 I remember 23rd, 1998, I had an experience that changed my life. I thought, Lord, why did you send me this horrible place? I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure he's sent you anywhere. Many of you have heard the name Bill Weath, Bill Weath's not sure of the pronunciation, but this is the one who has the story of being in hell for 23 minutes. 23 minutes in hell is the name of his book. As a matter of fact, he goes by the name of, or when he presents a video, he'll call himself the man who went to hell. The question is, is his story true? There are other people who also had similar claims, either going to hell or going to heaven, but we'll focus on just the going to hell portion today and deal with this. Is it true? Is it possible that he went to hell? Well, a couple of things, number one, when you compare his account to him going to hell with other people, the accounts aren't always the same. And so just for that reason, somebody, if not all of them, are not being honest. I got up at three o'clock in the morning just to get a glass of water, and suddenly I was pulled out of my body, like being drawn up out of your body, and I found myself falling through the air down this long tunnel, and I was getting hotter and hotter. And then I landed on a stone floor in an actual prison cell in hell, ruffian stone walls, bars, filthy, stinking, dirty prison cell, but like a dungeon. And I wondered how did I get here? Why am I here? I was fully awake and cognizant. I looked up and I saw these two enormous beasts in the cell, these demons, reptiles in appearance, bumps and scales all over the one's body, huge jaws, sunken in eyes, claws about a foot long, and they were pacing in the cell like a vicious, caged animal. And they had the most ferocious demeanor about them. They had an extreme hatred for God. They were blaspheming and cursing God. And then they had this hatred they directed towards me. The one picked me up, threw me into the wall of this prison cell. I hit the wall. I felt like bones had broken. Even though a spirit doesn't have bones, it felt that way. Now, if you compare his testimony with others who have gone to hell, allegedly, the question is, why don't there's always match up? There seems to be quite a few differences. And so that's one issue. But the other issue is why would God send you to hell in the first place? And oh, by the way, why would you introduce yourself as the person who went to hell? Paul, we believe, went to heaven. Now, the Bible says that he either went physically or he went in a vision. However, two things. One, Paul doesn't give an account of what he saw. Two, Paul doesn't introduce himself as the person who went to heaven, even though we believe that he did. Whether it be in vision or whether this be physical, that's not how Paul introduced himself. As a matter of fact, what Paul does is he gives the gospel and he tells us what we're striving for. Paul doesn't spend a lot of time warning of the dangers of hell. Now, that's not to say that you should not be warned of the dangers of hell, but to kind of draw a comparison between this person and Paul. You can at least see the difference there from an actual apostle for someone else. And the other issue is that why do people constantly do or say these things about them going to hell? Because it's likely that, and I'm in that camp that believes that they did not go to hell. Is it possible they may have seen, had a dream, a vivid dream? That's possible. I can't discount that. Don't know for sure. But for them going to hell, well, we're going to look at some scriptures to show that they did not go to hell. Remember 23rd 1998, I had an experience that changed my life. It doesn't matter if you believe my experience. What matters is that you check out what the Bible has to say about hell and avoid it just the same. The best interesting that he says that we don't, we should, we don't have to believe him, but we should check out what the Bible has to say. Well then, why do we need your testimony? As a matter of fact, let's think about something that the Bible says. Remember what the Bible says about an encounter of someone having to go to hell. And that is the story of Lazarus and the rich man. So let's go look at this first and then let's come back to Bill's testimony. In Luke 16, I want to pick it up in 23 of this story of Rat Lazarus and the rich man. He says, in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and being in torment and saw Abraham from far away and Lazarus in his bosom and he cried out, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue for I am angry agony in this flame. What Abraham said, child, remember that during your life you received your good things and likewise Lazarus bad things, but now he is being comforted here and you are in agony. Now notice what he says next. He says, and besides all this, between us and you, there is a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able to and that none may cross over from there to us. There seems to be some prohibition between someone who's there coming back going back and there's not like there's a bridge or a tollway for them to go back and forth and so once you're there, you're there. Now, why is that important? Well, notice what else he says because he's saying that we should believe what the Bible says about hell. Well, look what he says about the person who wants to come and give this testimony about what's happening in hell. He says, then he said, I begged you, Father, that you send him to my Father's house for I have five brothers in order that he may warn them so that they will so that they will not also come to this place. But Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. But he said, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead. Now, who's telling the story? Jesus is telling the story, so this is true. So someone coming back from the dead or someone coming back from hell to warn people of the dangers of hell. Jesus says they're not going to listen to that. People are not going to be persuaded from someone who allegedly went to hell and came back. And then even more to the point, could a person come from the grave, come from hell and come back? Well, Job actually deals with this question in Job 7.9. He says, when a cloud vanishes, it is gone. So he who goes down to Sheol does not come up. He will not return again to this house. Nor will his place know him anymore. Therefore, according to this passage, this is in Job. According to this, this is not going to happen. So for someone to make this statement, it seems pretty clear you did not go to hell. Now, again, could he have had a vivid dream? That's possible. We can dream about all sorts of things, but to come back and act as though these dreams are authoritative and then we should listen to you, which also brings up another issue. This was not a near-death experience. This was an out-of-body experience that's classified as a vision in the Bible. When a person wants to present themselves as someone who went to hell or heaven, even though the Bible gives us description and he himself tells us we should learn from the Bible, again, what did we learn about hell from you that we could not have learned from the Bible? Did you say anything different? Did you repeat what's in the Bible? Well, then we ought to