In this sermon, the speaker shares his personal testimony of a near-death experience and his encounter with hell. He describes his troubled past, including time spent in prison and a dysfunctional family life. He recounts being in a hospital room and suddenly finding himself in a place of fire and torment, which he identifies as hell. He vividly describes the agony and pain he witnessed in the faces of those in the flames, and how they called out to him to warn him of the hopelessness and lack of escape in that place.

But as they pulled out of the parking lot of that hospital, a young paramedic looked down into my face. And I could barely see him, I was so weak. But he said, Sir, you need Jesus Christ. And I didn't know Jesus, I didn't know what he was talking about. So my reaction to that was to begin cursing. And again, he stated to me, you need Jesus. And as he was talking to me, it appeared like the ambulance literally exploded in flames. I thought it had actually blown up. It filled with smoke. And immediately I was moving through that smoke as if through a tunnel. And after some period of time, coming out of the smoke and out of the darkness, I began to hear the voices of a multitude of people screaming and groaning and crying. But as I looked down, the sensation was looking down upon a volcanic opening and seeing fire and smoke and people inside of this burning place, screaming and crying. They were burning, but they weren't burning up, they weren't being consumed. And then the sensation of moving downward into this. He was thrashing, just thrashing about, you know, and moaning and groaning. It was like there was a battle going on. I wasn't a Christian at the time and I didn't even know anything about spiritual battles. But it was scary to me in the fact that I could feel it. I could feel it was like light and darkness. It was like he was fighting against something. And I didn't know what, but now I know he was seeing the vision of hell. But the most terrible part of it, I began to recognize many of the people that I was seeing in these flames. As if a close-up lens on a camera was bringing their faces close to me, I could see their features, see the agony and the pain and the frustration. And a number of them began to call my name and said, Ronnie, don't come to this place. There's no way out. There's no escape. If you come here, there's no way out. And I looked into the faces of one that had died in a robbery attempt, who had been shot to death and bled to death on the sidewalk. And I looked into the face of two others that had died drunk in an automobile accident. And I looked into the face of others that had died of drug overdoses, that we had partied together and the agony and the pain. But I believe the most painful part of it was the loneliness. And the depression was so heavy that there was no hope. There was no escape. There was no way out of this place. And the smell was like sulfur, like an electric welder. And the stench was terrible. And as I looked at this, I had seen people killed. I had been involved in fights where people were killed. I've done time in prison for manslaughter myself. I grew up basically in a reform school and in a jail cell. I was beat on mercifully as a child by a father that had temper problems and alcohol problems. I was a runaway at 12 years old. And I felt like there was nothing in this world that could frighten me. My life was wrecked. My marriage was wrecked. My health was wrecked. But now I'm seeing something that literally scares me to death because I don't understand it. And as I'm looking into this pit, this place of fire and screams and torment, I just fade out into blackness. And when I open my eyes, I'm in a hospital room in Knoxville, Tennessee. My wife is sitting by. There had been multiple stitches put in my body. My arm was spared. There was almost 100 stitches. And I looked in the face of my wife. And I wasn't concerned about where I was or anything around me. All I could visualize was what I had just seen. He had this funny look on his face. And it was a terrifying look. And he said, he said, I don't really know what's happened to me. But he said, I've been in a terrible place. And I kept telling him, you're in the hospital. You've been in the hospital all along. And he kept saying no. He said, I've been in another place. He said, he said, I don't know exactly what it was. But he said it was terrible. It was a terrible place. I could still hear the screams. I could still smell the terrible smell. I could still feel the heat. And I could still hear the voices of people that I'd known through the years screaming for me to go back. And through the days to come, I tried every way to get that out of my mind. I'd been floating away all the way to the hospital to handle it. But I didn't want to float away. You know, we talk about people floating away. Oh, they're hanging on. So when I actually did relax and close my eyes, I was immediately gone. Trouble was, I did not know I was dead. I thought I was alive and was now waking up from the sleep. I was not sure how long I'd been asleep for, but now I was awake. The thing that seemed strange to me was that I was standing upright instead of lying down. The other strange thing that occurred to me immediately was that the room was pitch black. My first thought was, why did the doctors, why did the doctors turn the lights out? I mean, if you leave a patient and then turn the lights out, that's enough to terrify them when he wakes up. And so I'm thinking, well, okay, maybe my eyes need to get adjusted to the dark. That's the reason why it's so dark here. And so I waited for a few moments until my eyes get accustomed, and I looked around 360 degrees. I could see no light. And even in a dark place, you can normally see some form of light. As a night diver, I'm not afraid of the dark, but I could not see one sliver of light in the entire place I was in. I thought, well, don't worry, turn the light switch on. So I put my hand out and my foot out, and I crept out into the dark trying to find a wall. I thought, if I find a wall, I'll turn the switch on. Being unable to find a wall about 10 feet away, I stopped and thought, well, maybe they've moved me into the general ward. That explains it. I'm walking down