{"id":6432,"date":"2023-04-21T11:27:59","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=6432"},"modified":"2023-04-21T11:27:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:27:59","slug":"george-foremans-near-death-experience-that-brought-him-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/george-foremans-near-death-experience-that-brought-him-to-god.html","title":{"rendered":"George Foreman&#8217;s Near-Death Experience That Brought Him to God"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6441\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6441\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6441\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/george-foreman-credit-gage-skidmore-wikimedia-commons.png\" alt=\"george foreman\" width=\"768\" height=\"514\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6441\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gage Skidmore\/Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Former heavyweight boxing champion and pastor George Foreman recently opened up about his life and a near-death experience in 1977. He also said he wants people who see the upcoming movie about his life to know he\u2019s proof that there\u2019s a living God.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy-four-year-old Foreman is the focus of the faith-based biopic \u201cBig George Foreman,\u201d which stars Khris Davis as Foreman and Forest Whitaker as Doc Broadus, Foreman\u2019s trainer, releasing in theaters on April 28. When he was 24, Foreman won the heavyweight championship and again at 45, becoming the oldest title holder in history. However, Foreman says a near-death experience between those titles changed his life and led him to become a pastor.<\/p>\n<p>The near-death experience happened in 1977. By then, Foreman had lost his first title to Muhammad Ali in 1974 and was attempting to return to another heavyweight championship fight. However, Foreman lost that 1977 fight to Jimmy Young. According to Foreman, he was filled with pride. He told Christian Headlines, \u201cI was in the dressing room, walking back and forth and saying, \u2018I don\u2019t care about this boxing match I lost. I\u2019m still George Foreman.\u2019 You know, I can win this next month, and I got my movie career, I got my money in the bank. And I could go home and retire now and die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Foreman continued, \u201cThat sneaked into my conversation, \u2018die.\u2019 And I couldn\u2019t get it out. All of a sudden, I faced death, and I knew I was about to die. So with that in mind, I heard a voice within me say, \u2018You believe in God; why are you scared to die?\u2019 And I was afraid; I really was. And I started fighting to keep my life in me. I eventually lost the fight.\u201d Foreman said he died in the dressing room that night, but God revived him. The moment is shown in the movie \u201cBig Foreman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/urKDu40iaXk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was gone out of this life. Above me, under me, all around me was nothing,\u201d Foreman told Christian Headlines of his near-death experience. \u201cThe saddest thoughts you can even come to mind, multiply it. I was in a dump yard of nothing and sorrowfulness. I remember thinking there was no hope for me \u2013 like someone had dropped me out in a sea. There was no land.\u201d At that moment, Foreman said he cried out, \u201cI still believe there\u2019s a God!\u201d Suddenly, \u201ca hand reached in and pulled me out of nothing and death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Foreman says after he came back to life, he fought eight men to get out of the shower. After seeing the blood on his head and hands, he cried, \u201cJesus Christ has come alive in me!\u201d Then, Foreman said he started kissing everyone in the dressing room. Eventually, he tried to leave the dressing room but was brought back because he didn\u2019t have clothes on.<\/p>\n<p>Foreman quit boxing, began preaching and opened a youth center. When he ran out of money for his ministry in the late 1980s, he started boxing again, winning his second heavyweight title in 1994.\u00a0He said he hopes that this film inspires audiences, saying, \u201cThe most important thing I\u2019d like for the people who go to the movie to take out is that there is hope. There\u2019s a living God. And I\u2019m proof of it. That\u2019s all \u2013 forget about the boxing, winning, losing, and all of that. Faith in God is what that movie is about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former heavyweight boxing champion and pastor George Foreman recently opened up about his life and a near-death experience in 1977. He also said he wants people who see the upcoming movie about his life to know he\u2019s proof that there\u2019s a living God. Seventy-four-year-old Foreman is the focus of the faith-based biopic \u201cBig George Foreman,\u201d&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":6441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>George Foreman&#039;s Near-Death Experience That Brought Him to God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pastor and former boxer George Foreman recently opened up about a near-death experience in 1977 that changed his life and brought him to God.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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