He told me he figured he had the Lord on that one because he did not think the Lord would ever go to that extreme to get him to stop. For that matter at that point I did not think Jesus would either. He then went on,

"After I drank about three more beers I passed out. The next thing I knew I was falling down this seemingly bottomless pit, but pretty soon the bottom began to appear. As I looked down I saw burning flames and the next thing I knew I was in the center of these flames literally burning up. The intensity of the flames was so great that I screamed out in pain and then screamed out to God to deliver me from the flames. After that I passed out because of the intensity of the heat. The next thing I knew I was sitting next to this beautiful river. As I was sitting there, this man walked up to me with a Bible and opened it up to me and began to read some specific Scriptures to me."

My friend, not knowing the Bible well enough to turn to the passages to show me where they were at, to the best of his ability recalled them to me from memory. I recognized the first one from one of the Epistles of Peter. It reads,

"For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the Holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘a dog returns to its own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.’" (2 Pet 2:20-22).

This messenger then led him to two other passages,

"But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. . . . Keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. (1 Tim 1:5, 19).

After this messenger quoted these passages to Joe, the messenger then said to him, "Stop your drinking." Joe then told me he experienced an overwhelming sense of total unconditional acceptance and love. The messenger then told my friend that He would help him to be more successful in some of his more edifying pursuits. One of the things Joe was into at that time was body building and the Lord promised to help him in this. When Joe first started getting obsessed with weight lifting I thought he was getting over extreme in it, but as a result of his sharing this experience with me I realized Jesus was using this as a means of teaching my friend discipline, stability, and as a present means of being kept busy in his evening so he would not gravitate to the bottle in his boredom.

He then told me at that point of his experience he found himself sitting back in his chair in his living room completely awake and totally sober. He then told me as a result he got rid of his booze and got on his knees and resurrendered the Lordship of his life to Jesus. Because I obeyed Jesus’ instructions to me to cut this brother off, because of his immoral-rebellious spirit, Jesus’ power was released to deal with the brother properly.

The Apostle Paul stated about a so called brother living in immorality, "I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (1 Cor 5:5). We cannot save, redeem, or sanctify anyone. If we want to help Jesus in any of these three capacities, we can do it by only doing whatever he tells us and by not doing anything out of our own initiative one way or the other no matter how seemingly obvious a situation appears.⁹⁴ This does not mean that if we see a brother living in seemingly blatant immorality, we should immediately cut him off. It means that we should be sure that if that is what is presently needed, that we do not take that step until Jesus makes it clear this is the present best step that is needed. Adultery is obvious immorality. Drunkenness may be the result of a deeper problem of the heart rather than blatant immorality.

The Bible does say that we are not to associate with immoral brothers, but the Bible also says, as we have already discussed, that the Bible is the Holy Spirit’s sword and not ours. If we go around swinging the Holy Spirit’s sword without the Holy Spirit’s authority to do so first, it will become a sword of condemnation and end up driving the person deeper into his immorality. This is because then you have no assurance of the Lord’s love and backing in the matter and the recipient will not be able to receive it in that light either. Only when we obey Jesus’ instructions and act out of His initiative are we assured of His love, backing, and power to save, redeem, and sanctify in a given situation.

This is why the Pharisees always misread Jesus’ actions. They were always judging him by appearance. They were not assuming the best of him when he associated with sinners, but the worse, thinking He associated with them because supposedly He was like them in His own heart.⁹⁵ The Pharisees did not understand that Jesus was amongst unregenerate men to minister His love and forgiveness because he was instructed to do so by the Father through the Holy Spirit.⁹⁶

When ministering to someone with an immoral problem, the safest position is to assume Jesus wants you to love the person until Jesus clearly-specifically tells you to do otherwise. You cannot do more damage by loving someone, but you can do damage if your condemning them unjustly. You can end up driving them deeper into their seeming blatant immorality if you are not sure of the Lord’s backing in what you are doing. In fact, never make that decision period unless Jesus does tell you this is His position and He wants you to submit to Him in it.

My friend then asked me what I thought about what he had just shared with me. I knew he was not making up the experience because I knew he did not know the bible well enough to know those passages that clearly, especially in a previous drunken state. So I said to him,

"I know it did not come from Satan, because he would never quote passages of Scripture to you to get you to get off the bottle. Jesus said the, ‘. . . thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy. . .’ (John 10:10). If it came from yourself it was a good idea, but I know you do not know the Bible that well. I can only conclude from the fruit of it that you must have had a genuine encounter with the Lord. I believe your experience in the fire was Jesus telling you that if you continued in your heart attitude of rebellion that this would be your end. Had you already been dead your crying out to the Lord would have been of no avail. You would have spent the rest of eternity in that state, but because you were still alive your cry could be heard and responded to for the Bible says, ‘for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’" (Rom 10:13)

We were able to look up the passages together in my Bible and see that what was shared with him was really there. Out of my own curiosity, I asked him to describe this person to me who was speaking to him. He described him to me in this way, "He was a tall man over six feet. He was wearing a white robe that went down to his feet and he had hair that went down to his shoulders." I asked him what his face looked like. He told me, "I could not really make out his face but I knew that he loved me and I could sense that total unconditional love flowing from his being."

I then shared with my friend Joe, how several years earlier I had had a clear vision of Jesus and that what I saw of the Lord matched his description. I could not see the Lord’s face clearly, but I knew He was smiling at me. I had taken a stand against sexual impurity at the time and a friend of mine and I the same evening decided to go up to the mountains for a few days. We had just arrived and I was just crawling into my sleeping bag when the Lord appeared to me. As I sat there in wonderment I thought to myself, "This is neat, but why Jesus are you granting me this vision of Yourself?" As clear as a radio message to my mind, the Lord said to me, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matt 5:8). I have never had any trouble believing the literal truth of the Bible since, whether it is the story of how God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days, Jonah being swallowed up by a fish, or Elijah by the Spirit being able to run faster than the horse drawn chariots. By this statement I do not mean that I claim to understand everything that the Bible teaches. In that respect I remain a babe and acknowledge the fact that I have a lot to learn for many years to come before I will ever feel free to claim to be an authority. Actually I pray that I may never come to that place of attitude, but rather that I will always remain in attitude as a child, for Jesus said only a person with a child like attitude can enter the kingdom of God.⁹⁷

After my friend left that morning, it suddenly dawned on me, "My gosh! The Lord actually did it!" Did what? The Lord actually answered his original prayer, "Jesus if you want me to stop drinking, appear to me and ask me to stop." I became overwhelmingly humbled at that point over the reality of the extent to which Jesus will go on our behalf to keep us from falling away from Him and be eternally lost. As the Psalmist David said, "For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You." (Psalm 86:5).

In order for a person to commit the unpardonable sin he must literally knowingly in the face of Jesus’ total unconditional love walk right over on top of Jesus to get there. That person can never claim that Jesus did not go amazingly out of His way to keep him from doing so. Jesus is a good God and do not ever allow anyone to tell you otherwise.