the middle of the hospital's general ward. What should I do? Go back to your bed. Yeah, turn the lamp on. Lamps are always next to the hospital beds. So I went back towards the hospital bed, so I thought, looking for the lamp stand. I thought, I've gone past my bed. You know, I'm groping around, I think, I've gone too far. I thought, no, you've lost your bed, you fool. So I'm going in front of me and behind me, searching for something like a hospital bed to touch. Anything, any piece of furniture. I can't seem to touch a thing, so I stop and think, it's so dark in here, I can't see my hand in front of my face. So as I thought that thought, I brought my hand up towards my face, and it seemed to pass into my face and straight through the other side. And when it's not that dark, you can't see your face. Come on, two hands. You can't miss it. I brought two hands up and went straight through my head as though I had no physical head. Impossible. Impossible. I went for my arm, passed through my arm, through my torso, out the other side. Where are my hands? I went straight through, both hands. I could not touch one part of my physical form, I only had the total sensation of a human being. In that split second in time, I thought, where on earth am I? As I began to think that, I could feel the most eerie, evil feeling in the dark, as though it wasn't just a physical darkness around me, but I was in a void of spiritual darkness. I have, numbers of times in my life, felt the presence of evil. Have you ever felt, when you're walking home at night, someone looking at you, but you can't see them? Well, I've felt like there are a lot of people looking at me, I couldn't see them surrounding me. I could feel the evil and the encroaching darkness moving towards me, and I was getting frightened. A voice yelled out and screamed in a very guttural voice to my right, said, Shut up! I said, I said, nothing! Sorry, because I don't want to scare you. I went up and lifted my hand up. I pulled back, and a voice over to my left said, You deserve to be here! I went, deserve to be where? And the voice in front of me said, You're in hell! Now shut up! I just got told, didn't I? Many people say, I don't believe in that place. Well, it's too late when you find yourself in it. I stood there, I had physical arms that have gone like that. I thought quickly to myself, I thought I had prayed, in the ambulance. The moment that thought was going through my mind, the brilliant light shone through the darkness, directly onto my face. As I looked at it, I was immediately translated out of this darkness, and up into this most glorious light. This is where it gets good. I'll tell you what, that put the wind up in me, and the fear of God up in me for eternity. That short touch with the pit of darkness. Who's going there? Who's going to hell? The Pharisees said to Jesus, Lord, are there few that are going to be saved? Now listen to me quickly, clearly. I'm going to make a statement, listen to it. The majority of mankind is going to hell. I'll say it again. The majority of the population of the earth is going to hell. You look at New York City. Oh, by the way, they asked Jesus that. Are there going to be many that be saved? You know what Jesus said? Listen to me. Enter in, he's answering this question. Enter in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be which are going in their end. But straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few there be that will find it. Few. The majority are going to hell. Think of New York City. The greater New York is. 16 million people. You say, Brother D, that doesn't seem fair. Suppose the disciples, what if Paul the Apostle lived today? Maybe we'd have a revival and more wouldn't have to go to hell. What about living in this city, walking these streets? You people that go to work. You people that live in this city. Has it ever bothered you, have you ever thought, look at the subway when it's packed, or the buses. Have you ever said, Oh God, how many of these are going to be saved? How many are going to heaven? And what's your heart tell you? What's the Holy Ghost tell you? There's not a handful in this city. There's not a handful in this city going to be saved. I mean, if a million people got right with God, that's just a handful. You say, well, what if Paul the Apostle lived? Well, Paul the Apostle did live with the great city. The New York of his day was Athens. And Paul, Scripture said, waited for them at Athens, and his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. The whole city of Athens was lost. The whole city was given to idols. In fact, there were just a few. There were so few, they even named those that came under Paul's preaching. The Scripture says, certain men claimed unto him and believed, and then they went on and named about three or four people. Certain ones claimed to the Gospel. But the whole city of Athens went to hell. The whole city of Babylon went to hell. The whole city of Rome went to hell. The majority of New York, the majority of the United States are going to hell. Do you know that there were only four people saved out of Sodom and Gomorrah? Lot and his wife and his two daughters? Do you know that when God destroyed the earth, there were only eight souls saved? The Bible says, 1 Peter 3.20, wherein few, that is only eight souls were saved by water. Only eight souls were saved out of the whole population of the world. John wrote, and we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in darkness. The whole world lies in darkness. All right. Who's going to hell? First of all, I said the majority of the population is going to hell, and then the revelation, would you turn to Revelation 21.8? These are the obvious ones that are going to hell. Then we'll go to the ones that are not so obvious. I'm not going to, I'm only going to preach one hour tonight, but you're going to get this good. Who's going to hell? I wonder if you're going to find, if you find yourself in this list, oh God, put His holy fear in your heart. Bring you to repentance tonight. 21.8, but the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and warmongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, so what? Have their part in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.