I’ve Been to Hell and Back

This dream is a dream about my granddaughter Hannah. This is the exact dream nothing added:

We were on a lake in a boat. It was a beautiful day. The water was crystal clear; it was an old lake. Trees were in the water underneath; I could see them. Hannah was standing in the boat between me and my wife.

There were snakes in the water and alligators as well. They were hidden from sight. They looked like trees, but the alligators were huge. I was very protective. I have always been very protective of my family. I had my eyes upon Hannah and my wife. The water was very still. We were getting to a place where we had to go through a small canal, with barely enough room for the boat to go through safely.

You have to know my Hannah, she doesn’t see the danger, or I guess she didn’t calculate the dangers around her. Hannah was being a wise guy and decided she was going to jump on the little patch of land. She is adventurous like that. When she jumped, she couldn’t see the little bit of water that covered the island, so when she landed, she immediately slipped and fell. And I saw a giant alligator coming up out of the water to get her.

I saw the gator grab her in the hip area and pull her under the water, I was turning the boat around when I saw this part. When the boat got to where she was at. “I say nothing for my own glorification”

The water was muddy because of the activity, I jumped into the water and was looking for Hannah, it was almost a complete accident I found her. She and I touched our hands. It was at this point I grabbed her hands, and I could see the alligator had her and he wasn’t letting go.

I stood on the bottom of this lake and pulled with all my strength I had already established in my heart. I would die before I left her in the mouth of that beast. I pulled so hard it was as if it was a semi I was pulling on.

The alligator opened its mouth to get a better hold. When it did, I pulled Hannah free. I drug her to the boat and pushed her into the boat with my wife’s help.  Once I was in the boat again, Hannah was covered with blood and torn, she was saying:” Papaw you came back for me”. She said this over and over.

I knew she had given up when the alligator had her, but God hadn’t. This was what I knew I was awake.

I awoke exhausted.

August 20. 2022

Mike Richardson

The dream I just told you is unedited; it’s exactly as God gave it to me. God has put this word in my heart today, I’ve been to hell and back.

I don’t know your story and you don’t know mine. We are not trying to compare stories to see which is greater, not at all. I can tell you I’ve been to hell and back. I want you to know you didn’t leave hell on your own accord. Rather Jesus turned your life around, we should have gone to hell we loved it, we drugged it up, shot it up, smoked it up, lived the lust of the flesh with no stop signs.

Mister, you can talk about street walkers if you like, but you were a street walker too. Don’t lie to God, run away. Flesh pulled you to the street.

Some of you here today, the only reason you are here is the grace of God.

John 4:5-26

⁵ So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

⁹ Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

¹¹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? ¹² Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

¹⁹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵ The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

This woman had been to hell and back, messed up from the ground up. Used by men who had runaway flesh. Jesus forgave her sin, her days of endless lovers was over, she now had one love and his name was Jesus.

When you’re born again you will never forget it. I tell everyone under my voice Jesus is coming this morning for you, Jesus is the lover of your soul. I know you’ve been to hell and back!

Where were you when Jesus found you? I was just a breath away from hell, demons controlled my life, drugs and alcohol were the weapons I was dying by. Dehumanized, I sold my soul for a drink and a pill, I can never say anything about a whore, because I was worse than a whore.

I lived in hell, I was in hell, and I was going to hell.

No one cared who I was or where I was going, but my Jesus saved my soul. I went to jail instead of hell.

Are those demons still talking to you? Are you still tempted by the past?  Temptations of the past are prophecies of the future from hell.  

From the pit, temptation come, ordered chaos, you can never satisfy the flesh, your carnal nature, satan can never be satisfied with what he has, he hates God, he will never let anyone go.

John 3:5-8

⁵ Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

At your natural birth, you were born in the flesh, you were a servant of sin, you obey flesh. Whatever it wanted, you got it. Remember the selfish life. Remember your life. Remember the thousands of dollars you spent to satisfy your “self”.

You’ve been to hell and back!

You say Pastor you’re not like me, you don’t know what I’m tempted by. I, too, have been to hell and back. Jesus lives in me. Who I was is dead. Jesus set me free.

I’m committed to seeing the lost saved, if you don’t want to be saved, then I can’t help you! But if God is talking to you and you will allow God to save you, you will be saved.