When this experience came to an end, Did the Lord, you kind of came back or you had an encounter with
the Lord and He gave you instruction of why this happened? Yes as I was looking at all this horror,
something began lifting me up this dark tunnel. So I was ascending up these cavern walls around
me and in this pitch black darkness, suddenly this bright light appeared. Now Vlad I knew immediately
who it was. There's no doubt when Jesus shows up, who He is but I didn't see His face. I just saw
the outline of a man standing in a pure like a holy light and it didn't hurt my eyes but I
looked in the light and I said Jesus and He just said two words. He said, I am and when He said,
I am. I went out. I don't know if I died or passed out. I can only explain it through Revelation 1:16
when John saw Him. He said, His countenance was bright as a sun and I fell at His feet as one
dead. Well after a time, He touched me and I came too and it hit me so strongly when I was at His
feet that if He wouldn't have gone to the cross, I would be in that place for all eternity. Man,
I was so grateful for what Jesus did for me that He died a horrible death on the cross to
keep me out of hell. I didn't want to ask Him any questions. I just want to thank Him and praise His
holy name. That's all you want to do and I kept saying thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you
for saving me. Thank you for taking me to heaven. Oh I love you Lord. Thank you for loving me and
but after a time, thoughts started coming to my mind and He would answer my thoughts. I didn't
want to ask Him a question but He would answer my thoughts. Wow. Psalms 139:2 says He answers
our thoughts a far off and I first thought Lord, why did you send me to this horrible place? He
said because many people do not believe hell is real. Wow. He said even some of My own people do
not believe hell exists. I'm getting chills here. Wow. Now Vlad at the time I thought wait a minute,
don't all Christians believe in hell but we have found out sense many Christians believe
in a teaching called annihilationism. That's a teaching that says you simply cease to exist if
you deny Jesus or universalism, that's a teaching that says everybody get saved, at least eventually
or soul sleep, you just go to sleep. There's many false teachings and He wanted me to point
people to the scriptures. I'm just a signpost to point them to the scriptures. They don't have to
believe my experience you know I'm not here to convince anyone to believe my experience. Just
check out what the word of God has to say. What is the other thing that the Lord told you of why He
gave you that experience. Yeah that's why He said because many people He wanted me to go and share
because there's a lot of pastors today that are not even sharing about hell because they cannot
reconcile a loving God with a God that will allow torment for all eternity. So they just don't go
near the topic and they stay away from it, not realizing there are answers why hell exists and
it is reasonable. It's not God being mean or vindictive to anyone. So I can explain that a
little bit further. Yeah we'll address that just a little bit later. Anything else that the Lord
told you in that encounter? Yes I said Lord why did those demons hate me so much. He said because
you're made in My image and they hate Me. John 15:18 Jesus said, they hated Me before they hated
you. See demons hate God but they cannot hurt Him but they can hurt His creation. Wow. That's why
Jesus said in John 10:10 The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy but He said, I have come that
you might have life and have it more abundantly. So all the destruction, the evil, wickedness and
all that we see today. That's all from the demonic realm as you know. I thought Lord I don't want to
tell anybody about this experience. They're gonna think I'm crazy or had a bad dream. He said it's
not your job to convict their hearts, it's the Holy Spirit's. He said, you just go and tell tell
them. I said yes sir, I'll go but Vlad I have to admit, I didn't want to share this experience with
anyone after I came back. I wanted to witness to everybody but I didn't want to share this
experience because I'm a conservative person by nature and they're going to think I'm crazy but I
knew the Lord was telling me to and I got invited to a Bible study. I went reluctantly to share it.
He asked me to come share it. I went three months later and after I shared at this one Bible study,
it spread all over the country. So my wife and I started getting invited all over the country.
But before we do this, so you come back after this vision into, how long did this take place?
23 minutes. 23 minutes. You come back. How did you feel? Did your wife find you? Did you come back to
her? Were you shocked? I mean how did you react to this? Well I got up at 3 o'clock in the morning. I
looked at our digital clock. When I came back into my body, I was outside my body, the Lord
put me back in. Well, the horrors of hell flooded back into my mind and I started screaming and I
went into a traumatized state actually, I was in a fetal position on our living room floor screaming
and my screams woke up my wife and the first thing she did was look at our digital clock and it said
3:23. Wow so that's where the 23 minutes comes from but she found me on the floor and didn't
know if I was having a heart attack or what it was and I screamed out, pray for me, pray for
me. The Lord has taken me to hell. So she prayed and God removed the horror but left the memory.
Now we know He can divide both soul and spirit. So somehow he took away the horror in my mind
but left the memory and you know if He wouldn't have, I felt that my body was dying. Seeing hell
is so severe, it will actually kill you. Our body cannot take that kind of you know we hear people
in the war that have gone in the shock from seeing horrible things. Well I definitely and I was in
the best physical shape of my life then but God removed the horror. So that's what happened then
and you mentioned you pretty much didn't tell this to anybody until about... No, I told one
friend and then he invited me to his Bible study and I went reluctantly three months later. Wow.
