Steve's NDE to Hell, Heaven & Back

0:03 From the time that they pronounced me dead was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped and I could see people screaming and crying but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else. The only thing that I could feel if you could imagine absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home. Welcome, welcome to Round Trip Death everybody. We're so excited to be here today and we have a fun guest with us. Steve Houghton from Virginia here in the United States.

0:48 How are you Stephen? I'm doing good. How about yourself Eric? Good. Did I get Houghton correct? That is the correct pronunciation. It's a hit or miss on that name. Well. In the pre interview you help me out with that so i was just happy to remember so anyway it's good to see you again you got an unusual a little bit scary. With a happy ending kind of experience that we're gonna be talking about before we jump into it would you tell us a little bit about you and then i'll direct you through some questions yeah. I grew up in Virginia. It was sort of a broken family. I guess I went through all the normal things kids would go through with parents divorcing, and I ended up being raised by my grandparents.

1:33 That ended up pushing me into the military pretty early. Straight 18, I went right into the Coast Guard. That was such a good experience, being able to be a part of that organization. It really let me... Explore and get out and do some wild things. You'd never think you would do. I ended up all the way in Africa, Liberia. Saving people was one of the biggest things. I didn't really keep track, but it was a pretty good number of people I know that were still walking around because I showed up. My career in the Coast Guard kind of ended early because I've got back problems and other disabilities. I was an alcoholic in the military, a functioning alcoholic, but you had to break things up. You had to go three days on, two days off sort of deal. So you really had to pace yourself. But when I got retired and went to a government job, there's really a lot less oversight. So the habit just grew and grew. It got to the point during COVID, they sent us all home. And all we had to do was text in every morning that we're here alive, ready to go if you needed us to come in. And that's how it went for months. The drinking kind of got really out of hand, ended up to a point where I could not get myself drunk. And I guess that was the big red flag for me was I have to drink to function. At the point I had one son, he was living with his mother. It just, it was a rough adjustment to being a civilian. And I had to go to the Veterans Affairs Hospital and ask them

3:04 for help on how to quit drinking. And I didn't really put much research into that type of healthcare or what I'd be looking at trying to quit drinking. I just kind of went with it and did whatever they said. It's just bouncing back and forth on medications that you really feel like turn you into a zombie. You get so frustrated with it because it's so long in between these appointments, you're just ready to give up. So I'd made up in my mind, whatever this next medication they gave me, I was going to do it. I was going to quit drinking. We're going to lock this in. I was over this. I would go to bed every night and I really, I felt like it was my voice in my head, but that voice doesn't say those things anymore. So I would go to bed thinking, Alright, tonight's the last night. I don't feel like waking up with the stomach pain. I don't want to wake up sick. I'm done drinking and there'd be a voice that would literally curse me out and tell me, no, you're not. You're going to go down tomorrow at this time and pick this alcohol up. You're going to do it. And I would just go along with it. But when I really just decided we were going to lock down, it was a medication called Topamax.

4:08 And I don't even really remember how it was supposed to function or any of the side effects. I just remember I didn't want to drink alcohol, but I also just didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to get up. I didn't want to move. I could lay in bed for a day and a half and just stare at the ceiling. It was very bizarre being in that state, but I told myself, we're going to get through this, a month of no drinking, and I'm going to be able to say I can stop. Along the way, I would feel really lightheaded. I wasn't feeling good. I knew I was going through withdrawals, but I didn't know. at what cost to your body, quitting cold turkey from the amount of alcohol I was drinking. So it got to a point where I was roughhousing with one of my dogs and I started feeling really lightheaded. I sat back down on the couch. I asked my girlfriend, she's my wife now, I asked her to go get me something sugary to eat. Years earlier, I had done DMT. That was that point in my life where I'm searching for answers, what's going on. And when I started really getting lightheaded, I started seeing all these colors. The only thing I could attribute that was it was like being on DMT. I even told my girlfriend, my wife, I said, just give me a minute. I'm having some sort of DMT trip. I'm enjoying this, which was not a very smart thing to do because I had not consumed DMT. And the basic of that drug is it gives you the experience of what your mind dumps into your brain as you're dying. There's a chemical, it releases. It was

5:41 not very geometric. I don't know if you know anything about DMT, but you can have these experiences where you see very bizarre things. You feel like you're in another realm. It's very geometric. Everything's very precise. When this happened, the whole room looked like it was melting. If you've ever seen a chocolate fountain, how it just comes down and waves. But in between each wave was different bands of colors. And I mean, they were just... the colors you can't describe so i just kind of fell back into that and i remember my head leaning back and it just getting heavy and uh that was at the moment i died i didn't know i was that dehydrated to the point where when i was sitting up i wasn't able to get the blood all the way back around i don't know what i expected death to feel like but it definitely wasn't what it felt like it was a very intoxicating feeling at first you you would Relax right back into that. That was something you wouldn't want to get out of. If I can just make a noise. If you've ever popped bubble wrap, it's really what I felt what happened in my chest. When I came out of my body, I didn't come out the way I was facing. I don't know if you've ever played with one of the little water snakes that'll run through your hands. Yeah, sure. I felt like I was pulled like that and pulled straight through and it was like a mirror image is how I popped out facing myself. Hey Steve, before we get deeper into that, I want to make sure that people understand the difference between this and a DMT experience.

