Joel Brim Saw Heaven's Perfect Love and Hell's Eternal Torment

The Metalhead in Combat Boots

Joel Brim wasn't supposed to be the guy who saw heaven and hell. He was the church metalhead, the one with the mohawk and spiky bracelets and combat boots, the introvert hiding in the back row with his arms folded. He'd spent his teenage years diving deeper into the darkest music he could find. Deicide, which means "the death of God." Cannibal Corpse. Morbid Angel. The darker it was, the more aggressive it was, the more he wanted it.

It started in middle school when he wanted to be cool, to be accepted by the older kids with their long hair and jean jackets. But it became something else entirely when his best friend showed him a poster of a demonic entity in a black cloak and said they should name their band Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead. Joel didn't think twice. He said let's do it. That night, the demonic encounters began. Levitation. Scratching. Nightly visitations from entities in various forms. The drug use spiraled into methamphetamines until, at 19, Joel finally said something's terribly wrong with my life.

He gave his life to Jesus. Got baptized. Thought he'd start speaking in tongues and healing people. Instead, he got a to-do list. Stop doing this. Start doing that. Make yourself righteous by your own willpower and tenacity, and Jesus will love you more. From 19 to 33, he tried to do it himself. He saw things change on the outside, but inside he still felt like the same person. Maybe he wasn't doing it anymore, but he still wanted it. Or maybe he'd just replaced one addiction with another. Was he really any better?

The Morning He Quit

That Sunday morning in April, Joel woke up sad in his spirit. He did not want to go sit through yet another sermon that he knew he was going to fail at. Try and fail, try and fail, try and fail. He was so frustrated he threw his hands up and said out loud to the Lord, "I'm just done. I can't do this. You demand holiness from us and I can't do it. I try but I fail, Jesus. And I quit."

Right in that moment, he heard from God for one of the first times he could remember. Not an audible voice like the Ten Commandments, but Spirit to Spirit, and Joel had no doubt in his mind that it was Yeshua. He was so peaceful, so reassuring, so gracious and kind, speaking like a whisper: "Joel, I want you to be in fellowship this morning. Go, go be in my presence. Come into my presence and be in fellowship this morning."

Joel went to church. He sang worship with all his broken heart. He tried to smile, tried to be nice. The pastor came out and began the message: "Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places." He wasn't even two minutes in when he stopped mid-sentence, eyes wide, staring straight ahead like he was looking at someone. After a minute he blinked and looked around. "You guys, I'm sorry. This has never happened to me before. The Lord just stopped me. He said we need to stop the sermon, stop everything right now. We need to come before his throne in prayer."

Everybody closed their eyes and bowed their heads. Joel closed his eyes. There was no introduction, there was no warning, there was no nothing.

Standing on the Hilltop

As Joel's physical eyes closed and everything went dark, in the spirit his eyes opened and everything became bright. Immediately, the glory of God hit him. The best and only way he could describe it: it would be like standing right in front of a supernova. God's power, his majesty, his might, his glory, his radiance, his authority over all things came over Joel in the most spectacular light, a light and a brilliance millions and millions and millions of times beyond any sun in our universe.

He stepped back. All he could say was "oh wow, oh wow." Then he could start to see more. He was standing on top of a large grassy hilltop, absolutely beautiful. Every single blade of grass was perfect and pristine, not just alive biologically but alive. Flowers here and there, all over the place, that you would never see on Earth. Since seeing heaven, Joel says, when he drives around now, as beautiful as it is, there's always that one dead twig to ruin the perfect tree, or that spot where the grass isn't growing. Imagine if there was none of that. Everything was perfectly alive.

What really threw him for a loop was watching the blades of grass and the flowers swaying, and he knew it wasn't the wind. They were praising God. Every blade of grass, every flower, every tree, the birds, the fish, the water, the rocks, everything is praising God and singing to him all together in the most perfect harmony. If you were to hear this music of heaven here on Earth, Joel says, you would collapse to your knees. You just wouldn't be able to handle it. Everything is singing to God continually without ceasing.

Beyond the hilltop, the valley extended on beyond the edge of sight, and within it were millions and millions and millions of people. Joel knew everyone was gathered in a celebration unto the Lord. Up until this point, he'd been such an introvert with social anxiety. He wanted to be at church, wanted to be in fellowship, but he had to make himself go, make himself smile and shake hands. It made him so uncomfortable. But where he was in heaven, none of that existed. In heaven there's no such thing as personal bubbles and personal spaces because what Joel was feeling was this intimacy. Everyone knew everyone perfectly, so perfectly, and the love connection between everyone was just flawless, blameless, and perfect.

Even the most intimate marriage relationship on Earth, Joel says, wait till you're together in heaven with your husband, your children, your family members, people you've known as friends, maybe people that at one time you didn't get along with but you're reunited in heaven and it's all gone. All the sin, your mistakes, their mistakes, what you did to hurt them, what they did to hurt you, all of that is gone. You are in the perfect love of God together. Joel would see people leap for joy like you can't contain yourself, and now he gets why Jesus said unless you become like little children you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. In heaven you're like a child. You can't hold that joy in. You can't hold a straight face and compose yourself. You are just leaping for joy and praising God with all that you have in you.

