WHEN GOD SENT ME TO HELL
Back in 1975, right after I had given my heart to Jesus Christ I was just in and out in a holy pursuit of God with every fiber of my being with every part of my existence. Just as a young man, I was seeking God. I had nothing else to seek. I had nothing else to live for I had nothing else to want. So I was going after God. And in the midst of that time, I saw people getting saved, healed, delivered, casting out devils. I just saw God do so many wonderful things. And I would get together usually almost every night with some of the guys that the Lord allowed me to win to the Lord and we would have a Bible study or we would pray.
And one night I came back to my barracks and a good friend of mine, African American brother by the name of Willie Wine. We got together to pray. Well, right outside of our barracks was what we call the common area where there was a bunch of guys in our battalion that had gotten together to have a party. So they're out there and they got their music playing. They're drinking their alcohol or cooking hamburgers, and they're just having a good old time.
But me and Willie went into our dormitory room. And we just began to pray, crying out to God, interceding for souls, praying for the guys out there in the common area.
And all of a sudden, what the Bible calls, the burden of the Lord came upon me so real, so strong, and my heart was breaking for all of these men that didn't know God. And I began to weep and cry and wail. And I began to pray a very strange prayer. And I believe that God will put the prayer in your mouth, He will put in your mouth, what He wants you to pray when you go into the spirit realm.
And so all of a sudden, out of my mouth, I began to ask God to allow me to go to Hell. I know that sounds really strange.
But I said, “Lord, let me experience the realities of Hell, that I can have compassion on those who are going there.”
And I'm praying this strange prayer when all of a sudden the whole room that I was in was filled with gross darkness. Now I'm telling you, to me, it was physical, is literal. It was what I was seeing out of my physical eyes. It went black, the whole room, it was a thick blackness, everything disappeared, it was totally black.
And then in this blackness, everything was gone. I could not hear the guys out there having their party. I couldn't hear the music, everything went totally dead. Still, I could not hear anything. And there was this tremendous blackness. And I didn't even see Willie Wine although he was in the same room with me.
And all of a sudden in this blackness, an earthquake hit that room. Now, at that moment, I didn't realize it was a spiritual experience, because I was located in Adak, Alaska, and I can't give you all the fine details of what I went through, because this thing went on for about two and a half hours. So I'm going to very briefly share with you what happened.
So all of a sudden, the room began to shake and I'm on the island called Adak, Alaska, and we always had earthquakes out there. We're out there in the Bering Sea. It was an anti-submarine missile nuclear base. They never really told us what they did there. But we knew it was top secret.
And so the room began to shake. Now as this is happening, the lights went out. But Willie Wine is no longer there. I'm in this room alone. And the room is beginning to shake violently, very violently. And in this earthquake is growing in intensity to where all of a sudden stuff is falling off the walls. The bed is beginning to bounce, I'm hardly being able to stand up.
And all of a sudden, I'm telling you, it got so violent, I'm on the floor, and I'm being tossed to and fro. And all of a sudden, there was this terrible screeching sound. And as I related to you, it's hard for me too because it was so real. Even though it was 38 years ago, it was like yesterday. The floor of that room began to literally be ripped open. The floor began to rip open. And I'm here and all of a sudden, it's like it becomes like a drain, we're in a bathtub and things are falling and this rip in the floor begins. It tore open and all of a sudden stuff is falling down into this whole wall. It's like the whole room is beginning to be dumped into this hole.
And I remember to this day, my heart was filled with tremendous spirit. It was not a demonic fear. It's just that my heart was filled with fear because I'm headed for this hole in the floor. And I'm grabbing a hold of my bed. I'm grabbing hold and I'm falling and I'm falling and I finally got to the edge of this bed or the edge of this hole that was in my way.
I fell backward like you would off of a ladder. Now as I'm falling into this hole, I'm going past wires and cables because to me, it was not a spiritual experience. It was physical, it was real. So I'm falling back into this hole. And as I'm falling back in this hole, I'm going past the girders and the wires and all of the foundation of the building, I'm falling down this hole.
Now as I'm falling down this hole, I guess it would be about three feet wide in the circular sense. And it just went straight down and I'm falling down this hole and all of a sudden, I left the construction of the building and the wires and the cables.
