Chapter 1: A background in faith
My name is Marcos. I'm an engineer and that explains almost everything about me. I need things to add up. I need the numbers, the logic, the why. I'm going to tell you what happened to me one night in 1995 when I was 33 years old and had been a Christian for 17 years. It all started much earlier. Back in 1978, I was in high school and wasn't saved yet. One Christmas afternoon, I was flipping through TV channels and stumbled upon a Christian program.
I had been to church before, but never in my life had I heard the gospel explained so clearly, so simply, and so practically. And in the middle of the explanation, the speaker said a phrase that stayed with me. If you have an empty space in your heart, that is where Jesus Christ belongs. And then he said, if you want to know more, write to me. I was just a high school kid. That man was a university president and he was inviting me to write to him.
I thought, well, what do I have to lose? So, I wrote to him and to my surprise, he wrote back. We kept up a correspondence for quite a while until he decided I needed a real pastor, someone to disciple me and he connected me with one of his alumni. That pastor came to my house. That alone had impressed me that a man like that would take the trouble for a kid like me. He explained the gospel to me, explained my need for salvation, and warned me about one thing that God offers us heaven.
While hell is what comes by default, I believed him. The thing is, I didn't get a very clear idea of heaven because no one knew how to explain it to me properly. But hell, they made that crystal clear. A terrible place where no one ever wants to be. So, I made my decision. I didn't want to go to hell. And if accepting Christ as my savior was the way God wanted it done, then that's what I would do.
And right then and there, I accepted him. That pastor was a married man with a large family and a congregation to look after. Yet he drove 30 mi round trip every Sunday just to pick me up and take me to his church. I found myself thinking, "Is someone actually interested in me?" So I gave him my full attention. I learned everything I could. From then on, I did what you're supposed to do. Church every Sunday, midweek Bible study, daily prayer, giving my offering, going out to evangelize according to everything my church leaders taught me.
I was living an almost perfect Christian life. One straight out of the handbook. But along the way, something else took hold of me. I read the book by a man who had died and come back, a doctor, a Christian his whole life. In his account, God the further invited him to ask whatever he wanted. That really struck me. God answers questions. But when I read the questions that man asked, I was disappointed.
I could have answered half of them myself. I thought, man, with God right there in front of you, couldn't you come up with something deeper? So, I sat at my desk and wrote my own list. That was back in 1979. And over the years, I would take it out of the drawer. Sometimes I'd answer one myself. Other times I'd take a question to my pastor, a respected teacher, or any theologian I happened to cross paths with.
And I was surprised by how much they struggled with them. I kept thinking, "It can't be that hard." So I'd revise my list again. By 1995, I had it was something like the 12th version. By 1995, I had two things. a Christian life that anyone would have called exemplary and a list of questions that no one on earth could answer for me. What I didn't have was the slightest idea why I had accepted Christ in the first place, nor what it was going to cost me.
Before we go on, do me a simple favor. Write the city you're joining us from in the comments. And next to it, write just one word, present. That's all. That way, I know who is with me tonight. and subscribe because the story Marcos is about to tell takes a major turn right here. That year, everything fell apart for me. Not all at once, but
Chapter 2: The life-changing accident
little by little, like a house collapsing as its foundation comes loose. I had already qualified as an engineer and was working in East Texas. I designed air conditioning systems for aircraft. Good work, serious work. But the economy there was weak and I was a contract engineer. That means the day the company has one person too many. You are that person and one day I was that person. I was let go just like that.
No unemployment insurance. Contractors don't get it. No health insurance for the same reason and very little in savings because you always think there'll be another contract. I had a wife and two small children at home. And overnight I was left with no way to provide for them. And it was right then, right during those weeks, that the houses's heater decided to start failing. It was an old heater. Modern ones have a safety valve.
If the pilot light goes out, the gas shuts off automatically. That one didn't have it. So, here's what would happen. The house would get cold. The unit would kick on. The pilot light would go out. And since the thermostat still registered the cold, the unit kept calling for more and more gas. that raw gas would flow straight into my house while my wife was asleep, while my two children were asleep.
