Holy Spirit

Friday, February 22, 2013

An Amazing Revival Sweeps over Brazil

Benny Hinn
Brazil is witnessing God’s anointing and power!
Reports are spreading about the anointing fire as an amazing revival sweeps over Brazil!
Beginning with packed-to-overflowing crowds in Brasilia’s Ministério da Fé (February 11), the intensity continued to grow for the first of two scheduled services in Sao Paulo’s Estádio da Portuguesa on February 12–13, 2013.
Expectations were already running high by midmorning Tuesday as people began gathering at the Sao Paulo arena for the 7 p.m. service. By noon, the 14,000-seat facility was filled with hundreds standing in the back and against the wall, praying for God’s power to anoint the coming service. By 4:15 p.m., over 2,000 people were lined up outside the arena and the atmosphere was charged. By service time, over 5,000 had gathered outside to listen via speakers.
Worship and Miracles
As soon as Pastor Benny stepped forward to begin worshipping, the power of God fell and spread like wildfire. Pastor waved his hand and thousands were slain in the Spirit. Miracles began happening all over the church property as he shared God’s Word.
Testimonies included a woman who had suffered for years from a neck injury caused by an automobile accident. She had reached the point that she could no longer move her head. She had constant migraines and jaw pain that affected her whole face. During the service, she suddenly felt the power of God touch her with heat pouring over her face, neck, and jaw. The pain left, and she was totally healed!
So many mighty miracles happened that it was impossible for all to share testimonies on the platform.
Services continue tonight (February 13) at Sao Paulo’s Estádio da Portuguesa. Then on February 14, services will move to Sao Paulo’s Igreja Apostolica Plenitude Do Trono De Deus, then on to Bola da Suframa in Manaus (February 16) and Ministério Internacional da Restauração in Manaus (February 17).
Promise to Return
 “I believe what we are seeing is a foretaste of what is going to happen in the coming days,” Pastor Benny Hinn reports from Brazil. “It’s so wonderful to be here with the lovely people of Brazil. An amazing revival is sweeping over this nation. We are witnessing God’s power in an amazing, historic way that I haven’t seen in years! And I plan to come back here as soon as possible. Our Lord Jesus said, ‘This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come’ (Matthew 24:14). This is literally happening in front of our eyes. And as we continue services here in Sao Paulo and Manaus, I ask partners all over the globe to intercede that God will continue to move mightily in Brazil and spread throughout South America. I ask for your prayers and your much-needed support.”
Be a Vital Part of Our Historic Events!
God is doing a mighty work through each Miracle Healing Service! As with the powerful services in Brazil, upcoming international crusades are increasingly expensive because of extensive travel and setup costs, yet the results continue to be both thrilling and eternal as souls receive Jesus Christ as Savior and people are miraculously healed. Pastor Benny will be journeying soon to South Africa for Miracle Healing Services in Johannesburg (March 12–13), Cape Town (March 14–15), Durban (March 16-17), Phoenix (March 19), Durban (March 20), and East London (March 21). Please believe with Pastor Benny Hinn for a supernatural harvest of souls in each of these places, and be part of these historic crusades through a sacrificial gift today!

WHEN GOD SPEAKS THE WISE LISTEN


The man of God spoke concerning the accurate football prophecies he had given in the past and more recent times. He said when God speaks, the wise listen. The man of God replayed video footage of a football prophecy he gave concerning Nigeria and Guinea in 2011 and the fulfilment of that prophecy. As a communicator between the visible and invisible, Prophet T.B. Joshua watched the game of the Africa Cup of Nations between Nigeria and Guinea in a vision before the match was actually played. He said in 2011, that the game would not be favourable for Nigeria and that whoever scored first would win the game. It happened just as he had seen it in the vision God gave him; Nigeria did not qualify for the Africa Cup Of Nations in 2011.
Prophet T.B. Joshua asked God what he could do and God instructed him to pray and fast for three days, which he did and God showed him the way. After he had fasted and prayed, God told him that Nigeria would smile again. A week before the Africa Cup of Nations final match between Nigeria and Burkina Faso, 2013, Prophet T.B. Joshua singularly prophesied that Nigeria would win and this prophecy was published in a popular Nigerian newspaper, PM News, a week before the match took place! Indeed, Nigeria smiled as they took the Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa this year, 2013!

WALKING FROM THE WHEELCHAIR


2Miss Alice Kwaje Williams came all the way from South Sudan to The SCOAN with a life-threatening situation. She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a very active form of bone cancer that led her to be confined to a wheelchair. Medically speaking, the only option given was for them to amputate her leg. Once a bright university student in Uganda, she was facing the prospects of life without one of her legs. The situation was so critical that she could not put any weight whatsoever on her leg or move it an inch. After being booked for an amputation, Alice and her mum returned to South Sudan to meet with her family. The family, having watched Emmanuel TV, resolved that the only solution was to bring her to The SCOAN in Nigeria. Coming from a very poor home, they were financially crippled due to the amount of money her father had already spent on her hospital treatments. More than 100 people came together to contribute enough money for her and her parents to travel to The SCOAN in Lagos, Nigeria. Even the way she got her visa to Nigeria was miraculous. Her parents were told that it was impossible for a visa to be granted for a temporary passport. However, when they saw Alice’s condition and learned that she was coming to The SCOAN, they decided to issue her the visa immediately.
Even before her journey to The SCOAN, Mrs Williams had a dream where Prophet T.B. Joshua approached her and said, ‘Mama, don’t worry, your daughter is already healed.’ That strengthened their faith all the more. Upon arriving in The SCOAN, Alice was arranged at the prayer line. As Wise Man Daniel prayed for her, Mrs Williams said that she saw a bright white light envelop her daughter and she knew that the moment of healing had come. Immediately after the prayer, Alice began to walk for the first time in six months! She has since stayed two weeks in The SCOAN, spending time in God’s presence and recovering her strength. After hearing of the amount of people who came together to contribute towards her journey to The SCOAN, Prophet T.B. Joshua compassionately gave the family $3,000, to their greatest shock and surprise. The testimony ended with the family joyously dancing together.  There are no natural words to describe it except to say, ‘Thank You, Jesus.’

ARM AMPUTATION CANCELLED THROUGH EMMANUEL TV!


Mrs Esther Iwuala was involved in a ghastly accident that left her unconscious and in a critical condition. A good samaritan rushed her to a hospital where she was taken to the emergency clinic. Wounds covered her body, especially her arm which was literally reduced to flesh and bones. Upon all medical efforts, the wound refused to heal. The doctors told Mrs Iwuala to prepare herself for the amputation of her arm, stating that this was the only medical solution.  Hopeless and isolated, Mrs Iwuala cried herself to sleep that night. The doctors gave her seven days before the amputation was to take place.MRS ESTHER IWUALA
During that week, Mrs Iwuala began watching Emmanuel TV in the hospital. On the night before her arm was to be amputated, she asked for the assistance of the nurses to get up. They had no idea what her plan was. She asked them to bring her close to the television where Emmanuel TV was playing and lift her arm up to the screen to touch it. She repeated this act of faith three times, as Prophet T.B. Joshua was praying for the viewers. The medical staff were making jest of her, not knowing that a mighty miracle was taking place!
The next day, the doctor who was to conduct the operation was unable to come for the appointment. Mrs Iwuala pleaded with the nurses to replace the bandages on her arm, stating that she was feeling a strange warm sensation running throughout it. Reluctantly, the nurses replaced the bandages. When the doctor came to perform the amputation surgery a few days later, as the bandages were removed, the medical personnel there were shocked to discover that the wound had dried up!!! Utterly astonished at the transformation of her arm, the amputation was cancelled and just a few weeks later, Mrs Iwuala was released from the hospital, her arm completely restored, with only a scar remaining. The medical practitioner who was in charge of her case said that in his fifty years of medical experience, he had never witnessed such a miraculous recovery. Thank You, Jesus Christ!

A FORCE STRONGER THAN FIRE!



MRS OBICHERE PAT (HOUSE SAVED FROM FIRE)When Mrs Obichere Pat heard the news, she was left in stunned shock. She was told that fire had started in her compound and her house was seen going up in flames. Rushing home, she discovered that a miraculous incident had occurred. The fire had completely consumed her generator and surrounding buildings but suddenly stopped at the door of her house. Why? Because the Anointing Sticker was placed on the door! Mrs Obichere explained that there were many electrical appliances within the house that would have gone up easily in flames but the fire stopped without any logical explanation at the foot of her door. Truly, we are sheltered under the shadow of God’s protection.

ALCOHOL ADDICTION EXPELLED BY ANOINTING WATER


MR TAWAH SAMUEL (CHRONIC DRUNKARD)Mr Tawah Samuel, a Cameroonian, was a chronic drunkard. He used to drink eight bottles of beer every single day. After his boss at work met him drunk at work on three separate occasions, he was sacked from his work. All of the money he earned or was given ended up being spent on alcohol. It was an addiction he simply couldn’t stop by himself. However, after seeing similar testimonies of deliverance from drunkenness on Emmanuel TV, Mr Samuel decided to visit The SCOAN to receive the Anointing Water. The day he ministered the Anointing Water was the last day he tasted or touched alcohol! He said that immediately after ministering it, the urge for all alcoholic beverages vanished. Mr Tawah, speaking from his own personal experiences in life, advised the young people to be careful of alcohol and to stay close to God.

THE CYCLE OF POVERTY BROKEN!


ANTHONY ORJIMr Anthony Orji was passing through a cycle of poverty, backwardness and failure that had left his business in tatters and his finances crumbling. He was unable to even pay the house rent for himself and his family and was facing the prospects of being thrown out of his home. To feed his family was a challenging task and the future seemed bleak. However, when a friend introduced him to Emmanuel TV, his fortunes began to change. Mr Orji decided to visit The SCOAN and was privileged to receive the Anointing Water. After ministering it, a radical transformation took place! His business began to change as customers started coming from far and wide. Merely seven months after his visit to The SCOAN, Mr Orji had built his own house, which he proudly showed the picture of. Six months later, blessings continued to flow and he was given two new plots of land! Aside from this blessing in his business, his wife who was experiencing an overdue pregnancy, safely delivered her child after calling the Emmanuel TV Prayer Line. Glory be to God!

GOD REWARDS THE OBEDIENT


MR TIMOTHY JACOBMr Timothy Jacob was an ordinary banker in his country in Cameroon. He had experienced stagnancy in his career, being in the same position for 14 years. Things were not moving and were difficult for him and his family. He came to The SCOAN and received the Anointing Water. He said that before ministering it, the Holy Spirit spoke to his heart that he should take good care of pregnant women, handicapped people and the needy who come to the bank he works in and that he should give them special attention. He obeyed the instruction in righteousness. Three months after ministering the Anointing Water and obeying God’s instructions, he was awarded ‘The Best Western Union Operator Of The Year’ in Western Africa. He was also promoted to the position of an Accounts Manager.

BEDWETTING SINCE BIRTH


Precious, from Libya shared a powerful testimony of how she was delivered from the terrible problem of bedwetting which she had from birth. PreciousAged 32, she said the problem of bedwetting had caused her two marital breakups, constant shame and embarrassment and regular thoughts of committing suicide which had robbed her of her social life. In her own words, “I wet my bed every single day of my life; whether I slept in the morning, afternoon or night, so far as I closed my eyes, I must wet my bed.” She was unable to sleep outside of her home due to the shame and indignity that accompanied the terrible affliction. Precious had visited various churches, spiritualists and witchdoctors for a solution but none was forthcoming. Even when she attended a crusade for prayer for the problem, she bedwet that night in the presence of the large crowd gathered!
Precious testimony started the day someone introduced her to Emmanuel TV whilst she was in Libya. Whilst watching Emmanuel TV, she saw a couple who was delivered from the same problem she had after they ministered the Anointing Water. Inspired by these testimonies, she continued to pray along with Prophet T.B. Joshua on Emmanuel TV. Then, one night, she had a remarkable dream. A strange man, who had been appearing to her since the age of 12, came with a knife to attack her and cut her in the throat. Then, suddenly, two of the wise men appeared, holding the Anointing Water in their hands. They sprayed the Anointing Water on Precious and the wound immediately closed up and the giant man ran away. Ever since that divine encounter, all traces of bedwetting in the life of Precious completely stopped. She began sleeping freely for the first time in her life and decided to travel all the way from Libya to The SCOAN in Lagos, Nigeria to testify to the world about her remarkable deliverance.

WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR LIFE, WHAT DO YOU SEE?



 TB JoshuaDuring Prophet T.B. Joshua’s message on Saturday, he asked a significant question,
“When you look at your life, what do you see? What does Jesus see?” Adding that if you examine your life, you will find out how much faith in God you have – Food for thought!

Friday, February 15, 2013

Mr Waziri from Taraba, Nigeria was addicted to drinking alcohol for 17 years

Mr Waziri from Taraba, Nigeria was addicted to drinking alcohol for 17 years and could drink up to 14 bottles a day. He did not see the need or have the desire to stop but one day after watching Prophet T.B. Joshua on Emmanuel TV prophesying to a man about the very same drinking problem, he realized his need for freedom.  As Prophet T.B. Joshua prayed for the viewers, he stretched his hand and touched the screen in prayer. Instantly, the desire to drink left him and he was completely delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit. After that prayer, everything about his life was transformed. His health, business, marriage and joy were restored! Even his appearance changed as his once large belly, due to excessive drinking, shrunk back to normal. Advising those who are desperately in need of a solution, he quoted the words of Prophet T.B. Joshua, saying, “If you have run out of rope, it is time to grab onto faith!”  Hallelujah! There is no bad habit, addiction or negative lifestyle that cannot be broken, conquered and defeated by Jesus Christ!

