Ian McCormack is a New Zealand surfer, diver and former atheist who was stung by five box jellyfish off the island of Mauritius in 1982, was pronounced clinically dead, and came back with a message about the love of God. In this guest message at NTC Ministries, given on Memorial weekend and Pentecost Sunday, he tells the full story: a praying mother, the Lord’s Prayer appearing before his eyes, deep darkness, a tunnel of light and an encounter with the risen Jesus.
Below you will find the full video, a summary of his testimony, the Scripture he draws on (NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for responding to the same love.
Sermon at a Glance
Ian McCormack opens by reading John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Because it is Memorial weekend, he asks the servicemen and women in the room to stand and prays a blessing over them. Then he turns to an even greater love: that God Himself would lay down His life for us.
He introduces his wife Jane, who runs his slides, and then moves into his testimony with photographs of New Zealand, where he grew up surfing, diving, fishing and hunting. From 1980 to 1982 he was surfing around the world.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Ian McCormack (guest speaker) |
| Series | Stand-alone guest testimony |
| Main text | John 15:13 and the Lord’s Prayer |
| Key theme | The love of God meeting a dying man and the reality of eternity |
| Length | About 66 minutes, ending in a prayer of salvation |
The Night Dive and the Box Jellyfish
On April 19, 1982, Ian McCormack was living with local fishermen on Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean he calls a tropical paradise. That night he was diving on the outer reef for crayfish when he swam into thousands of jellyfish. They were box jellyfish, whose venom, he says, is far more lethal than a cobra’s. He was hit by five of them.
The fishermen dragged him into the boat and told him that one sting alone could kill. By the time they reached the beach at Black River, the right side of his body was paralyzed. A young man carried him to the main road with what Ian sees as supernatural strength, then ran back for two divers, including his own brother, who were still out on the reef. Ian was left alone at the roadside.
As his eyes began to close, he heard a man’s audible voice next to him: “Son, if you close your eyes you will never awake again.” He was not a believer at the time. He calls himself a heathen and the black sheep of the family. So why would God speak to him? Because, he says, God goes looking for the lost sheep. Had he not heard that voice, he would have become another statistic of the box jellyfish.
Ian McCormack stood up and began consciously fighting the box jellyfish poison. By the time an ambulance took him, his whole body was paralyzed and his life began to pass before him. As an atheist and evolutionist, he was convinced that death meant nothing at all. Yet lying there he thought, “But I have been wrong before.” He realized he had no idea whether there was life after death, and that he was about to find out.
A Praying Mother and the Lord’s Prayer
On the other side of the world, his mother heard the audible voice of God say, “Your elder son Ian is nearly dead. Pray for him now.” She ran to her bedroom and fell on her knees. Ian grew up in church, with all the certificates, but he says it meant little to him. His mother was different. She knew the Lord, and in the ambulance he saw her there on her knees, looking him straight in the eye.
He heard her say what she had always told him: “Son, no matter what you’ve done wrong, no matter how far from God you may be, Ian, if you call out to God from your heart, God will hear you and Almighty God will forgive you.” He thought it was too late. He had done terrible things and felt deep shame and guilt. He asked which god to call on, and decided that if his mother prayed to Jesus, he was in serious trouble.
He tried to pray the Lord’s Prayer from memory and found his mind completely blank. Then words appeared in front of him, one line at a time. Ian McCormack teaches that those three lines from Matthew 6:9–15 are, in his words, “the most powerful salvation prayer on the planet.” The table below follows what happened at each step.
| Words that appeared | Ian’s struggle | What he teaches from it |
|---|---|---|
| Forgive us our sins | How could such simple words cover all he had done? | Repentance: ask God to forgive you |
| Forgive those who have sinned against you | God showed him two men he wanted to harm and asked if he would forgive them | Unforgiveness and bitterness can nullify repentance |
| Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven | He had always done things his own way | Humble yourself and make Jesus Lord |
The second line was the hardest. When God asked if he would forgive the two men, Ian first said no. Then he realized God would not give him the rest of the prayer unless he forgave from the heart, just as Jesus taught. He promised never to harm them, and something knotted inside him broke free. Then the entire prayer appeared like words of light, recalling Psalm 119:105.
He had prayed the Lord’s Prayer hundreds of times as a child, like a parrot, honoring God with his lips while his heart was far from Him (Matthew 15:8). This time he prayed it from his heart. An extraordinary presence came into the ambulance, and a peace entered him that he says has not left in 45 years. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13).
He draws one lesson for every parent in the room: we are here because someone prayed for us. You could have a thousand people wishing you dead, he says, but if you have one praying mother, guess who God is going to listen to. Do not judge prodigals; pray for them, because prayer moves God to rescue loved ones no matter how far away they are.