The Robes and the Gathering

Joel was alone on that hill by himself, simply observing all of these people and all of these things. It was fascinating to see the attire. Previous to this experience, Joel had somehow imagined that if you're clothed in white, God took a white blanket, cut a hole in it, put it over you, and said there, that's how you're jamming. It was not that. Yes, people's robes are made white, sparkling white in the blood of the lamb, but each were all so uniquely blessed in heaven too. You're not just another number to God on Earth and you're not another number to him in heaven. Everyone is so uniquely loved and so uniquely clothed in his righteousness. Some people had blue embroidery, some red, some gold, some with sashes. They were all white robes but even the linen was sewn in unique patterns. When God clothes us in his own righteousness, Joel saw, he makes sure we look good.

Jesus Walks Through the Crowd

Joel was observing this immense, innumerable gathering when suddenly off to his right he started to see the crowd parting in the middle. People were looking and whispering to each other with the biggest smiles. Then Jesus walked in, and everything stopped.

He was robed and attired in righteousness and in truth. His splendor was one that could only be adored but never equaled. The crown on his head emanated forth the glory of God with such magnitude that if you did not know him and that glory came upon you, Joel got the feeling you would just be absolutely decimated. It's no wonder that people fall at his feet as though dead.

What Joel really wants to share is this: in heaven there are no limitations on anything. That's why you hear things you won't hear on Earth, you see colors you won't see on Earth. Everything is magnitudes upon magnitudes, and Joel honestly has no idea where the end of that would be. Magnitudes upon magnitudes times infinity to the power, it is that much more real and dynamic. You see things differently too. You can see behind you without having to turn your head. You can see multiple things all at once. Time is so different in the spiritual realm, so much more dynamic. Joel gets now why the Lord is forever in this moment, how he can answer the prayers of billions of people all at the same time. It's just another day at the office for the Lord. He is at all places at all times infinitely.

When Joel looked at Jesus walking in, the only way he could describe it in the physical would be if you closed your right eye, he had on what Joel now knows to be a priestly robe, a purple robe so fine and beautiful with bluish hues here and there, and on his chest a golden sash with very precious stones, and in his right hand a rod like a staff. But if you were to close your left eye and look at him, Joel saw his mighty crown, his robe this pure white that was just so immaculate, so spectacular, with a golden sash going down. He was seeing all of that at the same time. He was seeing Jesus as our high priest and as our King, the King above all Kings, all at the same time.

The Eyes Like Living Waters

Then Joel saw his eyes. Oh my goodness, he says. I will never be the same. His eyes are like living waters. His eyes were so full of truth, pure, pure, undefiled, spotless, perfect truth. A diamond would be just like some other rock laying there compared to the truth in his eyes. The peace, true peace. The peace that says my life is in the hand of my heavenly father. My life is hidden with Christ in the Lord. I am seated in heavenly places. I am sealed with the Holy Spirit. I belong to the one who does not fail, who does not make mistakes. It is going to be okay. That kind of peace was in his eyes.

Joel also saw this: he will not tolerate lies. He will not tolerate those who practice deceit at all. It kind of scared Joel. It was that solid and that real. His eyes were a light blue, blue like the ocean waters, blue like coral reef waters, just so beautiful and full of life, and then sort of green towards the middle, just sparkling, dazzling, and then like a gold. It's so hard to describe heaven in the physical, Joel says, but that's what he saw.

Finally Joel shouted out, "It's Jesus! It's Jesus!"

The Bear Hug of All Time

If all of that wasn't enough to blow anyone away, Joel says, it was what Jesus did next. He walks into this crowd and the first thing he does is lock eyes on the nearest person to him. Not running but very, very quickly, his arms outstretched, he goes right up to that person. They grab each other, Jesus grabbing them by the shoulders, they grab Jesus by the shoulders, and they pull each other in. Their arms are wrapped around each other so tight. Jesus has his chin across their shoulder and they are just hugging each other, swaying, the bear hug of all time. It was as if in that moment the entire universe had disappeared and everything in it, and it was just Jesus and just that person.

When you come to that place where you know who you are in him, when you truly abide in him and he abides in you and that intimacy is there, you run to him and that's what they did. Then he took them by the shoulders again and his eyes were locked into theirs and they were just talking, just like you and I would talk. That's how close to Jesus that person was. That level of intimacy where no one knew where Jesus ended and where that person began, and no one cared. That's how close they were. Then he said something to them just for them and just blessed them, and he went on to the next person.

This is where that time of heaven Joel can't describe. He doesn't know how long it was. He didn't care to know. No one else did either. Jesus could have spent a thousand years with that person or 10 minutes. It just didn't matter. It's irrelevant in heaven. On to the next person, and everyone else is standing there just adoring the moment, seeing that love connection, no more barriers, pure complete total intimacy.

Jesus went to the next person. This guy leans in and whispers something in Jesus's ear, and Jesus goes back laughing. He was laughing so hard. His head was all the way back and he has the most amazing smile. When Jesus laughs, it's such a contagious laugh, and everyone's laughing and Joel's laughing. Jesus was just laughing so hard. They sort of compose themselves and he grabs him by the shoulder again and he's talking to them.

The Chase

Then Jesus stops mid-sentence. He goes up straight, his eyes are straight ahead, and then he turns and his eyes go straight into Joel's.