And now I'm into this black hole. And I remember falling down this black hole. And as I'm falling down this black hole, I'm spinning, I'm hitting a wall and my fingers were grabbing like the sides of this wall trying to stop my descent. And I'm ripping my fingers up. And I'm just screaming out and I'm falling down this hole.
Now, as I'm falling down this hole, it seemed like it was a never-ending hole. And to me, it's physical literal, if you could put yourself in my place. So I'm falling down this hole, I'm falling down this hole. I'm trying to stop my descent. I'm falling, I'm falling, I'm falling. It seems like I'm falling forever. It's like a nightmare I can't get out of but it's physical. It's real. And I'm falling and I'm falling and I'm falling, and I'm falling and I'm falling.
And as I'm falling, all of a sudden, I began to breathe this terrible air. It smelled like sulfur. And it's in this hole, then I'm falling down. In the end, I could look up and I could see the light where I fell way above me. But down below me, there was nothing but blackness at this moment, and I'm falling down this hole.
And all of a sudden I can hardly breathe. Because the air is filled with a sulfuric smell just so terrible I cannot tell you. I'm trying to breathe. And I remember taking my shirt and putting it over my face and I'm trying to breathe because I can't breathe. Because the smell was so terrible. So horrendous. The gases were so bad.
And so now here I am. I'm falling down this hole. I can hardly breathe. I'm trying to breathe and the air is filled with this sulfuric smell, this terrible smell. And I can hardly breathe but I'm still falling. And as I'm falling, I looked down between because I finally straightened up and I'm just falling like a skydiver from an airplane and I'm falling and I'm bawling and I'm falling.
And so I'm looking down. I see like a reddish-orange glow. I see light down below me and I'm falling towards this light. Now as I'm falling towards this light, the next thing that hit me is this intense heat. This heat is coming up from the bottom of this hole. And it's just intense and it literally feels like the flesh on my hands is going to begin to melt off. My face is going to begin to melt. This heat is so overwhelming now how in the world I could maintain consciousness in this situation. It had to be God. It was all supernatural at that time. I did not know it was supernatural.
But I'm experiencing this sulfuric smell. I cannot breathe. I'm experiencing this intense heat that I cannot currently stand and yet I'm falling towards this orange glow at the bottom of this pit, this hole and I'm falling and I'm falling and I'm falling and the heat is getting more intense.
The smell is worse. I don't know how in the world I'm surviving. I'm thinking what is going on? What's happening? I don't know where I'm at. There's no way I can stop my descent. And as I'm falling towards the bottom of this hole, the light is getting brighter. It's brighter, it's a brighter light. It's a flashing light. It's a deep red, orange and goals. And next thing you know, I fell through this hole.
Now when I fell to this hole, the most unmatchable thing you could imagine. I saw I was in this humongous cavern that was never-ending. I could not see the end of it everywhere I looked. It was just a humongous cavern. And right below me was the largest lake of burning fire and lava I had ever seen. A humungous lake, burning lava. Just everywhere I looked in it wasn't just a lake of lava that was laying there calm but it was violent like tornadoes because there were miniature hurricanes or tornadoes whipping across the whole area, whichever direction I'm looking down. In the natural, it seemed like I was like 5000 feet above this never-ending lake of lava.
And I'm looking and there are whirlwinds of tornadoes of intense heat and flame swirling across this lake. And there are explosions happening everywhere just fountains of this lava exploding 1000s of feet in the air, and they're exploding and they're exploding everywhere. And now I'm really losing it because here I could hardly breathe the heat. Now the heat is even more intense than before. And I see this humongous never-ending lake of fire. I cannot describe to you the horror that filled my heart, the fear that filled my heart and I couldn't breathe. The heat was overwhelming beyond what you can imagine.
And I'm watching these explosions of lava shooting up into the air and coming back down in. The whole thing was like a violent ocean. All of the lava liquefied lava stones and the lava burn different colors. It was bright orange, dark orange, some areas were dark, and this thing is completely just violent.
The whole thing is this erupting, and it's underneath me about 5000 feet now at some, and that's the time I didn't realize it was Hell. I didn't know what it was. I couldn't imagine what happened to me because I'm in my barracks. Next thing the floor rips open. And I fall through this hole. And I find myself in this cavern. I did not have any fear of going to Hell. I didn't have any fear of going to Hell because I knew my heart was right with God.
