GOD SPEAKETH once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. IN A DREAM, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, THAT HE MAY WITHDRAW MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE, and hide pride from man. HE KEEPETH BACK HIS SOUL FROM THE PIT, and his life from perishing by the sword.
–Job 33:14-18 (KJV)–
The first testimony is from Ronald Reagan, an evangelist with Church of God (Cleveland, TN). His and other testimonies like it are found in Maurice Rawlings, M.D.’s To Hell and Back (Thomas Nelson, 1993), which was turned into this documentary film by TBN in 2007. Church of God is the same denomination as evangelist Mary K. Baxter, who published A Divine Revelation of Hell (Whitaker House, 1993). Howard Storm’s book is My Descent Into Death (Clairview Books, 2000). Storm was a pastor in United Church of Christ from 1992 until 2011, which is surprisingly enough, a mainline liberal denomination. Across the denomination, tolerance of the gay lifestyle seemed to have been a mixed bag, reaching it’s fully gay affirming position in 2011, the year that Storm retired. After his retirement, he continued to travel around and share his Hell experience in these increasingly liberal UCC churches. These testimonies were the precursors to Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes In Hell (Charisma House, 2006). As far as I understand, Bill is a non-denominational Spirit-filled evangelist. Along with the evangelistic ministries of Ray Comfort, Leonard Ravenhill, David Wilkerson, Paul Washer, and Andrew Strom–Wiese’s testimony has had a tremendous impact on my spiritual life. Rawlings’ book is unique in that it’s a collection of visions of Hell by a born again medical doctor. Visions and dreams of Hell have been written about for all of human history. These continued in medieval Europe after the Bible was written: see Eileen Gardiner’s Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante (Italica Press, 1989). They were also journaled in the Great Awakenings–and taken seriously by both Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney–see Finney’s sermon called “The Self-Hardening Sinner’s Doom.” Such things come from the realm of the spirit, are timeless and eternal, are an interracial and international collective human experience, far exceeding the boundaries of the written word; and we have the most reliable references to them in the pages of the Bible: the divinely inspired, authoritative, inscripturated Word of God to mankind. –J.B.
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