=== Dr. Donald Whitaker ===
Our next case is of Dr. Whitaker who is still in practice, but was atheist at the time of the incident. He had nothing to do with God, but there was a situation that changed his life. We’d like you to experience it with him.
[Dr. Donald Whitaker]It was February of 1975, at that time I was an alcoholic out of control. I was also using recreational drugs. But primarily, alcohol was my drug of choice. I was totally out of control. I had a lot of friends in the entertainment business; Ringo Star and a bunch of other people.They were having a TV special on the west coast. Hoight (a friend) had called me and asked me if I would like to go. I told him that I would love to, because I knew there was going to be a lot of booze, and partying. While they were doing their special, I was doing my thing.
After about three or four days out there, I became ill. I had severe pain in my abdomen. I flew into Oklahoma city, called a senator friend of mine, and asked him to send a car for me because I was sick. They sent a car and took me home. And I checked into Whatley hospital in Texarkana, Texax in February of 1975. I checked in with electrolytes, which means that the chemicals in my body were so far out of balance that they had to give me IVs to build me up.
At that time of my life, I was atheist. I was hard core atheist and was living for myself. Atheists are self centered, they live for themselves. This is where I found myself in 1975 in my hospital. After 3 days they operated me. Later, I found myself in the intensive care on a respirator, which means it was breathing for me. I couldn’t speak. I’ve been there in a comma. I heard these people talking about how sick I was and how I was going to die and how I wouldn’t get out of the hospital. At that time my hair was very long because I just wore my hair long. And I heard one guy say, “My, his hair is long.” And another guy said, “Not nearly as long as it is going be before he gets out of here.” And the third voice said, “He's not going to get out of here. He's going to die.”
And after 3 days, I could breath on my own. I remember my doctor, my surgeon, Dr. Donald Dunkon said to me, “Don, if you have anything to get right, if you have anything to get signed, you get it done because we are not sure how long you have.”
I knew I had a condition which is that was called Acute hemorrhagic narcotic pancreatitis. You don’t live with this disease. You could live with pancreatitis. You could even live with Acute pancreatitis, but you do not live with Acute hemorrhagic narcotic pancreatitis. Dunkon had told my two sons that I would be dead before morning. They didn’t expect me to survive.
I was laying there, a professed atheist. I didn’t believe in God. I believed in the power of the universe because I’ve seen it. As a physician, I’ve dealt with life and death. I believed in something, but don’t talk me about God. And surely don’t talk to me about resurrection, virgin birth or these type of things because I am in research and science. The Majority of PHDs in research and science don’t believe in God. They do not believe a supreme being. They are beginning to believe there is an order in the universe because the further along we go, we see the order.
It is very easy to be an atheist when you are successful. You have worked your way from Oklahoma welfare to be one of the most powerful men in your part of the country – one of the most powerful men in the state of Oklahoma, politically. It is very easy to be an atheist when you have done all of that. A man could sit back and say "I don’t need God. What is God?"But it is very difficult to be an atheist when you are lying on the death bed, because you began thinking "what if these people are right?" There had been one man named Ron Short, that stood between me and the gates of hell. One man had witnessed to me about the love of Jesus for 5 years, before I became ill. I would debate him and I liked him, because he did what he said he was going to do. He was the only one that I saw that profess to be Christian and lived what he said he was going to do. I really respected him. I didn’t believe what he said but I respected him.
When I was lying on my death bed and knowing that I was going to die, guess who I thought about? I thought, "what if Ron is right? What if there is a Heaven and a Hell." Almost immediately the most pressing thought in my mind is how do I get saved. What is saved? How do I get saved?
So I sent people out to get Ron Short. I wanted him to come down because I wanted him to do whatever he had to do. I had no idea how a man hanging on a tree in Israel 2000 years ago could save me. What is that to me? But I knew he had something that I had to have. That night Ron wasn’t home, he was in Alabama. So I had people go and get Ron.
That night was the longest night that I’ve had in my entire life, before or since. As I am laying there in bed, I had begun to fade away into darkness. It was so, so dark. It was like the darkness just penetrated into your very being. I can tell you that I left my body because I remember coming back into my body. I don’t know where I was out of my body.
There are people that talk about a light, or floating above, a feeling of warmth or love. I didn’t feel any of that. I felt none of that. I felt untold terror, untold terror. I knew that if I went all the way, if I slipped all the way, I would never get back. In my being of beings I knew that. So I fought all night long.
They told me later on that I not only pull the mattress cover off the mattress, I put the mattress upon me. I had to stay, I had to wait till Ron got there. Whatever he had to do, I had to wait. 
But again when I would leave my body, I would be going down into deep dark terror. My skin began to get cold. Not the kind of cold you feel when you walk out in the air, no, this was bone chilling cold. And I could feel the coldness began to come up my legs. Again I would begin to leave my body and would be in the darkness, in that void. I remember one time entering back my body, I felt my body thud, my physical body thud. Believe me, believe me, that was the most horrifying terrifying experience that I had ever encountered.
I fought all night long. The next morning around 9:30 or 10 o’clock, Ron came in. He said, “Dr. Whitaker, what do they say are your chances?” I said, “Ron, they tell me I have none.” He said, “Now is the time.” I said, “You're right.”
Before, I had cursed him, I had spit on him, but now it was the time because I had to have whatever he had. I had a short period of time left on earth and I didn’t have any idea when I might make that trip and go all the way.
At that time Ron simply led me in a sinner’s pray. I had no idea what a sinner’s prayer was, but I trusted Ron. He led me through the sinner’s prayer and told me that Jesus had died for my sins. He had died for the sins of the world. I didn’t quite understand that. He showed me in the word of God where that was written. You have to understand that I am a man of books. I’ve spent big part of my life, 25 or 26 years of life in books, all types of scientific books. I have degrees in Chemistry, all the way up to medicine doctor to practical medicine.
He told me and I believed him because it said so in this book. It was a new book to me, it was called Bible. I had Ron lead me, and I said the sinner’s prayer. I can tell you one thing, there was a peace that came over me like I have never known.
I’ve searched for that peace in the bottles, alcohol, needles, drugs, and women. I’ve searched for it in all type of places. But there was no peace in my life. But once I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, I was no longer afraid. I still believed I was going to die because I knew the condition I had, and you don’t survive it. I knew that, I am a physician. I knew what I had you did not survive. Ron showed me in the word of God where it says, “These signs shall follow those that believe. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:18) I walk around on planet earth this day, taking no insulin, taking no enzymes, eating whatsoever I want, and everyday God produces in my body the correct material for me to function without having to take medication.
When you see blind eyes open, you see the cripples walk, you see the leprosy cleansed, and you see them with your own eyes, then it doesn’t take a rocket science to figure out that Bible is true.=== Dr. George Rodonaia ===
[Dr. Rawlings]How can the various stages of Hell have different aspects to people? The Bible doesn’t say it is all fire. If you look at different places, it says
“cast out”
“separate from God”
“total darkness”
“with worms that cannot die”
Most of it is flame. Seeing the angels of light can be deceptive in some cases. For instance, 2 Corinthians 11:14, it tells us that even Satan can change himself into the angel of light and deceive many. Which light did these people see at the end of the tunnel, especially if it was someone that didn’t think they deserve to be in Heaven? Those things do occur.
Strangely enough the opposite does not occur. Those that saw themselves in Hell knew exactly where they belong. And there was no question why they were put there. In fact, Christ talked about this Himself in Mathew 25. Jesus also said that if Satan cast out Satan, how would his kingdom stand? (Mathew 12:26) Meaning, why would Satan show people that there is a Hell, that would work against his kingdom and his lies. No, impossible. As an angel of light, Satan can deceive many. But this variation that they see in Hell, whether it is total darkness or whether it is fire, both are places where they never want to visit again.
This brings us to the case of Dr. George Rodonaia, a young Russian fellow, very intelligent. He came with a Ph.D and an M.D, but had trouble with KGB. He couldn’t get out of Russia. In fact when he tried to get out of Russia, he was purposely run down by a KGB agent, who drove on the sidewalk in order to run him over. This is how he died and where his story begins.
[Dr. George Rodonaia]
As a psychiatrist and a neuropathologist, for me God never existed. I never believed in God. I never believed in the Bible. I never thought about God, the Bible or divinity. In 1976, I was 20 years old, I was already a doctor working in Georgia, Russia. I met a lady from Texas. I tried to leave the country many times. But I didn’t have much help. This lady tried to help me and I got in big trouble with the KGB. I worked on “idenotintriphosper”, it is a neuron transmitter in our brain. With the conjunction of "Oxitocin", I discovered several things.
I was an important scientist and KGB didn’t want me to go so they decided to kill me. That is how I got into another dimension of my life.
I was standing on the sidewalk, ready to depart to NY, waiting for cab, when a car on the sidewalk hit me. I flew in the air 10 meters, and then the car ran over me. My friends and relative took me to the hospital. The hospital staff, friends of mine and 2 other professors declared me dead. On Friday night, they put me in the morgue, in the freezer.
Three days later, they took me out. So on Monday morning they began my autopsy. These 3 days of being out of my body, seeing everything that was happening around, seeing myself, my body, seeing my birth, my parents, my wife, my child, and my friends. I saw their thoughts. I saw what they were thinking, how their thoughts move from one dimension to another. It was incredible experience. I was in darkness, total darkness. The darkness was pressing. This darkness existed not beyond, but it existed within. What I want say is that the darkness was pressing. And I was in the middle of this fear and I did not understand why and how this darkness existed. Where was I?.
