I Spent 5 Hours in Heaven And 5 Hours in Hell… - Gary Brown

Gary Brown spent 5 hours in Heaven and 5 hours in hell.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I am pastor Gary Brown from VictoryChurch in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My
dad was a pastor before me,and we moved to Fort Smith when I
was age ten. When I wasaged twenty one, I became youth pastor
at the church, and I've beenon the pastoral staff now for fifty years.
Actually, we have a new seniorpastor now and I'm just kind of

(00:24):
helping out at this point. Intwo thousand and four, I had a
very unusual experience, the most unusualof my life. I've been blessed with
a lot of visitations and visions anddreams, but this surpassed anything I've ever
known. I woke up on aSaturday morning. We just come back from
a conference in Florida. I wokeup on a Saturday morning at five am.

(00:49):
I went to the sofa just tospend some time with God, and
I began to since his presence veryvery strong. I thought, maybe I'm
getting some more notes for my sermontomorrow. So I grabbed a pad and
paper or a pad and pen,and was going to write down those notes.
But then I realized that's not whatwas going on. And I just

(01:12):
kept sensing the growing presence of God, And within a few minutes I went
to the floor and got on myface before God. And within another few
minutes I realized that my spirit wasleaving my body. Not only had this
happen exactly that way one other timewhen I was fourteen years old, when

(01:34):
I sensed that my spirit left mybody. I since that happened, and
I knew then what it was tobe absent from the body and present with
the Lord, because it was absolutelyin the presence of God. For five
hours, I spent time in Heaven, and I spent time in the presence

(01:55):
of God. In this instance,it was restricted strictly to the presence of
God, because God wanted me tosee that He is what makes heaven heaven.
I've had visitations where I saw thingsin heaven. I've visited Heaven in

(02:15):
three occasions. Have gone to somethingthey call the Great Library, and there's
a great hour glass there, andthe silver not sand, but the silver
that comes through that is quite fullon the bottom and not very full on
the top. I think we're aboutdone. I think we're about to see
Jesus come soon. Well, inthis experience, the presence of God was

(02:38):
amazing. I became detached from everythingof earth. As a matter of fact,
I said to God, I said, if this is what it's like
to be in your presence for eternity, you can go ahead and take me
now and not send me back.I know that sounds amusing, because I
don't have to give God permission totake me right. But the odd thing

(02:59):
is that I was so detached.I love my family, and yet the
presence of God. Maybe this willhelp you see how amazing the presence is.
The presence of God in heaven isso magnified that we detach from everything
of earth. If you've ever wonderedif your loved ones that have gone to

(03:20):
heaven miss you, they don't don'tfeel bad about that. They'll look forward
to seeing you. They'll love seeingyou when you get there, when you
graduate. But they don't miss youbecause the presence of God is so amazing.
One of the most frustrating things aboutthis is explaining how amazing. I
knew immediately what Isaiah felt when hesaid I'm undone, and I understood why

(03:46):
the angels sing Holy, Holy,Holy around the throne. The presence of
God is incredible. It's magnified amillion times. What you've ever experienced here
on earth of the presence of God. I've experienced some amazing times of God's
refreshing and presence in my life,and maybe you have too, But I'm

(04:10):
telling you, in heaven it's amillion times more. It's so much larger,
so magnified, that it's hard forus to comprehend in our minds.
You feel an absolute, absolute acceptance. You know, I'd often thought of
when I go into the presence ofGod after I graduate into Heaven, that

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there might be a kind of anunworthy feeling. But it's not that at
all. It's very humbly, butyou don't feel unworthy. God makes you
feel so loved, so accepted.Why do we not feel unworthy because of
Jesus? Because Jesus has taken ourunworthiness and count ita is as qualification for

(04:56):
his mercy. The Messiah died onthat cross for you and me. So
I knew the presence of God wasso welcoming, so warm, so loving,
and I felt so accepted and secure. Everything in heaven, everything in
his presence, is based in love. It's a loved based place, and

(05:19):
the security and the joy and thepeace was magnified beyond anything that's imaginable to
the human mind. This lasted forfive hours. At the end of that
five hours, then came the afterglow. It was so amazing, just

(05:42):
so amazing to have the afterglow ofGod in this experience in my life.
The next morning, at church,I told of this experience, and the
altars were full of people who wereseeking a closer relationship with God. I
basked in this afterglow until Monday night, until Monday night, and Monday night,

(06:08):
at midnight, I was in worship. I was praising God. And
at midnight I felt like the presenceof God and all of His glory was
vacuumed out the top of my head, and suddenly I was in hell.
The devil immediately walked up to me, this grotesque figure. He stunk.

