Randy Draughon has been to hell twice. The first time, at twelve, he felt no fear at all. The second time, at twenty-two, he stood in a lake of fire, locked eyes with a demon, and knew exactly why he was there. In between, he stood in the living light of heaven. In this episode of God’s Truth Podcast, Randy shares a life in which, again and again, God refused to let him go.
A bullet that missed
Randy’s story begins before he was born. In 1969, his mother, 18 and eight months pregnant, was waiting in a bar in Pasadena, Texas, when a fight broke out in the next booth. A man fired a gun. The shot missed its target and went straight through his mother’s neck, missing every major artery by a fraction. She and the baby survived. “From the very beginning,” Randy says, “God had His hand on me.”
He grew up with a loving mother and a harsh, abusive adoptive father, and lived with a lot of fear. When the Sunday school bus came through the neighbourhood, he climbed on, at first just to escape home for a few hours. At eight, he knew he was a sinner and gave his life to Jesus. Church became his refuge.
A cavern with no light
At twelve, after a freezing night of Christmas carolling without a coat, Randy fell deathly ill. In the night, God took his spirit out of his body. He found himself flying through an enormous dark cavern, as if 30,000 feet up. There was no water, no plant life and no light source, yet he could dimly see. Embedded in the rock, as far as he could see, were endless prison cells with steel bars, all empty.
Ahead, half buried in the ground, he saw a huge black mass, as big as a football field, beating like a heart. Then he was back in his body. He felt no fear at all. He believes God took him as an observer.
Years later, serving on a US Navy warship in Italy, a Christian friend left three cassette tapes on his bunk: Mary K. Baxter’s A Divine Revelation of Hell. As he listened, she described the same dark cavern, the same cells, and a great black beating mass she called the heart of hell. “That’s where I was,” he realised.
A sea of living light
At fourteen, visiting a Pentecostal church with his grandparents, Randy saw his first altar call. As the guest speaker went down the line laying hands on people, one after another fell back under the power of God, including his step-grandfather, whose thick glasses flew off.
When the man touched Randy’s chest, before he could even pray, Randy was in heaven. He stood in a sea of brilliant white light that should have blinded him but didn’t. The light was alive. It moved through him, pulsing with unimaginable power, and he became one with it. He knew God the Father was on the other side, and he began walking toward Him. Then he was back on the church floor under a blanket, unable to move and utterly at peace.
He believes God gave him that glimpse as reassurance and hope, and as a story to share. “The only reason I was able to be there,” he says, “is because of Jesus.”
“I’m too late”
In 1992, just out of the Navy and living with his father again, Randy was offered drugs by a co-worker. Impatient for a high, he took about eight times the first amount. It kept him up all night. Near dawn he lay down, and his heart stopped.
This time there was terror. He was standing in a pit of fire, looking out over a lake of flames. The roar was so loud, he says, it would burst human eardrums. His senses were magnified beyond anything on earth, and so was his regret. He knew he had chosen this. He had turned his back on the God he had known since he was eight. Three words came out: “I’m too late.”
Then he saw a huge demon wreathed in flames that did not consume it, with a head too big for its body. Their eyes locked. “I knew I was his prey,” Randy says. On the edge of complete terror, he screamed, “Jesus!” And God heard him over the roar, had mercy, and slammed him back into his body. For a week afterwards, he could still hear the fire.
Randy doesn’t claim to settle every theological debate. “I’m just telling you what I experienced,” he says. He points to Job: God works “oftentimes” with a man “to bring back his soul from the pit.”
The name that breaks every attack
About eighteen years ago, Randy was attacked one morning by three spirits working together like a pack of lions: one clawing at his throat so he couldn’t speak, another driving a cold spear into him, and a third tormenting him. When he finally managed to scream “Jesus,” they fled instantly. He urges every believer to take Psalm 91 and Ephesians 6 seriously. “That’s not allegorical,” he says. “That’s practical, real survival.”
Two angels in a hospital room
Randy’s mother fought cancer for ten years. Just a couple of months before she died, his boss visited her and asked if she was saved. She said she didn’t know, and he led her to Jesus. On her last day in 2007, surrounded by family, she opened her eyes wide, smiled and said she saw two angels, big and muscular. She laughed at their muscles. Asked if they were singing, she said, “Yes, they’re singing sweet, sweet.” Minutes later she went home to the Lord.
Even Randy’s abusive father found Jesus late in life, before he passed away. “God will strive with a man two, yet three times,” Randy says. “He kept striving.”
His message
If you are thinking about trying drugs, Randy begs you not to. Whatever you believe about his story, read the Bible and ask God if heaven and hell are real. “Don’t take your chances,” he says. “Turn to Jesus Christ. He’s the only way.”
Connect with Randy
- To contact Randy, email Abigail at abigail@godstruthpodcast.com for his details.
Mentioned in this episode
- A Divine Revelation of Hell by Mary K. Baxter, whose account confirmed Randy’s childhood vision
Scriptures in this episode
- Jeremiah 1:5, before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee
- Psalm 23:4, the valley of the shadow of death
- Job 33:29–30, to bring back his soul from the pit
- Hosea 4:6, destroyed for lack of knowledge
- John 14:6, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me
- Psalm 91, the terror by night, and His angels’ charge
- Ephesians 6:10–18, the whole armour of God
- John 10:10, the thief cometh to steal, kill and destroy
- Hebrews 1:14, ministering spirits sent to heirs of salvation
- James 2:26, faith without works is dead
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