A soldier delivered from a terrible liver problem

Mr Peter, a soldier serving his country, Nigeria told his wonderful testimony of how Jesus Christ had healed him through the Anointing Water from a terrible liver problem. He was in terrible pain and discomfort as he had been diagnosed with liver enlargement which caused a swollen stomach. The problem was so severe that he was booked for an operation. Believing for a miracle, he received the Anointing Water and ministered it, in Jesus’ name. The next day, he began vomiting and black substances came out of his system. To his surprise, his stomach became normal! He went back to the doctor and was confirmed to be perfectly healthy. There was no trace of an enlarged liver. The astonished doctor asked him, “Which medication did you use?” Replying with a ZIRA YOHANNA {SAVED FROM 17 YEARS DRINKING AW}smile, Mr Peter responded that it was God’s doing through the Anointing Water. Glory to God! Speaking to the congregation, he said, “God has given me another opportunity. He has given me another chance. Doctors can treat; only Jesus can heal.”
In his own words, Mr Zira Yohana, an agent in the petroleum industry, was a “professional drunkard”. He said he could drink between five to six cartons of alcohol a day. For 17 years, he was inflicted with the severe problem of intoxication and lamented how he used to beat his wife after drinking alcohol. He also said that nobody could ‘out drink’ him when it came to alcohol. One day, he told his friend about his bad habit and his friend gave him the Anointing Water. After ministering the Anointing Water, the urge to drink alcohol left him completely. His life has been radically transformed and he is now an example to all. He advised everyone to seek forgiveness from God in order to stop their bad habits.

Mr.Moses delivered from the life of smoking,drinking

Mr Moses, aged 27, came to The SCOAN in need of deliverance from a life of smoking, drinking and patronizing MOSES DELIVERED FROM HEAVY SMOKING & DRINKING AW}prostitutes. He had begun smoking at the young age of 7 years old. This had caused him severe chest pain and nightmares in which people came to beat him in his dreams. One day, a friend came to him with the Anointing Water, advising that he needed a change in his life. He encouraged Mr Moses by telling him that if he put his trust in Jesus Christ, God would wash away his sins and wipe the stain of guilt away from his life. With this belief in his heart, he prayed and ministered the Anointing Water, in Jesus’ name. After prayer, he slept. The next morning, he reached for his morning cigarette. To his surprise, the smell of the cigarette irritated him. He tried smoking but could not. It has now been over three months and he has not once smoked, had a drink of any alcohol or visited prostitutes. He gives glory to God and encourages the youth that no matter the lifestyle they have engaged in, Jesus Christ can set them free!

ALL NATIONS PRAY


tbjThe Saturday and Sunday services at The SCOAN , February 9-10, 2013, were attended by people with a passion for the presence of God from all over the world. The services were marked by the astounding healings and hard-hitting deliverances in Jesus’ name, sounding a strong spiritual wake up call to an unbelieving generation wallowing in the gloom of their circumstances and adding to the continual joy of those being saved. The Sunday programme anchored on prophecies to individuals as revealed by Prophet T.B. Joshua and the laying on of hands by the Wise Men, punctuated by glorious testimonies given by diverse people to attest to the touch of God in their lives.
During the Sunday service, Prophet T.B. Joshua addressed issues peculiar to different countries and people the world over, with many lessons of life to be gleaned from the experiences of individuals concerned and for the sharpening of the like precious faith. He had, in last weeks’ service, asked the congregants to bring to church small flags of their countries for special prayers. They had obeyed and his prayer centred specifically on the socio-political and economic travails in many countries of the world in contemporary times.
Prophet Joshua said that he carried, “the flags of all nations in my heart.” He said Emmanuel TV would rebroadcast the prayer so that people could connect to it and join him to pray for their own land and people. The flags are a symbol and for contact to the nations worldwide and that the congregation should return their flags to their personal altars hereafter for continued supplication.
The man of God mentioned some of the well known ills of society such as injustice, robbery, occultism, corruption, exploitation, child kidnapping and murder, shedding innocent blood, tribal conflicts and political misrule and mismanagement to clearly illustrate the reasons why there was need for prayer for the nations.
Using Jeremiah 1:10 as a proof text, he said representatives of each country had a duty to look up to God for solutions to their particular travails. He asked the believers and viewers all over the world a soul-searching question, “Everybody wants prosperity but how many are ready to do the work of prosperity?” adding that people needed to be honest and sincere in all they do in order to achieve God’s kind of success. His prayers for the nations took the form of a kind of confession. He asked the worshippers worldwide to take the points raised, one by one which were applicable to their nation and seek the Lord Jesus in broken-heartedness. “We are here today to confess all the sins and wrongs of the lands of our ancestors, leaders and the people. We plead for forgiveness and mercy in the name of Jesus.” The prophet prayed that the Lord should save the nations from destruction and judgement. He also prayed, “Lord Jesus, redeem our nations, lands, continents and countries of all the sins we confess and the ones we have not mentioned” – a reference to the body of evils and immoral conducts which he had already listed.
Prophet Joshua also prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ in humility and faith, declaring “I command all the forces of darkness hindering the move of God in our lands, be cast out, in Jesus’ name. We ask for Your deliverance and healing power on our countries.”

Monday, February 11, 2013

Pope Benedict to become first pontiff in 600 years to resign


In a sudden announcement that caught Catholics around the world off guard, Pope Benedict XVI said he will resign at the end of February, becoming the first pontiff to step down in nearly 600 years.
The 85-year-old pontiff made the announcement Monday, saying he no longer had the strength to carry out his papal duties.
"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," the pope said according to a statement released by the Vatican.
"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry."
- Pope Benedict XVI
He said he is aware of the "seriousness" of his resignation, but that he did so in "full freedom." He will live out his days on Vatican grounds, according to officials.
The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants. The sudden announcement sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn't have to be observed. There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner, according to Vatican watchers.
A Vatican spokesperson told "Fox & Friends" that Pope Benedict "will not take part in conclave" to choose his successor. Officials hope to have a new pope in place in time for the start of Holy Week, on March 14. Although there has been much speculation about Pope Benedict's health, a Vatican spokesman said he is not in any immediate danger.
"There's nothing immediately serious or grave," the Vatican spokesman told ABC.
The pope's 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, told a German news agency that the pope has had difficulty walking recently and has considered stepping down for months.
“His age is weighing on him,” Georg Ratzinger said. “At this age my brother wants more rest.”
Fox News Executive Vice President John Moody, former Vatican bureau chief for Time magazine, told Fox News Channel that Pope Benedict showed courage by accepting that the rigors of the papacy had become too much for him.
"I think it is one of the bravest things I’ve ever heard of," said Moody, who is author of a 1996 biography of Pope John Paul II. "Nobody gives up power willingly. Nobody gives up power without forethought. For this man, who really the world hasn’t gotten to know very well, despite the fact that he’s been around as pope for seven years, to do this speaks volumes about the kind of man he is and the kind of leader of the church that he insisted on being."
Born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, Pope Benedict became the 265th pope after being elected by his fellow cardinals on April 19, 2005, at the age of 78 following the death of the popular John Paul II. The ninth German pope and first in nearly 500 years, Benedict was ordained in 1951 and was a major figure at the Vatican stage for decades before his ascension.
Ratzinger chose the name Benedict, which comes from the Latin word meaning "the blessed," in homage to Pope Benedict XV, who was pope during World War I, and Saint Benedict of Nursia, who established the Benedictine monasteries.
During his papacy and in the years prior, Benedict was a key figure in the church's efforts to address widespread instances of sexual abuse of children by priests. In 2001, then-Cardinal Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he led, in charge of investigating cases and setting policy regarding what he termed "filth" in the church. As a cardinal, Ratzinger pushed through important reforms, including making Internet offenses against children a violation covered by canon law, extending child abuse offenses to include the sexual abuse of all under 18, waiving of the statute of limitation and speeding the process of dismissing guilty priests.
Even before becoming pope, Ratzinger had experienced health problems and attempted to resign from his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith several times, only to stay on at the behest of Pope John Paul II. In 1991, Ratzinger suffered a stroke, according to reports. After becoming pope, Benedict, who predicted a short tenure for himself, suffered another stroke in May 2005, according to the Vatican. He is also believed to suffer from a heart condition.
As pope, Benedict embraced technology. In December, he began using Twitter, where he has 1.5 million followers.
"We must trust in the mighty power of God’s mercy," read his most recent tweet, posted yesterday. "We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new."

Too tired to go on, Pope Benedict resigns

Rome (CNN) -- The spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI, surprised the world Monday by saying he will resign at the end of the month "because of advanced age."
It's the first time a pope has stepped down in nearly 600 years.
"Strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," said Benedict, 85, according to the Vatican.
The news startled the Catholic world and led to frenzied speculation about who would replace him, including a debate about the merits of naming a pontiff from the developing world, where the church continues to grow, versus one from Europe, where it has deep historical roots.
Photos: Pope Benedict XVI Photos: Pope Benedict XVI
Watch Pope Benedict XVI resign
Gibney: Abuse defines Benedict's papacy
Pope Benedict and the sex abuse scandal
But that decision will not be made by Benedict, who will leave his post at 8 p.m. on February 28, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman.
"Before Easter, we will have the new pope," he said.
While Benedict won't be directly involved in his successor's selection, his influence will undoubtedly be felt. He appointed 67 of the 117 cardinals that -- as of Monday -- are set to make the decision.
The number of electors could drop to 115, as two cardinals will turn 80 in March, when their age makes them ineligible to cast a vote. More than two thirds of whatever the final number must agree on the next pope, a decision that will be announced to the world in the form a puff of white smoke emerging from a chimney in the Vatican.
CNN Senior Vatican Analyst John Allen said that means the next pope, no matter where he is from, will probably continue in Benedict's conservative tradition, which has seen the church take a firm line on issues such as abortion, birth control and divorce.

TB Joshua: Eagles Will Win On Sunday


The General Overseer of The Synagogue Church Of All Nations, Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, says Nigeria’s Super Eagles would defeat Burkina Faso in Sunday’s final of the Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.

T.B. Joshua, who warned Eagles’ coach, Stephen Keshi to avoid conceding a late minute goal in their AFCON Group C opener against the Burkinabe, told P.M.NEWS that Nigeria’s case in the Nations Cup final this year is like the biblical Jacob who wrestled with God, saying that “on Sunday we’ll tell God unless He gives us our heart’s desire we’ll not let Him go.

“The cloud is darker over Nigeria’s Super Eagles, but with God we’ll scale through. If it were not to be the final, anything could have happened. The first match we played with Burkina Faso, it was just by the grace of God that it ended in a draw.

“On Sunday, our opponents will play defensively because they will be looking out for penalty shootout at the end of the game. They will also play through three of their strikers upfront; one of them very tall and huge player and two others.

“What I’m seeing I don’t want to say it because it would be too frightening, but I want to assure that we’ll scale through the challenge on Sunday.”


The prophet who established a football club, My People FC to groom young players, however, warned the Eagles not to allow Burkina Faso to score first in the final, saying that “if this happened the Burkinabe would fall back to defend the goal, which will be very dangerous for our team. I still repeat that no matter the situation, we’ll scale through.

“The Burkina Faso that we played in the group stage will not be the same team we’ll play on Sunday, even though some of their players are out of the squad due to injuries. They are still a team. But I hope for celebration.”

Joshua said as the giant of Africa, Nigeria last won the Nations Cup 13 years ago, which was too long ago for a great football nation like Nigeria.

“I think God should give us this cup to make the youths of this country happy. Winning this cup at this time of religious intolerance and violence will calm down the youths. I want to appeal to all Nigerians to pray for Eagles’ victory. I would have told you the scoreline but I would rather delay it till Sunday morning in order not psychologically distract the players and their coaches and not to demoralise the losing team.”

Prophet Joshua concluded that he would not want Keshi and his team to come to his church to celebrate their victory after the match because he is not the only one praying for the Eagles to win.

“My voice may be the one louder among the men of God in the country but this doesn’t mean that the team should come to my church to celebrate. I would rather prefer that they celebrate their victory with all Nigerians,” he said.

