring Daniel's
body in for prayer.
"I felt that the anointing would be so strong there
and that the anointing would resurrect my husband,"
Daniel's wife said.
"They came up to me and I told them that it would
be an embarrassment to bring a corpse inside a
church," said one of the workers at the Bonnke
service. "We realized that whatever we do and
wherever we are God is present. If God wants to
perform a miracle for the man, the place where the
man is does not really matter."
They carried Daniel's dead body into the basement
where the service was being held. They laid his body
across two tables, and several pastors began praying
for him.
"As we were praying," said one of the pastors,
"suddenly we saw the eyes started to move and life
started coming in. I said to my friend, Pastor Luke,
'You know, they say that he was three days in the
mortuary. Let us massage him.' So he was there,
massaging the right hand. And I was massaging the
left hand. We were squeezing it, making sure that life
returned. We found out that as we were praying the
heart started to become hot. He was breathing, and
we started massaging the hands. As we massaged the
hands suddenly it seemed that life came into the
hands, and we put his hands on his chest. I massaged
the neck and life came into it. I was able to turn it."
The pastors around him continued to massage his
body because after three days in the mortuary, rigor
mortis had set in. As they were doing this, suddenly
Daniel jumped to his feet to the amazement of
everyone who looked on! The pastors were unsure
what to do next.
"I said let's take him upstairs, and we followed the
stairway upstairs. At the end of the step he said,
'water, water.' He was asking for water. I shouted,
'Bring water, bring water, lets get him water!' People
thronged and suddenly we saw people coming from
the outside. It seemed that the news went out and
people came in. People came in and they saw the
dead man sitting down.
Daniel like Lazarus of old had been raised from the
dead!
The story of his resurrection spread like wildfire.
Everywhere he went people knew that God had
performed a miracle. In the days and weeks that
followed, Daniel began to share about something that
happened to him as his body lay lifeless in the
mortuary. He spoke about a journey with an angel
who allowed him to visit both heaven and hell.
"He told me we are going to visit paradise," Daniel
said. "So we visited a place. When we approached the
place I saws multitudes of people that looked exactly
like the one with me, that angel that was with me.
The angel with me wore white apparel. The body was
pure white. The apparel was pure white, but the
apparel did not look removable from the body. When
I saw this crowd they looked exactly like the one with
me. In my heart I said, ' look at where the angels
gather.'"
"After that he then said, 'Let us go and visit the
mansion that Jesus promised.' He (the angel) now
took me to a wonderful place. In fact, what I saw
there, I do not have any words to describe it. It was
so glorious. It was a very wonderful mansion. You
could look at the building and it would look like glass
or look like gold or whatever. Even the flowers there
looked like gold.
"Then the angel said, 'Now let us visit hell.' In the
twinkle of an eye, we found ourselves in the place.
Immediately the gate opened. I started hearing
lamentation. So I looked inside and I saw people like
us here. They were putting on some clothes.
They had the same flesh; some are black and some are
white. They just looked like us.
They were shouting - there was a lot of pain, a lot of
torment. It was to the extent that immediately when
the gate was opened, it was if they were seeing me.
They were asking me for help, shouting. And I
remember one. He was shouting. 'I am a pastor, I only
stole church money and I am ready to refund it
immediately.' He just said he was ready to refund it
and that I should help. There was a force that was
tormenting them. I never saw any fire there and I
never saw any flames in hell, but the torment there
looks as if the people are inside fire.
It was then that the angel declared something to
Daniel that caused his heart to melt with fear. He told
Daniel that he deserved to be in hell too!
"So while I was shouting and asking the angel for
help, that I have another chance to go back, he
mentioned this: that the request of the rich man in
hell had been granted to this generation. I did not
understand it.
It was later, when I woke up and read the Bible, that I
realized what the request was. The rich man (in Luke
16) was requesting, that a dead man should be sent
back to the world. So he just said that the request of
the rich man had been granted to this generation for
the last warning. He said to me that he is giving me
an opportunity to go back for the last warning to this
generation," Daniel said.
Today, that is precisely what Daniel is doing --
warning everyone who will listen of the judgment to
come -- and the promise of everlasting life to those
who trust in the name of Jesus.
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