Joel was not ready for that. He was fine observing. He couldn't have been more content. When Jesus's eyes locked into his, immediately Joel knew he saw the furthest depth and the totality of his existence and all its eternal aspect. Everything. He knew and saw everything about Joel, more than even Joel knew. But that love in his eyes, he didn't bat an eye.

Jesus's body turned to line up with his head and he starts going straight for Joel through the crowd. There are people in the crowd and then the hill going up to where Joel is standing, and Jesus is making his way through the crowd. His eyes never left their fixation on Joel. Ever. Not for a split second. He was just moving people aside and focused on Joel, coming towards him.

Joel stumbled backwards. He freaked out. It's amazing how in heaven, because Joel had always wondered about this, are we going to be like holy robots now, like we don't have a choice? That's not it. You are you, the unique you, the funny you, the dork you, whoever you are, you are absolutely you, but you are you without the curse of sin anymore. Joel thinks of when John is writing the Book of Revelation and he cried because no one was found worthy to open the scroll, but the angel comforted him. It's okay to cry in heaven. You are the realest, awesomest version of you you could ever be. Complete free will, complete freedom, but no more sin. Hallelujah.

So Joel freaked out. He said, "No, no, there is no way that you who are holy, who are righteous and true, is going to have anything to do with me, a sinner, a wretched, miserable, poor and blind and naked sinner." And he turned and ran as hard as he could in the opposite direction.

This is where you can have that 360 view because Joel is running away, looking ahead of him, but in the spirit he could see behind him. He could see Jesus, even with such urgency of course he's polite, he's a gentleman, but he's getting people out of his way and people are stepping aside and now he's starting to run. He's running up that hill and Joel is running as hard as he can but he can hear Jesus getting closer and closer. Joel is thinking, wow, he runs fast. There's no outrunning the love of Jesus. You can't escape his love.

Jesus was getting closer and closer and Joel knew it was pointless to keep running. So he stopped running, closed his eyes, bowed his head. There was no way he was turning around. There was no way. He couldn't. He just couldn't. Then he felt Jesus approach him. He's so close you can feel the warmth of his body. Then Joel felt him put his arms around him and pull him into his chest as hard and as tight as he could. And he rested his chin. Joel could feel his beard on his cheek.

Joel has never felt love like that. Ever. For a minute Jesus didn't say anything. Joel just lost it. His love was just so overwhelming and Joel couldn't resist it. Stop resisting it, Joel. Just take hold of it. Jesus just held him.

Let Me Love You

After a minute, Jesus whispered in Joel's ear. He said, "Joel, you're not looking for love in all the wrong places." Remember that was the sermon the pastor had for the day. "You're here in church. You're right where I want you to be."

Gosh, you guys, his voice is like living waters, many living waters, so gentle and understanding. He lived here on Earth. He lived the human life and he died that horrible undeserved death. He knows what it's like to be hungry. He knows what it's like to be rejected and hated for no reason. He dealt with it all. Joel had that understanding, that empathy in his voice, that reassurance in his voice. It was so marvelous, so beautiful, so calming and so peaceful. The character of his voice says I understand, I understand completely, it's okay, it's okay.

Jesus said, "Joel, you keep running from me." Just a hint above a whisper and with such passion. "Joel, you keep running from me. Stop running from me. Let me love you."

When he said that, those were his words, but the understanding Joel had was even greater. It was: let me love you right here, right now, in this moment, right where you're at in life. There is nothing that you can do in this life, there is just nothing that you could do that could possibly make me love you more than I do right now and forever. Amen. Those three words gave that full picture and understanding to Joel.

The Warm Oil

Jesus had one surprise left. Joel kind of felt him stand up and all of a sudden he started to feel warm oil being poured from the top of his head and going all the way down him. If Jesus hadn't been holding on to him, Joel would have flopped on the floor like a fish. He would not have been able to stand up. It was so beautiful, the most incredible sensation. It went over him and through him and consumed him. Joel didn't know really at all what was happening. He just remembers thinking, that feels like warm oil, whatever is going on feels like warm oil. He went completely limp. He couldn't even stand, move, talk, speak. He was done for in the most beautiful way imaginable.

As the oil went all the way over him and in him and through him and consumed him, Joel suddenly started hearing people praying. Things started going dark again. The praying got louder. He started blinking his eyes. He had been crying so hard his eyes were almost swollen shut. No joke, snot was hanging from his nose to the floor. He's blinking, trying to get his bearings. Oh yeah, I'm at church. I'm at church. Everybody's just in fervent prayer.

Then the Lord God Almighty, oh holy, holy, holy is he, his voice thundered within Joel. It was the good kind of fear. Now Joel gets the fear of the Lord. Now he gets it. His voice thundered within him: "The place you are in is holy. Remove your shoes."

Kaboom. It was like that. Yes sir. Again, introvert, not right now. The Lord just spoke and I'm doing it. Joel was kind of sitting in the middle. He didn't care. He just did not care what anyone thought at that moment. Look at me, think what you think, I do not care. He spoke, I obey. You're talking to the metalhead, right? Joel was the church metalhead guy, mohawk and the spiky bracelets and combat boots. So he's like, oh man, combat boots today. He did them from the top down, took those off, took his socks off, and got on his knees right then and there. He could not praise God enough. He could not worship him enough.

Joel gets it now. We will be in eternity with the Lord forever and ever and ever because that is how long it is going to take to praise him and worship him and glorify him the way he deserves. It will take infinity to get the job done.

