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Jim Bramlett
Sep 2, 2004
Dear friends:
Yesterday I mentioned that at the low point in his life, Johnny Cash had a life-changing encounter with the Lord in a cave on the Tennessee River. I had read this in a newspaper several years ago. For those of you who may want to know more about this, I discovered an article in Christianity Today dated November 2003. The article has some fascinating information about the accidental death of Cash's brother. Here is an excerpt
___________________Though he'd professed Christ at age 12, Cash wrote that by 1967, "there was nothing left of me… I had drifted so far away from God and every stabilizing force in my life that I felt there was no hope." He decided to crawl into Nickajack Cave on the Tennessee River, get lost, and die. "The absolute lack of light was appropriate," he wrote. "My separation from Him, the deepest and most ravaging of the various kinds of loneliness I'd felt over the years, seemed finally complete.
"It wasn't. I thought I'd left Him, but He hadn't left me. I felt something very powerful start to happen to me, a sensation of utter peace, clarity, and sobriety…Then my mind started focusing on God. He didn't speak to meHe never has, and I'll be surprised if He ever doesbut ... I became conscious of a very clear, simple idea: I was not in charge of my own destiny. I was not in charge of my own death."
He found his way out of the cave, determined to get clean and sober. He made a good start, and he's been honest about the slips and relapses along the wayand not just with drugs. "They just kind of hold their distance," he told Rolling Stone. "I could invite them in: the sex demon, the drug demon. But I don't. They're very sinister. You got to watch 'em. They'll sneak up on you. All of a sudden there'll be a beautiful little Percodan laying there, and you'll want it."
The connection with God makes it all worth it, he said: "The greatest joy of my life was that I no longer felt separated from Him. Now he is my Counselor, my Rock of Ages to stand upon."
Cash, many obituaries suggested, seemed obsessed with death. It was something he denied. "I am not obsessed with death; I'm obsessed with living," he said in 1994. "The battle against the dark one and the clinging to the right one is what my life is about."
Living, he knew, was death to self. His favorite verse, he often said, was Romans 8:13: "For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live."
A paradox? Not to Cash, who encountered death shortly before accepting an altar call. His brother Jack, two years his senior, fell on a table saw, cut from ribs to groin. "Mama, don't cry over me," he said, as Johnny and the rest of the family stood by. "I was going down a river, and there was a fire on one side and heaven on the other. I was crying, 'God, I'm supposed to go to heaven. Don't you remember? Don't take me to the fire.' All of a sudden, I turned, and now, mama, can you hear the angels singing?"
She said that she couldn't, and Jack squeezed her hand.
"Oh, mama, I wish you could hear the angels singing," he said, and died.
Like Christ, Cash felt no shame or theological dissonance at crying in the face of death. But make no mistake: he never forgot the joy waiting on the other side. Now, on the other side of the river, the Man in Black wears glorious white, reunited with his brother and face-to-face with his Lord.
From http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/011/4.60.html
_____________________Years later, friend David Gant also had a dramatic encounter with the Lord, under water, in that very same cave on the Tennessee River, after the TVA had flooded it. Below is David's story:
_____________________On March 19, 1994, I received information about a first-person encounter with God. It is about David Gant of Bryant, Alabama, a logging company owner. I have talked with both David and his wife personally and am totally convinced of his credibility. His story of being trapped in an underwater cave for 20 hours, then miraculously rescued, received international secular news coverage in August of 1992. But virtually all the media ignored and omitted the most significant part of the story -- how God actually visited David in that cave, saved and cleansed his soul, then gave him a startling message to tell the world ! Here is a summary of David's 20-hour ordeal and divine encounter.
David Gant got lost while scuba diving with two friends, looking for catfish, in underwater caves in the Tennessee River during the night of August 15-16, 1992. His two friends got out safely. David's air supply was very limited, but he found a small, 18-inch high air pocket and clung to a stalactite for 14 hours, trusting in his own ability to somehow get out. Finally, he decided he was going to die and he prayed for the Lord to save his soul. He had been brought up in the church but had turned from God at about age 15. David is age 33 now.
At the very moment his prayer was finished, the presence of God strongly came into the cave with him and he began to sense what felt like a hand go down into his heart and center of his being. The hand withdrew full of the evil that was within him. David said as it came out he has never felt better, cleaner and happier in his whole life. He was ecstatic with joy. The hand did it again, and his feeling doubled. Then again. Then the Lord actually turned him over and baptized him in the same water! David knew that God had saved him, and was so joyful and peaceful that he asked the Lord to take him and not leave him in this world.
Instead, the Lord spoke to him very clearly and said: "I want you to go and get your family ready to meet Me." Then he said, "Go tell the whole world that I am coming for my children before the year 2000" (emphasis supplied). The message was clear and without question. (See comment at end.)
The Lord then gave David a vision of his rescue -- being found, coming out in a boat, finding a crowd of hundreds on shore waiting for him, giving his testimony. Six hours later, David was rescued, just like as it was detailed in the vision. And as in the vision, David told the crowd about what God had done, and His "message." David's life has totally changed.
In obedience, David has shared this message in many churches and meetings. The 700 Club produced and aired a feature on David's experience in May, 1994.
(2004 update. I have spoken with David several times since the year 2000. He is as mystified as anyone about the message not coming to pass "before the year 2000." The evidence is overwhelming that David had encountered the Lord. However, many are wondering if David misunderstood and God meant 2,000 prophetic years after the crucifixion and resurrection, which is 1971.3 modern years. If the crucifixion was in AD 33, that takes us to about the fall of 2004. We shall see.)
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