I knew perfectly well how dangerous that was. I'm an engineer. I understand systems. I understand gas. What I didn't have was money, neither for replacement parts nor to pay a technician to come out. So, I managed as best I could with my own hands. Week after week, I fell into the routine. Whenever I smelled gas or felt the house getting cold, I'd get up, go to the water heater, take off the front panel, shut off the gas, and turn on the exhaust fan.
We had a good fan, so I'd wait for the area to air out completely, making sure no fumes remained. Then I'd light the pilot, turn the gas back on, and stand there watching the burners, making sure they caught evenly and stayed lit. Once everything was stable, I'd close everything up and go back to bed. That happened so many times I lost count. Truly, I lost count. And then came that night. It wasn't really night anymore.
It was the early hours of the morning. I'd been sleeping in fits and starts for days. I'd get up groggy. And I'll be honest with you, I'd likely already breathed in gas that night and wasn't thinking clearly. I was fed up with the routine. Fed up. I got up without even turning on the light. I just wanted to fire up that unit and go back to bed. I stepped into the hallway, opened the unit, took off the front panel, and thought, "I'll just toss a match in there and be done with it."
And this is the part where I have to tell you something because it's important. Deep down, I heard it clearly, Marcos. That's a bad idea. That isn't safe. I heard it, but I tossed the match anyway because I played with fire since I was a kid. And the worst thing that all that had happened was that my eyebrows were singed. I took out the little box of wooden matches, struck one, and tossed the lit thing straight into the heater.
I didn't even see it land. There was a flash of light. I heard a blast of air and felt as if someone had thrown a boiling hot mattress on top of me and shoved me, mattress and all, against the opposite wall. I slid down and sat there in the dark thinking, "What a stupid thing I just did." But nothing hurt. I told myself, "Well, I'm never doing that again. Let's go to the bathroom and see how much damage I've done."
I was thinking about my eyebrows. I got up, feeling my way around, and turned on the bathroom light. And that's when it all hit me at once. My face was raw and red.
Chapter 3: Suffering in isolation
My eyebrows were gone. The hair here was burnt off. And this hand was charred with thirdderee burns. And it wasn't until that moment with the light on looking at myself that the pain set in. If you've ever been burned, you know what I'm talking about. There is no worse pain. I put my hand in cold water, but it didn't help. And then I remember the obvious. I had no money, so I couldn't go to a doctor.
So drive. Marcos treated me. And let me tell you, drive. Marcos is an excellent engineer, but a terrible doctor. I bandaged my hand, stuck it in ice water, treated my face as best I could. Took some antihistamines, and left it up to luck. I spent the next 3 days in absolute agony. I couldn't sleep. I'd just toss and turn and grown in my own bed. And that meant my wife couldn't rest, and neither could the kids.
So, we worked out a different arrangement. I went to sleep on the living room sofa. And here's what I didn't know. What no engineer, no man treating himself at home would have ever imagined. When that water heater blew, hot gases rushed into my nose and mouth, went down my throat, and reached my lungs. They burned me from the inside. And the explosion also blasted rust from the unit straight into my eyes.
By the third day, my eyes were infected and oozing pus. I could barely see. I had to keep cleaning them constantly. And my throat was in the worst state I've ever known. I couldn't eat. I couldn't drink water. I couldn't even swallow my own saliva without it being torture. But I told myself, I can tough it out. I can take it. I don't want to go into debt right now. That armchair was soft, but it was too short for my height.
Even when I lay lengthwise, I was actually half sitting up, which made me incredibly uncomfortable. Yet, that was the very thing that kept me alive for 3 days. Let me explain why. It's a matter of physics. Anyone who's worked with fluids understands it. My lungs had been filling with fluid since the explosion. When I sat up, the fluid would settle toward the bottom, allowing me to breathe using just the upper tips of my lungs.
That tiny bit of upper lung capacity kept me alive for 3 days without me even realizing it. That short, uncomfortable armchair was what kept me breathing. By the third night, I couldn't take it anymore. I'd gone 3 days without sleep. I don't know if you've ever gone three full days without sleeping. But it's no joke. You stop thinking straight. All I wanted in the world was to lie down flat. Even if just for a little while, I had a good idea.