7:12 So they don't think that that's what you were having. So they understand that this was real versus a drug -related thing. Yeah, I've probably done most of the hallucinogenic drugs. You can do mushrooms. I did once or twice. The DMT I did once several times in a day. I use cannabis cannabis really is not gonna give you a type of delusion or hallucination. The mushroom is it really affect with your visual cortex and what you see it might really move things around and then there's dmt dmt is is they call the rocket ship. It's a very short acting drug it is very powerful. You can feel like you've gone to a different realm. You can walk around after the drugs wearing off and it's almost like Tetris, like the ruins in South America for their pyramids.

8:11 How everything sort of looks like Tetris, the way things are blocked in. And you can see that fabric kind of moving in and out. It's really hard to explain. I don't think DMT is even in a class of drug. Like the others because it's such a profoundly different experience people have Complete religious experiences with that drug. It's hard for me to tell someone that I've done that and I experienced that but the level to which Things are intensified. I guess the best way I can explain it through my understanding is There's a veil a spiritual veil that's put up In my religion, it's supposed to be separated and we can't see it. But if you use certain chemicals, roots, ayahuasca, you can basically enter into that other dimension, I could say, illegally.

9:08 So anything that's out there can come and interact with you. You can have a great experience. Something could come up very peaceful and very nice, and there's people that come out of those experiences almost completely. ruined. I've seen people having really bad experiences. When I came out of my body, there was a very distinct separation of me, my flesh, and the me that I was looking at on that couch. I was looking at a dead body. I don't know. When I did DMT, I could still feel you're experiencing these things, but you can still feel your body. It's hard to explain your body not being there anymore and what you become after. It'd be like if we were cartoons, I was trying to explain to you what it felt like to be an actual object, three dimensional. The intensity with which everything was happening and the free flow of information was overwhelming. I was not your go to church every week Christian. I had been out of church for at least 10 years. I'm seeing things and I'm feeling things that you just kind of remember by the side way. It's all in front of me and it's not, it's not a welcoming feeling. I can still see my girlfriend who was my wife now. I keep saying that I could almost see through the wall that she was out on the porch calling 911 and I can still see these things are going on. And I guess the best way to explain it was I had taken no drug that would produce any type of reaction like this. If anyone's experienced

10:41 or looked at a DMT trip, there's a profound level of. You're going beyond what's normal, you're in the supernatural. I can almost just say that the great divide in between, wow, that's really hard to believe, we're going to double that now. It's hard to explain what I can't even show you. Traveling instantly, information you're getting from things. There was another being in the room, I'm pretty sure it was an angel. I couldn't look at it, but it could think inside my mind, it could think to me. Let's do this Steve let's go kind of chronologically i had just wanted to establish to make sure listeners new you weren't on any drugs you were hadn't even drinking for a long time. This was a completely different kind of experience so you come out of your body.

11:34 You mentioned looking down at your dead body when you take us through step one two three from there what happened. Yeah, as soon as I saw my body, there was a curse word, oh, I'm dead. Something responded back to me, like I said, through a telepathic means. It was kind of a short, yeah, you are. And there's no time really to soak any of it in. The next thing that's going on in front of me is there's a hole in the ground. It's just blackness that I can't describe. I'm being pulled into it. And I can feel The sin on my body on my my spiritual body i could feel it. And there was an understanding that i belong in this place it wasn't that someone had sent me there. It wasn't that god was mean and did this to me i understood that that's my home i belong there.

12:34 End the dread that sets in just knowing you're not coming back out. Don't get to say goodbye to my son. I don't get to say goodbye to my dog. I don't There's that's a one -way ticket. You know it it's in your head and on top of that the power That was emanating out of the being that was in the room with her with me Was so intense it would be just not something you would even think of to run away or fight her There was no point in trying to stop what was about to happen. You could feel that. And the only thing I could do is just beg for Jesus. I mean, it spewed out of me. Jesus, please forgive me.

13:19 Forgive me, Jesus, please. It just couldn't stop coming out as fast as I could get it out. And I got a response back. And I mean, it was instant. Everything changed that angel made fun of me it's not so much in words it's more feelings but if i can explain it to you would be if. You beg for jesus i like to tune i said yeah dummy good choice you know that was the real message that was to me and i believe that this is angel was not was not just present at that one point in my life. It's not like we sat down and talk. I never knew anybody I just met off the bat, and I really disliked them as much as I could feel that this thing disliked me. I understood that it watched me do every stupid, foolish, and shameful thing I had ever done. That's the feeling I got. Hey, quick break here with a special message for our Utah and Idaho listeners. Are you ready for the event of the summer? It's coming.