—Taiwo Adelu & Adebobola Alawode

Pm news
http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/02/08/nations-cup-final-eagles-will-win-says-t-b-joshua/

Sign Gifts of the Holy Spirit

MBI maintains that there is one baptism of the Holy Spirit that occurs at the time a person is born again,1 placing that one into the body of Christ.2 MBI also distinguishes between spiritual gifts distributed to believers to equip them for ministry3 and the "sign gifts" which are understood to have been manifestations of the Holy Spirit to authenticate the messenger and the gospel message during the foundational period of the church.4 Therefore, Moody holds that "sign gifts" are not normative for the church today.5 While this institutional position is not and must not be a test of fellowship with those whose traditions differ, members of this community will not practice or propagate practices at variance with Moody's position.
1- Acts 2:38;  Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 12:13
2- Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:12
3- 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4:7-13; 1 Peter 4:10-11
4- 1 Corinthians 13:8-10; 14:20-22
5- 1 Corinthians 1:22; 13:8-10 by Innocent Morris

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is co-equal with God the Father and God the Son and is of the same essence. Yet He is also distinct from them.
Scripture describes the Holy Spirit in personal terms, not as an impersonal force, when it says that He teaches, guides, comforts and intercedes.1 He possesses emotions, intellect and will.2 The Holy Spirit spoke to Philip and gave counsel to the church at Jerusalem.3 He was sinned against and lied to.4
The Scriptures also attest to the deity of the Holy Spirit. He is spoken of as God and is identified with the title of Jehovah.5 The Christian who is indwelt by the Spirit is indwelt by God.6 The Holy Spirit possesses the attributes of deity, such as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence and eternality.7 He does works only God can do, such as creating, regenerating and sanctifying.8 He is equally associated with the other members of the Trinity.9

The work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament differed somewhat from His work in the New Testament. The possession of the Holy Spirit by the believer was not permanent in every case.10 The Spirit had a ministry of restraining sin and in the creation of the world.11
The Holy Spirit today plays a major role in the application of salvation to the individual. It is the Spirit who brings conviction to the unbeliever and causes him to see the truth of the gospel in a clear light.12 Those who respond to this conviction and place their faith in Jesus Christ receive eternal life and a new nature.13 The Holy Spirit unites the believer with Christ and places him in the body of Christ, the church.14 He also unites the believer with Christ in His death, enabling him to live victoriously over sin.15 The Holy Spirit controls the believer who yields to God and submits himself to God’s Word.16 When these conditions are met, the believer lives in the power of the Spirit and produces the fruit of the Spirit.17
The Holy Spirit indwells the believer permanently.18 While the child of God may sin and grieve the Spirit, the Spirit will never leave the true believer.19 Absence of the Holy Spirit is the mark of the unsaved.20 The Holy Spirit seals the believer.21 This ministry guarantees the security of the believer “until the day of redemption.”22 
The Holy Spirit sovereignly bestows spiritual gifts or abilities for service to every believer.23 Although His restraint of evil in the world today will cease with the rapture,24 He will continue to be present in the earth. In the tribulation period the Spirit will be involved in salvation and filling.25 In the coming kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Spirit will be in God’s people and the Spirit will be upon the King.26
1- John 14:26; Romans 8:14; John 14:26; Romans 8:26
2- Ephesians 4:30; 1 Corinthians 2:10-14; 1 Corinthians 12:11
3- Acts 8:29; 15:28
4- Acts 5:3, 4

5- Acts 5:1-4; Isaiah 6:8-9 with Acts 28:25; Jeremiah 31:31-34; with Hebrews 10:15
6- 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19; Ephesians 2:22
7- 1 Corinthians 2:10-11; Psalm 139:7; Zechariah 4:6; Hebrews 9:14
8- Genesis 1:2; John 3:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:13
9- Matthew 28:19, 20; 2 Corinthians 13:14
10- Psalm 51:11
11- Genesis 6:3; Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 40:12
12- John 16:8-11
13- John 3:3-7; Titus 3:5
14- 1 Corinthians 12:13
15- Romans 6:1–10
16- Romans 12: 1,2; Ephesians 5:18; Colossians 3:16
17- Galatians 5:16, 22, 23
18- 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
19- Ephesians 4:30
20- Rom. 8:9; Jude v. 19
21- II Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30
22- Eph. 4:30
23- Rom. 12; I Cor. 12; Eph. 4
24- II Thess. 2:7
25- Zech. 12:10; Joel 2:28-32
26- Jer. 31:33; Isaiah 11: 2-3

WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

There is no personal name for the Third Person of the Godhead. The Bible does not give us His name. There are various appellations applied to Him throughout Scripture, but they divulge nothing of His personality. They show instead His office and His work, and the relationship which He maintains between God and fallen man in the plan of salvation. He is known variously as the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the LORD, the Comforter. But these are not His name any more than Word or Redeemer is the name of the Second Person of the Godhead. Just as "Word" is used to suggest Christ's unique position as the mouthpiece for the Invisible God, so does the term "Holy Spirit" designate the One who supervises the implanting of God's own nature in the lives of His sons—and daughters—elect. It is through Him that God's own character is imparted to those preparing for citizenship in the heavenly kingdom. He is the "Mighty Ally" in the final conflict for the control of men's minds and hearts.
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A PERSON: having the characteristics of personality

  1. He speaks - 1 Timothy 4:1
  2. He intercedes - Romans 8:26
  3. He testifies - John 15:26
  4. He directs - Acts 16:6,7     
  5. He appoints - Acts 20:28
  6. He can be lied to - Acts 5:3,4
  7. He can be grieved - Ephesians 4:30; Psalm 51:11
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS GOD: having all the attributes of God
  1. He is omnipresent - Psalm 139:7
  2. He is omniscient - Isaiah 40:13; 1 Corinthians 2:10.11
  3. He is omnipotent - Zechariah 4:6; Romans 16:25, cf with John 16:7-13
  4. He is called "God" - Acts 5:4
"'The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities;'" and the Spirit, being God, knoweth the mind of God; therefore every prayer of ours for the sick, or for other needs, the will of God is regarded." (Signs of the Times: Oct. 3, 1892)
NAMES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (87 from both the Old and New Testaments)
Taken together this list of names reveals an amazing amount of information about the Holy Spirit. The first time He is mentioned in the Bible occurs in Genesis 1:2, and the last time is Revelation 19:10. Thus, the work of the Holy Spirit spans the entire Bible, from creation to the final redemption of God's people. This is by no means an exhaustive list. The Third Person of the Godhead has as many names as He has attributes—just as God the Father does.
  • Anointing - 1 John 2:27
  • Breath of the Almighty - Job 32:8; 33:4; 34:14-15
  • Breath of Life - Genesis 2:7
  • Breath of the LORD - Isaiah 40:7
  • Counselor - John 14:16
  • Deposit - Ephesians 1:13-14
  • Dew - Hosea 14:5
  • Double Portion - 2 Kings 2:9,15
  • Dove - Matthew 3:16
  • Eternal Spirit - Hebrews 9:14
  • Eyes of the Lord - Zechariah 4:10
  • Finger of God - Exodus 8:19; Luke 11:20
  • Fire - Acts 2:3
  • Firstfruits - Romans 8:23
  • Gift - Acts 5:3-4
  • God's Testimony - 1 John 5:9
  • Hand of God - 2 Chronicles 30:12
  • His Holy Spirit - Isaiah 63:10-11
  • His Spirit - Isaiah 48:16
  • Holy Spirit Sent From Heaven - 1 Peter 1:12
  • Holy Spirit of God - Ephesians 4:30
  • Holy Spirit Who Is In You - 1 Corinthians 6:19
  • Holy Spirit Whom He Pour Out - Titus 3:5
  • Lamp of the Lord - Proverbs 20:27
  • Lord Who Is the Spirit - 2 Corinthians 3:18
  • Mind of the LORD - Isaiah 40:13
  • My Spirit - Genesis 6:3
  • New Spirit - Ezekiel 11:19
  • Oil - 1 Samuel 16:13
  • One Spirit - 1 Corinthians 12:13
  • Power of the Lord - Luke 5:17
  • Power of the Most High - Luke 1:35
  • Promise - Acts 2:33; Galatians 3:14
  • Same Spirit - 1 Corinthians 12:4
  • Seal - Ephesians 1:13
  • Servant - Genesis 24:34
  • Seven Spirits of God - Revelation 4:5
  • The Spirit - Matthew 12:31
  • Spirit Above the Waters - Genesis 1:2
  • Spirit From On High - Isaiah 32:15
  • Spirit Given Without Limit - John 3:34
  • Spirit He Gave Unto Us - 1 John 3:24
  • Spirit Himself - Romans 8:26
  • Spirit of Christ - Romans 8:9
  • Spirit of Counsel and Power - Isaiah 11:2
  • Spirit of Glory - 1 Peter 4:14
  • Spirit of God - Genesis 41:38
  • Spirit of Grace - Hebrews 10:29
  • Spirit of Grace and Supplication - Zechariah 12:10
  • Spirit of Him Who Raised Jesus - Romans 8:11
  • Spirit of His Son - Galatians 4:6
  • Spirit of Holiness - Romans 1:4
  • Spirit of Jesus - Acts 16:7
  • Spirit of Jesus Christ - Philippians 1:19
  • Spirit of Judgment and Fire - Isaiah 4:4
  • Spirit of Justice - Isaiah 28:6
  • Spirit of Knowledge and of the Fear of the LORD - Isaiah 11:2
  • Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus - Romans 8:2
  • Spirit of the Living God - 2 Corinthians 3:3
  • Spirit of the LORD - Micah 2:7
  • Spirit of Our God - 1 Corinthians 6:11
  • Spirit of Power, Love, and Self-Discipline - 2 Timothy 1:7
  • Spirit of Prophecy - Revelation 19:10
  • Spirit of Sonship - Romans 8:15
  • Spirit of the Sovereign LORD - Isaiah 61:1
  • Spirit of Truth - John 14:17
  • Spirit of Your Father - Matthew 10:20
  • Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding - Isaiah 11:2
  • Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation - Ephesians 1:17
  • Spirit Who Gives Rest - Isaiah 63:14
  • Spirit Who Goes Out From the Father - John 15:26
  • Spirit Who Is From God - 1 Corinthians 2:12
  • Streams of Living Water - John 7:38
  • Streams on the Dry Ground - Isaiah - 44:3
  • Vindicator of Christ - 1 Timothy 3:16
  • Water - Zechariah 14:8
  • Wind - John 3:8
  • Wine - Ephesians 5:18
  • Your Good Spirit - Nehemiah 9:20
  • Your Presence - Psalm 139:7
  • Your Spirit - Nehemiah 9:30
  • Your Spirit of Creation and Renewal - Psalm 104:30
"It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world's Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church." by Innocent Morris

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Biography of Evangelist A.A Allen