Four Years Later

It's kind of weird, Joel says, how you can go through such an experience like that but once you're back here and you're living life, that's what he was doing. He and his wife at the time had worked, spent seven years saving all their nickels and dimes to get a down payment so they could finally get out of their beat-up old trailer and get a house. They did. It was such a beautiful time. They're getting their house the way they want it. Joel's enjoying yard work. Beautiful house, beautiful house.

That day was just such a normal day. No drama. Normal. Joel went to work, worked, came home. They made dinner, ate dinner, watched some TV. Pretty soon it was time to go to bed, go to work tomorrow. They go to the bedroom. Good night, good night. Joel always lays on his side so he rolled to his side, pulled the sheets over, closed his eyes.

Faster than you could snap your fingers, he was no longer in his body and he was no longer on Earth.

Instantly in Flames

It's very important to tell everybody, Joel says, because some people will comment or assume oh it was just a dream, it was a really bad dream. Joel's entire life he's been a light sleeper. Never once in his life has he laid down, closed his eyes, and boom, he's asleep. Ever. He doesn't care how tired he is. He's gone days without sleeping, absolute exhaustion, and he still has to get his mind to wind down. He's that kind of sleeper.

He closed his eyes. There was no introduction, there was no warning, there was no nothing. Instantly he was engulfed in flames. They were coming across from his right to his left, absolutely consuming him. Before he had a chance to think, he was instantly in absolute chaos.

The pain. That's another thing Joel wants to share. In your dreams you don't feel pain like what he was feeling because it's a pain beyond physicality. The pain he was feeling in that moment, if he had been feeling that here in this physical body, his brain would have shut down because it would have been on overload. The pain that encompassed him and consumed him was so horrendous he instantly began screaming.

Joel is talking screaming, you guys. If you don't mind, Julie, there's only a couple times and this is one of them, he has to be graphic because the severity of hell and the horrors of hell, you are, the only way he could describe this screaming: you have to understand, he's a man. He didn't cry out like a man. He didn't wail like a man. The pain had him so bad his head went up and he began screaming like a woman who was being tortured. That is the only possible way to describe it. Anything else he would be undercutting it. He was screaming like that.

It was a torrent of flames. The flames, to Joel's understanding, kind of change colors the hotter they get, dark red and orange. These flames were so hot that for the most part it was white and kind of pinkish. It was that hot and that intense. Now Joel knows, in that moment it was as if the Lord rewires your mind so that you're a person who is not a believer, you're a person who wants nothing to do with God, and now here you are spending the rest of your eternity like that as well.

At first Joel is like, where am I? What is this place? What's going on? All these thoughts are hitting you at the same time. To say panic doesn't even describe it. Your body's completely just being burned and roasted alive. Joel looked down at his left arm because of the pain. It was his entire being. It wasn't just the burning from the outside to the inside. It was the whole thing at once.

The Spirit Body

Joel could not believe what he was seeing. His arm was a skinny, shriveled, decaying corpse. It looked like it had been rotting forever. The spirit flesh, it's hard to describe the spirit realm because as a spirit you're not just some misty thing. You're a body but you're a spirit body. It's just different than our physical bodies but it is a body nonetheless. Joel had a body but it was a spirit body.

His spirit flesh was burning and sizzling and then chunks of it would just fall off and hit the floor. He is freaking out. He looked over to his right arm and it was the same thing, just searing fire coming off and pieces of flesh burning and falling to the floor. But when he looked back to his left arm, the flesh that had just fallen off had regenerated and it was burning and falling off all over again. Joel realized in that moment that wherever, whatever part of your body you're not looking at is regenerating so that you can watch it burn and fall all over again.

In addition to this screaming, at the exact same time he was screaming, he was suffocating. These toxic, sulfurous fumes, this putrid stench of rotting flesh, feces, sulfur, anything like that was just burrowing up his nose. Joel could only describe it like if you had been forced into a vacuum chamber and all the air is gone and you're suffocating and you're suffocating and you have that panic, I can't breathe, and you're panicking but you don't die. You're perpetually stuck in that state of panic, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, but you don't die. Then while that's happening someone releases toxic fumes into that gas chamber and your lungs take in the fumes out of desperation. You just suck it all in but it's poisonous, it's acidic, it's sulfurous, it's toxic, it's wretched, rinsing, and you're sucking this in out of desperation but you're not suffocating. That was exactly what Joel was experiencing in that moment.

This felt real. The thought of wake up, this has to be a dream, never even occurred to Joel. Never even occurred to him. When you're in the spirit, you simply grasp things in the spirit.

The Cavern and the Worms

Joel began to see that he was actually in like a tunnel or a chamber, kind of like a cavern, about 25 feet across and overhead just going around like that. Then he saw he was in a seated position up against the wall and he was chained too. His ankles were chained. He was chained to the wall. He knew that too.

Instantly he knew that where he was there was no water, there was no air, there was no light, and there was no life. Those four things absolutely do not exist whatsoever where he was. It can sound confusing in this realm but when you're in the spirit realm it's not confusing. You're permeated with darkness. It's not just all around you, it's in you, in your soul and your spirit. That outer darkness that Jesus warned of, you're experiencing that darkness of being absolutely out of the presence of the light of God. Now you're in absolute darkness and it is blacker than any black that could ever exist. Even the furthest reaches of the universe don't touch how black it is when you're completely separated from God.