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14:59 Hey, no worries if you didn't remember it, it'll be in the show notes. Now, back to the guest. So you were calling out to Jesus. Were you a big believer prior to that? Were you someone that grew up going to church, for example? I went to church, but we didn't go to a denominational church. We were in and out in 20 minutes. I never read the Bible. I believed in God. I would talk to him. I would pray to him, but I had no relationship with Jesus. I had never lived a day in my life for anybody other than me because I had selfishly Assume that because I grew up in a rough childhood and things weren't good that I owed myself a little bit of freedom so I could do this or I could do that to establish that I have a life of my own. So I was living life for me. I wasn't living it for anybody else, let alone Jesus.

15:55 I don't know. I just never thought I would be the one going to hell. I didn't think I was the greatest person, but I really didn't think that when I died, I'd be facing a hole I thought I was going into heaven. That's not what's happening. I get people to tell me all the time, this is just what your mind built because you built these ideas and constructs throughout your life. So when your brain's dying, it copes by putting things together. Your visual awareness isn't exactly what you're seeing. Our brain kind of fills in the missing gaps. But this was an experience where I could sense and feel everything. I was much more than what I just was in that body.

16:38 This is a dumbed down version of us. We're still in the wrapper. I guess I could put it that way. We haven't come out of the wrapper yet. You can't really be used. You don't know how to see. You don't know how to hear. You don't know these things because you're you're not experiencing it. You're shielded from this. So I asked for forgiveness. I get made fun of and there's no time. There's no, hey, we're getting ready to go. There's no instruction. And I still haven't looked at this thing. It's ridiculous. If there was one thing I could do is go back in time and one, tell myself to shut up because, I mean, obviously you can see through this podcast. I can get long winded and I really should have looked at that angel because I, I'm curious.

17:23 I want to know what it looked like. But if I could say there was a live tiger in the room right behind you and you could feel it breathing down your neck, you wouldn't turn around. You wouldn't. The same tiger you would wave at at the zoo, there's no more bars. You can feel that. So we're moving. We've just left where we are. There's no tunnel. There's no time. I'm just approaching a very, very big mountain. I guess I could say I don't have much context. I haven't gone and seen the Himalayan Mountains. I haven't gone to the Rockies. But this was not a mountain range. It was a singular mountain. And it just went on so much that I could feel it bending around my peripheral vision. And as I turned, it was almost like hourglass. You know, bugs have like a compound vision. It almost felt like that. It was really messing with my head to try to look at this thing and see how big it was.

18:19 It's hard to explain that, but it's so big it messes with your eyes. I just had this and I'm telling you, I don't I didn't really get in the Bible. I didn't read it like I should, but. That's Mount Zion. I instantly know this now. So we're coming up to Mount Zion, but I can still feel sin. We haven't addressed that. It's still on me and I don't even really feel like we stopped. I can feel like we slowed down because I'm not supposed, I'm not clean. And just as fast as you could snap your fingers, all that was gone in an instant. That was one thing that really blew my mind is I thought that that would be like some sort of Big ordeal to get all this sent off of me. We just mentioned it. Now it's gone. It's gone. We're still traveling up the mountain that that's that's all I have to say on that it's gone and we're flying up this mountain.

19:09 We're getting closer and I would say we're a couple hundred feet up and I'm trying to just take in what I'm seeing. But the whole time it's just vomiting out of me. Please let me go back. I need to go back for my son. I have to go back for Ashley I have to go back for Bryce and I couldn't I couldn't make myself stop. It just kept coming out You know, I look back on this now and I have to put some of these puzzle pieces together and go I had taken all the sin off of me So these things that I'm saying cannot be not true They can't be a lie So like I can lean on these words knowing like no my son and my wife They need me because at this point my son he didn't live with me and he was he was struggling during kovat with school and he was struggling with depression where he lived he wasn't going to get any Any help with that those people were just very busy with their careers. They they worked all the time So there was no time to address the child in the room playing video games Didn't even have custody of him and I knew that if I didn't go back and tell him what I saw He wasn't gonna be getting in church and he wasn't going to be aware of the things I'm aware of it There's a real sense of dread is I need to go warn everyone.

20:30 We're still flying up the mountain I'm still not even looking at this angel and I don't even think it's paying any attention to me But as we're going up and this is where everybody if you want to have a chance to say I'm just crazy and out of my mind Here it is, because when I saw it, I thought I was crazy and out of my mind. We're going up. I can see furrowed land like a farm, and there's like a little fenced in stable area, and there is a sauropod. There is a small, long -necked dinosaur in a stable with children playing around. I stopped everything. I wasn't even talking about my son anymore, and I was just thinking in my head, what's going on now?