“The Miracle Man”
Night after night, the waves of Divine Glory so sweep over the congregation that many testify of being healed while sitting in their seats.1
Asa Alonzo Allen was perhaps one of the most important revivalists to emerge during the Voice of Healing revival.2 He was certainly the most sensational of his time, and not surprisingly drew a great deal of criticism and controversy. But all told, he was faithful to pursue God’s call on his life and as a result ushered a mighty move of the Spirit that swept the nation with powerful miracles, signs and wonders. In a time when the impact of other healing evangelists was diminishing, Allen was gathering momentum. Throughout the 1950’s, and into the 1960’s, Allen built a far-reaching worldwide ministry ultimately comprising an international radio program, magazine, Bible school and ministry training center, as well as overseas missions programs. The backbone of his ministry, however, was the massive tent revivals and healing crusades.
The Dreadful Past
What makes Allen’s ministry success all the more amazing is the childhood he had to overcome. Of all the hardship stories, his home life was among the most dreadful. Allen and his six siblings had two alcoholic parents who were wild drunks, brewed their own liquor, and grew their own smoking tobacco. For entertainment they gave their kids this moonshine and watched them get drunk. Allen’s mother put home brew in his baby bottle to keep him from crying, and he was smoking before he was old enough to go to school.
Needless to say, the Allen home was not a happy one. There were constant tussles. Allen’s mother left his father when A. A. was only four years old to marry another abusive, alcoholic. By the time he was six, he was carrying tin buckets of beer home from the saloon to his stepfather. This man left his mother when A. A. was eleven, at which time Allen attempted to run away himself. If the weather had not turned bad, he might have succeeded. He left home for good when he was fourteen.
Meeting Jesus
By the time Allen was twenty-one, his health had badly deteriorated. He had the shakes so bad he couldn’t light a cigarette or hold a cup of coffee without spilling it. His chest burned and he was racked with a deep, hacking cough. Even his memory was slipping. He was already dying the death of an old man. Hoping to restore his health there, he returned home to the farm where his mother still lived. The two of them soon slipped into their old ways and started stilling their own liquor and hosting wild parties. Their regular Saturday night shindig became known as the “Allen Dance Hall and Still.”
A neighbor had a different type of celebration in mind. He was a Pentecostal preacher who wanted to start a Holy Ghost revival out of his home just down the road. He and his little flock started to pray that the Allen parties would stop—they prayed that the Lord would either run him out of the neighborhood or kill him.
God did better than that. Allen happened upon a country Methodist church one day where they were singing and dancing inside. Out of curiosity he went in and was mesmerized by the woman preacher and the celebratory atmosphere. He knew he wanted what they had. The next night he returned and answered the altar call to be saved. From that point on, the parties and bootlegging ended.
Hook, Line, and Sinker
Allen went home and found an old Bible up in the attic. He read it voraciously, from cover to cover. He showed up at the Pentecostal home meeting down the road and after he left the people there prayed he would be filled with the Holy Spirit and used to win souls for Christ. The next day he visited a Methodist pastor who told him to stay away from the Pentecostals because they spoke in tongues. This just piqued Allen’s curiosity even more and now he wanted that too. Not long afterward, he and his sister attended a Pentecostal camp meeting where he received the baptism and shouted out in tongues.
When drought hit Missouri in 1934, Allen moved to Colorado where he was offered a job on a ranch. There he came across a Foursquare Church and met a young neighbor named Lexie Scriven. She felt she was called to preach and soon the two became close friends. When she left for Missouri to attend Central Bible Institute, Allen also returned to Missouri to help his mother. Allen wrote Lexie daily and finally proposed marriage. On September 19, 1936, the two returned to Colorado to marry.
The couple knew they were called to preach, so they both enrolled at Central Bible Institute. On the way there they stopped to see Allen’s ailing mother and ended up staying to nurse her back to health, spending all the money they had saved for school in the process. After her health improved, they continued on their way searching for jobs and a place to live. During this time Allen had the opportunity to preach at a church meeting in a local home.
The Journey Begins
The Allens wasted no time holding meetings wherever they could. They struggled with money, having to chop and sell wood to survive, sleeping in a dilapidated shack on a bed made from their car seats, and eating nothing but beans for weeks at a time. In the late 1930’s, Allen was offered the pastorate of an Assembly of God church in Holly, Colorado, when they also licensed him.
It was while pastoring that Allen began to truly seek God. He was determined to discover the secret of God’s power and how to flow with it. He prayed and fasted until he heard from the Lord how to increase his effectiveness as a preacher. And as promised in the Bible, those who seek will surely find. God revealed Himself to Allen in a powerful, life-changing way.
The Price Tag
Allen received clear direction from the Lord about exactly what he should do in order to operate in the miracle-working power of God. Allen recalled that “God revealed to me that the things that were hindrances to my ministry . . . were the very same things which were hindering so many thousands of others. At last, here was the price I must pay for the power of God in my life and ministry. The price tag for the miracle-working power of God!”3
Here are eleven of the thirteen things Allen said the Lord told him he must understand and do to see His Miracle-Working Power:
  1. He must realize he couldn’t do greater quality miracles than Jesus.
  2. He could walk as Jesus walked.
  3. He must be blameless like God Himself.
  4. He must measure himself to Jesus alone.
  5. He must deny his fleshly desires with fasting.
  6. After self-denial, he must follow Jesus seven days a week.
  7. Without God, he could do nothing.
  8. He must do away with sin in his body.
  9. He must not continue in shallow, pointless discussions.
  10. He must give his body wholly to God forever.
  11. He must believe all of God’s promises.
The remaining two guidelines were “pet sins” that God had pointed out by name, which Allen felt he could not share.4
Miracle-Working Power
Shortly after this visitation, Allen resigned from his position as pastor. The Allens had an invitation to minister in Missouri and here is where their first miracle service took place. A blind man came forward for healing in response to the altar call. Allen asked for all those with faith for the healing of this blind man to come up and pray with him. Then he said, “There is unbelief in this room, I can feel it!”. With that a man got up and stomped out the door. When the believers finished praying, the blind man could name the color of Allen’s tie!5
Throughout the first half of the 1940’s, Allen traveled around the country leading miracle-working healing revivals. Lexie was left alone for months at a time to care for their young babies. It was a difficult time for the family as they continued to struggle financially and Lexie was left with the burden of raising the children single-handedly. Then, in 1947, Allen was offered the pastorate of one of the largest Assemblies of God churches in Texas. He accepted and the family moved to Corpus Christi in search of a more normal family life and financial stability.
Going to the Next Level
For the next couple of years, Allen threw himself into building the church and the congregation grew until they needed a new building. He oversaw the exciting and successful church building project, but then searched for the next great adventure to throw himself into. He felt called to pursue a radio outreach, but the church board rejected the idea and Allen fell into a severe depression. Lexie recognized it as a spiritual attack and commanded the tormenting spirit to leave him. Miraculously it did, and Allen was back to his ambitious self.
By the fall of 1949, Allen began to hear stories of miraculous healing meetings from church members and the widely circulated Voice of Healing publication. He attended an Oral Roberts tent revival in Dallas, Texas, with some ministry friends and felt God tugging on his heart about the vision he originally gave him. He rededicated himself to fulfilling that calling and upon returning home resigned the pastorate once again.
In May of 1950, Allen sent his first report to the Voice of Healing after the awe-inspiring results of a miracle campaign he held in Oakland, California. People were healed sitting in their seats as “waves of divine glory swept over the congregation.”6 In 1951, Allen purchased a tent and on July 4, 1951, the A. A. Allen Revival Tent went up for the first campaign in Yakima, Washington.
In November of 1953, Allen finally broke into radio with the Allen Revival Hour on eleven stations. By 1955 he was being broadcast on seventeen Latin American stations and eighteen American ones.7 Allen conducted yearly revivals in Cuba and Mexico from 1955 until 1959 when Castro took power.
Persecution and Progress
As Allen’s fame grew, so did opposition. At the height of his ministry success, his enemies slandered Allen publicly with accusations of being a drunkard. The newspapers published accounts of public drunkenness and he was even arrested for drunk driving. The charges were trumped up and widely disputed across factions of friend and foe. R.W. Schambach, who was traveling with him at the time, testified that he was in the car the night he was arrested and that Allen was by no means under the influence of alcohol. Nevertheless, the bad press did great harm to his ministry and reputation. Ultimately he was forced to withdraw from the Assemblies of God denomination and Voice of Healing network.
However, what the enemy means for harm can often work for good. In the midst of persecution, Allen launched the Miracle Revival Fellowship, which licensed ministers and supported missions. Five hundred ministers were licensed in its first ordination. During this time he also began publishing the Miracle Magazine, which boasted two hundred thousand paid subscribers by the end of 1956. In January of 1958, he established the International Miracle Revival Training Camp for ministers near Tombstone, Arizona. He was given 1,250 acres of land and called it “Miracle Valley.” In 1960, he built a four thousand seat church hoping to one day to develop a city there with flourishing neighborhoods, recreational facilities, and media centers.
A Sudden End
Throughout the late 1950’s, great public controversy continued to surround Allen, as well as hostile persecution, yet he pressed on. The miraculous followed his preaching in unprecedented forms. Unheard of signs and wonders were manifested during his campaigns, such as a flame appearing above his revival tent, oil flowing from the heads and hands of people in the audience, crosses appearing on foreheads, and a radio listener having organs reappear that had previously been removed.
Allen worked as hard as ever well into the next decade. He continued to fervently teach on healing, and then more and more on financial prosperity. By 1967, the ministry suffered a debilitating blow when it was sued for $300,000 in back taxes. By 1969, Allen’s health began to deteriorate and he battled severe arthritis in his knees. He suffered with so much pain that a protégé had to fill in during the crusades. Allen had already undergone surgery on one of his knees and in June of 1970, was considering surgery on the other knee.
Allen arrived in his hotel room the night before his scheduled doctor’s visit and made a disturbing call to a close friend. This friend became alarmed and immediately headed over to the hotel. After banging on Allen’s door and receiving no response, he had the assistant manager open the door, and there they found Allen dead in a chair in front of his television. A. A. Allen was pronounced dead at 11:23 p.m. on June 11, 1970. The Coroner’s Report recorded the cause of death being “fatty infiltration of the liver” as a result of the few times he used alcohol in his last days to alleviate the excruciating pain of his arthritis.

Biography of Kathryn Kuhlman

Kathryn Kuhlman
The world called me a fool for having given my entire life to One whom I’ve never seen. I know exactly what I’m going to say when I stand in His presence. When I look upon that wonderful face of Jesus, I’ll have just one thing to say: ‘I tried.’ I gave of myself the best I knew how. My redemption will have been perfected when I stand and see Him who made it all possible.
In a time that was suspicious of both women ministers and Pentecostals, Kathryn Kuhlman shook twentieth-century Christianity back to its roots. Believers of all persuasions—Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, or whatever, it didn’t matter—flocked to her meetings to be healed or filled with the Holy Spirit as they had read about in the book of Acts. Though she called herself “an ordinary person,” the effects of her ministry were anything but ordinary. Kathryn was one of a handful of ministers after World War II who prophetically reintroduced the Holy Spirit and His gifts to the body of Christ on the earth in what has proven the greatest revival of all time: the Charismatic Renewal.
Kathryn Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907, to Joseph and Emma Kuhlman. A childhood friend described Kathryn as having “large features, red hair, and freckles. . . . She wasn’t dainty or appealingly feminine in any sense of the word. She was taller than the rest of ‘our gang,’ gangly and boyish in build, and her long strides kept the rest of us puffing to keep up with her.”
One Sunday when Kathryn was fourteen, she attended church with her mother. As she stood singing, she began to shake all over and sob. A weight of conviction came over her, and she realized that she was a sinner in need of salvation and forgiveness. She slipped out from where she was standing, went to the corner of the front pew and sat weeping. At that moment Jesus lifted the weight from her shoulders and entered her heart.
In 1924 when Kathryn was about seventeen, she and her older sister Myrtle persuaded their parents that it was God’s will for Kathryn to travel with Myrtle and her husband Everett in their evangelistic tent ministry. Then in 1928, after a meeting in Boise, Idaho, Everett decided to go on to South Dakota, while the women stayed behind and continued to minister there. The offerings collected, however, were not enough to support them and Myrtle soon decided to rejoin her husband. After this happened, a local Boise pastor offered Kathryn a chance to preach at an old pool hall that had been converted into a mission and Kathryn’s ministry began.
From the “pool hall” mission, she went on to minister in Pocatello and Twin Falls and eventually ended up in Denver, Colorado. It was there that she founded the Denver Revival Tabernacle in 1935. That same year, Kathryn met Burroughs Waltrip, an extremely handsome Texas evangelist who was eight years her senior. Despite the fact that he was married with two small boys, they soon found themselves attracted to each other. Shortly after his visit to Denver, Waltrip divorced his wife, left his family and moved to Mason City, Iowa, where he began a revival center called Radio Chapel. Kathryn and her friend and pianist Helen Gulliford came into town to help him raise funds for his ministry. It was shortly after their arrival that the romance between Burroughs and Kathryn became publicly known.
Burroughs and Kathryn decided to wed. While discussing the matter with some friends, Kathryn had said that she could not “find the will of God in the matter.” These and other friends encouraged her not to go through with the marriage, but Kathryn justified it to herself and others by believing that Waltrip’s wife had left him, not the other way around. On October 18th, 1938, Kathryn secretly married “Mister,” as she liked to call Waltrip, in Mason City. The wedding did not give her new peace about their union, however. After they checked into their hotel that night, Kathryn left and drove over to the hotel where Helen was staying with another friend. She sat with them weeping and admitted that the marriage was a mistake. She decided to get an annulment.
The three women left Iowa for Denver in hopes of explaining what had happened to the congregation of Denver Revival Tabernacle. The congregation, however, was so furious with her for the secrecy of the marriage that they drove Kathryn “back into Waltrip’s arms.”
In a moment’s time, the ministry that Kathryn had so diligently built was completely undone. People stopped attending her services. Her ministry was dissolved. Kathryn sold her portion of the Tabernacle. She’d lost everything. Her relationship with the Lord had suffered because she had put a man before her God. But from the moment she made the decision to divorce Waltrip and to surrender herself fully to the Lord, she never wavered again in answering the call that God had placed on her life so many years before.
After Kathryn spent some time preaching in a mining community in Franklin, Pennsylvania, her ministry began to reshape. She traveled throughout the Midwest and the south into West Virginia and the Carolinas. In some places she was quickly accepted. In others, her past resurfaced and the meetings were closed. After an unsuccessful tour of the South, Kathryn was invited to hold a series of meetings in the fifteen hundred seat-auditorium of Gospel Tabernacle back in Franklin. It was there that Kathryn’s ministry was revived and the ills of the past eight years seemed to wash away.
Not long after she opened meetings at the Tabernacle, she began daily radio broadcasts. Responses to the broadcasts were so great she soon added a station in Pittsburg. At this time Kathryn was mainly praying for people to receive salvation, but she was also beginning to lay hands on and pray for people who came asking for healing. Though she despised the term “faith healer,” she attended the meetings of such ministers hoping to find out more about this phenomenon of God. Kathryn took a deeper understanding of the workings of the Holy Spirit from each meeting, though many of the things that she witnessed she found to be “unwise performances” and a misuse of the Holy Spirit. In response, she always exhorted people to focus on Jesus and nothing else.
As Kathryn searched the Scriptures about divine healing, she made a life-changing discovery. She read that healing was provided for the believer at the same time as salvation, and it was at this time that she began to better understand the believer’s relationship with the Holy Spirit. Then one night, a woman stood to give a testimony of healing. At Kathryn’s service the night before, without anyone laying hands on her and without Kathryn being aware of it, this woman had been healed of a tumor. She had even gone to her doctor to confirm her healing. Then that next Sunday, a second miracle occurred. A World War I veteran who had been declared legally blind from an industrial accident had eighty-five percent of his vision restored in the permanently impaired eye and perfect eyesight restored to his other eye.
The crowds at the Tabernacle grew. Auditoriums would fill to capacity hours before she was to speak, and thousands were turned away. Countless miracles took place, most without any touch or prayer by Kathryn. She would simply walk the stage and call out healings as they took place where people sat. Sections of those in wheelchairs would walk. In one service, a five-year-old boy who had been crippled from birth walked onto the stage. In another in Philadelphia she laid hands on a man who had received a pacemaker eight months earlier, and the scar from the operation disappeared. Later x-rays confirmed that the pacemaker had as well!
Great healing services continued and her ministry expanded to the neighboring towns. In 1950, a worldwide ministry began to develop and Kathryn’s messages were heard all over the United States via radio and her television broadcast, I Believe in Miracles. She grew so popular that she made appearances on The Johnny Carson Show and The Dinah Shore Show among several others. For the last ten years of her life, she held monthly services at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, where she ministered to countless thousands.
Kathryn Kuhlman’s last miracle service was held in that same arena. Three weeks later, Kathryn lay dying in the Hillcrest Medical Center of Tulsa, Oklahoma, after open-heart surgery. Oral and Evelyn Roberts were among the few visitors permitted to see her. As they walked into her room and began to pray for her healing, Kathryn recognized what they were doing and “put her hands out like a barrier and then pointed toward heaven.” Kathryn gave her sister, Myrtle, the same message and on Friday, February 20th, 1976, Kathryn Kuhlman went home to be with Jesus.