Clinically Dead in Deep Darkness
Time went into slow motion. Ian McCormack says he has since met tens of thousands of people who died and came back, and they describe the same thing. When he asked God why, he says the Lord pointed him to Hebrews 9:27, that it is appointed for men to die once and after this the judgment, and told him He applies more mercy in the dying moments than in a whole life. But Ian warns: do not wait until the last second. Today is the day of salvation.
At the hospital his veins had collapsed and doctors struggled to get anti-venom into him. A doctor told him, “Son, keep your eyes open or you will die,” the same words he had heard on the beach. Finally he closed his eyes, the machines flatlined, and he felt a release, as though he no longer had to fight. He was pronounced clinically dead. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25–26).
Ian McCormack found himself standing in total darkness, so dark he could not see his hand. When he brought his hand to his face, it passed straight through his head. He remembered his grandfather, who fought at Gallipoli, telling him about veterans who could still feel lost limbs, and about a soldier who kept running after his leg was blown off until he looked down. Our spiritual body, Ian concludes, is more real than our physical body.
He realized he was walking through what Psalm 23:4 calls the valley of the shadow of death. Voices screamed that he deserved to be there, but they could not touch him, because he had made the Lord the shepherd of his soul just before he died. He stresses that you cannot repent after death, so the time to repent, forgive and make Jesus Lord is now.
He describes this place as Hades, a kingdom of darkness where people still carry the desires of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19–21 but can fulfill none of them. Only Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades. When Jesus descended, Ian says, He took those keys back and emptied Abraham’s bosom. Nothing could separate Ian from the love of God (Romans 8:38–39), not even that darkness.
Drawn Into the Light of God’s Love
Then light pierced the darkness. Ian quotes Isaiah: those walking in darkness, in the shadow of death, have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2). The light enveloped him and lifted him off the ground. As he rose, he could see the enormity of the kingdom of darkness, and he points to Acts 26:18, where Paul speaks of turning people from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.
Far above him was an opening, a small and narrow tunnel, which he links to the narrow way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13–14). As he was drawn toward the light, three waves came over him: first comfort, like a living emotion, then peace, then absolute joy. When he looked at his hand, it was no longer flesh and bone but transparent, and he thought of being changed in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:51–55).
He came out into a realm so bright he felt he had reached the center of the universe. He wondered whether there was a person in that light or only a force. Then a voice spoke: “Ian, God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” He was stunned that God knew his name. He later found the same words in 1 John 1:5, and he notes that he cast no shadow there.
Ian McCormack expected wrath. Instead, when the light hit him, it was pure, unadulterated love. He began telling God every sin he could remember, and every time he received only love and acceptance. He burst into tears as God’s love, with no strings attached, melted his heart. The Lord told him that in the ambulance He had forgiven him completely. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).
Ian McCormack Meets the Risen Jesus
Ian McCormack walked into the cloud of glory, and as the veils of light opened, he saw the Lord with His arms outstretched toward him. His robes seemed made from the radiance itself, and Ian points to Psalm 104:2, where God covers Himself with light as with a garment. His hair was pure white and His face shone brighter than everything around Him, as in Revelation 1:14–18.
All Ian McCormack had known was the Jesus of stained-glass windows with a small halo. He had no idea Jesus was the source of all light and love in the universe. Purity and holiness came from Him and transformed Ian. He urges the church to stop fixing its eyes only on a dead, historical Jesus and to seek the living, glorified King, because you have to see the glory to be changed by it.
Jesus then stepped aside, and Ian saw what he understood to be a new earth: green fields, mountains, flowers and a crystal-clear river with trees on either side. The Lord told him it was the river of life. Ian says the Spirit and the bride still say, come and drink freely (Revelation 22:17). Jesus said He goes to prepare a place for us (John 14:2–3).
Then Jesus asked him: “Ian, now that you’ve seen, do you wish to remain here or return?” Ian wanted to stay. He felt he was home and had never known such love. When he looked back to say goodbye, he saw his mother. One person had prayed for him. He realized she would never know he had made it, so he chose to return and tell her that everything she believed was real.
Behind her he saw his father, brother, sister and huge crowds of people. God told him He wanted him to go back and see them from heaven’s perspective, because He loves them and wants all of them to know Him. Ian admitted he did not love them. The answer, he teaches, is the great exchange: give the Lord your heart, and He gives you His, including His compassion for the world.