21:11 Now I'm seeing dinosaurs. What in the world is going on? If you want to go back in the Bible, it's there. It's in Job. It talks about the long -necked beast with the tail the size of trees and it shook the land. We really like to put Jesus in a box and say, well, you can't have that in heaven or you're not going to have an animal. After what I experienced, if God made a four -legged long -necked dinosaur that made the ground shake, I'm pretty sure it's in heaven too. Anything he created that shows glory to him, anything that's amazing, it's up there. That's another feeling you get. So yeah, as I'm looking back, just trying to figure out what I just saw, kids playing with a dinosaur, we finally come to the top of the mountain. Once again, I was not in the Bible and the Old Testament enough to know what a tabernacle was, or what the altar was for, or any of this, but as I saw an altar, A stone altar, it's not very big, but I could tell that's the altar of the tabernacle.

22:13 And Jesus' cross is in it. There's fire, but Jesus' cross is not burning at all. I can know with information, just once you see it, that cross is never going to burn. It's going to sustain that fire. That fire is God's wrath. That cross is going to be there. That fire can chew on it forever, and it's not going to go away. I can tell that. The cross is not a nice looking piece of wood. It is ugly. It looks like if you took up a couple railroad ties and stuck them together, you know, wood that you know you just touch it, you're going to get splinters. Just nasty. Just knowing that was awful enough that Jesus was on that puts in a different perspective. We don't even like to really understand. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago I had seen something that had said that In Roman times, the sponge on a stick and vinegar was communal toilet paper.

23:13 That's how they wiped themselves and would put it back in that so the vinegar would clean it. When Jesus said, I thirst, and they took the sponge with vinegar, that was the same sponge with vinegar they're using. That is what they made him drink. We don't understand the depravity. the awfulness of what went on that day on that week, we can't put it together. We'll see it one day and we'll really understand. But just being that close to the cross, I understood that that's pain unimaginable. And just like Moses saw the bush that was burning, that was consumed in flames, but would not burn, that's the wood we're talking about. If you go back into the Old Testament, one of the high priest duties is to never let the fire burn out. of that altar.

24:01 It's actually a big turning point with Samuel. There we go, Samuel. I could tell that that was what that was for. That wood has another thing I got to realize is that Jesus never does just one thing. He's doing many things at once every time. When he died on that cross, yes, he bore our sins, but he was also grabbing that piece of wood that was covered in his blood, and that was going to be the object that satisfied God's wrath forever. to separate us from that wrath. And when I looked up, this is one thing I had to look up, because I didn't know why it was. It was there. Instead of Pilate's sign that said, here's Jesus, King of the Jews, that wasn't part of the cross. That was nailed to it. That burned right away. And its place is a molten golden crown. It's just liquid gold. It looks exactly like a crown. And it's floating, and as the fire's hitting it, you can see the waves just causing ripples through this golden crown. As I laid my eyes on that crown, the only thing I could put together is Jesus is God. I stopped talking altogether. And that's when that angel, I'm telling you, things just moved so fast. I probably was in heaven less than 20 seconds. I mean, it was just fleeting. The angel says, last chance, staying or leaving. And I'm telling you, with all of my spirit, I was trying to pull myself back into

25:32 my body the whole time. And I said, I have to go back. I have to go back for my son. There again, no instruction, no get ready. Everything is now black. All I know is what I was is being compressed very, very hard and very small. I can imagine if somehow I could grab you and crush you into the size of a Coke can. That's how it felt. I can't see, I can't hear, but I can feel this crush. And I guess I feel myself get put back in my body. And this immense pressure is so bad. I don't have enough blood going to my eyes or ears. I can't see, I can't hear. I do know I'm vomiting. I know I am projectile vomiting like the exorcist. Like I can feel a stream.

26:19 Shooting out of me. I mean far looking back on it. I don't know how to explain it But whether it was that angel or God himself or Jesus They reached inside of me and started my heart again. That's the only thing I could describe would be that Powerful of a crushing feeling inside of me. I felt my heart get started again as I'm vomiting slowly I'm starting to get ringing Just like the ringing in your ears is coming back And it's just slowly, you know how if you've ever been on a roller coaster that's gone really fast, how it kind of starts to black out. It's doing this in reverse. I'm starting to come back to light. I wasn't awake two seconds before I was jumping up and down, laughing and just proclaiming, I saw heaven. Heaven is real. Jumping around the room like a lunatic. And the only thing that stopped me was looking at my biological mother was in the room at the time. my wife, and both of them are crying. And that stops me. And now my brain's starting to try to put stuff back together. Like, okay, this did just happen. I just died. The thing I know is I'm soiling myself.