Visions of Heaven and Hell


by John Bunyan
PDF  DOC  MP3   
THE WHOLE BOOK OF JOHN BUNYAN 
  PREFACE
John Bunyan was a 17th century English preacher who spent twelve years in prison for his Christian faith and wrote over 40 books. His best known writing is Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the most famous and popular books in all of world history.
John Bunyan wrote the following account when he was a young man, of how an angel was sent by the Lord to take him to see heaven and hell. It is a true story, not an allegory or fictional book. While all visions must be judged by the Bible, these seem very scriptural and were used by the Lord to help transform young John into a mighty man of God.
CONTENTS
1. Planning Suicide
2. Beyond the Sun and Stars
3. Elijah Explains
4. The Happiness of Heaven
5. We Shall Know Each Other
6. Conducted to Hell
7. The Tortures of Hell
8. A Lost Soul Speaks
9. Further Conversations
10. An Atheist in Hell

 

Chapter 1: Planning Suicide
When evil persons have gone in a life of sin, and find that they have reason to fear the just judgment of God, they begin at first to wish there were no God to punish them. Then little by little they persuade themselves that there is no God, and look for arguments to back their opinion. I had the unhappiness to know someone like this, who would always be telling me there was neither God nor devil, and no heaven or hell. 

It was with fear and trembling that I first heard him speak about these topics, but he spoke of them so often that I felt I must consider what he said. From this time I found my mind so confused that I could not remember the truths about God which had appeared so clear to me before. I could not think there was no God but with the greatest horror, yet I questioned the truth of His being. I would not have parted with my hope of heaven for all the riches of the world, yet now I was not sure whether there was any such place.

In my confusion I went to my false friend to see what comfort he could give me. He only laughed at my fears and pretended to pity my weakness. His talks only made me more confused, until life became a burden to me. It is impossible to tell you the agonies I felt, until I was pushed to the edge of desperation. I thought, "Why should I linger between despair and hope? Would it not be better to end my life and find out what is the truth?" So I decided to kill myself. 

One morning I went out into a nearby woods, where I had planned to kill myself. But before I tried to use the knife I heard a secret whisper say,
"Do not fall into everlasting misery to gratify the enemy of your soul. 
The fatal stroke you are about to give yourself will seal your own damnation. For if there is a God, as surely as there is, how can you hope for mercy from Him if you willfully destroy yourself who were made in His image?" 

Where this secret whisper came from, I do not know, but I believe it came from God; for it came with so much power it made me throw away my knife, and it showed me the great evil of suicide. The horror of what I had almost done made me shake so much that I could hardly stand. 
I recognized my deliverance to have come from the Lord, and in gratitude
I returned thanks. 

I knelt down on the ground and worshipped Him, asking that He would take away the blackness in my soul so that I would never again question His being or great power which I had just experienced.

Suddenly I was surrounded with a glorious light, brighter than anything I had ever seen before. I saw coming toward me a glorious person like a man, but circled with beams of light and glory which shined from him as he came nearer. I tried to stand up, but had no strength left in me, so I fell flat on my face. As he lifted me up and I was given new strength, I said to him, "O my shining deliverer, how shall I acknowledge my thankfulness, and in what manner should I adore you?" 

With majesty and mildness he replied, "Pay your adorations to God, and not to me who am your fellow-creature. I am sent from Him Whose being you have so lately denied, to stop you from falling into eternal ruin." 
This touched my heart with such a sense of my own unworthiness that I could only cry out, "Oh, how utterly unworthy I am of all this grace and mercy!" To this the heavenly messenger replied, "When God decided to show mercy He did not consult your unworthiness, but His own unbounded goodness and vast love. He saw how the grand enemy of souls desired your ruin, but He upheld you by His secret power. Through this, when Satan thought that you were destroyed, the snare was broken and you have escaped." These words made me break forth into song, and I praised my Savior and declared that He is God alone.


Chapter 2: Beyond the Sun and Stars
The heavenly messenger then said, "That you may never doubt the reality of eternal things, I have come to show you the truth of them: not by faith only but also by sight. I will show you things never yet seen by mortal eye, and to that end your eyes shall be strengthened and made able to behold heavenly things."

At these words of the angel I was very surprised, and doubted I would be able to bear it. I said to him, "Who is able to bear such a sight?"
To this he replied, "The joy of the Lord shall be your strength." When he had said this, he took hold of me and said, "Fear not, for I am sent to show the things you have not seen." Then before I was aware I found myself far above the earth, which seemed now to be very small.
Then I said to my bright conductor, "Please let it not offend you if I ask a question or two." To this he replied, "Speak on. It is my work to inform you of what you ask. For I am a ministering spirit, sent forth to minister to you and to those that will inherit salvation."

Then I said, "Please inform me about that dark spot below, which has grown smaller and smaller as we have mounted higher, and which appears much darker since I have come into this region of light."
My conductor replied, "That little spot that now looks so dark and despised is the world which you have lived on. To obtain one small part of that spot of earth so many men have risked and lost their immortal souls; which are so precious that the Prince of Peace has told us that though a man could gain the whole world, it would not equal so great a loss. As you have ascended higher towards heaven, the world has appeared still smaller and more insignificant; and it will appear the same to all who can by faith get their hearts above it. If the sons of men below could but see the world as it is, they would not covet it as they do now, but alas, they are in a state of darkness. And what is worse, they love to walk in this darkness. For although the prince of Light came down among them and showed them the true light of life, yet they go on in darkness and will not bring themselves to the light, because their deeds are evil."
Then I asked him, "What are those multitudes of black and horrible forms that hover in the air above the world? I would have been much afraid of them, but I saw that as you passed by, they fled; perhaps not being able to abide your brightness."

To this he answered me, "They are the fallen angels which for their pride and rebellion were cast down from heaven. They wander in the air by decree of the Almighty, being bound in chains of darkness and kept unto the judgment of the great day. They are permitted to descend into the world, both for the trial of the elect, and for the condemnation of the wicked. And although you see that they now have black and horrible forms, yet they were once the sons of Light. They once were clothed in robes of glorious brightness, like what you see me wear. But the loss of this, although it was the result of their own willful sin, fills them with anger and hatred against the ever blessed God Whose power and majesty they fear and hate.

"Tell me," I said, "O blessed conductor, have they no hopes of being reconciled to God again, after some term of time, or at least some of them?"

"No, not at all. They are lost forever. They were the first that sinned, and had no tempter; and they were all at once cast down from heaven. Besides, the Son of God, the blessed Messiah by Whom alone salvation can be gained, did not take upon Himself the angelic nature. He left the apostate angels all to perish, and took upon Himself only the seed of Abraham. For this reason they have so much hatred against the sons of men, because it is a torment for them to see men made the heirs of heaven while they are doomed to hell."

By this time we were above the sun. My conductor told me this mighty globe of fire was one of the great works of God. Yet all the stars were not less wonderful; whose great distance away makes them appear like candles in our sight. They hang in their appointed places without any support. Nothing but His word that first created them could keep them in their station.

"These words are enough," I said to my conductor, "To convince anyone of the great power of their Creator, and to show the evil of that unbelief which questions the being of the God who has given so many evidences of His power and glory. If men were not like beasts still looking downwards, they could not help but acknowledge His great power and wisdom."

"You speak what is true," he replied. "But you will see far greater things than these. These are but the scaffolds and outworks to that glorious place that the blessed above inhabit. A view of it shall now be given to you, as far as you are able to comprehend it."

In a few moments I found what my conductor had told me was true. For I found myself transferred into heaven, where I saw things that are impossible to describe, and heard beautiful songs that I could never sing. Whoever has not seen that glory can speak but very imperfectly of it, and they that have seen it cannot tell the thousandth part of what it is. Therefore the great apostle of the Gentiles, who tells us that he had been caught up into paradise where he had heard unspeakable words which are not possible for a man to utter, wrote that "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things that God has prepared for those that love him." I will give you the best account I can of what I saw and heard, as near as I can remember.


Chapter 3: Elijah Explains
When I was first brought near this glorious place I saw innumerable hosts of bright attendants, who welcomed me into this blessed place of happiness. And there I saw that perfect and unapproachable light, that changes all things into its own nature, for even the souls of the glorified saints are transparent. They are not illumined by the sun; but all that light, that flows with such transparent brightness throughout these heavenly mansions, is nothing else but the shining forth of the Divine glory. 

Compared to this glory, the light of the sun is but darkness, and the fire of the most sparkling jewels are but dead coals. Therefore it is called The Throne of the Glory of God, where the radiance of the divine Majesty is revealed in the most illustrious manner. God was too bright for me to look upon as He was exalted on the high throne of His glory, while multitudes of angels and saints sang forth eternal hallelujahs and praises to Him. Well may He be called the God of Glory, for by His presence He makes heaven what it is. Rivers of pleasure continually spring forth from the divine Presence, and radiate cheerfulness, joy, and splendor to all the blessed inhabitants of heaven, the seat of His eternal empire.

For my own part, I was too weak to bear the least ray of glory that shot from that everlasting Spring of Light which sat upon the throne. I was forced to cry out to my conductor, "The sight of so much glory is too great for me to bear, yet it is so refreshing and delightful that I would desire to look, though I die."

"No, no," said my conductor, "death cannot enter this blessed place, nor sin nor sorrow can abide. It is the glory of this happy place to be forever freed from all that is evil; and without that freedom, our blessedness even here would be imperfect. Come along with me and I will bring you to one who is in the body, as you are. Talk with him for a while before I take you back again."

"O rather," I eagerly said, "let me stay here. There is no need of building tabernacles, for the heavenly mansions are already prepared." My shining messenger replied to this, "Here in a while you shall forever be, but the divine will must first be obeyed."

Swift as thought he conveyed me past thousands of angels, and presented me to that great saint, the prophet Elijah. Though he had lived in the world many hundreds of years ago, I knew him at first sight.
"Here is one," said my conductor to Elijah, "who by the commission of the Imperial Throne has been permitted to visit these realms of light, and I have brought him to you, to learn from you."

"That," said the prophet, "I shall gladly do. For it is our meat and drink in these blessed regions to do the will of God and the Lamb, to sing His praises, and serve Him with the humblest adoration, saying, 'Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sits upon the throne; and to the Lamb for ever and ever: for He has redeemed us to God by His blood out of every kindred and tongue, and people and nation, and has made us unto our God kings and priests: even so, Amen.'" And I likewise added my "Amen" to that of the holy prophet. 

The prophet then asked me why this great permission and privilege was given to me. (By which I understand the saints in heaven are ignorant of what is done on earth; so how can prayers be directed to them?) I then told him the events I have already written here, at which the holy prophet broke forth in praise, "Glory for ever be given to Him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, for His unbounded goodness and great condescension to the weakness of a poor and doubting sinner." After this he said, "Now give attention to what I shall speak. What you have already seen and heard I am sure you cannot make fully understood to those not yet translated to this glorious place, who have not yet been freed from their earthly bodies. Nor is my being here in the body any objection to what I say; for although it has not been subject to death, yet it has been equally changed. It has been made spiritual, and is no longer able to suffer. Yet in this full state of happiness I cannot utter all that I enjoy, nor do I know what shall yet be enjoyed, for here our happiness is always new."

I then asked the blessed prophet to explain himself. I did not understand how happiness could be complete, and yet still be added to. The following was his reply:

"When the soul and body are both happy, as mine now are, I count it a complete state of happiness. For throughout all the coming ages of eternity, it is the soul and body joined together in the blessed resurrection state that shall receive this happiness. But concerning the object of our happiness, which is the ever- adorable and blessed God, our vision of Him is forever new. For as the divine perfections are infinite, nothing less than eternity can be sufficient to display their glory. This makes our happiness eternally added to, as well as our knowledge of Him to be eternally progressive also.