If I took the cushions off the armchair and laid them on the floor, I could make a soft bed. then I'd finally be able to rest. So that's what I did. I took out the cushions. I settled them onto the living room floor and lay down. And I thought, how wonderful. As soon as my back touched the floor, all that fluid I'd been carrying in my lower chest rose up and went straight to the upper part of my lungs.
The only healthy part one had left blocked off. I felt my hands trembling and thought, "I have to get up to get my ice." But I couldn't get up. I was practically paralyzed. And that wasn't all. I couldn't breathe either. I thought, "This isn't right. Why can't I breathe? I was suffocating on the floor of my own living room. It was midnight. Everyone in the house was asleep. And I couldn't make a sound.
Couldn't get up. Couldn't call for help. Couldn't help myself. I was just going to suffocate right there. And the only thing left for me to do was pray. And let me tell you something. I knew how to pray. I had been taught to pray and I prayed well.
Chapter 4: A supernatural experience
So I started with well ststructured prayers in my mind using verses everything I knew. Lord save me. Lord save me. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. As I prayed I was fading away. I was running out of oxygen and I could feel it. I realized the end was near. Yet I wanted to live with all my soul. I wanted to live. I was 33 years old. music, a Christian for 17 years, and I loved the idea of heaven.
But not that night. I had a wife, two children, and a life ahead of me. So I thought, I'm going to make a deal with God. I'll pray one last prayer, and it has to be my best one. I have to pour everything I have left into it so he'll listen. And as my mind was fading, I managed to think of just one word, help, nothing more. But deep down, I imbued it with every ounce of meaning I carried. I accept your help on whatever terms you choose.
Whatever they may be, I don't care. Just help me. I want to live. Instantly, all the pain vanished, and the living room lit up. I stood up, looked around, and was amazed because all the lights in the house were off. Yet, I could see perfectly. I wear glasses. I have a stigmatism, but I didn't need them. And I realized something else. There wasn't a single shadow. I thought, what is happening here?
And then I thought, God healed me. God healed me in a supernatural way. And it certainly seemed that way. I was born with scoliosis. I always have a lingering backachche, but it had vanished completely. My throat didn't hurt anymore, nor did the burns on my hand and face. I felt full of vitality and strength like never before in my life. I started testing my senses like a child with a new toy. I heard trucks.
Trucks aren't allowed in my neighborhood. The nearest street where they drive is five blocks away. And normally you don't hear them, but I was hearing them and I stood still. I also heard insects moving inside the walls of the house and thought, I need to have the place fumigated. I could smell everything. The paper of the books on the shelf, the varnish on the furniture, the paint on the walls. Things I had never smelled before in my life.
Yet I knew exactly what they were. I was enjoying it all until I looked down at the floor. And there on the cushions lay my body, sprawled out with its eyes closed. While I stood beside it, looking down, I thought, "No, this isn't right." That's when the engineer in me took
Chapter 5: The encounter with darkness
over. Because when you have a problem, you look for a solution. I told myself, I need help. I'll go to the nearest room and wake someone up. My daughter's room was the closest one. I walked down the hallway and reached out to grab the door knob, but my hand passed right through it. I thought, there's something wrong with this knob. Then I realized, no, I'm the one with the problem, and if that's the problem, I know the solution, I'll just pass through the door.
And I did. I'll describe that sensation because I'll never forget it. As I moved through the wood, I felt the door all around me, like a stream of something cold and heavy pouring over me like cold sand or something even heavier like lead. And while I was inside the doorway, my vision went completely dark, everything black. And when I stepped out the other side, there I was in the room, my daughter's room.
The lights were off. It was raining. Everything was exactly as it was in the living room. Alexandra was about 4 years old. She was fast asleep in her bed. I stepped closer and placed my hand on her shoulder to wake her, but my hand passed right through it. She didn't even stir. I said, "Alex, wake up. It's an emergency. Nothing." She didn't hear me. She didn't feel me. Absolutely nothing happened.