27:30 When you die, it happens. So that's the next thing on my mind is I'm standing in front of people going to the bathroom. I need to get in the shower. So I'm running to get in the shower and I stop. Like it was something that stopped me. It was so... terrifying. I looked at myself in the mirror and I could see my skull and my cheekbones around my eyes because there had not been enough blood pumped around. From the time I got up to the time I ran to the bathroom was less than a minute. I can see a dead man in the mirror. It is grotesque. I'm not afraid of horror movies. I'm not afraid of gore. I've been to poor countries where terrible things are done.

28:10 Looking at yourself dead will make you cry. And the best way I can explain it is if I had given you a very fine vase and you broke it and there was no putting that back together, I could still see how bad I had broken this body, that I had killed it. I didn't think I was anywhere near death. That experience ends and there's not like a follow -up. I don't get a ring from an angel. There's no checklist on what to do next. Transitioning from the military to civilian world was difficult. Positioning from I died and saw hell and heaven, now what do I do is very difficult. I would get to points where I would wake up with my hands on my face sobbing because I had agreed to come back. Why did I agree to come back? Because things were not going good. did not have custody of my son. He was not doing good in school. I was losing my disability paycheck. I didn't know how I was going to pay the mortgage. Everything was falling apart right in front of me. And I'm powerless. I just died a couple of weeks ago.

29:23 Now I'm losing a house. What do I do? I can't get a job anywhere. Just this destitute feeling. What did I do? And I think the best thing I can tell people right now is if you're struggling, if it hurts so bad that you can't, you just can't stand it. It won't work. You can't wake up anymore. That's not the end. That's the beginning. It's a hard thing to say. Growing up my whole life, I always felt like I belonged to somebody else. I was passed off by these parents to these grandparents. They didn't want to raise kids, but they just had to. So we had to work and help them make ends meet. And in my head, in my selfish thought, I feel like a slave. I feel like I belong to somebody else. I never feel like I belong to myself. I went straight into the military and then got married. I don't feel like there's any of me now. If the military doesn't own it, my wife owns it. Well, now I've been separated from the military and my wife, and they still want to own everything too. So you feel stripped of everything. There's a point to that. It isn't until we're stripped down to nothing that we're ready to start building it up. You can't start unless the foundation is firm. And whatever I had built up in my life, through the military, being an important person, rescuing people, doing all this, I had to let all that go. The thing I feel like Jesus asked me all the time is, how low can you go? How low can you go, Stephen?

30:53 We're gonna walk down the street today and everybody's gonna spit on us Steven. Are you gonna come along?" And how many times I said no and let Jesus, because every day people hate Jesus. They hate him. But I let him walk through that. I still do it now. I failed Jesus on a daily basis. I feel like I wake up and we're on that mountain and Jesus goes, hey, you want to go a little bit higher today? I think you can make it higher today, Eric. Let's go. And I always fail. and it's never a feeling like you failed me, I don't want you, or you're never going to get it. It's every day. You're going to give me some more Stephen? Stephen, can you give me a little more? Stephen, will you walk behind me while these people talk bad about me? Will you love them? Will you love them like your family, like I loved you when you didn't love me at all? It's a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to love people who don't want anything to do with you. The way I can describe it is I'm in this lifeboat now and I'm trying to tell you yours has got a hole in it. Not because I'm smarter and you're not or anything, because I was on that boat a minute ago and this is the boat I got on and there is no holes. This boat works. Trying to change someone's mind is very hard. I want it first to happen. I really believe that I've seen heaven and hell. I can tell everybody.

32:17 I can get on the news and I can tell them this happened. We all need to know. In the Bible, it talks about Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus dies and goes to paradise. Abraham's bosom, that's the other hollow part inside the earth. And the rich man goes to hell. And one of the things the rich man says is, let me go back to my family so I can warn them that they don't come to this place. And Abraham responds to them, you've had all the prophets and all the scripture. Why would they believe you? And I cannot tell you how true that is. I cannot tell you how many different ways I've been told that I'm very uneducated. And I'm not. I'm not educated. I can't tell you how many times I've been told I'm crazy. Yeah, I'm crazy. But my question to anybody else is, because I'm uneducated and crazy, does that mean I'm wrong? No. So, Steve, you mentioned that you had never read the Bible before. Your experience happened five years ago. Sounds like you've read it a lot since, haven't you? I had to get into it because how else could I get to know Him?