So this is not something... you were not trying to write a book, start a ministry. You're living your
life for the Lord and one night, you know you're going and get some water and the Lord takes you
there and then you have all of these experiences and now the Lord gives you a assignment that He
wants you to remind His people that this place is real as the scripture says but it's almost
like He needs to have that another push like He did it with Gideon. When He told Gideon you know,
I am with you and with others and then He would send them to listen to the enemy as well to almost
like that reassurance needed to happen and then your wife you know she sees this experience that
you're having, she prays for you. The Lord takes the horror away but you have a very vivid memory
left and one of your friend hears about it and then reluctantly 3 months later, you share this
on his Bible study and next thing, you know it starts spreading like wildfire and so many people
start hearing about this and I love how if you guys noticed every single thing that Bill shares
is backed up by multiple of scriptures. This is not, he's not basing. He's very conservative
man like he says. He's not basing this on his experience. He's basing this on the scriptures
but experience becomes that confirmation for that experience and when it's talking about the issue
of why would God allow, you brought this up very important question that a lot of people are scared
of talking about hell. I actually remember Bill a night before Christmas. So our Christmas service,
we had a Christmas service and I had this you know beautiful Mary, Jesus and Bethlehem story
prepared and some good life illustrations and I couldn't sleep the whole night and the Lord
started started to deal with my heart that there are people there, who are not going to live to see
another Christmas and that I need to preach about eternity and specifically that I need to preach
about hell has no exits and I'm like, I can't preach that on Christmas. I mean I'm like maybe on
like some kind of a Halloween weekend but not on that and so and I wrestled. I wrestled and yeah,
I preached on Christmas service, Hell has no exits and it was probably, I ruined Christmas for a lot
of people but I felt in my heart, I'll rather ruin Christmas for them but not ruin their eternity
by preaching the truth and I'm not saying that we have to take every holiday and preach a brimstone
fire message but I think that we don't have enough preaching on hell than we should. Jesus taught
more on hell than He taught on heaven and Jesus preached on that and we don't hear that. I mean
when was the last time that you heard a sermon on that topic and so can you speak a little bit
about into that, on this gospel teaching by Jesus and the apostles on the topic of eternal damnation
and eternal separation from God. Yes, you know Jesus said Matthew 25:46 These shall go in
everlasting life and these shall go in everlasting punishment. He used the word, everlasting is the
word aiónios. So just as heaven is everlasting so is hell everlasting and also Matthew 25:41 Jesus
said depart from Me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So
He talked about hell but you know it's actually a message of love because it's a message of warning
you know what loving parent wouldn't warn their child not to play in a busy street. Well that's
what God's doing. He's talking about hell but it's in a way like, Hey I don't want you to go
there and I've given you a free will to choose, you can choose not to go there. So that's why
we need to let people know it's a warning to let them know there really is a hell because if you
don't understand that there's a hell, you may not have any urgency to even get saved, number one and
then as a Christian you don't really have much of an urgency to walk in the fear of the Lord. You
know you get a little bit complacent but when you understand the severity of hell 2 Corinthians 5:10
and 11, Paul said knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. So he's saying, when
you understand the judgment in hell in general you will be more persuasive with men and that's what
it does in us. It causes us to appreciate what we're safe from. To walk in the fear of the Lord
which means that we simply obey what the Lord tells us to do and number three, gives us more
of that passion, a desire to witness, you know so many will pray a nice little sweet prayer maybe.
Oh Lord save my family you know and kind of go all about our business but when you understand
how severe hell is, you'll think man, I didn't know it was that bad. You'll get on your knees,
you'll cry out and you'll say oh Lord, give them a dream or a vision. Send laborers across their path
to warn them. Oh Father be the hound of heaven after them. Don't let them go. I ask you Father,
don't let my family go to hell or my friends and you'll fast maybe and pray more diligently
and that's what it does for us understanding this knowledge about how severe hell is. Bill,
why does God being loving allow people to go to hell or send them to hell? Well, He doesn't send
anybody to hell you know Revelation 21:8 says all unbelievers shall have their part in the Lake of
Fire. So there's a warning. He said if you don't believe Jesus is the only way as Jesus said in
John 14:6 I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by Me. If you don't
believe that, then He said in Matthew 12:37 your own words will condemn you because you said, I
don't believe the way out. Now God loves everybody and He provided a way to heaven but because He
loves, He cannot force anyone into it. He tells you here's how you stay out but if you say,
I don't believe it. Well you have a free will to not believe it but He warned you if you don't, you
will end up in the Lake of Fire. So that's fair warning. I mean you know people have that free
choice. So He's not sending them, people's own words condemn them to hell and you know God's arms
are open to the whole world. He died for the sins of the whole world. So that it's not narrow-minded
in that sense, salvation, He's open to everyone. Anybody can come to the Lord even if they've been
wicked and evil and mean, they can repent and say Lord please forgive me of my sin, I'm sorry
and He's so loving, He'll forgive them even on their last breath and then take them to heaven. So
that's the God we serve. People think He's mean to let people go to hell. Well remember it's the same
God that died a horrible death on the cross to keep you out. So how much more loving can you get
than that. It's our decision to reject the gospel as you mentioned and Jesus has already provided
everything. He sent the church. This stream and this message is a conviction to some people to
come back to the Lord, to receive the gift of salvation. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone.