Sid Roth - Ron Reagan Died and Saw His Friends in Hell
Is Hell real? My guest says he went there. He reports what he saw, on this edition of It's Supernatural!
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter and I can't wait until you meet my guest. It's Ronald Reagan, and he literally went to Hell. Ron Reagan, you really must have, get a lot of ribbing about the name identification.
Ronald Reagan: I certainly do, Sid.
Sid Roth: Now what type of childhood did you have? You told me there was one experience about a lamb.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: A lamb?
Ronald Reagan: Yes. When I was nine years old, I lived in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and very poor. My father was an alcoholic, and we had very little to play with as children. But there was a neighbor that had given me a baby lamb. Actually, I walked two miles to catch the school bus and coming through her yard, one afternoon, she gave me this lamb, and it became my friend, and actually got to where it would wait on me in the pasture field, in the afternoons when I'd come in from school. And a tragic thing happened.
Sid Roth: What's that?
Ronald Reagan: At nine years old, my dad was working on an automobile one afternoon and he was drunk as usual, cursing. When I came in I really didn't want to get hit or cursed.
Sid Roth: Was he abusive? Did he hit you much?
Ronald Reagan: Oh yes, yes, very abusive. The alcohol just controlled his life. But I tried to bypass him, to walk around him to get to the house. But I saw my lamb laying on the ground beside the car. And I walked up to see what was wrong, and it was covered with red blood on the white wool. And he had taken a tire iron and stabbed the lamb, and just in a drunken rage killed it. So at nine years old, I just began to scream and became totally rebellious and was embarking from that point on a terrible, terrible lifestyle.
Sid Roth: Out of curiosity, were you kind of fearless or were you a timid sort of person?
Ronald Reagan: Early on I was timid. Actually, I was the oldest of three children. But we were all verbally abused, physically abused and saw our mother beat constantly. So I was timid in that. But after the experience with the lamb, hatred possessed my life and from that point on I became a very violent child and grew into a very violent adult.
Sid Roth: Out of curiosity, did you, did history repeat? Did you become an alcoholic?
Ronald Reagan: Oh yes. As much as I hated my father I became just like him.
Sid Roth: Just out of curiosity, when you were real young, did you say to yourself, I'll never be like him.
Ronald Reagan: Oh yes, constantly. Told my mother that, told my brother and sister that I'll never be like dad.
Sid Roth: Isn't that amazing that what you hate you become.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: It's like a spiritual law.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: So you got married at a young age.
Ronald Reagan: Oh yes, 17 years old.
Sid Roth: How old was your wife?
Ronald Reagan: Fifteen.
Sid Roth: That's young. And I just knowing your background, that must not have been much of a marriage.
Ronald Reagan: Oh no. Actually, I brought into her a lifestyle, even as teenagers, I was already a school dropout, had done time in a reform school and was a habitual juvenile delinquent, the police called me.
Sid Roth: Actually, your future was zero.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: From what I'm hearing right now.
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes.
Sid Roth: Now there was one time when you really got into a rage in a convenience store. Tell me about that.
Ronald Reagan: Yes. Actually, I was 25 at that time and my son was five years old. He was with me. And I had such an anger.
Sid Roth: Out of curiosity, were you brutalizing your son verbally or physically as a child like you were?
Ronald Reagan: Probably verbally. And actually, I was such an alcoholic by this time, the reason my son was with me, my wife wanted him with me so I wouldn't get off on another binge and get in jail.
Sid Roth: So what happened in this convenience store?
Ronald Reagan: I started in the store and a gentleman was coming out, and he pushed on the door, and I pushed on it, but that's all it took with me. I just hit him, busted his head.
Sid Roth: Did you just like have uncontrollable rage?
Ronald Reagan: Uncontrollable rage at anyone that opposed me or that represented authority.
Sid Roth: I mean, he just wanted to come in or go out of the door.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: And you just hauled off and you broke his head, did you say?
Ronald Reagan: Yes, just busted him the face, knocked him down right in the middle of the store. And this was in the early '70s and the Cokes and Pepsis and all were still in glass. And he fell in a case of large Cokes and they burst all over, and he got up with a big 16-ounce broken bottle and proceeded to stab and cut me up severely.
Sid Roth: How bad?
Ronald Reagan: Actually, severed my left arm with the exception of the bone. The biceps, the ligaments, the arteries were all severed.
Sid Roth: Were you unconscious when this happened? Did you realize what was going on?
Ronald Reagan: The rage, Sid, was so intense that even though every time my heart would beat, blood would pump out across the floor.
Sid Roth: Did you realize you were dying?
Ronald Reagan: No, didn't enter my mind, just rage.
Sid Roth: Did you care? Did you care?
Ronald Reagan: Could have cared less. Could have cared less.
Sid Roth: Was there anything worth living for?
Ronald Reagan: Nothing. Nothing. I didn't know what love was. My wife, my children, life in general. Actually, had a death wish, I suppose.
Sid Roth: But you had your young son there. Weren't you concerned about him?
Ronald Reagan: Yes, not really. I was such a drunkard and a drug addict that nothing mattered to me.
Sid Roth: So you're laying literally dying from what I'm hearing. Right?
Ronald Reagan: Actually, I kept trying to fight, and he kept cutting and stabbing every time I tried to hit him, and I was just insane.
Sid Roth: What happened next?
Ronald Reagan: The manager of the store said, if you don't get to the hospital you'll die within minutes. My little son is hysterical. He sees all this. He's just hysterical. But the manager of this convenience store drove me to the hospital, and two miles to the hospital, but the blood filled the floorboard of the car. By the time we reached the emergency room I was almost unconscious. I could hear the voices, but really couldn't focus.
Sid Roth: Wasn't there any fear of death within you while this was going on?
Ronald Reagan: No, none, none. My life had been filled with pain and abuse, and up to this point I had rode with an outlaw biker gang, had been in reform schools and jails, and had been cut numerous times. I actually got high on pain, I think, Sid. My life was just a bundle of disaster.
Sid Roth: Well this ambulance driver must have known that you were hanging on for life ready to die, and he said something very strange.
Ronald Reagan: Yes. Actually, when they took me in the emergency room I could hear their voices saying, "We can't help him. We have to transport him to another hospital". And they put me in the back of an ambulance and my wife had got there by that time, and got in the ambulance with me. But a young paramedic looked into my face and I heard him say these words, "Sir, you need Jesus. Call on Jesus".
Sid Roth: Did you?
Ronald Reagan: I didn't know Jesus.
Sid Roth: Did you know anything about Him?
Ronald Reagan: No.
Sid Roth: Had you ever read the Bible?
Ronald Reagan: No. Matter of fact, I cursed him. I cursed the paramedic and Jesus. I didn't know what he meant. It intimidated me.
Sid Roth: Hold that thought. You're going to find out that Ronald Reagan really went to a literal hell. Don't go away.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Ronald Reagan, who was slashed in a fight in a convenience store. His arms were blood was gushing out. He was dying. And then the ambulance medic, he was on his way to the hospital, recognized he was dying and said, "Do you know Jesus"? Do you know what he did? He started cursing this man, literally cursing him. He knew nothing about Jesus. He had never read the Bible and the last thing he wanted to do was hear about Him. And then smoke, literal smoke, Ron.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: Started, tell me about it.
Ronald Reagan: Yes. I thought the ambulance had exploded and caught on fire and the smoke filled it. The first impression was I smelled something burning, terrible, like flesh, like burning flesh. And I'm moving. I sensed myself moving through this smoke and traveling, and I'm just moving at a tremendous rate of speed. And coming out of that smoke I'm looking downward into what appeared to be a volcanic opening or looking down into a lake of burning fire. And then I'm dropping down into this place.
Sid Roth: So you had literally left your body, is what you're saying.
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes.
Sid Roth: Your spirit man left your body and started dropping down?
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: That's not a good thing to happen.
Ronald Reagan: I didn't know what was happening. I had been cursing the paramedic. I cursed his Jesus and then, bang, this smoke and smell, and I'm moving. But I looked down into these flames, Sid, and there's a multitude of people in this place. They're burning, they're screaming, they're crying out, but they're not burning up. They're just in a lake of fire and they're not burning up.
Sid Roth: Had you ever read anything about Hell, any description?
Ronald Reagan: No.
Sid Roth: You never read the Bible?
Ronald Reagan: No, no. I knew nothing. Actually, nothing in my life had frightened me since I was nine years old. But this had my attention. I didn't understand it and I could see these people burning, and I'm going down into this place. But that wasn't the worse part. I began to see some of the faces close up and I recognized them. I knew some of them.
Sid Roth: These people were literally suffering?
Ronald Reagan: Oh yes, terrible, terrible agony. But the physical pain didn't seem to be as bad as the emotional pain of hopelessness and helplessness, and aloneness. But when I looked into the faces of some that I knew, some had died in robbery attempts, shot to death while robbing liquor stores. Others had died of drug overdoses, others had died drunk in automobile accidents, and I recognized them. And they're screaming at me, calling my name out, saying, "Go back, don't come to this place. There's no way out. There's no escape". So I was overwhelmed at this, and I didn't realize what I was seeing. So I looked at this, and I could feel the pain and the anguish, and smell the smell, and the torment, and I'm wondering, I thought I had been through the worst thing that I could in life, but this is something beyond anything I've ever imagined, and I just couldn't understand it. I was completely in confusion at that moment to explain what I was seeing.
Sid Roth: Tell me again what your friends said to you.
Ronald Reagan: They said, "Don't come to place. There is no escape. There is no way out. Go back. Don't come here. If you come here you can never leave".
Sid Roth: So what happened next?
Ronald Reagan: Like, just like a jolt and I looked, and I was looking into the face of my wife at the hospital. And she looked at me and she said, "You've been in surgery all night. There's hundreds of stitches in your body. They didn't have to amputate the arm. You're gonna live". But I wasn't interested in my wife or the hospital room I was in. All I could see is where I had just been. I could still smell it, I could still hear it, I can still sense the agony of that place.
Sid Roth: Were you fearful of that?
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes.
Sid Roth: But you had never been afraid of anything, life, death, nothing.
Ronald Reagan: Nothing, nothing.
Sid Roth: You're a macho man.
Ronald Reagan: Shot, cut, beat. People tried to make me cry, Sid. They tried to beat me. They strapped me down in the penal institutions as a child and tried to make me cry, but they couldn't because my heart was so hardened. But this literally had me in turmoil, in a frenzy. But I didn't want the light off after that. After I got out of the hospital I never wanted to be in the dark.
Sid Roth: This was very real to you.
Ronald Reagan: Oh yes, yes. I'm a nervous wreck. Immediately I'm trying to get drunk, I'm trying to get stoned, I'm trying to get high to try to block this out. But it won't work. I can't get drunk. I can't get high. All I'm seeing is..
Sid Roth: What do you mean you can't? Did you actually drink liquor and you couldn't?
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes, 190 proof pure grain alcohol and handfuls of RJS Benzedrine.
Sid Roth: How come? How come?
Ronald Reagan: I don't know. It's supernatural. It was a supernatural thing.
Sid Roth: So how did you happen to wander in a church? That's the last thing you, I mean, you were cursing Jesus last time I heard.
Ronald Reagan: This was the summer of '72 when this happened. A few months later, I'm still a man in misery and I can't rest, I can't get high, I can't I can't get drunk. I come home at 2:00 in the morning, the light is on in the bedroom, my wife is sitting up in bed and when I walk in her face is shining brighter than the light on the ceiling.
Sid Roth: She didn't have a whole lot to have a bright shining face over.
Ronald Reagan: No, no, she didn't.
Sid Roth: I mean, married to you.
Ronald Reagan: Right. She had been abused. I had verbally and physically abused her, and left her alone, which I'm very sorry of now. But that's the facts. But she looked up at me and she said, "Ronny, tonight Jesus Christ came into my heart. Tonight, Jesus saved me". And there's that name again. I didn't realize what it meant. But the wrinkles around her eyes that I had put there from worry and aloneness had disappeared, and she's glowing, and she's smiling. And she says, "Jesus came into my life tonight at a prayer meeting". So I'm dumbfounded, but I know something is different. And she said, "Would you go to church with me"? And I thought for a second, I thought I've tried everything. What have I got to lose?
Sid Roth: I can't imagine that macho man going to church. You really did, Ron.
Ronald Reagan: I did. I did.
Sid Roth: So how was it?
Ronald Reagan: Well I didn't know how to act. I thought church was a club like the Lion's Club or Rotary Club. I didn't know how to act. I sat in the back with my wife. I knew nothing about the Bible. I didn't know what the man was going to say or do. But he opened... He opened the Bible and he began to read. No scripture would have meant anything to me, but he said, "I'm reading John 1:29". That meant nothing to me.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what is going to mean something. We've got to take a break right now. When we come back, you're going to, let me tell you something, some of you have perhaps never cried before. You're going to start crying for joy. We'll be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Ron Reagan. Ron was a jerk, an alcoholic, abused his wife, abused his children, just a waste at society, and had an experience. He'd never been to church, he'd never read the Bible. He knew nothing about God. Jesus Christ he would curse, but he didn't even know why. But he had an experience where he literally went to Hell and it changed his life. His wife had an experience with God. She asked him to go. He went. Didn't mean a thing to him. He didn't know how to act. He had never been in a church before. But the pastor read a scripture that hit him like a bolt of lightning. What did he say?
Ronald Reagan: He said, "I'm reading John 1:29". And that meant nothing to me, Sid. But when he began to read he said, "Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world". And immediately when he said "lamb", he had my attention because I went back to my lamb as a nine-year-old child that my drunken father had killed, and where I became so rebellious. And I'm wondering, what is he talking about, a lamb"? And he said, "Jesus Christ is God's sacrificial lamb. He's your friend. He's your Savior. He's Messiah". And I'm beginning to feel things that I haven't felt since I'm nine years old. And he said, "If you will call out on Him, He will change your life and redeem you from destruction". And he said, "Would anyone like to come forward"? And I thought, I've got to get out of here. And I actually stood to my feet and tried to leave, but I could not leave. A force brought me toward the front of that building.