However, you do see. You see everything and you have to see. Joel knew that he didn't have eyeballs. All he had were empty sockets. You just know these things. So he couldn't close his eyes. He had to watch everything. He didn't have ears like these holes in the side of his head so he had to hear everything. You have to experience everything and you experience it, it's not an exaggeration, it's millions and millions of times in magnitudes more clear, distinct, and felt and experienced than anything that we could in the physical.

Joel sees these rocks and then the flames going from his right down to his left. He looks down to his left and this tunnel, this chamber just goes on and on as far as he can see. Then he starts to look to his right to kind of see where the flames are coming from and that's when he saw a man also seated next to him. He's just far enough away that Joel couldn't touch him. He couldn't touch Joel. Joel knew he couldn't talk to him and he couldn't talk to Joel.

What's interesting is as soon as Joel saw him, he knew everything about him instantly. Everything. Just that quick. Just the need to know is Joel knew his name was James. He knew he died at the age of 55 from a heart attack. And Joel also knew that he did not value his body, he did not value his life, and he especially did not value God. He wanted nothing to do with God and if there was a God he hated his guts. That's how he lived his life.

This man was obese and Joel found it shocking that even in hell he was obese. On his stomach these bubbles would begin to form like boiling bubbles from the heat and then they would pop and this smoke and stench would roll up his body right into his nostrils and go down into him. He just had to face it. It was just constant. The way you live here on Earth is ever before you and always against you in hell. He looked up towards heaven as if pleading but even Joel knew it was a waste of time. It was too late for him. Joel could feel that in him. It's too late. His head went down and he began bobbing his head and sobbing. But there are no tears in hell. He just sobbed. As far as Joel knows he wasn't aware of Joel's presence. He never acknowledged Joel's presence, never said a word, but Joel got to see his torment for his own torment.

Joel doesn't want to forget to mention too that looking at his body, just the whole of him was just the skinny frail corpse. Joel always forgets the guy's name, Iceman, that they found in some iceberg thousands of years old, well preserved, Otzi or Otzy the Iceman they called him. Joel remembers watching the documentary and they were showing the corpse that they had found and he almost fell out of his chair. He was like, that's exactly what I look like. That's what I look like.

On Joel's body, these worms, they were about 6 to maybe 8 inches long, kind of a cloudy white looking number, and they clung to his arms and all over his body. They were absolutely sickening. It wasn't like a leech because they looked more like worms but they would just stick to your body and just sear you. They would kind of crawl like an inchworm would, kind of come up and just crawl. The smell that came from them was by far the worst, by far the worst of any of the smells. The fire just went right through them. It consumed Joel and ate him alive but it went right through these worms. Then they burrowed, they would begin burrowing into his arms and into his body and just eating their way through him. If just when you think these flames can't be bad enough, now you have these worms violating you like that, crawling wherever they want to in and through you, just eating their way. It's like having a white-hot nail slowly pulled through your veins. It was just that horrible.

The Screams of Millions

Joel is desperate for something else, something else, something else, something else, this, but the more he looks the worse things are getting. But you just can't help yourself. You're that desperate. He remembered thinking, where is this place? Where is everybody? I just feel so alone. I just feel alone. Yeah, a guy sitting next to me but you're alone. You've never felt so alone like Joel did in that moment.

As soon as he thought that, he began hearing the screams of millions and millions and millions of people.

Oh my heart, my heart, Joel says. Hearing them scream and wail in torment. We see these little clips online and they just don't even touch it. Nothing that you've ever seen, no video. Joel wishes he could and hopes prayerfully maybe someday he can make something that might even come close to what he saw. We're so desensitized by the stuff Hollywood's putting out anymore, the horror and the films. Joel doesn't watch that obviously anymore. But in hell it is so real and you're shocked at just hearing these people scream. It made Joel sick to his stomach.

All of that, all of that was the first level of torments.

The Black Shadows

Joel couldn't handle the screaming. He just couldn't handle it. Out of desperation, he's got to get some, he can't listen, he can't hear that, he can't handle that because it's real, these people are really screaming like him. So he's desperately searching for something, anything. Then suddenly in front of him where the rock is he began seeing these black shadows darting. Very quickly. He could see them darting in and out of the flames. He could see them going in and out and through the rock as they pleased.

It's so frustrating trying to describe evil, Joel says. They were about 3 to 4 feet tall and pure black. A black that Joel never knew could possibly exist. The only possible way he could even try to describe them was that if a black hole in our universe could take on bipedal form, it was that powerful of an evil and it was so thick. Joel just knew, he knew it for a fact, he could go like this and just pinch the evil in between his fingers.

Again, if something's his opinion Joel will just state it as such and he's always open, but after what he experienced he's personally convinced that what we experience here on Earth is the aftermath of obliging evil that comes from the enemy, being led to commit murders and genocides and all these things that are just horrible, but it's not the essence of evil itself. We're experiencing what happens when someone obliges it. What Joel saw in these things, he was staring at and he was in the presence of the absolute source of pure evil, unimaginable.