33:23 I couldn't just talk to Him. I didn't know how to do that. We can pray and we can get very close to God, but I didn't know how to pray. It says we can come boldly before the King. Because of Jesus, we can walk in. Back in the day, if you barged into the king's quarters, you'd lose your head. The Bible says we come before him boldly. One of the main things I want to tell people is get the correct perspective. He is so much higher than us, positionally speaking. We are insignificant. His love on us is the only thing that makes us important. But when we approach that type of power, we need to approach it understanding that I don't actually deserve the ability to be talking to you right now. The only reason I am is because you came down as Jesus, your son, and died. I have a two -year -old son, and I've got another one on the way. I couldn't give him up for anything in the world. I love that little boy so intensely. It's a feeling I can't explain. And there's days I think, man, I'm going back to hell. I deserve it. And then I look at my son, and I know because I felt this love from Jesus. Jesus loves my baby more than I do. I'm not physically capable of that. But he also loves me that same way. And I could never tell my son, you're not good enough. You failed me and I'm embarrassed of you. No, there's unconditional love there. People don't understand that either.

34:54 You don't have to fix yourself up. And you don't have to listen to people that say, oh, you're going to hell for this, for that. I'll tell you something, I know why God... When I think about why God picked me to do and say this, one, it scares me for all of you. If the workers are so thin, I made it to the inspection line and I got a job. It really means that there's not really that many quality people that want to do this. I'm not saying that the people who are doing it are not quality. I'm saying I lived a life only for me and I accomplished nothing. And after this experience, when I broke down to my lowest, I said, God, Jesus, I can't make a right decision to save my life, literally.

35:38 I can't do, it's all falling apart. So if you can give me anything to do, I'll do it because I can't do any of this. Everything I touch is sand. It's like trying to hold sand together. It just goes up between your fingers. So if you've got anything to do for me, I'd like to do it. Another thing I told God was, I wanna do it without you having to tell me a bunch and I wanna do it without me asking you a lot of questions. Because one of the things I find out is we really don't treat Jesus anywhere the way we should. So maybe if I just stop asking him why you're doing this or what's gonna happen, maybe if I just said, yes, I'll do it, maybe Jesus would get a break off of me for a little bit. Maybe I would stop being such a subject of sorrow.

36:28 Alright, Steve. I have had so many questions as you've been talking, but I wanted to I didn't want to interrupt I want to let you finish and you did a fantastic job and wow What an experience is all I can say to start with but in no particular order I just want to ask you some things about what happened for example the mountain that you were going up Tell me a little bit about what it looked like was green. Was it snowy? What was it like? It was like something you would paint on a It was beautiful green. It was full of life. The people were emanating light. People were cheering for me. I could tell that as I was going up that mountain. There were people cheering for me. A lot of people say they got to meet loved ones and they got to see people.

37:16 I heard a whistle. That's a loudest whistle. My grandfather, we'd be, we had like two acres that went down into the woods and to a creek. He could whistle us back to the house from the yard. And I look back on that sometimes and I cry thinking, I didn't get to look at grandpa and say hi. Like, was that him? There's people there. There's animals. I saw plowed land where you could plant stuff. We're obviously going to be eating food. I didn't feel like I was in a vapor body. I felt just like me. I felt more like me than I do now. You mentioned animals. You mentioned seeing a dinosaur. Yeah. And Steve, I just want to give you a little word of warning.

37:59 People that see these things on YouTube tend to comment a lot, and we welcome all the comments. We had another guest on recently that mentioned seeing a dinosaur in their experience, and a few people on YouTube really railed on them for it, just saying that's stupid, that can't be possible. I believe you, okay? And I want you to know that I believe you. I'm just warning you, you're going to get a little negative feedback from some stuff and it's unfortunate, but people are going to say what they're going to say and we don't care. And I understand that. I honestly, I welcome any, anything. If you want to tell me to my face to, I've been told many things to go do. You can do that because that's the type of person I'm trying to talk to. As far as the dinosaur goes, I really look at that as my one talking point to tell you I'm not making this up because If I made this up, I definitely would have left that out because it would have been ridiculous. Yeah, you wouldn't want to sound crazy if you were making something up. I have to tell the truth. I can't not tell that because it was so fast on that mountain. I spoke a lot about it, but I have had more encounters after this. I met a man whose son had died on a motorcycle he'd bought for his 16th birthday. We were supposed to go to Israel. The night I purchased my tickets was the night that that terrorist attack happened.

39:26 Our flights got canceled and I told my son, we'll go wherever God tells us to go and we're gonna do whatever he says. We got on planes the next trip we're going out. We're going to Belize. The jet is breaking down on the runway. They keep beating us on and we keep getting off. We didn't make that flight. They had to fly us cross country to Texas. And I didn't know there's only two flights to Belize from America a week. Like you'd miss them, that's it. told Bryce, I said, we're gonna let God pick our seats. I'm not even doing that. So this flight from Texas, we were in the very back and there's a man sitting next to me and he had the same wedding band I had. It had the Lord's Prayer on it. I'd lost mine. I said, I know you're saved. Lo and behold, it was the missionary to that entire country. He told me exactly how to get into the country, what paperwork I was gonna have to fill out when I got off of. Exactly everything I had to do was told to me. All because I didn't get out on that first day on that jet. When I get in country, I think I'm gonna go help people and do something. I instantly get sick and I'm urinating blood. I can't move. I'm in a shower and I can't move. I'm having multiple kidney stones. I guess the jets landing had rattled them loose. I mean, I really feel like I'm dying. It's not a fun thing to have. The whole time I just feel like Noah when he was naked. My son was having to go downstairs and get cranberry juice from the bar. come bring up to me and I can't even cover myself. That's how useless I can't move. And the first day that I could get down there, I went down there and was getting some more cranberry