Sid Roth: Listen, you're a man that no one forces to stay. You're saying there was something stronger than you that forced you stay there?
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes. There were powers at work greater than anything I had ever known, anything I had ever experienced. And people came to me and they began to try to help me. They said, "This is the sinner's prayer and this is the Roman road". I didn't understand that. That had no meaning to me. But I began to cry. For the first time since I was nine years old I began to shed tears.
Sid Roth: And nine years old was when your lamb...
Ronald Reagan: Lamb was killed.
Sid Roth: In such a brutal way.
Ronald Reagan: Yes. And I cried out, "God, if you're real and if you exist, please kill me or cure me. I don't want to live. I'm not a father. I'm not a husband. I can't hold a job. Please kill me or cure me". At that moment, everything in my life changed. The proper mindset returned to me. Love filled my life and I wept, and I cried, and I embraced my wife and my children. And I'm clean. I'm clean. There's no condemnation. There's no fear that had been hounding me for months.
Sid Roth: What about drugs? What about alcohol?
Ronald Reagan: No withdrawal whatsoever. No withdrawal from the drugs, no withdrawal from the alcohol. I was completely delivered.
Sid Roth: Now had you graduated from high school?
Ronald Reagan: No, no.
Sid Roth: You were a high school dropout.
Ronald Reagan: I actually didn't even go to high school. Eighth grade.
Sid Roth: Eighth grade. How many degrees do you have now?
Ronald Reagan: Now I have a Bachelor's degree in education and a Master's degree in theology.
Sid Roth: Two advanced college degrees.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: How about your marriage?
Ronald Reagan: Thirty-five years this Sunday, the same woman, three children, four grandchildren, just happy in my heart.
Sid Roth: You almost missed it.
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes.
Sid Roth: If you had missed it do you believe you would have been in Hell?
Ronald Reagan: Now understanding what Hell is, I know I would have been in Hell.
Sid Roth: You think about some of those friends of yours that were there.
Ronald Reagan: Yes and my heart is saddened to think of them. But I know what I saw and I know God's mercy that gave me an opportunity. And I'm grateful, I'm thankful to be here with you today.
Sid Roth: You have found such power in the name of Jesus.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: That you have recently prayed for people. Tell me what's happened.
Ronald Reagan: Yes. Three months ago in Pikeville, Tennessee, a family brings a six-month old child, Colin Pressley, complete cerebral palsy, can't hold the head up on its body, just flopping around. After prayer and anointing with oil, the child is totally, instantly healed from cerebral palsy.
Sid Roth: Instantly before your eyes?
Ronald Reagan: Instantly.
Sid Roth: Did you see this happen?
Ronald Reagan: Yes, yes.
Sid Roth: What's it feel like to see a little child that's crippled become whole?
Ronald Reagan: Joy, unspeakable and full of glory. Can't explain it. To God be the glory.
Sid Roth: Tell me about someone else that was healed.
Ronald Reagan: Two months ago in Lexington, Tennessee, a teenager with 17 plantar warts on his feet, he can't walk, can't go to school, he comes forward. We pray for him and every one of those warts leave. He's scheduled for surgery the next day, but God removes them instantly and they're gone.
Sid Roth: When things like that happen instantly, what do you feel like?
Ronald Reagan: My life is only spared to be a vessel of God. I would have been in Hell. What time I have on this earth is to heal the sick, set the captives free, speak the name of Jesus in deliverance to whosoever–
Sid Roth: And if someone said to you, Ron Reagan, you imagined that Hell thing, you were hallucinating, what would you say?
Ronald Reagan: I was there. You can't argue with experience. It doesn't matter how educated. I've sat down with psychologists, and psychiatrists and theologians, and I have spoken with them, and I have talked with them. I know where I was at and I know it was the mercy of God that delivered me.
Sid Roth: And it is the mercy of God. It is literally the mercy of God that has you watching us right now because Hell is real. Heaven is real. God is real. Jesus is real.
Ronald Reagan: Yes.
Sid Roth: But you settle for cheap religion. You settle for ritual and tradition. God is bigger than your ritual. God is bigger than your tradition. God is bigger than your religion. You can know Him, but your sins are separating you from your God. If you will repent, tell God you are sorry and you're going to turn from your sin with His help and believe that Jesus has washed every one of your sins away, and then with your mouth say, Jesus, You are my Lord and Savior. Lord Jesus, come live inside of me, and I pray in the name of Jesus that everyone whose heart is after God right now would receive the confirmation of the Holy Spirit upon you right now, be filled with the Spirit of the Living God in Jesus' name. And a back was healed instantly. Be free. Be free! You know the truth. The truth has set you free.