Heaven & Hell Series, Part 2B: The Reality of Hell

Heaven & Hell Series, Part 2B: The Reality of Hell

When people believe there is no heaven or hell, this means they do not believe there are any consequences for their actions.  They can do whatever they so choose, and then they will simply cease to exist. A free license to sin, however, is not reality.

While there are many more accounts of people seeing hell I could explore, some are credible and others are questionable. The accounts vary based on what God wants that person to see and based on what they can spiritually and mentally handle.  If you choose to search for such stories of heaven and hell, please pray for discernment to know what is real and fake, and what is from God and what is confusion from Satan, who masquerades as an angel of light and loves to trick people (2 Corinthians 11:14 - For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.) I will list two more that I feel are the on credible side. 

Ronald Reagan (NOT the former US president), was admittedly a very rebellious man.  He had suffered abuse from his alcoholic father which turned him to also abuse drugs and alcohol and end up in jail for manslaughter (caused by an automobile accident) by the time he was 15.  His marriage was one the verge of divorce, and he revealed he was abusive with his children as his father had been.  He had a very hot temper, and one day he took his son to the convenience store when he got into a verbal confrontation with a man walking out of the store.  Mr. Reagan shoved the other man who fell onto a pile of glass bottles.  The man than took one of the broken bottles and began attacking Mr. Reagan.  The artery under his arm was cut so severely, he was about to bleed to death.  The store owner took Mr. Reagan to the hospital but the ER could not help and put him in an ambulance to another hospital.  He was sure he would have his arm amputated.  

While Mr. Reagan lay in the ambulance, his wife now by his side, the driver, sensing Mr. Reagan was close to death, urgently told him more than once, "Sir, you need Jesus Christ!"  I fully admire the boldness of that driver!  

Mr. Reagan did not actually die but had a vision.  What happened next was that it appeared to him as if the ambulance had exploded into flames and he was surrounded by smoke.  He was then in a tunnel filled with smoke where a multitude of voices could be heard warning Mr. Reagan not to come to where they were. Their voices were full of agony, pain, and frustration.  He knew if he went where the voices were, he would be there forever.  A tsunami of loneliness and heavy depression washed over him.  It was as if he was looking down a volcano and he could see fire, smoke, and people inside; they were being burned but not consumed by the flames. He realized he recognized some of the people as his former party buddies who had died due to their reckless and rebellious actions.  The smell of sulfur was the most horrible stench he had ever smelled, and he felt a terror he never knew existed.  His wife later told him he was thrashing about in the back of the ambulance, and she could tell he was experiencing extreme fear.

He awoke in the hospital where he was covered in wounds, but they operated and had saved his arm.

In spite of seeing that hell was a very real place full of the consequences of people's rebellion against God, he still fled from God and had not yet repented.  However, sometime later (I am not sure how much time had passed), his wife gave her life to Jesus.  Her once angry face was so full of joy and peace that he agreed to go to church.  It was there he heard the pastor speak about Jesus as the lamb of God.  Due to the love he had had for a pet lamb as a child (that his father had cruelly killed and thus ignited his spiral into a rebellious lifestyle), Mr. Reagan was very sensitive to the idea of Jesus being the perfect lamb who loved him and died for his sins.  God knew Mr. Reagan would be there that day and had planned the perfect message just for him.  He gave his life to Jesus and never looked back as he now lives for Jesus and shares his testimony in order encourage others to repent of their sinful lifestyles and to keep others from hell.

The last account I will share is from a man named Howard Storm, a strong atheist that did not believe in life after death.  Mr. Storm was what you would consider a good man, not living a criminal life by any means.  He had been married for 20 years and had a good marriage.  He did, however, admit that he lived a life that was all about himself. He and his wife were vacationing in Paris when he experienced a perforation in his stomach. He spent 8-10 hours in agony in an ER hallway because the hospital was short staffed.  After the long wait, he was informed that the hospital could not find anyone to operate and they had no idea how much longer he would have to wait.  It was then he gave up fighting to stay alive, and he and his wife tearfully said their goodbyes.

I am not sure if Mr. Storm then died or if like Mr. Regan what he experienced was a vision, but this is a brief version of what he reported.  He saw himself standing outside his own body and heard sweet and gentle voices outside the hospital room calling, "Howard, come out here."  He said they used very "syrupy" tones to entice him out. He exited the room into a grey hallway where about a dozen people waited that he thought might be medical personnel.  They kindly encouraged him to follow them, and he thought maybe he was about to have his operation.  However, they walked for an unknown amount of time because time suddenly had no meaning.  He compared the length of the walk as if they walked from Nashville, TN to Louisville, KY (about 175 miles or about a 4-hour walk).  The longer they walked the more hostile the others became.  They began telling him to hurry and to shut up if he asked any questions.  They eventually ended up in complete darkness, and he refused to go any farther. 

Mr. Storm says that what he experienced next was "too ugly" to fully describe as the dozens of people became 100s or maybe even 1000s.  They tore, bit, scratched, ripped, and gouged his flesh until he was covered in painful wounds.  He was unable to fight them, and it went on for an unknown amount of time.  When they stopped for a time, he lay in the dark in physical pain, but the emotional trauma was many times worse.

He heard his own voice say to him, "Pray to God."  Although he had attended church as a child, he could not remember how to pray.  He quoted what he remembered and every time he said the name of God or Jesus, his abusers would scream and yell the worst profanity he had ever heard, but it kept them away from him.  He kept saying prayers and he was soon alone for what felt like an eternity.  He reflected on his life and realized the only god he had served was himself.  He then remembered singing "Jesus loves me" as a child and that he had once believed that God was good and loved him.  He desperately wanted back what he had thrown away.  He called out, "Jesus please save me!" and Jesus was instantly there.

Although I am saving Jim Woodford's heaven experience for part 3, I will continue with Mr. Storm's account because he did not actually see Heaven.  Jesus took Mr. Storm into His arms and carried him out of the pit and took him to where he called a place in between, neither heaven nor hell. He felt dirty and unworthy, but Jesus cleaned him up, healed the wounds caused by the demons, and filled him with a pure sense of Jesus' love. (Amen! Hallelujah!) He was taken to a different room and shown his life by angels (he did not provide any descriptions of Jesus or the angels) In a nutshell, they made it clear to him that all his kind actions pleased God, but his cruel ones made God unhappy.  Mr. Storm did not want to go back to earth, but Jesus and the angels assured him that they would always be with him as long as he prayed, confessed his sins to God, and gave all his cares, hopes, and dreams to God.

I do not know how long he was dead or unconscious, but as soon as he reentered his body, a doctor miraculously showed up to perform the lifesaving surgery.  

Mr. Storm fully believes he was given the soul changing experience to share so he could help save others.  Which, as I stated at the beginning of this blog, I want the same thing.  If I can convince even one person that there are indeed consequences for living in active rebellion against a holy God because we our soul does indeed continue after we die, then these blogs are worth writing.

(Psalm 9:16-17) The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

Please come back for more in this series tomorrow as there is so much hope and beauty of God's goodness and grace still to be revealed!

(Psalm 86:13) For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.