I didn't know what Hell was like, but I'm falling now towards this humungous lake of burning, churning, bubbling, boiling, raging lava.
Now as I'm falling, the heat gets so intense that all of a sudden, my clothes ignited in the fire. My shoes were burning on my feet. My hair explodes in the flames. Now I don't know how can I explain to you the pain, the agony that was overwhelming. So my whole body is like a torch. My skin ignites in the flames. My fingers are burning. My body is burning. I'm burning in fire. I'm just completely engulfed in flames.
As I'm falling towards this place called Hell, I didn't realize it was Hell yet. So I'm falling and I'm falling and I'm up and I'm falling. And now as I'm falling all of a sudden I heard this. This eerie sound. This is a weird sound. And it's highs and it's lows and it just like somebody's stabbing me in the chest with a knife because it's so intense and it's so painful. I don't know what it was and it's getting louder and louder and louder.
And when all of a sudden it had to be the Spirit of God that quickened in my mind. It was the screams and the cries of humanity. It was men and women screaming and wailing and crying in the lava of Hell. I mean, they're screaming. They're screaming highs and lows. And it just began to rip my heart out. Now, how in the world could I proceed with this while I'm burning, I'm aflame. I'm falling towards Hell.
And all of a sudden, it hit me like a ton of bricks. You're falling into Hell. God heard your prayers. So I'm falling closer and closer and closer. Now as I'm getting closer to this burning, turning bubbling lake of fire, I looked. And I began to see something on the surface of this boiling, bubbling lava. And they're like real little objects. And it seemed like they had like, four little limbs that were sticking out of these blackened objects. And it's way down there. God had to give me eyes to see.
And then He gave me a curiosity in the midst of all my pain and my sufferings. I've got this curiosity, what is that? What are those items floating on the surface, and they would go down and come back up and be tossed around and their limbs were just frantically moving every which direction. And I'm looking and getting closer, there were scattered millions of them across the surface. And they would come to the top and go and come to the top. And they're just everywhere.
And all of a sudden, the reality hit my heart. They were human beings. It was people. They were burned and charred. They didn't look like humans anymore. You could not tell what was a man and what was a woman. You could not tell what colors they had been. You couldn't tell if they had been Caucasian, or blacks or reds or whatever nation they were, they were charred like a chicken over on a roaster and overcooked to where it's nothing but charred and black.
And as I'm looking, I'm seeing that they're everywhere. And they're screaming, and they're human beings. And they're just being tossed to and fro. While as I'm looking at this, my mind is filled with horror. All of a sudden, I am plunged into this lake of lava now. The minute I plunged into this lake of lava, that I was just swallowed up. I was swallowed up in this intense burning, churning.
Now people say well, why would God create such pain and intensity for eternity? Why would God do that? Well, I don't have time to talk about it. But there's a good biblical reason why God had to do that. One reason why is because see, God's got to stop sin. Sin is a virus. Sin is the enemy of God. And have you ever slam your finger or your thumb with a hammer? And when you slammed your thumb, all of your thoughts stopped about anything else and you grabbed your thumb and you can think about nothing but the pain. You can't really think. If you had bitterness in your heart toward somebody, if you're going to commit adultery, if you're going to be involved in some wickedness, your mind is involved in that wickedness. Your mind is caught up in that pain.
We'll see because God created man in His likeness in His image, we are made up an eternal substance we can never cease to exist. So where is God gonna put corrupted, contaminated, polluted, sin-filled man, where's He gonna put them? He can't let them keep on sinning. He's got to put them in an environment where the virus can never spread and sin cannot continue.
And so now I'm swallowed up now when I got swallowed up in this lake of lava. All of a sudden I'm under it and I can't breathe. No, I can't breathe. I'm trying to suck air in. But there is no air. And yet I'm not dying. I am burning with instantaneous heat. But I'm not dying. Oh, my eyes feel like they're being burned out on my socket, but I don't stop seeing. So here I am. I'm swallowed up in this absolute misery, complete misery and I go down to the depths of this lava.
And I can feel the currents pulling me and turning me and twisting me like these other people that were being tossed to and fro - millions and millions of people, billions of people. And the next thing I would come to the surface it will toss me up and then suck me back down. And so this pain seemed to be never-ending and this experience was over two hours long. So I'm being tossed to and fro.