(06:34):
He reached out to me, andhe reached to my lips and he did
like this, and he threw thaton the ground. He stomped on it,
and they were the praises that Ihad been speaking the last few days
about my experience and about the presenceof God. And he said, where's

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your God now? And he beganto shoot incredible accusations at me and condemnations.
You see, everything in Hell isbased in fear, and the accusations
came like shotgun pellets. The condemnationscame so fast. I was accused of

(07:19):
every sin I'd ever done that hadbeen forgiven, and every sin that I
had had in a vain imagination buthadn't acted on. I was accused of
everything that I never thought about doing. He just kept accusing and accusing.
Demons joined him. They were screechingand mocking, and then I heard the

(07:41):
cries of millions of the lost,of the people that were there. Hell
is so lonely, Hell is soempty, and you experience things on multiple
lever levels. Fear has torment,and there was torment there. Everything that
you feel is based in fear.For instance, you feel much grace or

(08:03):
grief, I should say you feelmuch grief, no grace. You feel
absolute grief. You feel anxiety.You're terrified that your loved ones will end
up in Hell. If you've everhad a panic attack, maybe a moment
of fight or flight experience, ora panic attack that just came on you,

(08:26):
it's a million times worse that,worse than that, but it never
ends. It just keeps happening.On and on and on. Now,
I did not experience fire. Ididn't see fire. Now I'm not saying
there's not fire there. I'm notsaying that at all. But what I'm
saying is that fire would have beenpreferred to the hopelessness of hell. There

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is no hope here. If wefeel hopeless, we have a bad day
or a bad week, we're ina tough circumstance. We can go to
a friend and vent. We cango to a Christian friend and they'll pray
for us. We can turn toJesus, we can ask God for his
help and he'll give it because Henever leaves us or forsakes us. But

(09:09):
in Hell there's nowhere to turn.And I would say I would define hell
by the word hopelessness. There's absolutehopelessness. This went on for five hours
and then it ended. But therewas an aftermath, and it was like
I enjoyed the afterglow of God's presence. There was a bitterness, and it

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was tough. It went on fora day, and at the end of
the next day, at midnight,I was still awake and still struggling with
this. I finally fell asleep aboutthree am, and then I woke up
and I realized there was a shift. And I got a piece of paper

(09:54):
and a pencil, and I wrotedown, greater is he that is in
me than he that is in theworld. And I wrote down, resist
the devil, and he will flee. And I felt I was writing against
some unseen force. And when Ihad written that, I looked up and

(10:16):
there was a mist above me.There was the glory and presence of God.
It came in through my face andcame down into me. I was
so thankful. The Lord did acouple of things through a couple of friends
to strengthen me and encourage me.A word of knowledge and a prayer,
and then everything changed. Everything changed. Unusual circumstances began to happen. On

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one occasion, I was sitting outsideof a Hallmark store waiting on my wife,
and a person came out with threechildren in the store next to Hallmark,
and she was loading her children inthe car, and the Spirit of
God said, compliment the children.I complimented the children. She thanked me.

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She walked around in the front ofher car. Kids couldn't hear at
that point, and the spirit said, ask if all three of the children
are from different fathers. I said, what he said, just ask And
so I asked her. I said, are all three of the children from
different fathers? She said yes,and I'm carrying a child now and that

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child's from fourth father, and hetoo has left me. And I said,
ma'am, you fall in love easily, don't you. She said,
way too easily. And I said, can I tell you about a man
who will love you and who willnever leave you forsake you? And she
said, oh, yes, AndI shared the Gospel with her. I
told her about Jesus or Messiah.I died on the cross for her,

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and within a moment, just amoment or two, she made my open
window her altar, and she gaveher heart to the Lord. As she
was leaving a few minutes later,after we'd visited a bit, she looked
back and she said, you knowwhat's really really weird. We went to
the wrong store today. We justwent in that store, came back out
and got in her car because werealized we were in the wrong place.

(12:05):
And I said, you weren't inthe wrong place. She said, I
know I was in the right placetoday. On another occasion, I went
to see my dad in the hospital. As I came out of the hospital,
it was very late at night,and I passed a lady who was

(12:26):
in a wheelchair. She'd gone outsideto smoke, and I walked past her
and I got to my car almostand the Lord said she's going to die
in two weeks. Will you lether go to Hell? I said,
oh no, And I went backand I said, ma'am, the Lord
told me that you're dying. Andshe said that is true. She said,

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I have only a few months tolive, and I knew it'd be
two weeks by the spirit. Ididn't say that. I just said,
I wonder if you're prepared to die. And she said, oh yeah,
I'm tired of life. I'm tired. I'm ready to get out of here.
I said, no, I mean, are you prepared in Jesus?
Do you know Jesus? And shesaid, you know. I went to
church with my grandmother when I wasa little girl, and I heard them

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talk about Jesus, and I said, let me tell you about Jesus.
And in just a moment, thislady, whose legs were amputated and one
arm was amputated and she was neardeath, accepted Jesus as her savior.
You see, there are many otherstories that I could share if we had
time like this. The important thingis God is for you. He was

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thinking about that lady and her children. He was thinking about the woman,
and he had me there just atthe right time for both of them,
the lady in the wheelchair and thelady outside of Hallmark. And he's thinking
about you, and he's for you. God said he has a plan for

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you that you prosper and be inhealth, even as your soul prospers.
He said he'd never harm you,and he said he'd never leave you forsake.
You just receive him into your liferight now. If you don't know
him as your Messiah and Lord,just say, come into my life,
forgive me of every sin and setme on a path of life, a

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life that I can find in thescriptures, and then begin to walk with
him. The Holy Spirit will helpyou do that if you're a believer,
but you need to know God more. You need a closer relationship with him.
Get yoked to Jesus and soak inhis presence. You'll never regret it,
because He's a rewarder of all thosewho diligently seek him.