That was when I realized the situation I was in. I knew because I'd studied it that the human brain dies after 5 or 6 minutes without oxygen. That was my clock. That was all the time I had. So I thought if I can't wake Alex, I'll go to my son to avoid wasting time going back out into the hallway. I stepped into her closet. The closets in the two rooms shared a back wall. I passed through the clothes, passed through the wall, and emerged in my son's room.
Though he was asleep, I did exactly the same thing I'd done with his sister, and exactly the same thing happened. Nothing. That's when it hit me. I was running out of time. I wasn't going to get any help. I was going to have to resolve this on my own. I went back through the door, down the hall, and into the living room where I knelt beside my body, trying to figure out how to get back inside that thing.
And while I was kneeling there, a sensation washed over me. You've seen horror movies, right? When something bad is about to happen, the music changes and you get goosebumps. Well, I didn't have skin for goosebumps or hair to stand on end. But I felt it all the same. I knew something terrible was coming for me. Then they came in through the living room windows. There were two of them. I had never seen anything like it in my life.
They were the size of a man, about 1,8 m tall, human proportions, yet incredibly muscular and gaunt at the same time, like someone who works incredibly hard but has never eaten properly. They wore no clothes. They were covered in short black fur. They had hands and feet like ours. But instead of fingernails, they had claws. They had pointed ears. And what stuck with me most were their solid yellow eyes, completely yellow, and they seemed to glow.
And when they opened their mouths, I saw white fangs and a blazing red tongue. That contrast is burned into my memory. Each of them carried a set of shackles, one for the wrists and another for the ankles. They walked toward me. Laughing. I asked them, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" They answered, "We've come to take you to hell." And I told them the only thing I knew to say, I said, "I am a Christian.
I am saved. You cannot take me to hell. I am going to heaven." And they laughed. They laughed at me. They found it hilarious, as if they had just heard the best joke of their lives. Then they threw the list at me. the list of all the sins I had never dealt with. And it included things I hadn't even considered sins, like being rude to a store cashier because she was taking too long or had made a mistake with a total.
They told me that a loan was enough to send me to hell. Promises I made but didn't keep. Money I owed someone but never paid back. And the list went on and on. There were so many things that I thought, "Fine, they've got me, but I'm not going down without a fight." And then they showed me hell. They showed me the place and what they were going to do to me inside it. I have no words in any
Chapter 6: Facing the truth
languages to describe it to you. All I can tell you is this. After seeing that place, there isn't a single person on earth I could hate enough to want to go there. Not a single one. And let me tell you something about that state one ends up in. I could recall every detail of my entire life with total precision and process it at a speed impossible here. So, in less time than it takes to tell you, in less than a second, I reviewed my whole life looking for just one thing.
What do I do? And out of everything in my life, all the sermons, all the books, all the years in church, what came to mind was a brother. In the early 80s, I attended a house church. And there was a remarkable man there, a true man of Jesus. He was always talking to me about the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, angels, and demons. He would lend me books. And to be honest, I listened out of politeness.
I read his books, but didn't know what to do with them because I had never in my life encountered a demon or an angel. What use is this to me? But he had said one thing to me, just one phrase. He said, "Marcos, if you ever run into a demon, rebuke it in the name of Jesus Christ." By that moment, they were already upon me. They were just about to put the chains on me. And if they had, I think that would have been the end of it all.
So, I said, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ." And it was as if I'd hit them with a wrecking ball. They went flying clean out of the room. And I stood there thinking, "Well, I'm not going to hell. At least not right this instant. But judgment day is still coming and I'm not safe. I have to go back to my body because there are serious matters to settle here. I knelt down beside myself again feeling around.
Trying to figure out how to reanimate that thing. And another sensation came over me. But this one was good. Very good. Something perfect for me was approaching. Something filled with love. Something I cannot describe with words from this language. The demons came in through the window. He walked in through the main door. The first thing he said to me was, "Marcos, this isn't my true appearance. I appear this way, so you'll recognize me."
I knew immediately who I was dealing with. In the spirit, you just know. He radiated authority, power, and absolute confidence. I understood that he could annihilate me with a single thought, which was terrifying. But he immediately put me at ease. He told me he knew every sin on that list that had been thrown at me. That he knew everything about me. And yet he loved me unconditionally. That was exactly what I needed to hear.