It was so bad, it was so terrifying. Everything else was terrifying but now Joel is experiencing terror on a whole new level. It was so bad that he completely froze. The fact that our physical brain can only handle so much is one thing and then you get into the supernatural realm and it's just so far beyond this physical realm. Joel is in the spirit realm and the evil coming from these things was so bad even his spirit body couldn't handle it. That's how bad it was. His spirit body could not handle this evil and he became stiff as a board which meant he stopped screaming.

And that was very bad.

The Second Level: What the Demons Do

The instant Joel stopped screaming, three of them ran up to him so fast. Again, he's seated. In case too, you being in a seated more comfortable position while you're experiencing torments unspeakable is yet another form of torment, by the way. But Joel is seated and he can't go anywhere. So there's one in front of him, one to his left, one to his right.

The two on his right and left grab his wrists and jerk his hands up in the air. In hell you cannot fight back. You have no strength whatsoever. Imagine not sleeping for an entire month, for one month not even one second of sleep, and for that month no food, and for that month no water. That's how Joel felt in hell. They jerked his hands up and he could do nothing.

Then the one in the middle suddenly had a wooden plank in its hands and it slammed the plank down on Joel's lap. When he looked back up to it, it suddenly had a nail in one hand, or nails in one hand, and a hammer in the other. Joel instantly knew this was pure mockery of Jesus. The two forced his hands down on the plank and the one in the middle puts a nail on his finger and it begins driving the hammer, just smacking it. The first hit of the nail went right through his finger. The second hit pretty much cracked it and his finger went off to the side. Then the third hit bent the nail over. From there it didn't care if it was hitting nails or smashing his fingers. It was just going back and forth and its head was back like this and it was cackling, this wild insane cackling noise, just hitting like this.

Suddenly Joel could feel the pain again and he began screaming again. It felt like lightning bolts were going up and down his arms. You're so desperate, you're so desperate. Joel looked to the demon at his left and he was about to beg it for mercy even though he knew it was a complete waste but it was all he could do, just beg it for some kind of mercy.

When he saw it, he suddenly saw it in its full manifestation. It was no longer a black shadow and it was absolutely horrible. It was just the most horrible entity Joel's ever seen. The best he could, he's an artist, right? He writes music, he draws, if it's art he does it. People are like, could you draw it? He's like, I could but I don't want to. I don't want to entertain them at all.

But it looked like part man, part wolf, part bear, and part pig or hog. If you took all of those and mashed it into an entity. Its skin was just rotting and disgusting, yellow. Its teeth were just razor sharp, they were all crooked and nasty but razor sharp. Its eyes were like a lizard but they were blood red, blood, blood red. It had a black cloak on too.

As Joel is screaming and looking at it with eyes trying to beg for mercy, when he started screaming again, he saw the demon's head go back and its eyes became euphoric. Joel could tell it was high on his pain. It was high on his pain.

That, Joel came to know, was the second level of torments of hell: what the demons do to you while you're there. Things he can't even describe, they're that horrible. Things unimaginable they do to you.

The Third Level: Forever

Then, it's amazing, it just blows Joel's mind now when he thinks back to this experience, that just when you think it can't get any worse, you realize you've only just begun. You've only just begun.

Then, and Joel now realized that this was the Lord revealing this to him one at a time, if he had to experience it all at once he doesn't think he would have survived. He just doesn't see how he could have. So the Lord was allowing him to see this in these layers, if you will.

In that moment it was as if the demons disappeared and the flames of hell, they were still there obviously and everything was still there, but it was felt at much less capacity because there was a new reality that Joel needed to grasp. And that new reality for him was the word forever.

Up until that moment Joel just took that concept of eternity with a grain of salt and he had always figured, I'll understand it in that day. In that day I'm with the Lord, I'll get it. I just can't get it. Everything's temporal here. So how could I get it? That's another reason why Joel knows this was not a dream, because in that moment he understood eternity perfectly. He understood it simply just like we get 1 plus 1 equals 2 here. He understood eternity.

The level of doom that came over him. Joel knew that he was going to be in this place forever and ever and ever and ever with no end at all. After he'd been there for a trillion years, he was only just beginning.

He would scream and scream and scream but he had to scream at an amplitude that was pleasing to hell because if he didn't, the demons would come back and do even worse things to him. That reality of eternity was so foreboding. Joel's heart became like an empty nothingness.

He knew for a fact he deserved to be here. He knew at that moment where he was. I'm in hell. Suddenly that realization, again this was the Lord showing Joel what it's like to be a person who rejected him because Joel knew he rejected him. He rejected him his whole life. God reached out to him in so many different ways through so many different people all throughout his life and Joel rejected him every single time without cause. He rejected him because he wanted to be God. He wanted what he wanted. My will be done, not your will, God. I don't want anything to do with this God because I want to be God.

Joel deserved this. He was going to be here forever. These demons are insane with hatred. They're out of their minds with hatred. There's no bribing the demons. The only conversation you're having with the demon is screaming. That's your conversation with them while they cackle and laugh at you. They will mutilate you and use your body parts to beat on you with. Things just unimaginable things.

Joel just knew this was his forever. There was no break, there was no pause, there was no rest, not even for one second. No rest. None. Zero. Screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming for ever and ever and ever and ever.

That reality of eternity, that was the third level of torments.

The Fourth and Final Torment

And then God showed Joel the worst part about hell.

Joel knew in that moment he would never see God again.