"Therefore the apostle Paul said, 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive what God has prepared for those who love him.' Yet the human eye has seen many admirable things in nature. It has seen mountains of crystal, and rocks of diamonds, it has seen mines of gold, and coasts of pearls. Nevertheless, the eye that has seen so many wonders in the world below could never pry into the glories of this triumphant place. And though the ear of man has heard many delightful and harmonious sounds, even all that man and nature could supply him with, yet he has never heard the heavenly melody which both saints and angels make before the throne. The heart of man is so fine and imaginative that it can conceive almost anything that is, or was, or ever shall be in the world below, and even what shall never be. Man can conceive that every stone on earth shall be turned into pearls, and every blade of grass into the brightest of shining jewels. He can conceive that the whole earth be turned into a mass of pure gold, and the air turned into crystal. He can conceive every star to become as bright as the sun, and the sun to be a thousand times larger and brighter. But all this is infinitely short of what the eternal Majesty has prepared for all His faithful followers."


Chapter 4: The Happiness of Heaven
The prophet continued, "I will briefly tell you about our happiness here, for ages spent on this delightful theme would only begin to explain it. That you may have the best understanding, I will first explain about what the redeemed souls have been delivered from, and secondly about the happiness that they enjoy here.

"Firstly, the souls of all the blessed are forever freed from everything that can make them miserable, which above all is sin. It was sin that brought misery into creation. The blessed God at first made all things happy, like Himself. Had not sin defaced the beauty of His workmanship, angels and men would have never known what is meant by misery. It was sin that threw the apostate angels down into hell, and spoiled the beauty of the lower world. It was sin that defaced God's image in man's soul, and made the ones who were to be the lords of creation into slaves of their own lust. It is sin which can also plunge them into an ocean of eternal misery from which is no redemption. It is an invaluable mercy that in this happy place all the saints are forever freed from sin through the blood of our Redeemer. In the earth below, the best and holiest of souls groan under the burden of corruption. Sin tries to cling to all that they do, and often leads them captive against their will. "Who shall deliver me?" has been the cry of many of God's faithful servants, who at the same time have been dear to Jesus. Sin is the heavy weight upon the saints while they live in their corrupted flesh. Therefore when they lay their bodies down, their souls are like a bird loosed from its cage, and with a heavenly joy they rise up to heaven. But here their warfare is at an end, and 'death is swallowed up in victory.' Below their souls were deformed and stained by sin, but here their bright souls by the ever-blessed Jesus are presented to the Father 'without spot or wrinkle.'

"Not only are the saints here free from sin, but also from any temptation to sin. When Adam was in paradise, though he was innocent and free from sin, yet he was not free from temptation. Satan got into paradise and Adam fatally yielded to his temptations. Like a disease, sin has eaten into the human nature and corrupted all mankind.

"Here each soul is freed from this. Nothing but what is pure and holy can find admission here. That roaring lion who roams back and forth throughout the earth seeking whom he may devour, in respect to the saints in heaven, is bound fast in everlasting chains. The temptations of the world shall never again allure those who through faith and patience have overcome it and safely arrived here. In heaven we look with contempt on all earthly enjoyments. There is nothing here that can disturb our peace, but an eternal calm crowns all our happiness. 

"Since we are freed from all sin and its effects, we are also rescued from punishment. After death, hell confines the sinner to eternal misery. Yet the blessed are delivered from all these things.

"However, these things are but the least part of the happiness of heaven. Our joys are positive, more than just the negative that we have been redeemed from. What these are I shall try to show you.

"Here we enjoy the sight of God, the blessed spring and eternal source of all our happiness. But what this is, I can no more fully explain than can finite creatures comprehend infinity. Yet the sight of God continually fills our souls with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and with a love so flaming that nothing but the blessed author of it can satisfy, nor eternity itself can end. It is that which makes us live, love, sing, and praise forever while it also transforms us into His blessed likeness. Beholding God's face, we enjoy His love. His blessed smiles make glad our souls, and in His favor we rejoice continually, 'for in His favor is life.' And by this blessed vision of God, we come to know Him far above how any had known Him in the world below. For the sight of Him opens our understandings, and 'gives us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' Here we all enjoy Him face to face. Below the saints enjoy God in a measure, but here we enjoy Him without measure. There they have some sips of His goodness, but here we drink largely and swim in the boundless ocean of happiness. Below the saints have their communion with God broken off many times, but here it is uninterrupted. Below love is mixed with fear, and fear has torment; but here love is perfect, and perfect love casts out fear. In heaven we love God more than ourselves, and one another like ourselves. Here we enjoy the perfection of all grace.

"In heaven our understanding and knowledge is enlarged according to the greatness of what we can observe and think. In the world below light could only shine into our minds through the windows of our senses, so God had to condescend to our limited capacities when revealing His Majesty. Our purest ideas of God were very imperfect, but here the gold is separated from the dross and we can conceive the simplicity and purity of God. We understand about His decrees and counsels, His providence and dispensations. We clearly see here that from eternity God was sole existing, but not solitary, that the Godhead is neither confused in unity, nor divided in number. We see that there is a priority of order but no superiority among the persons of the Trinity, but that they equally have the same excellency and power, and equally are adored. Those ways of God that in the world below seemed unsearchable and beyond our comprehension, we understand so clearly here by His divine wisdom that the truth could not be made more simple. 

"These are some of the things that make our souls happy. However, the happiness of the saints in heaven will not be complete until their bodies are resurrected and united with their souls. I will therefore show you what the resurrection body shall be like:

"First, the resurrection bodies of the blessed will be spiritual bodies, like mine. You may better understand this not only by seeing but by touch. (After saying this, the holy prophet was pleased to give me his hand.) They will be bodies that are purified from all corruption, yet will have substance. They will not be like wind or air, as people on earth sometimes foolishly imagine."

Then I said to him that I always understood spiritual as the opposite of material, so I thought that a spiritual body must be immaterial, and not capable of being touched or felt as I found his hand was.

To this the prophet replied that their bodies were spiritual, not only because they were purified from all corruption, but as they were sustained by the enjoyment of God without needing food, drink, or sleep. Beholding the Lord is what supports both their souls and their bodies, and is what they live upon forever. “Have you not read,” said the prophet, “that the blessed Jesus, after His resurrection, appeared in His body to His disciples when they were met together in a chamber and the doors shut about them? And yet He called to
Thomas to come and reach forth his hand and thrust it into His side, which shows it had substance.
“Our bodies in the resurrection shall be immortal, and incapable of dying. Below their bodies are all mortal, perishing, and subject to crumbling into dust at any time. But here our bodies will be incorruptible and freed from death forever, for our corruption here shall put on incorruption, and our mortality will be swallowed up of life."

Here I desired the prophet to bear with me a little, while I gave him an account of my own ideas about these matter.

“Speak, for I am ready to remove your doubt,” he said.
“I have learned,” I said, “in the holy Scriptures that immortality belongs to God only, and not to men. Daily experience tells us that bodies of men are mortal, and die. Therefore Paul told Timothy that God only has immortality.”

“When I say that the bodies of the blessed here are immortal, I am speaking about the bodies in their resurrected state, that then they are subject to death no more. Man in his corruptible state is mortal and subject to death. And there is nothing more evident to all that dwell in the world below. Even the bodies of all those glorified souls that are here in heaven are at this time still kept under the power of death. At the resurrection day, when they shall be raised up again, they shall then be immortal. And as to what you say from the Scripture, that the blessed God has only immortality, it is very true. He is most essentially so in His own being and nature; there is no angel or man that can, in that strict sense, be said to be so. We are immortal through His grace and favor; but God is immortal in His essence and has been so from all eternity. In that sense He may well be said only to have immortality. Whatever the blessed God is, He is essentially so in His own being. It can likewise be said that He only is holy, and there is none good but God, none righteous, nor none merciful but He.”


Chapter 5: We Shall Know Each Other
I remarked, “As I was brought here, I saw among the saints some that appeared to shine with greater brightness than the others. Are there among the blessed different degrees of glory?”

“The happiness and glory which all the blessed here enjoy is the result of their communion with and love to the ever blessed God. The more we see Him, the more we love Him; and love changes our souls into His nature, and from this results our glory. This makes a difference in the degrees of glory. Nor is there any murmuring in one to see another’s glory much greater than his own. The ever blessed God is an unbounded ocean of light and life, and joy and happiness, still filling every vessel that is put therein, till it can hold no more. And though the vessels are of several sizes, while each is filled there is none that can complain. My answer therefore to your question is that those who have the most enlarged capacity do love God most, and are thereby changed most into His likeness. This is the highest glory heaven can give. Nor let this seem strange to you, for even among God’s flaming angels there are diversities of order and different degrees of glory.

While I was talking with the prophet a shining form drew near. It was one of the redeemed. He told me he had left his body below resting in hope until the resurrection; and that though he was still a substance yet it was an immaterial one, not to be touched by mortal.

He said, “We here behold a sight worth dying for- the blessed Lamb of God, the glorious Savior. Here we see Him in His kingly office, on account of which He is called King of kings and Lord of lords. But all the glorious greatness of our blessed Redeemer does not make His kindness seem distant, but only more precious. It makes heaven more than heaven to me to find Him reigning here, Who suffered so much for me in the world below. And our Redeemer’s great happiness increases our own, as He invites each faithful servant to enter into his Master’s joy.

“Here we see not only our elder Brother, Christ, but also our friends and relatives. Although Elijah lived in the world below long before your time, you no sooner saw him than you knew him. And so you will also know Adam when you see him. Here we communicate the purest pleasure to each other, a sincere ardent love uniting our society. And oh, how happy is that state of love! Where there is love like this, all are filled with delight. How can it be otherwise, since in this blessed society there is a continual receiving and returning of love and joy.

“But besides all the happiness that comes to us by our communion with God and with each other, it is to me a mighty happiness to understand all the deep mysteries of religion which the wisest in the world below could not fully understand. Here we discern a perfect harmony between those scripture texts that in the world below seemed to oppose each other. And here we are especially filled with wonder and gratitude at discovering the divine goodness towards each one of us in particular. In respect to my former life on earth, I have seen the mercifulness of those very afflictions that I once (when upon earth) thought to show His anger. I am now fully convinced that no affliction that I met with in the world below (and I met with many) either came sooner or fell heavier or continued longer than was needful. My hopes were not disappointed, but God used all things to prepare me for a better eternal reward than what I had hoped for.

“But I remember that you are still in the body, and may be tired with hearing what I could forever tell, so great is the happiness that I possess. I shall only add one other thing about our happiness: though a vast multitude of blessed souls partakes of this joy and glory, this does not make less of what each receives. For this ocean of happiness is so bottomless that the innumerable company of all the saints and angels never can exhaust it. Nor is this strange, for in the world below everyone equally enjoys the benefit of light. There is no one that can complain that they enjoy it less, because another enjoys it also. All enjoy the benefit of light as fully as if no one else enjoyed it but themselves. If a multitude of persons drink of the same river none of them is able to exhaust it, even though each of them has the liberty of drinking as much as he can. So whoever enjoys God enjoys Him as much as he can contain, according to his capacity.

“Thus I have given you a brief account of our heavenly Canaan. It is not the thousandth part of that which might be said, yet it is enough to let you see it is a land flowing with milk and honey." In this happy place worldly relations cease. Nor is there male and female here, but all are like the angels. For souls cannot be distinguished into sexes, and therefore all relations are here swallowed up in God.”

He had no sooner spoken than he took me by the hand. Then, far swifter than an arrow from a bow, we passed by several shining forms clothed in robes of immortality, who looked at me as I passed them. He said, to me, “Farewell, my friend, your guardian angel will shortly come and bring you back to the world below.”

I drew near the shining form of a redeemed one that stood before me, who appeared extremely glorious, encircled with rays of dazzling luster. I hardly could behold her for the exceeding brightness of her face.
She said to me, “For what I am, to Him that is on the throne be all the praise and glory. The robe of glory which you see me wear is only the reflection of His own bright beams!”

“You appear to be one who feels the mighty joys that you speak of.”
She replied, “You should not think this strange. The mighty wonders of divine love and grace will be the subject of our song forever. Here all human relations cease and are swallowed up in God Who is alone the great Father of all this heavenly family. As for the members of the family that I left behind in the world below, I have committed them to God. I shall be glad to see them all heirs of this blessed inheritance. But if they should join with the grand enemy of souls and refuse the grace offered them, and thereby perish in their unbelief, God will be glorified in His justice, and in His glory I shall still rejoice.”

Then I desired to know whether the saints in heaven understood and were concerned for what was happening in the world below.
To this she replied, “As to the affairs of particular persons, we are not concerned with them and are ignorant of them. Only God is present in all places and sees all things. But the struggles and the victories of the church below is told to us by the angels, who are ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those that shall be heirs of salvation. From what they report we are excited to renew our praises to Him that sits upon the throne.”


Chapter 6: Conducted to Hell
Then the bright messenger who had brought me to heaven returned. “I have,” said the angel, “a commission to return you to the earth from where I took you, after first visiting the regions of the prince of darkness. There you will see the reward of sin, and what Justice has prepared as the judgment of those who would exalt themselves above the throne of the Most High. ”

To leave heaven for earth was extremely disappointing. But to leave heaven for hell turned my very heart within me! However, when I knew that it was God's good pleasure, I was a little comforted. So I said to my bright conductor, “That which God has ordered I shall always be willing to obey. Even in hell I will not be afraid if I may have His presence with me there.”
To this my shining guardian replied, “Wherever the blessed God grants His presence, there is heaven, and while we are in hell He will be with us.”