Back to Life and a New Way to Pray
Jesus told him to tilt his head and open his eyes, and in a moment he was back in his body. A doctor was holding his foot with a scalpel and was terrified to see the corpse look at him. “You’ve been dead for 15 to 20 minutes. We’ve done nothing to bring you back,” the doctor said. Ian compares it to Lazarus, raised when Jesus simply spoke (John 11:43–44).
After the box jellyfish stings, he still could feel nothing from the neck down. He told God that if He could not heal him, he wanted to go back to heaven. Then power went through him like electricity and, he testifies, his entire body was healed. He walked out of the hospital, and the fishermen thought he was a ghost. The Lord told him he was a reborn Christian, a term he had never heard.
When he asked what to do next, the Lord told him to read a Bible. He had never read one, but his father had one, and within six weeks he had read it through, weeping over it. A friend took him to church. He learned that Jesus rose and ascended and that He is interceding for us, but that many Christians have no idea how to meet Him.
His prayer life changed. Instead of a long list that put him to sleep, he learned that faith comes by hearing and that prayer is as much listening as talking. Jesus only spoke what He heard the Father say. Ian believes a focus on the risen, glorified Savior will revolutionize a believer’s Christian life, the same Jesus Paul met on the Damascus road and John saw on Patmos.
Living It Out
Ian McCormack closes by leading the room in the same three-part Lord’s Prayer pattern he prayed in the ambulance, asking those who mean it to place one hand on the heart and lift the other to heaven. Here are practical steps drawn from his testimony:
- Pray the prayer from the heart. Ask Jesus to forgive your sins, forgive those who sinned against you, and surrender your will to His lordship.
- Forgive by name. If someone’s face comes to mind when you pray, release that person from your heart, as Ian did with the two men.
- Keep praying for your prodigals. Like Ian’s mother, intercede for loved ones far from God; do not judge them.
- Do not wait. He warns that no one can repent after death and that today is the day of salvation.
- Listen when you pray. Build time into prayer to hear from the Lord rather than only reading a list.
- Fix your eyes on the risen Jesus. Read Revelation 1 and seek the glorified King, not only the historical one.
He ends by praying that each person would carry a seal of love on the heart that is stronger than death, and that the heavens would open over them.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:01 John 15:13 and honoring those who served
- 2:13 Back in Wisconsin; meet his wife Jane
- 5:30 The night dive on Mauritius
- 6:35 Stung by five box jellyfish
- 7:37 “If you close your eyes you will never awake”
- 9:41 Is there life after death?
- 10:42 His mother hears God and prays
- 14:56 The Lord’s Prayer appears
- 16:03 Forgiving the two men
- 19:16 Praying from the heart; peace enters
- 21:16 Time slows down
- 23:21 Flatline in the hospital
- 25:30 Total darkness and a spiritual body
- 28:45 The valley of the shadow of death
- 35:06 Light pierces the darkness
- 37:14 The narrow tunnel and waves of light
- 41:26 “God is light”
- 43:38 Love instead of wrath
- 46:48 Seeing Jesus in glory
- 50:54 A new earth and the river of life
- 55:11 Choosing to return for his mother
- 57:23 Back in his body and healed
- 59:29 Reborn and reading the Bible
- 1:03:50 Prayer of salvation
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Ian McCormack a Christian before his accident?
No. He describes himself at that time as an atheist and evolutionist who believed death meant nothing at all. He had been raised in church, christened and confirmed, but says it was only religion to him. He had prayed the Lord’s Prayer hundreds of times from his head, like a parrot. The first time he prayed it from his heart was in the ambulance, moments before he died.
Why does Ian put so much weight on forgiving others?
Because the prayer stopped until he did. When God showed him the faces of two men he wanted to harm, the rest of the Lord’s Prayer did not appear until he chose to forgive them. He points to Jesus’ teaching that if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us, and says that unforgiveness and bitterness can nullify repentance. When he forgave, something knotted inside him broke free.
Why did he choose to come back?
He did not want to. He felt at home and had never experienced such love. But when he looked back, he saw his mother, the one person who had prayed for him, and realized she would never know he had been saved. He chose to return to tell her it was all real. God then showed him many more people and told him He wanted all of them to know Him.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- John 15:13 — greater love has no one than this
- Matthew 6:9–15 — the Lord’s Prayer and forgiveness
- Romans 10:13 — whoever calls on the name of the Lord
- Hebrews 9:27 — after death, the judgment
- Psalm 23:4 — the valley of the shadow of death
- Isaiah 9:2 — a great light in the darkness
- 1 John 1:5 — God is light
- Revelation 1:14–18 — the glorified Christ holds the keys
- Revelation 22:17 — come and drink freely
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
If this testimony stirred your faith, there are many more messages from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep seeking the living, glorified Jesus.