40:57 juice. And the bartender talks to me, I don't know where you're Steve, I want to be like you, but I don't know how to. Mercedes, would you tell me what's going on? He says, I drink and I use drugs and I do things, but there's a scar on my heart. I said, well, tell me. Ain't nothing I can't figure out. He goes, I gave my son a motorcycle, and he died on that motorcycle I gave him for his birthday. And then my wife took my other children and left to America, and I haven't seen them since. What words do I have for someone like that? You know, I have no experience. But in retrospect, it really wasn't me. It was watching my son go up and take care of me is what made his heart weak. He saw his son in mine.

41:40 And I did have words for him, and they weren't mine. I told him, I said, the devil's going to tell you every day your son's gone. But you know what Jesus is saying. He says, I got your son right here, and we're both waiting on you. And we're both heartbroken because you're doing this to yourself. And after we had that conversation, he ended up talking to his mom. And she starts talking about, oh, my prayers are answered. My prayers are answered. And he said, mom. You kept on saying one day I was going to pray, and an angel would come down and tell me something. And she said, honey, do you think I'm ridiculous? She said, I did not think the Archangel Michael was going to come down and talk to you. She said the Holy Ghost was going to go put it on someone, and they were going to give the message that you needed to hear, and it was going to get sent to you. And when he told me that, still right now, the hair just stands up on my arms. How did I end up in the outer banks of Belize? I just picked a spot on a map. I just picked a resort, I just picked this and we just showed up here. I was sent here to talk to you because God wants you to know that's not true. These things that happen that you think are your fault and you have to drink all this away and bury it with drugs, not true. And one more thing I want to say is I told God I want to do things without asking questions or having to bother you. I really assumed a lot of responsibility.

43:03 I'm still paying off medical bills from a surgery I had to have from that. I do believe if God had told me, hey, Stephen, you're going to go to this country and you're going to pee out four nasty kidney stones and there's no medical help on this island, I would not have gone. I promise you, I would not have gone. I can't do that. But because I told the Lord that I wouldn't ask questions and I'd go do it, I did something that I couldn't do. And it wasn't through me, but someone somehow got a message to this man that it's all right. Your son's here. I've sent you somebody that's seen the mountain. They're going to tell you it's all real. And I get to meet people everywhere I go. And when I was in Belize, I met a woman who had a, she was in a coma and she said Jesus met her and brought her out of it. I met the owner of q daddy's barbecue i don't know if that's just in virginia or a larger chain but i didn't know i was talking to the owner i told him my story said. I was in iraq and i stepped on an id and eod the explosive detail.

44:04 Was there and they tried to disarm the bomb and they couldn't and they literally told this guy we're sorry but we're going back away and you have to get off this thing whatever happens happens later you find out that. terrorist will make pressure switch plates that will go off after two or three times that they're stepped on because they don't want to hit the first man in the group. They want to hit the middle of the group. So that's obviously what he did. But he told me as he got ready to step off of this bomb that an audible voice told him, you're not going to die today. I just wanted your attention. I get these stories all the time. They happen all the time. If you're hurting and you're feeling like nobody's there and there's nothing, that's not true. You can ask for help if you don't believe in it's me or Jesus. I tell people all the time You don't have to believe me. I believe enough if you ask. Hey Jesus. Are you there? Will you show me? You'll have your own experience. You don't have to rely on me. If anything, I'm just trying to warn people Don't be so secure. If you if you think you are good and you are going to heaven I hope you are and I hope you have that relationship with Jesus because that's the thing I learned that day was I didn't have a relationship with Jesus I have one with him now.

45:14 I'm still afraid for the day I go back that he'll say, Stephen, you didn't talk to the one person I really wanted you to. You didn't talk to them. I'm so afraid to waste this second chance. That's the only fear I have. I don't have a fear of dying. I just have a fear of letting Jesus down because it's gonna happen. I've got to try not to. And that's the struggle we all go through. But that's the thing people need to learn is you're not gonna get clean in this life. You're not going to fix it. And if anything, the world's going to come crashing down on you as soon as you get close to anything supernatural. You'll see a dinosaur too, and then everybody will tell you you're a moron. But you'll have your experience, and then you can go to bed at night safe. Hell opened up less than 10 feet from where I go to bed every night. I don't ever think about that again. I don't ever worry about it. That's not something in my brain that doesn't even make sense. Does He expect us to be perfect? No. No.