I knew I was lost and he loved me even in my lost state. Then he told me something I didn't expect. He said he was disappointed in me that I hadn't lived the life the father had prepared for me. I was stunned because according to everything the church had taught me, I had lived a textbook Christian life. He said, "You can go to heaven now because you called on my name and my word says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but you will enter as the lowest of all the saints without rank and without reward."
He didn't explain why right then. It took me years to understand. The problem was my motives, everything I did, the money I gave, the time I dedicated, the evangelism, everything. I didn't do it because I loved God or because I loved people. I did it to escape helland while I was at it to earn a prize. That isn't love. That's self-interest. And with the wrong emotive, it's worthless. Then he said something that shattered me.
If you die tonight, your children won't make it. I agreed to go back. And suddenly he was gone in my living room. I was on the bank of a wide muddy river with papyrus
Chapter 7: Lessons from the afterlife
reeds along the shore and people dressed as they were in ancient Egypt. He commanded me to build a reedboat and sailed to an island. Upon that island my own body was projected, transparent like the invisible man. The healthy organs appeared clear while the damaged ones were colored, a red throat, mottled green lungs, a hand shard black, and eyes like two lumps of coal. He told me, "Reach out your hand and touch them.
And every organ I touched became transparent." Halfway through the task, the demons returned, no longer laughing, but running toward me with chains. And I thought, "Nothing bad will happen here. Jesus is standing to my left. Yet Jesus did not move. He did not say a word." I had to rebuke them myself once again in his name, and they vanished forever. It took me more than 20 years to understand why he did nothing.
The answer lies in the great commission, healing the sick, casting out demons. He delegated that to us. That work was mine to do. And had I not known that phrase, something a brother had mentioned to me in passing, I might be in hell today. Finally, he asked if I wanted the answers to his list of questions. He warned me that my mind was too small, that I would have to become one with him. I said, "Yes, I saw the entire history of humanity three times over.
Each life was a colored thread, white if the person lived righteously, darkening with sin until it turned black upon death. The entire thread would shift to one of two colors, gold, meaning it went to heaven, or red, meaning it went to hell. I had worked as a machinist. I knew how to gauge measurements precisely by eye, and I measured the two bundles at the end of time. two 5% gold 97 5% red that was when Jesus interrupted everything to say he was deeply disappointed in his church that he had given it everything needed to win the whole world yet it had failed music and the only lesson he wanted me to bring back was this the only question that matters in any decision is what does this have to do with selfless love I returned to my body went to the kitchen and looked at the clock it was.
The whole experience had lasted less than 6 minutes. I made myself a full breakfast right then. And when I told my wife I had died and God had healed me, she asked me not to make noise because she was trying to sleep. That is how it has been for 30 years. This account is based [clears throat] on a true testimony. The name has been changed out of respect for the family's privacy. The events narrated here are the responsibility of the person who experienced them.
Our task, yours and mine, is to examine them in the light of the word. And with that, I want to leave you with a question, not for me, but for you. If tonight were your time, and you could only utter one word, what would it be? Write it in the comments. I will read them all. If this message stirred something inside you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Not tomorrow. Today, the search for truth continues and the word is our guide.
Let's analyze what we just heard. Marcos was saved. That is not in dispute. He called upon the name of the Lord and was
Chapter 8: Reflections on the testimony
saved just as it is written in Romans 10:13. What was at stake for him was not his salvation but his reward. And the word had already warned of this 1 Corinthians 314:15. If anyone's work endures, he will receive reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. Though he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire, that is the key point. You can reach heaven with empty hands. And the criterion for measuring that work is not how much was done, but the motive behind it.
1 Corinthians 13:3 states this plainly. If I were to give away all my possessions and have no love, it profits me nothing. That is the uncomfortable truth of this story. The man who was confronted was not a stranger. He was a man with 17 years of church involvement, tithing, and evangelism under his belt. Yet, what he lacked was the right motive. Examine your own life today. While there is still time to correct the underlying cause, the search for truth continues.
God is with us.