Then bowing low before the Almighty’s throne, swifter than thought my guardian angel carried me on a speedy journey down through the heavens. When I saw the stars I told my conductor that I had heard on earth that each one of these stars had their own worlds. “But I would ask you to tell me the truth of this matter.”

To this my shining guardian answered, “To Him Who is Almighty there is nothing impossible. But from knowing that it is in His power to do this, to argue that it is His will, is no good logic in the school of heaven. We know what He pleases to reveal to us, and what He has not revealed are secrets locked up in His own eternal counsel. For anyone to inquire into these secrets would be but bold and presumptuous curiosity. There is no doubt that He can make as many worlds as He wants, but He has not yet revealed it to us, and it is not our duty to inquire.” 

By this time we had come down to the lowest regions of the air. There I saw multitudes of horrible forms and dismal dark appearances which fled from the shining presence of my bright conductor.

I said, “These surely are some of the vanguard of hell, so black and so frightening are their forms.”

My conductor replied, “Now we are upon the borders of hell, and these are some of the apostate spirits that wander around like roaring lions.”
Soon we were surrounded with a darkness much more black than night, and with a stink far more suffocating than that of burning sulfur. My ears were likewise filled with the horrible yelling of the damned spirits, which in comparison with, would make the most discordant notes on earth sound like beautiful music.

“Now,” said my guardian angel, “you are on the edge of hell, but do not fear the power of the destroyer. My commission from the Imperial Throne secures you from all danger. Here you may hear from devils and damned souls the cursed causes of their endless ruin. What you ask them about, they will answer. The devils cannot hurt you, though they would want to, for they are bound by Him that has commissioned me.”

We then came within hell’s territories, placed in the caverns of the infernal deep in the center of the earth. There, in a sulfurous lake of liquid fire, sat Lucifer upon a burning throne. His horrid eyes sparkled with hellish fury, as full of rage as his strong anger could make him. I saw that the demons that had fled from us as we approached from heaven had given notice of our coming. This had put all hell in an uproar, and made Lucifer release horrid blasphemies against the blessed God with an air of arrogance and pride.

“What would the Thunderer have?” said he. “He has my heaven already, whose radiant scepter this bold hand should bear. Instead of those never fading fields of light, He confines me here in this dark house of death, sorrow, and woe! What, would He take hell away from me too, that He insults me here? Ah! Could I but obtain another day to try it, I would make heaven shake and His bright throne to totter. Nor would I fear the utmost of His power, though He had fiercer flames than these to throw me in. 

Although I lost the battle that day, the fault was not mine! No winged spirit in heaven strove better for the victory than I did. But, ah!” he continued with a changed voice, “that day is lost, and I am forever doomed to these dark territories! But it is still at least some comfort to me that mankind’s sorrow waits upon me. And since I cannot fight against the Thunderer, I will make the utmost of my anger to fall on them.”

I was amazed to hear his ungodly speech, and felt compelled to say to my conductor, “How justly are his blasphemies rewarded!”
“What you have heard from this apostate spirit is both his sin and punishment; for every blasphemy he belches against heaven, makes hell the hotter to him.”

We then passed on to see more sorrowful scenes. I saw two wretched souls being tormented by a demon. He was continually plunging them in liquid fire and burning brimstone, while at the same time they accused and cursed each other. One of them said to his tormented fellow sufferer, “O cursed be your face, that ever I set eyes upon you! My misery is due to you; I may thank you for this, for it was your persuasions that brought me here. You enticed me, it was you who ensnared me into this. It was your covetousness, cheating, and oppression of the poor that brought me here. If you had been as good an example as you had been a bad one, I might now be in heaven. O what a fool I was! When I followed your steps you ruined me forever. O that I never had seen your face, or that you had never been born!”

The other wretch replied, “And may I not as well blame you? Don't you remember how at such a time and place you enticed me to go along with you? I was minding my own business when you called me away, so you are as guilty as I. Though I was covetous, you were proud. Though you learned how to cheat from me, yet you taught me to lust, to lie, to get drunk and to scoff at goodness. So although I stumbled you in some things, you stumbled me as much in others. Therefore if you blame me, I can blame you as much. I wish you never had come here, the very sight of you wounds my soul, by bringing sin afresh into my mind. It was with you, with you that I sinned. O grief to my soul! Since I could not avoid your companionship on earth, O that I could be without it here!”

From this sad conversation I learned that those who are companions in sin upon earth shall also be punished together in hell. I believe that this was the true reason why the rich man seemed so charitable to his brethren (Luke16:27-28). The reason he did not want them to join him in hell was because they would have increased his torments.


Chapter 7: The Tortures of Hell
There were yet more tragic scenes of sorrow that we saw as we left these two cursed wretches accusing each other. One woman had flaming sulfur continually forced down her throat by a tormenting spirit. He did this with such horrible cruelty and insolence that I said to him, “Why should you so delight in tormenting that cursed wretch, and be pouring that flaming, infernal liquid down her throat?”

“This is a more than just reward,” replied the demon. “This woman in her life time was such a greedy wretch that though she had plenty of gold, she could never be satisfied. Therefore I now pour it down her throat. She cared not who she ruined as long as she could get their gold. And when she had gathered together a greater treasure than she could ever spend, her love of money would not let her spend enough of it to supply herself with her basic living needs. She often went with an empty stomach, though her money bags were full. She kept no house because she would not be taxed, and would not keep her treasure in her hands for fear she should be robbed. She would not put her money in bonds and mortgages for fear of being cheated; although she always cheated everyone that she could. She was so great a cheat that she cheated her own body of its food, and her own soul of mercy. Since gold was her god on earth, is it not a just reward that she should have her belly full of it in hell?”

When her tormentor had done speaking, I asked her whether this was all true. To this she answered me, “No; to my grief it is not.”

“Why is this not true,” I said, “and why are you grieved that it is not true?”
“Because if what my tormentor told you is true,” she said, “I would be satisfied. He tells you that he pours gold down my throat; but he is a lying devil and speaks falsely. If it was gold I would never complain. But he mocks me, and instead of gold he only gives me this horrid, stinking sulfur. If I had my gold I would be happy still, for I value it so much that if I had it, I would not part with it even if an entrance to heaven could be bought.”

I told my angelic conductor that I was amazed to hear a wretch in hell itself so greedy for riches while forever being tormented.
“This,” he said, “may convince you that it is sin which is the greatest of all evils. Whenever the love of sin controls a soul, it is the greatest of all punishments for them to be abandoned to that evil love. The love of gold which this cursed soul is consumed by, is a more fatal punishment than what the demons can inflict upon her here.”

“O!” said I, “if only wicked men on earth could for one moment hear the horrid shrieks of those damned souls, they could not be in love with sin again.”
“Eternal Truth has told us otherwise, for those who will not fear His ministers, nor have regard to what His Word contains, will not be warned though one should come from hell.”

We had not gone much farther before we saw a wretched soul lying on a bed of burning steel, almost choked with brimstone. He cried out with such dreadful anguish and desperation, that I asked my conductor to wait. I heard him speak as follows:

“Ah, miserable wretch! Undone forever, forever! Oh, this killing word, 'forever!' Will not a million years be long enough to bear that pain, which if I could avoid it, I would not endure for even one moment for the sake of being offered one million worlds? No, no my misery never will have an end; after millions of years it will still be for ever. Oh, what a helpless and hopeless condition I am in! It is this 'forever' that is the hell of hell! O cursed wretch! Cursed to all eternity! How willfully have I undone myself! Oh, what stupendous folly am I guilty of, to choose sin’s short and momentary pleasure at the dear price of everlasting pain! How often I was told it would be so! How often I was encouraged to leave those paths of sin that brought me to the chambers of eternal death! But I, like a dumb animal, would not listen to those pleadings. Now it is too late to change it, for my eternal state is fixed for ever. Why was I made a person, that I would choose this fate? Why was I made with an immortal soul, and yet should take so little care of it? Oh how my own neglect stings me to death, and yet I know I cannot die! I live a dying life, worse than ten thousand deaths; and yet I once could have changed all this, but did not! Oh, that is the gnawing worm that never dies! I might once have been happy, salvation was offered to me and I refused it. Had salvation been offered to me only once, it would have been an unforgivable folly to refuse it. But salvation was offered me a thousand times, and yet (wretch that I was) I still as often refused it. O cursed sin, that with deluding pleasures leads mankind to eternal ruin! God often called, but I as often refused; He stretched His hand out, but I would not mind it. How often have I ignored His counsel! How often have I refused His reproof! But now the scene is changed, the case is altered. Now He laughs at my calamity, and mocks at the destruction which is come upon me. He would have helped me once, but I would not accept His help. Therefore those eternal miseries I am condemned to undergo are but the just reward of my own doing.”

I could not hear this sorrowful lamentation without thinking about the wonderful grace that God had shown to me, eternal praises to His holy name! For my heart told me that I had deserved eternal judgment as much as that sad wretch, but that God's grace alone had made us different. O how unsearchable are His counsels! Who can fathom His divine decree?

After these thoughts I spoke to the sorrowful complainer, and told him I had heard his woeful complaints. I saw that his misery was great, and his loss irreparable, and told him I would willingly hear more about it if this might possibly help lessen his sufferings.”

“No, not at all; my pains cannot be relieved even for one small moment. But by your question I understand that you are a stranger here; and may you ever be a stranger! Ah, had I but the least hope still remaining, how I would kneel and cry and pray for ever to be redeemed from this hell! But it is all in vain, I am lost forever. But so that you will be warned about ending up here, I will tell you what the damned suffer.”


Chapter 8: A Lost Soul Speaks
“Our miseries in this infernal dungeon are of two kinds: what we have lost, and what we suffer. I will first speak about what we have lost.

1. In this sad dark place of misery and sorrow, we have lost the presence of the ever blessed God. This is what makes this dungeon hell. Though we had lost a thousand worlds, it would not be as important as this one greatest loss. Could we but see the least glimpse of His favor here, we might be happy; but have lost it to our everlasting woe.

2. Here we have also lost the company of saints and angels, and instead have nothing but tormenting devils.

3. Here we have lost heaven, too, the center of blessedness. There is a deep gulf between us and heaven, so that we are shut out from it forever. Those everlasting gates that let the redeemed into heaven are now for ever shut against us.

4. To make our wretchedness far worse, we have lost the hope of ever obtaining a better condition. This makes us truly hopeless. Well may our hearts now break, since we are both without hope and help. This is what we have lost; and if we think of these things, it is enough to tear and gnaw upon our miserable souls forever. Yet, oh, that this were all that our torments were!
But we are also tormented by suffering and pain, as I will try to explain to you now.

1. First, we undergo a variety of torments. We are tormented here a thousand, no, ten thousand different ways. Those that suffer upon the earth seldom have more than one affliction at a time. But if they had ulcers, gallstones, headaches, and fever all at the same time, would they not think they were very miserable? Yet all those together are but like the biting of a flea compared to those intolerable, sharp pains that we endure. Here we have all the sufferings of hell. Here is an unquenchable fire which burns us; a lake of burning brimstone that ever chokes us; and eternal chains that bind us. Here there is utter darkness to frighten us, and a worm of conscience that gnaws upon us everlastingly. Any one of these is worse to bear than all the torments that mankind ever felt on earth!

2. But our torments here are not only various, but are also complete. They afflict every part of the body, and torment all the powers of the soul. This makes what we suffer the worst of tortures. In those sicknesses which men have on earth, though some members of their bodies will suffer, yet other parts will have no pain. Here it is different; every member of the soul and body suffers at the same time.

“Our eyes are tormented here with the sight of devils who appear in all the horrible shapes and black appearances that sin can give them. Our ears are continually tormented with the loud continual yelling of the damned. Our nostrils are smothered with sulfurous flames; our tongues with burning blisters; and the whole body is rolled in flames of liquid fire. All the powers and faculties of our souls are also tormented here. The imagination suffers with the thoughts of our present pain and the memory of the heaven we have lost. Our minds are tormented as we remember how foolishly we spent our precious time on earth. Our understanding is tormented with the thoughts of our past pleasures, present pains, and future sorrows, which are to last forever. And our consciences are tormented with a continual gnawing worm.

3. Another thing that makes our misery so awful is the sharpness of our torments. The fire that burns us is so violent that all the water in the sea can never quench it. The pains we suffer here are so extreme that it is impossible for anyone to know them except the damned.

4. Another part of our misery is the ceaselessness of our torments. As various, as complete, and as extremely violent as they are, they are also continual. We have no rest from them. If there were any relaxation, it might be some relief. But there is no easing of our torments, and what we suffer now we must suffer forever.

5. The society or company we have here is another part of our misery. Tormenting devils and tormented souls are all our company. Dreadful shrieks, howlings, and fearful cursing are our continual conversation because of the fierceness of our pain.

6. The place we are in also increases our sufferings. It is the completion of all misery, a prison, a dungeon, a bottomless pit, a lake of brimstone, a furnace of fire that burns to eternity, the blackness of darkness for ever; and lastly, hell itself. Such a wretched place as this can only increase our wretchedness.

7. The cruelty of our tormentors is another thing that adds to our sufferings. Our tormentors are devils in whom there is no pity. While they are tormented themselves, they still take pleasure in tormenting us.