46:16 What does He expect of us? He expects us to be like children. Children who love our Father. And He brought you down to a humbled position where you had no choice but to do that. And you did that. And you called out to Him. Isn't it interesting how some people who, I've heard this from other people before too, that weren't very much of believers but for some reason something in them when they got desperate were calling out to Jesus anyway, even if an hour before if you would ask them they would have said, I don't know if I believe that stuff. It's funny that people talk about matters of the heart and I have people tell me, God will judge me on my heart. That's in the Bible and you don't want that. But they found a patch of neurons on the heart. There's brain material on your heart So when people are talking about my heart hurts or what it's what the heart wants Yeah, that's a real thing and it says in the Bible. You've got to circumcise the heart meaning Your heart's desires have to be let go Because those are what are gonna keep pulling you down and you're not gonna you'll never satisfy that It's an insatiable thing once we get a little of whatever we want.

47:27 We want all of it But how low can you go? Can you cut your heart out for me? And as soon as it's empty, guess what? You're gonna realize it's full. You're born with a body, we all know that. And most of us believe we're born with a soul. But through the Christian teachings, you will get the spirit of God to come into you. And if you read into it, it's got like quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement going on. No matter where I am, I can stay with you. There's no distance. We can communicate. That sort of stuff is being resonated. when your heart's let out empty, it's ready to get filled back up. All right, very last thing today, and then I'm going to let you go, Steve. And by the way, I've appreciated your time and your insights. I just want you to leave us with one last thought, and that is, if somebody listening today doesn't know whether they should believe in, I'm just going to say generic, a God and an afterlife, in your opinion, based on your experience, why should they or shouldn't they believe? in my dealings afterwards and my work afterwards to get to this relationship with the supernatural.

48:35 I don't ever talk to someone I'm not supposed to talk to. It's a very bizarre world. I ended up talking to a woman that had kidney problems and all of a sudden we're talking about her husband that committed suicide and she's talking to her estranged dad. There's someone that's hearing what I'm saying. And that's not thinking, all right, you're crazy, that's a dinosaur. There's someone I'm talking to that knows I'm talking to them. I'm not trying to argue with people that don't want to agree with me. That's fine. We're not going to agree. But there's someone that's going to watch this that goes, they're talking to me. They've been talking to me. Yes, I'm talking to you 100%. And you don't have to believe me. You don't have to go look it up.

49:21 If you need God, you call out and you say, if you're there, I don't know who you are. I don't know if you're there. It says with an open heart, you can't say, God, you're not there and you don't show yourself. And then whatever, go on. If you have an open heart and say, if you're God, you are God and King of the universe. And I get down on my hands and knees and it's usually because things aren't going well. I've never met someone that was just... Things were going so great, they needed to talk to Jesus about it. We're just not built that way. If it's so much you can't handle it, say, God, I can't handle it anymore. It's crushing me. I'm not going to make it. I need you to lift it. God says his yoke is easy. He's going to take most of that burden. Give it a shot. Be open to it. And I'm telling you, I have no ESP power. I can't make anything move. I'm a regular person. But if I, with my heart, my whole heart. You got to get it out. Ask God, why is this happening? Why can't I? Where do I go? If that's you, ask him. Ask him to show you. It'll happen. But you have to look for it. You have to be waiting. You can't ask for something and demand it from the God of the universe and expect it to be here tomorrow, first class mail. It's going to happen when it should happen. how it should happen. So many times in my life I've been greedy or, God, why

50:52 hasn't this happened? And man, I want it to happen now every single time when it happens because I've kept my faith and I have all the feelings everybody else does. Why did this happen? Why, why? But I won't yell out, why did you do this or make it better? I just keep saying, forgive me. Forgive me for feeling this way because I know it's not right. But I feel a certain way, God, it doesn't feel good. God's playing chess with all the pieces. We're one of the pawns. We don't get to see the moves. If you're facing the queen and you know you're going to die, go ahead and face it because you don't know what's next to you. You can't see that far. But when you get there, it'll make sense and it'll help you. I've never done something that I've felt like, oh yeah, God, I can do that. That's easy.

51:35 Every time I've gone, God, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. Guess what? He knows a little bit more than you. It'll be okay, I promise. You just gotta put your arms out. That's it. It's just like, dad, I need someone. Just as a child, that's how you need to be. Break it down to how I feel when my son puts his arms out for me, if he's been hurt, the way I hold him and he grabs me around my neck, ask for that from God and you'll get it. Because if you are his child and you're asking for him, why wouldn't he come get you and hold you? Thank you for your insights. I really appreciate it. Should we have any fear of death? There is no fear of death for me. I'm going home. I'm ready to go home.

52:24 Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast. Don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button and sign up for our newsletter at roundtripdeath .com. If you want to share your near -death experience, or if you have questions or comments about the show, send an email to eric at roundtripdeath .com. Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.