And in the midst of all of this, all of this pain, all of this agony, there's this overwhelming desire for water. I'm so thirsty. It's a mind-boggling thirst. I'm so thirsty. I cannot explain it but there's no water to be had forever.
Now listen, the rich man being in Hell is crying out to Abraham and saying, "Just give me a drop of water." In Hell, there is no water. And it's just I think it's symbolic, like in this earth there is so much water, that it's incredible. But in Hell, there is no water. I think it's like the mercy of God in Hell, there is no mercy and how there is no forgiveness, and how you'll never get another chance to repent. And in Hell, you never get another opportunity to live for God.
And so here I am, I'm being tossed to and fro in the blackness, and now I say a blackness because I believe God allowed me to see what was going on. But actually, there is no light in Hell. There is no light in Hell, it's completely black, completely dark, you're completely swallowed up into this lake of lava, where there's never-ending pain, never-ending sorrow, never going to get another drink of water.
And as I'm in the midst of this, all of a sudden, I realized there was another thing that was completely absent, totally absent, and it was the greatest horror you could ever experience. And it's this. There is no love in Hell. No love. None of the goodness of God. Nothing just absolutely void of love.
See, people don't realize, when you live in this world, you see the love of God everywhere, whether you appreciate it or not. You see it in the flowers. You see it in the birds, you see it in the blue skies above, you see it in the snow-capped mountains, you see it in the crashing waves upon the shore of the ocean, you experienced the love of God, you smell the love of God, you're walking in the love of God without even knowing it. You're walking in the reality of God without even knowing it. Sinners living in this world and everywhere they look, they have no excuse because the reality of Christ is everywhere.
But in Hell, there is no love. You'll never have another drink of water. There's nothing but never-ending pain and never-ending sorrow.
Another thing that hit me at that time is what the Bible calls that in Hell, there is what we call the worm that never dies. And the worm that never dies is the reality that you will be remembering: I could have been saved. I could have loved God, I could have obeyed the Lord, I could have walked with Jesus. But I turned it down. I'll never have another chance to get saved. I'll never have another chance to get right on never have another chance to do God's will. So I'm in this and I'm making it very quickly here because of the thoughts that came into my head, the pain, the sorrow, the loneliness.
And that's another thing in Hell, you're all alone. You say, Well, no, you're now alone because they say wow, a party with my friends. Well, first of all, there is no communication between the damned. They can't help because they're so full of pain. They're so full of agony. They're so full of sorrow. The worm that never dies is eating up their conscience. They're crying, they're screaming, they're wailing, they're wanting help, but they can't get help. And it's so dark that you're bumping into other people. You're smashing into other human beings. But there is no communication. There is no helping each other. You are completely doomed and damned and lost forever.
So I'm in this lake of fire. I'm in this place called Hell for hours. I'm tortured. I'm tormented. I can't get a drink. I experienced none of the love of God. I'm completely lonely. I'm cut off from everybody. I'm bumping into other human beings but there's no communication. I'm under the wrath. I'm under the anger and under the judgment of God. There is just an overwhelming fear of God, knowing you could have been saved knowing you could have walked with God.
The sufferings of earth, you know people say this is Hell on earth. They have no idea what they're talking about. But just if you take a propane torch and stick your index finger underneath that torch for 10 minutes, your finger would be gone, but in Hell, your finger would never be gone just a never-ending pain.
But now another thing I discovered when I was in Hell, because I could hear the people screaming, and it was the most terrible thing. I would hear the people screaming, and this is what they would be screaming, they would be crying out for mercy. They'd be asking God for another chance. They'd be saying, “Oh, God, please give me another chance,” and they would cry out to God. And then they would turn around, and they would curse God. And they would cry out to God, and they would curse God, and they would cry out to God and they were cursing God. And this went on for hours now, I discovered as they were cursing God and crying out to God.
And then all of sudden, you would hear their voices shut off as they would go on to the surface. Again, this is all around me. I'm surrounded by people screaming, and that's what I heard when I was falling like a skydiver, towards the lake of fire. That's what I heard people screaming with highs and lows and pleadings and cursings against God.