go with the Bible, but it's almost as though you're saying, if you don't trust what the word of God says, if you won't trust the Bible, if you don't hear what it has to say, well, then you should at least listen what I've got to say. In other words, you kind of place your experience above what the word says. We should never, ever interpret or to elaborate on scriptures based upon our experiences. Our experiences don't determine anything. Now, our experiences ought to be judged in light of scriptures, not the other way around. And I just said, Jesus, and he said, I am. It was a bright light, like I've never seen a light like this before. I only saw the outline of a man, I didn't see his face. And when he said, I am, I just fell at his feet and I felt like I died. Now, apparently on his way back or coming back, he met Jesus, because the question I have is one, who sent you to hell? Two, who brought you back? Now, he's saying that it was Jesus that brought him back. So he went to hell, and then he also met Jesus on the way back. So this story already has a bunch of holes in it and it seems though a person is begging possibly for attention, or maybe this person wants us to take him more seriously than even he takes himself. I can only explain that through Revelation 1.16 where John, when he saw him, it says his countenance was bright as the sun. And I fell at his feet as one dead. So I don't know if I died or what happened, but he touched me and I came too. And I was at his feet and it was there that I realized, even though I've known this all my years as a Christian, but it really hit me so strongly that because he went to the cross, I didn't have to go to that place. So again, you saying so is nothing new. It's something that we don't already know. And it's almost again as though you're putting yourself in the place of the apostles, the prophets, because he speaks about, if you listen to his testimony, he also brings up how other people, hey, maybe vision had been moved about. And so it's almost like you're putting yourself in the same place of these people who got inspired to give us the scriptures so that you would also have some sort of authority or that you would cause people to look at you even more so. Again, he announces himself, he describes himself as the man who went to hell. Why can't you just be built? Well, because you want people to take you a little bit more, give you a little bit more credibility to what you're saying versus what the word says. Why not just preach what the word says? Again, that's what Jesus himself says that someone coming back from the dead that I don't listen to you. And so it makes you wonder the people that do listen to you, what's going on in their heart? Why wasn't the word good enough? Do they require a sign? If they do, do you require a sign also? If you do, what does Jesus say about people who require a sign, who look for a sign? None will be given to them except his death, barren resurrection that is the sign of Jonah being buried in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights. That's the only sign that you'll get. But now we've got people wanting to say, I've got another sign ignoring what the word says. I thought, Lord, why did you send me this horrible place? And he said, many people do not believe hell is real. He said, you just go and tell them. I said, yes, sir, I'll go. You, like everyone else can just go and tell without the supposed experience of going to hell. Now, one of the other things that he stated was that he didn't know if he was dead or not. Well, we know he didn't die. Why do we know so? Because the Bible says in Hebrews 9, 27, he says, it is appointed unto man, wants to die and after this comes the judgment. When you are judged, you go to one or two places either to be with the father or to hell. So how did he get there? What took him there? That's why we begin to see some of the holes in his testimony because it just doesn't line up with scriptures. And we're not gonna interpret scriptures in light of his experience. We're not exegeting scriptures in light of his dreams. We're gonna look at his dreams and his vision, his testimony and compare it to scripture. If it doesn't line up, if it adds to, if it takes away, if it deviates, well, then we know that it is not of God. One of the other things he brings up is that the fact that his wife also is an eyewitness to this account which have no idea how she could possibly have been an eyewitness unless she also went and he didn't say that. But the other issue is that he brings up what the demons did to him while he was there. Remember, the demons are there to be punished themselves. So we're not gonna see them running the place as though they're in charge, as though they are the prison guards. So that's not gonna happen. They'll be tormented, you'll be tormented, those that are gonna be there. And so we don't see this account, again, this account kind of goes, it runs different than what we've heard scriptures say about hell. And there will be some that will be tempted to say, why should we even think to judge another person's experience? That's this person's experience. Who are we to say it didn't happen? Well, remember, he himself is saying that this experience of he is to help people or to move people to share the gospel and to know about heaven and hell. But what does the Bible say? The Bible says, Paul says all scripture is inspired by God and possible for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God, and this is either possible man or woman, of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. It's not to state that a dream, a vision, our experiences, that's what's gonna equip someone for every good work. No, the scriptures. And so if we're going to supplant the scriptures for someone else's experience, we have to reject that. Do I think that he actually went to hell? No, he did not. Do I think that maybe he thinks he does? I have no idea. He either thinks he does or he knows for a fact that he didn't. We know he did not. Now, just because he's convinced of it, I don't think that that's a good enough reason for us to have pity or to believe or to want to believe. Again, we've got the scriptures, as Jesus says. We have the prophets. We have the word. We have even more of the word than when Jesus gives this account. And so why would we reject that? Why? There is no need to. So for that reason, and for many other reasons, plus the fact that they just don't line up and there'll be someone next week, more than likely, who was going to say that he went to hell, went to heaven, went to the Garden of Eden, went to all of these different places. They want to put themselves in the place of the people in the Bible. There's a desire to what we call the Narsus Jesus, where you want to read yourself into the scriptures. You want to be one of the focal points, one of the characters. You want God to move in your life so much so that you want to have an experience. Whether you think the experience is legitimate or not, we tend to do that a lot of times and have people to buy in what we're saying because they're not buying into the credibility of us otherwise. Let the word be all that we need. And if you look for a sign, then let the sign of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection be all that you need. Amen.