8. All those sufferings that I have recounted are very grievous. But that which makes them the most grievous is that they shall always be forever. All of our intolerable sufferings shall last to all eternity! ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,’ is what continually sounds in my ears. Oh, that I could reverse that fatal sentence! Oh, if there was but a bare possibility of salvation! This is the miserable situation we are in, and shall be in forever.”


Chapter 9: Further Conversations
This wretched soul had scarcely finished what he was saying when he was tormented again by a hellish demon, who told him to stop complaining. The demon said, “don't you know you have deserved it all? How often were you told of this before, but would not believe it? You laughed at those who warned you about hell. You were even so presumptuous as to dare Almighty justice to destroy you! How often you called on God to damn you. Do you complain that you are answered according to your wishes? What an unreasonable thing! You know that you had salvation offered you, and you refused it. How can you now complain of being damned? I have more reason to complain, for you had a long time in which repentance was offered you; but I was cast into hell as soon as I had sinned. If I had been offered salvation, I would never have rejected it as you did. Who do you think should pity you now, with all that heaven had offered to you?”

This made the wretch cry out, “Oh, do not continue to torment me; I know that I chose destruction. Oh, that I could forget it! These thoughts are my greatest torture. I chose to be damned, and therefore justly am so.”
Then turning to the demon that tortured him he said, “But I also came here through your temptations, you cursed devil. You were the one that had tempted me to do all of my sins; and now you would reproach me? You say you never had a Savior offered to you; but you should also remember that you never had a tempter such as you have always been to me.”

To this the devil scornfully replied, “It was my business to lead you here! You had often been warned of this by your preacher. You were plainly told that we sought your ruin, and go about continually like roaring lions, seeking whom we could devour. I was often afraid you that would believe them, as several other souls did, to our great disappointment. But you were willing to do what we wanted; and since you have done our work it is but reasonable that we should pay you wages.” Then the fiend tormented him again and caused him to roar out so horribly that I could no longer stay to hear him, so I passed on.

“How dismal,” I then said to my conductor, “is the condition of these damned souls! They are the devils slaves while upon earth, and he reproaches and then torments them for it when they come to hell.”
“The devils hate all the race of Adam,” said my conductor. “And because many souls are ignorant of their devices, they easily succeed to bring them to eternal ruin. You will see more how the demons treat the damned here.”

Passing a little further we saw a multitude of damned souls together, gnashing their teeth with extreme rage and pain, while the tormenting fiends with hellish fury poured liquid fire and brimstone continually upon them. In the meantime, they were cursing God and those about them, and were blaspheming in a tremendous manner. I could not help but ask of one demon that so tormented them, who were these souls that he tormented so cruelly?

Said he, “These wretches well deserve their punishment. They tried to teach others the right road to heaven, while they were so in love with hell that they came here. These are those souls that have been our great helpers upon the earth, and therefore they deserve our special attention in hell. We use our full diligence to give every one their utmost share of torments, for they not only have their own sins to answer for, but also all the sins of those whom they led astray both by their doctrine and example.”

“Since they have been such great helpers for you, I would think that in gratitude you would treat them a little more kindly.”

To this the impudent friend answered me in a scoffing manner, “They that expect gratitude among devils will find themselves mistaken. Gratitude is a virtue, but we hate all virtue. Besides, we hate all mankind, and were it in our power not one of them should be happy. It is true we do not tell them so upon earth, because there it is our business to flatter and deceive them. But when we have them here where they cannot escape, we soon convince them of their foolishness in serving us.”

From this I could only think about what infinite grace it is that any poor sinners are brought to heaven, considering how many traps are laid by the enemy to ensnare them by the way. Therefore it is a ministry well worthy of the blessed Son of God to save His people from their sins, and to deliver them from the wrath to come. But it is also folly and madness in men to refuse the offers of His grace, and to choose to side with the destroyer.

Going farther on, I heard a wretch complaining in a heartbreaking strain against those men that had betrayed him and brought him here.
“I was told,” said he, ‘by those that I depended on, and that I thought could inform me correctly, that if I said ‘Lord, have mercy on me,’ when I came to die, it would be enough to save me. But oh, now I find myself mistaken, to my eternal sorrow! Alas, I called for mercy on my deathbed, but found it was too late. Before that time, this cursed devil here told me that I was safe. Then on my deathbed, he told me it was too late. Hell must forever be my portion.”

“You see, I did tell you the truth at last,” said the devil, “and then you would not believe me. A very fitting end, don't you think? You spend your days enjoying sin, and wallow in your filthiness, and you want to go to heaven when you die! Would anyone but a madman think that would be just? No; he that sincerely wants to go to heaven when he dies, must walk in the ways of holiness and virtue while he is alive. You say some of your lewd companions told you that saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on me’ when you came to die would be enough. A very fine excuse! If you had read the Bible you would have known that ‘Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord.” Therefore, if you were willing to live in your sins as long as you could, you did not finally leave them because you did not like them, but because you could follow them no longer. And this you know to be true. How could you be so stupid to think you could go to heaven with the love of sin in your heart? No, no, no. You were warned often enough that you should take heed of being deceived, for God is not mocked, but what you sow you reap. You have no reason to complain of anything but your own folly, which you now see too late.”

“This lecture of the devil was a very cutting one to the poor tormented wretch,” I said to my conductor, “and shows the true situation of many now on earth as well as those in hell. But oh, what a far different judgment do they make in this sad place from what they did on earth.”
“The reason for this,” replied my guardian angel, “is that they will not allow themselves to think what the effect of sin will be while on earth. Carelessness ruins many souls who do not think about what they are doing, nor where they are going, until it is too late to help it.”


Chapter 10: An Atheist in Hell
We had not gone much farther before I saw a vast number of tormenting demons. They were continually lashing a large company of wretched souls with knotted whips of ever burning steel. The tormented were roaring out with such loud cries that I thought it might have melted even cruelty itself into some pity. This made me say to one of the tormentors, “Oh, stop your whipping, and do not use such cruelty on those who are your fellow creatures, and whom you probably helped lead to all this misery.”
“No,” answered the tormentor very smoothly. “Though we are bad enough, no devil was as bad as them, nor were we guilty of such crimes as they were. We all know there is a God, although we hate Him; but these souls would never admit (until they came here) that there was such a Being.”
“Then these,” I said, “were atheists. They are wretched men, and tried to ruin me had not eternal grace prevented it.”
I had no sooner spoken, but one of the tormented wretches cried out mournfully , “Surely I know that voice. It must be John.”
I was amazed to hear my name mentioned; and therefore I answered, “Yes, I am John; but who are you?”
To this he replied, “I once knew you well upon the earth, and had almost persuaded you to be of my opinion. I am the author of that celebrated book entitled ‘Leviathan.’”
“What! The great Hobbs?” said I. “Are you come here?”
“Alas,” replied he, “I am that unhappy man indeed. But I am so far from being great that I am one of the most wretched persons in all these dirty territories. For now I know there is a God. But oh! I wish there were not, for I am sure He will have no mercy on me. Nor is there any reason that He should. I do confess I was His foe on earth, and now He is mine in hell. It was that proud confidence I had in my own wisdom that has so betrayed me.”
“Your case is miserable, and yet you admit that you suffer justly. For how industrious were you to persuade others and try to bring them to the same damnation. No one can know this better than I, as I was almost taken in your snare to perish forever.”
“It is that,” said he, “that stings me to the heart, to think how many will perish by my influence. I was afraid when I first heard your voice that you had also been cast into hell. Not that I wish any person happy, for it is my torment to think that anyone is happy while I am so miserable. But I did not want you to be cast into hell, because every soul that is brought here through my deceptions, increases my pains in hell.”
“But tell me,” I said, “for I want to know the truth. Did you indeed believe there was no God when you lived upon earth?
“At first I believed there was a God,” he answered, “but as I turned to sins which would lead me to His judgment, I hoped there was no God. For it is impossible to think there is a just God, and not also remember that He will punish those who disobey Him. But as I continued in my sins, and found that justice did not swiftly come, I then began to hope there was no God. From those hopes I began to frame ideas in my own mind that could justify what I hoped. My ideas framed a new system of the world’s origin which excluded from it the existence of God. At last I found myself so fond of these new theories that I decided to believe them and convince others that they were true. But before this, I did find several checks in my own conscience. I felt that I could be wrong, but I ignored these warnings. Now I find that those checking thoughts that might have helped me then, are here the things that most of all torment me. I must confess that the love of sin hardened my heart against my Maker, and made me hate Him first, and then deny His being. Sin, that I so proudly embraced, has been the cursed cause of all this woe; it is the serpent that has stung my soul to death. For now I find, in spite of my vain philosophy, there is a God. I have also found that God will not be mocked, although it was my daily practice in the world to mock at heaven and all that is sacred, for this was the means that I found very successful to spread abroad my cursed ideas. For anyone that I could get to ridicule the truths of God, I looked upon as becoming one of my disciples. But now these thoughts are more tormenting to me than the sufferings I endure from these whips of burning steel.”
“Sad indeed,” I said. “See what Almighty Power can inflict on those that violate His righteous law.” I was making some further comments when the relentless fiend who had been tormenting them then interrupted me.
“Now you see what sort of men they were in the world. Do you not think they deserve their punishment now?”
To which I answered, “Doubtless it is the just reward of sin which they suffer, and which you will suffer also. For you, as well as they, have sinned against the ever blessed God, and for your sin you shall suffer the just vengeance of eternal fire. Nor is it any excuse to say you never doubted the being of a God; for though you knew there was God, yet you rebelled against Him. Therefore you shall be justly punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.”
To this the fiend replied, “It is true we know we shall be punished, as you say. But if you say that mankind should have pity showed them, because they fell through the temptations of the devil, it is the same case with me and all the rest of the inferior spirits. For we were tempted by the Bright Sun of the Morning to rebel with him. And therefore, though this multiplies the crime of Lucifer, it should lessen that of the inferior spirits.”
To this my bright conductor replied with an angry countenance. “O you apostate, wicked, lying spirit! Can you say those things and see me here? You know it was your proud heart that made you rebel with Lucifer against the blessed God who had created you with glory! But since you proudly exalted yourself above your blessed Creator, and joined with Lucifer, you are justly cast down to hell. Your former beauty has changed to your present horrible form as the just punishment of your rebellious pride.”

To this the apostate spirit replied, “Why do you invade our territories, and come here to torment us before our time?” And when he had said this, he slipped away as if he did not want to have an answer. After he was gone I said to my guardian angel that I had already heard about the fall of the apostate angels, but wanted to know more about what happened. To this my guide answered me, “When you have finished your earthly life and return to heaven, you shall learn many things that you are not yet ready to understand. In your present state do not desire to learn more than what is written in the Scriptures. It is enough to know the angels sinned, and for their sin were cast down to hell. But how pure spirits could have a thought arise in their hearts against the eternal Purity that first created them is what you are not yet capable of understanding.”

“I have observed,” said I, “that those in hell complain most about the torment from their own sense of guilt, which confirms the justice of their punishment. This gloomy prison is the best place to rightly understand sin; for were it not so evil, it would not be rewarded with such extreme punishment.”

“What you say is very natural; but there is yet a better place to see the just reward due to sin. That place can be seen when you behold the blessed Son of God upon the cross. There we may see the terrible effects of sin. There we may see all of its true evil. For all the sufferings of the damned here are but the sufferings of created beings; but on the cross you see a suffering God.”

“Surely,” said I, “did justice and mercy triumph and kiss each other in that fatal hour. For justice was fully satisfied at the cross in the just punishment of sin; and mercy triumphed and was pleased there because salvation for poor sinners was completed. Oh, eternal praises to His holy name for ever, that His grace has made me willing to accept this salvation, and become an heir of glory! For I remember that some of those lost wretches here have lamented that when salvation had been offered to them, they had refused it. It was therefore grace alone that helped me to accept it.”

At this point my shining guardian told me that he must bring me back to the earth again, and leave me there until it was time for me to enter my heavenly reward. “Come,” he said, “let us leave this place of sorrow and horror to the possession of their black inhabitants.”

In a very little space of time I found myself on earth again. I was left at the very place where the angel had met me, when I had been thinking about committing suicide through the temptations of the devil who had tried to persuade me that there was no God. How I returned there, I do not know. But as soon as I was back there, the bright angel who had been my conductor said, “John, I must go now. I have another ministry to complete. Praise Him that sits upon the throne for ever, who has all power in heaven, earth, and hell. Praise Him for all the wonders of His love and grace that He has shown you in so short a time.”

As I was going to reply, the shining angel disappeared and I was left alone. I spent some time considering the amazing things I had seen and heard, and then knelt down and prayed. When I rose up I began blessing and praising God for all His goodness.

When I returned back to my house, my family was very surprised to see how my countenance had so greatly changed. They looked at me as if they scarcely knew me. I asked them what they were staring at. They answered that it was the change in my face that caused it. I said, “How am I so greatly changed?”

They told me, “Yesterday you looked so depressed that you seemed the very image of despair. But now, your face appears radiantly beautiful, and seems full of perfect joy and satisfaction.”

“If you had seen,” I said, “what I have seen today, you would not be surprised at the change in me.” Then I went into my room, took my pen and ink, and wrote down everything that I had heard and seen. And I hope that those who read this will be moved in their hearts just as I have been as I wrote everything down.

The End.

Benny Hinn

Kathryn Kulhman