What I discovered something was different about me. I was not cursing God. Because see, my heart was right with God. In the midst of Hell, I was praising Him. Every time I'd come to the surface, I scream the word that God has loved me. Jesus, Father, you're wonderful. I'm in the pit of Hell, and I am worshiping God in Hell. I am praising God in Hell, I am magnifying God, and none of these other souls were praising God. None of these other souls were worshipping God, none of these other souls were exalting Christ when I'm exalting Christ in Hell being tossed to and fro by the flames and the waves of the liquefied lava, I am worshiping, and I am praising, and I am exalting God. And I'm crying out, “Oh, God deliver me from this place. Oh, God rescued me from this place now.”
And in one moment, I'm being tossed to the surface of this waves of this liquefied lava, when all of a sudden I heard this most magnificent voice that you could ever imagine. It was so strong, it was so real. It was so amazing. And I heard and I knew it was the voice of God. And I heard Him say this and all of Hell shook. He said, “Let My servant go.” Now, that minute I knew was the Father speaking. He said, “Let My servant go.”
The minute the voice of God came booming and thundering into the caverns of Hell, it's like, Hell itself vomited me right out of it. I mean, it was like a volcano going off. It just exploded. In the end, the lava got underneath me and picked me up, and threw me out of the chambers of Hell.
While there's more to the story than that, but to make a long story short, I found myself back in my barracks, and I was on my knees, and I was weeping. I was crying, I was wailing. When I came out of this experience, I looked over, and Willie was there on his face.
And finally, when I was able to talk, as I communicate with Willie, he said, “Mike, what happened? What happened?”
I said, “Willie, I went to Hell.”
Now I could hear there was no music out there. It was completely quiet out in the commons. Before I had this experience, they had loud music on. They were laughing and joking and carrying on, but now it's completely quiet.
And when he said to me, he's all shook up, you know, and he says, “Mike, what happened?”
He said, “For over two hours, you were screaming and yelling and crying like a madman.”
He said, “I didn't know what to do. All I could do is pray.”
He said, “You were just screaming and yelling and crying all that time. What happened?”
I said, “Willie, Willie, I went to Hell.”
He said, “You what?”
I said, “Willie, I went to Hell.”
I said, ‘Where the guys go? I don't hear their music anymore.”
He said, “They heard your wailing, Mike. They heard you screaming and crying and wailing. They all got scared. They all ran for it. They shut down the party. They're gone.”
Well, listen. After that happened, I had to win souls. I got arrested for preaching. I'd be preaching anywhere I went. I was telling people tears rolling down my face. You got to get saved. You got to get right. You got to repent. You got to know Jesus. You don't want to go to Hell and so that was 30 years ago, and the story I'm telling you, it's true and what I've shared with you is such I cannot explain the pain, the agony, the sufferings, the miseries, the torments the tortures of Hell,
How can God create such a place? No, you don't understand how, because remember a just judge never gives more punishment than what the crime deserves or what the people have sinned against the Lord. What is sin? Sin is rebellion against all holy, righteous, loving, forgiving God and man was made for God's pleasure. We were made for God's will to be done on the earth. And yet we have risen up with the seed of rebellion, the seed of the snake, the serpent, the dragon, the devil, Satan, Lucifer, and we've risen up and we've spit in the face of God.
And we said, “God, we don't care. Our air that we breathe comes from You. We don't care that the food we eat comes from You. We don't care that the material that we use for clothes comes from You. We don't care that this body we live in it comes from You. We're going to do our own thing. We're going to go our own way. We're going to curse Your name, we're going to curse. We're going to swear we're going to sin, we're going to live it to the fullest.”
And the day comes when God says, “I've done everything I can. I've given you My son, Jesus, He died for you. He rose again for you. He took your sin, He took your pain.”
See Christ went to Hell. The Bible says His soul went to Hell. And David wrote about he said, Thou did not allow My soul to remain in Hell and Christ died for you don't have to go there. He took your punishment. Hell could not hold on to Christ, because there was no sin in His heart. Hell could not hold on to me because I was born again and washed in the blood of the One who had already died and suffered and gone to Hell, that I could have eternal life.
This is a true story I've shared with you. And I pray and I hope that you take it to heart in Jesus’ name.
Transcribed from Dr Michael Yeager When God sent me to Hell!