That was the fourth and final torment. And of all the torments of hell, nothing, nothing touches when you know you will never see the one who created you, who knew you intimately before he even spoke the universe into existence, who made you uniquely you and loves you for who you are, the one who spent your whole life offering you life and freedom and peace and purpose and a destiny in him that's eternal and goes on forever. And Joel spent his whole life believing in anyone or anything but him. Everything else goes but no Jesus, no. And he would never see God again.

When that reality came over Joel, he could not take that. He could not handle that. He was just done. He couldn't. He was about to lose his mind. The last thing he remembered feeling was this. He didn't hear words from the Lord but he felt the essence of what he wanted Joel to know: This is what happens to people who reject the Lord.

There is no other place for you to go. Don't be offended, my Catholic brothers and sisters, I love you. There is no purgatory. There's no Nirvana. There's no, well, you don't believe in God but you don't really like Satan either so here's your little happy place. No. God created us to be intimate with him forever. Intimacy in heaven is not like here on Earth where the end of you is and where the start of God is, no one knows and no one will ever know. That's the intimacy. We are to be one in him and with him including our entire existence. That is the finality of his purpose for us.

So when we reject him, how can people do that? How can people reject such love? God will not force people into heaven. He is a gentleman. He's inviting everyone: come. And if someone wants to refuse that in this life, then unfortunately there's only one other place to be where God isn't. And that's where the fallen angels are and where they're inevitable and the Lake of Fire where death and hell belong.

God does not want to see one person destroyed. Not one.

The Sunrise

After that realization, Joel remembered opening his eyes. He was still laying on his side. He had not moved an inch. He simply opened his eyes and he was looking out his bedroom window and he was seeing the sunrise come up through the blinds.

It wasn't waking up. He just opened his eyes and now he's not in hell anymore and he's looking out the blinds at the sunrise.

There was no warning, Joel says. Hey Joel, by the way, you're scheduled for a visit to hell, you might want to brace for impact. No, nothing. He just, there he was and there he wasn't and now here he is. How do you even tell people? How do you tell people what you just saw? If it was a dream he would have said, hey hun, good morning, you won't believe this, I just had the worst dream unimaginable. But there's no, he is not going to degrade his experience to a dream. He was in spirit and it was a spiritual experience. He was instantly there and then he was instantly not there.

So he firstly did what he especially did at that time and just bottled it up. Just internalized it. But what it really began to hit him, the next day or the next day or two when he went to the grocery store, it was really like the first time he was in a public place and there were people all over. He just stopped and he's looking around at all these people. And Joel is not looking at people, and till still to this day he can't look at people the same anymore. He can't. He's standing there in the grocery store and he's like, how many of these people have no idea? They're just going about their life. They don't have a care in the world. And they have no idea that hell is waiting for them.

That's when his wife, like, Joel, what's, you know, and he kind of was like, oh, okay. That's when she began to notice that he was becoming different. Joel just had trouble, he really had trouble being around people. After, for like a month, right? It took him a little bit of time to get back into it. It actually took about four years. He was dealing with it. He'd make himself go to work but just when he had to go somewhere he went because he absolutely had to. He just didn't look at people. He just focused on what you're doing and just tried to shove it down, shove it down.

Why He Was Shown

Why does Joel think God showed him hell? Because this little teeny existence called the universe, called length, width, height, time, and space and matter, this is not your ultimate reality or your reason and purpose for existing. This Earth that we live on is like a classroom. This is one of the more, if not one of the, if not the of all the eternal existences that there are. Believe Joel when he says God is eternal, we have no idea. Wait till you're in his presence. He is so far beyond us it's not even funny. The Earth realm and this physicality is a very low, primitive form of existing. The purpose of it is that we learn how to grow in our relationship with the Lord and grow in the spirit.

God showed Joel heaven, he showed him hell, and he's showed him more things than this too, they just don't have time for it right now, because when he creates us with our own unique purposes, some people are artsy-fartsy and some people crunch numbers. We all have our gifts, we all have our reason. That is Joel's reason. God predestined this before everything, that Joel would be shown these things and that he would share it with the world because the Lord knows Joel's passion for him and his love for him. Joel is going to tell everyone in the whole world.

Was it a wakeup call for Joel personally? It would be a wakeup call for anybody to see hell. It would be. It wasn't like a wakeup call like Joel, this is where you're gonna end up if you don't get your head on straight. No. It was Joel, I am showing you what happens to people who reject me their entire lives. God made Joel experience what it's like to be someone who had rejected him their whole lives. That was how Joel was when he was in hell. Of course once he came out of hell he's back to like, oh geez, thank you Jesus, I'm saved, oh I'm saved.

So it wasn't a wakeup call for Joel. It's a wakeup call for the world because there are people who profess to believe in Jesus that claim, no, there's no way a loving God would send people to a place like hell. Hell doesn't exist. Yes it does. And it is far more real than this reality. It is real.

What Changed Him

Joel says you'd think an experience like that would just make him different. Those experiences didn't do much to change him as much as when he came to the place where he was ready to fall in love with Jesus. So he's had emails from people like, oh, I've been praying that I can see Jesus. That's fine. That's a fine prayer. But Jesus wants you to fall in love with him. You will see him. We will all see him in time. But what he wants is our love. He wants us to love him as much as he loves us. Don't think that's impossible because you were created in the image and the likeness of God.

What This Reveals About What Awaits Us All

Joel Brim's two journeys to the other side give us something rare and precious: a single witness to both ultimate realities. He didn't seek these experiences. He didn't fast for 40 days or meditate in a cave. He closed his eyes in church one Sunday morning after 14 years of trying to earn God's love through his own effort, and heaven opened. Four years later, lying in bed after a normal day, hell opened. Both were instantaneous. Both were more real than physical reality. Both changed how he sees every person he passes in the grocery store.

What strikes me most about Joel's heaven account is the specificity of Jesus's love. This wasn't a generic divine embrace. Jesus chased Joel down a hill. He pulled him into his chest as hard and as tight as he could. He whispered in his ear with a voice like many living waters, so gentle and understanding, and said three words that carried an entire theology: "Let me love you." The understanding Joel received was even greater than the words: let me love you right here, right now, in this moment, right where you're at in life. There is nothing you can do that could possibly make me love you more than I do right now and forever.

That's the message Joel carried back from heaven. Not try harder. Not get holier. Not earn it. Just let me love you. Stop running. The warm oil that poured over him when Jesus stood up, the sensation so overwhelming Joel would have collapsed if Jesus hadn't been holding him, that was grace made tangible. That was the baptism of the Holy Spirit Joel had expected at 19 but didn't receive until he stopped trying to manufacture it himself.

The hell vision four years later wasn't punishment. It was assignment. God showed Joel what happens to people who spend their entire lives rejecting the love he'd just experienced. The Lord rewired Joel's mind so he could feel what it's like to be a person who wanted nothing to do with God, who wanted to be God himself, and now here you are spending the rest of your eternity like that. The four levels of torment, each one worse than the last, the flames that regenerate your flesh so it can burn again, the demons high on your pain, the crushing weight of forever, and finally the worst part: knowing you will never see God again. That's what broke Joel. That's what he couldn't handle. Not the fire. Not the worms. Not even eternity. The separation.

This is the heart of what near-death experiences have been trying to tell us for 50 years, and what mystics and prophets have said for millennia: we are made for intimacy with the infinite. We are made to be one with God, where the end of you is and where the start of God is, no one knows and no one will ever know. That's not metaphor. That's the actual destiny of human consciousness. And hell is simply the inevitable result of rejecting that destiny, not because God is vindictive but because there is nowhere else to go. God will not force people into heaven. He is a gentleman. He's inviting everyone: come. But if you refuse, there's only one other place to be where God isn't.

Joel's experiences also reveal something beautiful about the nature of heaven that doesn't get enough attention in NDE accounts: the uniqueness preserved in unity. Everyone in that valley knew everyone perfectly, and the love connection between everyone was flawless, blameless, and perfect. But they weren't dissolved into some cosmic soup. They were more themselves than ever. Some had blue embroidery, some red, some gold. The linen was sewn in unique patterns. When God clothes us in his own righteousness, he makes sure we look good. You are you, the unique you, the funny you, the dork you, whoever you are, you are absolutely you, but you are you without the curse of sin anymore.

That's the version of yourself waiting on the other side. Not a holy robot. Not a generic angel. You, fully alive, fully free, fully loved, leaping for joy like a child because you can't contain it. Running up to people and grabbing them by the hands and spinning in circles, laughing together, rejoicing together. No more social anxiety. No more personal bubbles. No more barriers. Just perfect intimacy with God and with each other, forever.

And here's the thing: Joel says it will take infinity to praise and worship and glorify God the way he deserves. That used to sound exhausting to him. Eternity in heaven, that's a long time. But now he gets it. Now he knows. The reason it takes forever is because that's how long it takes to fully experience and express the love we were made for. We will never run out of new depths to discover in God. We will never exhaust the beauty. We will never get bored. Because God is infinite and we are becoming one with him.

That's what Joel saw on that hilltop. That's what Jesus whispered in his ear. That's the warm oil that poured over him and filled him with a sensation he'd never felt before and will never forget. That's the reality more real than this one, the one we're all headed toward, the one that makes this little teeny existence called the universe look like a primitive classroom by comparison.

And the hell he saw? That's real too. Just as real. More real. Joel is not going to degrade his experience to a dream. He was in spirit and it was a spiritual experience. He was instantly there and then he was instantly not there. The flames were white and pinkish, that's how hot they were. The demons were 3 to 4 feet tall, pure black, like a black hole in bipedal form. The evil was so thick you could pinch it between your fingers. And the worst part, the part that made Joel's heart become like an empty nothingness, was knowing he would never see God again.

That's the warning Joel carries back. Not to scare people. Not to manipulate them with fear. But because he can't look at people the same anymore. He stands in the grocery store and thinks: how many of these people have no idea? They're just going about their life. They don't have a care in the world. And they have no idea that hell is waiting for them.

God does not want to see one person destroyed. Not one. That's why he sent Joel to both places. That's why Joel is telling everyone in the whole world. Because the choice is real. The destinations are real. And the love offering you life and freedom and peace and purpose and a destiny that goes on forever, that's real too.

All you have to do is stop running. Let him love you. Right here, right now, in this moment, right where you're at in life. There is nothing you can do that could possibly make him love you more than he does right now and forever.

That's the message from the other side. That's what Joel Brim brought back from heaven and hell. And that's the most important thing any of us will ever hear.